![]() One of the most successful members of the group, and the subject of “The Irregulars” (Simon & Schuster, 390 pages, $27), Jennet Conant’s intriguing new narrative, was Roald Dahl. Their leader was a brilliant, icy businessman and spymaster by the name of William Stephenson - code name, Intrepid. The group was named the Irregulars, after Arthur Conan Doyle’s Baker Street part-timers, and they were well camouflaged by their Bohemian reputations. ![]() Forester, Isaiah Berlin, Noël Coward, and David Ogilvy (founder of Ogilvy and Mather) were all invited to join the party. Apart from Fleming, a remarkable roll call of British talent was recruited: C.S. Their express (though covert) aim was to inspire fervent American backing in the fight against Hitler. ![]() Fleming was ex-Naval Intelligence, and in 1941 was part of a team that really did break into the Japanese consular offices at Rockefeller Center, to steal (without shooting anyone) some cipher books and coding manuals.įleming was one of many British agents sent to America in the early years of World War II. Like many such thrilling incidents in fiction, it is an implausible moment with roots in an authentic event. Early on in Ian Fleming’s first novel, “Casino Royale,” an aspiring secret agent called James Bond puts a bullet into a Japanese clerk during a raid on Rockefeller Center. ![]()
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