Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker’s War 1941-1945
Leo Marks has written a unique and interesting book about a little understood but very important aspect of the war between Hitler and his several allied opponents.
British Security Coordination: The Secret History of British Intelligence in the Americas, 1940-45
At the end of 1999, Canada Post issued a postage stamp commemorating William Stephenson, ‘Intrepid,’ in its Millennium Collection. Ironically, the remembrance was for his inventions although he is better known for his role as a wartime spymaster. Few intelligence officers have…
The Pity of War
For a nation of peace-keepers, peace-mongers and peace-builders, with Pearson’s Nobel Peace Prize in the national display cabinet, it is an irony of history that all of Canada’s wars have been “good wars.” From repelling General Montgomery from the heights of Quebec…
The Boundary Hunters: Surveying the 141st Meridian and the Alaska Panhandle
What do most of us know of Canada’s boundary with Alaska? Very little, perhaps, apart from schoolday memories of the “Alverstone Award” when a perfidious English lord evidently preferred Britain’s relations with the United States to Canada’s interest in the Alaska Panhandle.…
Agent of Influence: A True Story
What Ian Adams has written is anything but a true story, non-fiction wrapped in a gossamer-thin veil of fiction. The author spins what some might think an entertaining tale of espionage. However, even if the novel were entertaining (which it is not)…
Breaking News, Yesterday’s News, Trivia Pursuit and Since You Asked
News is today undergoing a radical transformation. How its transmitted and received, who makes and defines it, even what it is — all of these are in rapid flux as we are borne collectively toward 2000 and beyond. Television audiences are spread…
Modern Diplomacy and The Diplomat’s Dictionary
These two excellent reference works are a useful addition to every divisional and mission library. The first of them in fact should be required reading, while the second may serve as a guide to reflection as well as a source of wonderful…
True Brits: Inside the Foreign Office
Some readers will be familiar with True Brits, a six-part television series on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation. The initiative for this project came from the BBC in 1983, but it was nearly ten years before…
