British Security Coordination The Secret History of British Intelligence in the Americas 1940-45

In 1940, Churchill authorized the creation of a highly secret organization in New York to supervise the activities of MI5, SOE, the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and the Political Warfare Executive in the western hemisphere. Headed by the Canadian industrialist Sir William Stephenson, its first tasks were to promote British interests in the United States, counter Nazi propaganda and protect the Atlantic convoys from enemy sabotage. Despite clashing wit J. Edgar Hoover's FBI, British Security Co-ordination (BSC) soon went on to develop a vast intelligence network which stretched from Chile to Bermuda, from the Caribbean to Vancouver. Security personnel arrested Axis spies; mail censors intercepted the enemy's clandestine communications; undercover agents fomented anti-Nazi activity across Latin America; and schemes were developed to harass Vichy, Italian and Japanese diplomats. This volume reveals the BSC's ingenious attempts to undermine US isolationism and influence American public opinion. The previously classified history of the BSC has remained hidden in Whitehall vaults since the end of World War II.