The Scarlet Thread; Adventures in Wartime Espionage
London: Derek Verschoyle, 1953. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. xiii, [1], 207, [1] pages. Endpaper maps. Some discoloration inside boards and on flyleaves. Cover worn and slightly cocked. These are the espionage memoirs of an American who worked first for British and then for American Intelligence from 1940 until 1945. Mr. Downes’s work took him to every continent except Australasia. He trained agents and sent them through the enemy lines; stole secret military and diplomatic codes from neutral embassies in Washington; made clandestine contacts with Balkan terrorists; and was party to innumerable schemes and plots to discomfort the Axis Powers, ranging from counterfeiting to infiltrating German sabotage and espionage schools. The subjects covered include Spain’s open cooperation with Axis intelligence; the Darlan-Giraud affair in North Africa and the Vichy concentration camps there; the gamble of the Salerno beachhead; the Italian insurrection in Milan, and many more. Mr. Downes is outspoken in his criticism of aspects of Allied policy and behavior. He feels strongly about the action of his Government in failing to honor promises made to people who risked their lives to bring about victory. He is also critical of the American Federal Bureau of Investigation, about which he makes some astonishing and, most readers will feel, deeply shocking revelations. This book was first accepted, and then turned down, by no less than three American publishers, and that one admitted to the author that he was afraid of ‘political reprisals’. Besides his work as a Secret Service agent, he has been history student,schoolmaster, political writer and foreign correspondent. Donald Chase Downes was born in 1903. He attended Yale College, starting in 1926; e received his B.A. in June 1935. In his autobiography, The Scarlet Thread (1953) Downes argued: "I suppose it was Edmund Taylor who led me into my five years' career of paralegal crime. In 1939 he had published The Strategy of Terror, which described how Hitler was deploying a fifth column through all the democratic world and by paralyzing the will to resist. I read the book over and over; it explained all the things I had seen on my recent trips to Europe." Downes offered his services to Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) and secured a position as a teacher of English at Robert College in Istanbul as cover for his espionage work. In March 1941 Downes returned to the United States. He joined the Free World Association and at a meeting in New York City later that year he was approached by an agent of the British Security Coordination (BSC). BSC, as it was generally known, represented one of the largest covert operations in British spying history... With the US alongside Britain, Hitler would be defeated - eventually. The BSC agent told him that he was working under the direct orders of Winston Churchill. Downes later recalled in his autobiography that he received assistance in his work from the Jewish Anti-Defamation League, Congress for Industrial Organization and The Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies. He also worked closely with Colonel Eugene Prince of Army Counter-Intelligence Corps. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor Downes arranged with John Pepper, his boss at the British Security Coordination, to transfer to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). At first he was based in Washington and worked under William Donovan and George K. Bowen, the head of Special Activities. Other senior figures he worked with included David Bruce (head of intelligence), Allen Dulles (head of the New York office) and William Lane Rehm (head of finance). Downes worked with Arthur Goldberg on the Labor Desk. Downes went to North Africa in 1943 and then Italy and Cairo. Downes returned to the United States in August 1944, but was sent back to Europe in February 1945 as a correspondent for a news agency. Downes remained in Europe after the war. In 1953 Downes published his wartime memoirs, The Scarlet Thread . As his biographer, Robin Winks, has pointed out: "When he published his memoirs in 1953, old-line professionals were outraged at the dirty linen he washed in public. He was viewed by those who were well to the right as left-winged, even pink, and though he hated Communists with the same passion as the Nazis, he tended toward socialism quite openly at the end of the war. He also wrote spy thrillers such The Easter Dinner (1960) and A Red Rose for Maria (1961). His story, Orders to Kill, was made into a film directed by Anthony Asquith and was co-written by Paul Denn, a former member of the British Security Coordination. Condition: Good / No dust jacket present.
Keywords: Espionage, WWII, Great Britain, Sabotage, Spies, FBI, Secret Service, J. Edgar Hoover, Darby's Rangers, British Security Coordination
[Book #16207]
Price: $45.00