Q re Harvey and Lee

[Jim Hargrove]

Allen Dulles was CIA director from 1953 to 1961, when he was fired by JFK. John Armstrong sent me the following excerpts from the writings of Dulles with a couple of comments from John:

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A Problem of Identity

I would give The Great Impersonation, by E. Phillps Oppenhiem, the prize for cleverness among all novels about espionage, and that includes all of them written since he wrote this one in 1920. As the title explains, we are asked to accept as the basis for the whole plot the physical substitution of one person for another, an arrangement which in Oppenheim's hands keeps us up in the air through a hundred risky episodes until the final revelation in the last chapter all but floors us. You must only believe that the dissolute English nobleman Sir Everard Dominey, who is going to rack and ruin in darkest Africa, is the spit and image of the German Major General Baron Leopold von Ragastein, governor of a German colony in Africa, who was educated in England and speaks English so well that he can pass for a native.

The period is that just preceding the outbreak of World War I. Knowing that in case of war the German espionage network in England will eventually come to grief, the German Intelligence Service, under the direct command of the Kaiser himself, conceives the plan of secretly doing away with Dominey in Africa and sending Ragastein to England to impersonate him. If Ragastein succeeds in becoming accepted as Dominey, the Germans will have an agent in the highest circles in Britain who can safely ride out the war.

There are numerous complications and difficulties. Dominey has a wife, Rosamund, suffering from mental illness. She must accept Ragastein as her husband, Dominey. Ragastein has a mistress, the Hungarian Princess Stephanie Eiderstrom. She happens to be in England and must be brought in on the secret that Ragastein has taken on Dominey's identity. The other people who know the secret are the German ambassador Prince Terniloff and Mr. Seaman, a member of the German Secret Service who is assigned as an aide to Ragastein for this operation. To avoid too much confusion, Ragastein is referred to as Dominey throughout the major part of the novel, since this is the person he has become. . .

Dulles then continues his intro with a specific description of the scene from which this excerpt is taken, so I've omitted the rest.The following excerpt is from his introduction to the next story, An Assignment in Brittany, by Helen MacInnes. Again, the relevant section is the first paragraph, so I've skipped the rest.

A Confusion of Celts

The beauty of Helen MacInnes's use of the ancient and obviously attractive game of impersonation, her particular innovation, is that while the physical resemblance causes no problems, the inner differences between the spy and the man whose person he assumes do. One instance of this, which works out in the spy's favor, is contained in the present excerpt . . .

I think Dulles was all but telling his readers that impersonation is real and plausible. He liked it! The point is not whether it could really work - after all, the Russians apparently didn't buy Harvey as a genuine defector - but whether Dulles was the kind of guy who would try it. He was! All the naysayers out there arguing that the Harvey/Lee scenario couldn't really work are totally missing the point, namely Allen Dulles thought it could work! Of course people could tell the difference between Harvey and Lee - but that didn't stop Allen Dulles from trying it!

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JIm