Double Crossed
The Missionaries Who Spied for the United States During the Second World War
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
The untold story of the Christian missionaries who played a crucial role in the allied victory in World War II
What makes a good missionary makes a good spy. Or so thought "Wild" Bill Donovan when he secretly recruited a team of religious activists for the Office of Strategic Services. They entered into a world of lies, deception, and murder, confident that their nefarious deeds would eventually help them expand the kingdom of God.
In Double Crossed, historian Matthew Avery Sutton tells the extraordinary story of the entwined roles of spy-craft and faith in a world at war. Missionaries, priests, and rabbis, acutely aware of how their actions seemingly conflicted with their spiritual calling, carried out covert operations, bombings, and assassinations within the centers of global religious power, including Mecca, the Vatican, and Palestine. Working for eternal rewards rather than temporal spoils, these loyal secret soldiers proved willing to sacrifice and even to die for Franklin Roosevelt's crusade for global freedom of religion. Chosen for their intelligence, powers of persuasion, and ability to seamlessly blend into different environments, Donovan's recruits included people like John Birch, who led guerilla attacks against the Japanese, William Eddy, who laid the groundwork for the Allied invasion of North Africa, and Stewart Herman, who dropped lone-wolf agents into Nazi Germany. After securing victory, those who survived helped establish the CIA, ensuring that religion continued to influence American foreign policy.
Surprising and absorbing at every turn, Double Crossed is the untold story of World War II espionage and a profound account of the compromises and doubts that war forces on those who wage it.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this powerful work, historian Sutton follows the fledgling Office of Strategic Services (Roosevelt's intelligence agency) as its head, "Wild" Bill Donovan, launched a top-secret program: the recruitment of foreign missionaries in areas of Axis conflict. The agency's spies included William Eddy, a missionary in Africa and the Middle East; Stewart Herman, pastor of the American Church in Berlin; John Birch, an evangelist in China; and Stephen Penrose, the child of missionaries in the Middle East. Some directed operations in Egypt (Penrose) and Morocco (Eddy), aggressively building large networks of clergyman spies; others waded into combat, such as John Birch, who rescued downed Allied pilots in Japanese-occupied China. "Neither the missionaries themselves nor their religious agencies nor American military leaders felt comfortable acknowledging the wartime lying, deceiving, manipulating, and even killing that these religious activist operatives engaged in," so records relating to their activities were hidden, expunged, or destroyed, and the participants wrestled with internal conflict. Many solved this problem by believing that violence was a necessary means to achieving peace and spreading the word of God. Some of them were later involved in shaping U.S. foreign policy, with almost evangelical results: God's chosen people remaking the world in their image. This provocative book illuminates little-discussed history and raises larger philosophical questions. It is an unusually fresh and intelligent addition to WWII literature.