DESPERATE DECEPTION:
British Covert Operations In The United States, 1939-44
By Thomas E. Mahl (Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, 1998); 256 pages
Book Review
By Richard M. Ebeling, November 1998
Imagine that the United States were in a war with a strong and determined foe. Imagine that it had become clear to American foreign policymakers that the United States were unable to militarily defeat its enemy on its own. Suppose that those policymakers looked around for a possible ally in the war, and concluded that Great Britain was the most desirable candidate. But suppose that a major stumbling block to obtaining British participation in the war on America’s side were a strong noninterventionist sentiment among the British people and an unwillingness on the part of the members of the House of Commons to vote for entering the war as long as Great Britain was not directly under attack.