Intelligence at the Top; The Recollections of an Intelligence Officer
London, England: Cassell & Company Ltd. [A Ginger Book], 1969. First Edition, Second Printing. Hardcover. 271 pages. Inscribed and signed on the front free endpaper by the author. Inscription reads: Inscribed to Robert Batchelder by the Author in recollection of a very happy cooperation. Kenneth Strong, London, 18 August 1969. There is also a second inscription (from Willie)-- To Bob, a slight token to a very old and esteemed friend. 10 Oct. 1969. Includes Introduction, Bibliography, Appendix: Address at Wilton Park Training Centre, 17 January 1946, and Index. Also includes Maps: Two page black and white map of Sicily and Italy (following Page 101); and a two page Black and white map of North-West Europe (following Page 127). There also are 14 black and white photographs of soldiers and documents facing pages 82, 83, 98, 99,178,179,194, and 195. There are three kinds of books that have been written about Intelligence--spy stories, the activities of real agents, and autobiographies or memoirs by actual Intelligence officers. Books of officer's memoirs are relatively rare. The author wrote this book to keep a promise made to General Bedell Smith, Eisenhower's wartime Chief of Staff, over twenty years ago. The reader will find no explosive secrets or dramatic revelations in its pages, for a great deal of Intelligence work is not concerned with the secret and the esoteric. Major-General Sir Kenneth William Dobson Strong KBE CB (9 September 1900 – 11 January 1982) was a senior officer of the British Army who served in the Second World War, rising to become Director General of Intelligence. A graduate of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Strong was commissioned into the 1st Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers in 1920. After service as an Intelligence Officer with his battalion in Ireland from 1920 to 1922 during the Irish War of Independence, he volunteered for service as an interpreter and was posted to Germany with the British Army of the Rhine. In 1935 he returned to Germany as a member of the International Force supervising the Saarland plebiscite. Afterwards, he joined the German Intelligence Section at the War Office. In 1937 he became Assistant Military attaché in Berlin. Strong became Head of the German Section at MI14 in August 1939, shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War. He commanded the 4th/5th Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers in 1941, before becoming Brigadier General Staff (BGS) for Intelligence at Home Forces in 1942. In March 1943, Strong was appointed Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence (G-2) at General Dwight D. Eisenhower's Allied Force Headquarters (AFHQ). He attended the Italian peace negotiations. In May 1944 he joined Eisenhower's Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), and played a leading part in the negotiations for the unconditional surrender of Germany in 1945. In August 1945, Strong became Deputy Director of the Political Warfare Executive, succeeding Sir Bruce Lockhart as its head a month later. He retired from the Army with the rank of major general in 1947 to become a civil servant. He was initially appointed Director General of the Political Intelligence Department of the Foreign Office. He was the first Director of the Joint Intelligence Bureau at the Ministry of Defence from 1948 until 1964, when he became the first Director General of Intelligence at the Ministry of Defence. He retired from the civil service in 1966. Derived from a Kirkus review: High level intelligence, it seems, is almost entirely a table-top operation. Strong, who headed intelligence for the Supreme Allied Command during the Second World War, stresses the unspectacular (actually scholarly and rather social) aspects of his profession and offers his insights into the careers of top military leadership including Eisenhower and Bedell Smith. He begins with his days at Sandhurst, the pre-war assignment in Germany (where as assistant military attache he readily exchanged information with his German counterpart), two years as head of Britain's War Office, and gives a detailed account of his service with the Supreme Allied Command when his devotion to Eisenhower made the British chiefs of staff feel that Strong, a Britisher, "was too American" in outlook. Following the war Eisenhower offered him another staff job, and Bedell Smith (who was starting the CIA) wanted Strong to work for him. But despite his hearty pro-Americanism, Strong felt himself too British to seek his future in the United States. He reveals here his post-war jockeying for suitable positions at home, culminating, in 1963, in his appointment as first Director-General of Intelligence of Britain's Ministry of Defense. Strong also relates the circumstances of several important military decisions including the Normandy invasion and the surrender of Italy. A highly interesting book, candid, and overwhelmingly gentlemanly--a good word for everyone and for every decision. Condition: Good.
Keywords: World War II, Intelligence Officers, Memoirs, Military Attache, Bedell Smith, Harold Alexander, Dwight Eisenhower, Bernard Montgomery, George Patton, Arthur Tedder
ISBN: 30493286
[Book #81123]
Price: $1,500.00