SPIES AND ABOTEURS: ANGLO AMERICAN COLLABORATION AND RIVALRY IN HUMAN INTELLIGENCE COLLECTION AND SPECIAL OPERATIONS, 1940-45, by Jay Jakub, St. Martin's Press, Inc., 1999, ISBN 0-312-21327-1. The author is an Oxford-trained intelligence historian presently on the staff of the House intelligence committee (HPSC/I). This is his first unclassified publication, and covers the evolution of relationships between British and US clandestine services, starting as a tutorial with the US as pupil, to an unequal - and subsequently full - partnership, and then, as so often occurs in human organizations, to competition and rivalry. It is the story of "Wild Bill" Donovan and his relationship with the likes of William Stephenson ("Intrepid"), Stewart Menzies ("C"), Admiral John Godfrey, the inscrutable Director of Naval Intelligence, and General Colin Gubbins, Britain's master saboteur. The book is based almost exclusively on recently declassified OSS and British intelligence documents and survivor interviews.

An anecdotal British view of the relationship: "Liaison with the Americans is like having an affair with an elephant: it is extremely difficult, you are apt to get badly trampled on, and you get no results for eight years."

Interestingly enough, the book includes a 'case study' chapter entitled "The Yugoslav Morass," which illustrates the divergence between British and US subversive policy in the European war in this area during the forties. It provides an early view of the morass in which we have presently descended and become embroiled. Excellent reading for students of history. (RoyJ)

Reviewed in AFIO Weekly Intelligence Notes #18-99, May 7, 1999

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