# Fast-paced bio of the "Father of the CIA." Cloak-and-dagger doings, too.



## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

You might enjoy sampling my new Kindle biography, "Spymaster: 'Wild Bill' Donovan, Father of the CIA." You'll find it on Amazon, of course. And in an easy-to-download Mobipocket Edition, as well. Please visit my Website, too: http://sigrosenblum.7p.com/ Thanks for your interest!

Sig Rosenblum


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Thanks, Sig, that sounds fantastic! Just the kind of book I love.

Betsy

Here's the link on Amazon:


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## Anju  (Nov 8, 2008)

I am a big fan of W.E.B. Griffin who uses Donovan a lot in his books, and in my other life I did know a bit about the agency of which you speak so guess this will have to go on my list of must reads.  Thanks Sig


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## PraiseGod13 (Oct 27, 2008)

Thanks so much Sig!  I just went to Amazon and purchased your book.  Sounds like an excellent book and I look forward to reading it.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

We've got a bunch of new folk with new Kindles on board in this holiday season, so I'll mention this here--if you purchase a book by going through one of the Amazon links at the top or bottom of each Kindleboards page, or by clicking on most links in the messages (we try to fix them, sometimes hard to keep up), Kindleboards gets a tiny percentage, which helps Harvey maintain this great place for all of us!

So I'll quote the link to Sig's book again:

Here's the link on Amazon:










Betsy


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## drenee (Nov 11, 2008)

Thank you so much for bringing this book to my attention.  One of the great features about this board.  I just bought it and can't wait to settle in and give it a good read.  
debbie


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## Guest (Dec 27, 2008)

I think I read the Kindle biography.  Doesn't it start out "I was born a poor Black Sony E-book Reader?"


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## ScottBooks (Oct 28, 2008)

Bacardi Jim said:


> I think I read the Kindle biography. Doesn't it start out "I was born a poor Black Sony E-book Reader?"


Jerk. Oh wait...I meant "The Jerk".  That's a movie I actually enjoyed. What was the next line?


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## 1131 (Dec 18, 2008)

"It was never easy for me. I was born a poor black child. I remember the days, sittin' on the porch with my family, singin' and dancin' down in Mississippi"

Good movie.  My favorite line:

"The new phone books are here! The new phone books are here!"
I can't help but yell that out each year when the new phone book arrives


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## Guest (Dec 28, 2008)

imallbs said:


> "It was never easy for me. I was born a poor black child. I remember the days, sittin' on the porch with my family, singin' and dancin' down in Mississippi"
> 
> Good movie. My favorite line:
> 
> ...


You aren't alone.


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

If you're curious about the CIA, you might want to sample the first chapter of my new biography:



Thanks for looking!

Sig Rosenblum


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## luvmy4brats (Nov 9, 2008)

As a former naval crypto tech and wife of an inmate contractor at the Puzzle Palace, I'm always interested. Can't wait to take a peek.


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

Thanks. I'll be interested in your reaction.

Sig


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## durphy (Nov 5, 2008)

'Just grabbed a sample. Thanks. On second look ... you priced it right. Just bought it.


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

Thanks for taking the plunge. I'll be glad to hear what you think. And e-books should be priced modestly. I'm amazed at the nerve--and shortsightedness--of some of these scribblers and their publishers.

By the way, I like your Parker quote!

Thanks again.

Sig


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

If you're interested in spies, espionage or World War II, then you may want to sample my new Kindle biography:



Thanks for looking!

Sig Rosenblum


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## mumsicalwhimsy (Dec 4, 2008)

Sample was great...  many thanks for excellent reads.


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

Thanks for the nice comment. I appreciate it!

Sig


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## Kind (Jan 28, 2009)

sigrosenblum said:


> You might enjoy sampling my new Kindle biography, "Spymaster: 'Wild Bill' Donovan, Father of the CIA." You'll find it on Amazon, of course. And in an easy-to-download Mobipocket Edition, as well. Please visit my Website, too: http://sigrosenblum.7p.com/ Thanks for your interest!
> 
> Sig Rosenblum


Reading about spy agencies is pretty interesting. Their structure, success stories, failures, command and control, etc are all very interesting.


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

Yes. And when you think of the courage that these men and women had, it's so impressive. Glad you dipped in.

Sig


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## robin.goodfellow (Nov 17, 2008)

> As a former naval crypto tech and wife of an inmate contractor at the Puzzle Palace, I'm always interested. Can't wait to take a peek


rofl


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

Robin:

I am stunningly low-tech. Please translate rofl. Thanks.

Sig


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## Linda Cannon-Mott (Oct 28, 2008)

I'm not Robin...but Roll on Floor Laughing. If you go to Forum Tips there is a list of KB talk/abbreviations Harvey created.


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

Thank you. So many wonderful things to learn at this delightful university!

Sig


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

I just started a blog on Amazon. And I hope it will be helpful as well as interesting. Please take a look and--if you like--let me have your thoughts. It's always a pleasure to hear from friends at KB! Here's the link:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A2RDHEL40RSK6M/ref=sv__4

Many thanks for the visit!

Sig Rosenblum


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## Kind (Jan 28, 2009)

sigrosenblum said:


> I just started a blog on Amazon. And I hope it will be helpful as well as interesting. Please take a look and--if you like--let me have your thoughts. It's always a pleasure to hear from friends at KB! Here's the link:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks, will have a look soon.


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

Kind:

Thanks in advance for the look. I appreciate your interest!

Sig


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

World War II buffs seem to like my biography of the colorful character who first got us into the espionage business and, according to Churchill and other insiders, shortened the war appreciably. I tell the exciting tale in "Spymaster: 'Wild Bill' Donovan, Father of the CIA." 

Thanks for checking it out!

Sig


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

I was pleasantly surprised to hear from Joshua Tallent that during eBook Week my "Spymaster" was downloaded 322 times. A nice feeling that so many people will be introduced to this colorful character who had such an impact on the world stage. If you'd like to sample it, here's the link:



Thanks for looking!

Sig


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## koland (Nov 24, 2008)

Sig,

I was one that downloaded the book during ebook week. It's been on my "to buy someday" list, so I was delighted to find it for free. Now to work down my TBR stack so that it bubbles to the top.


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

koland said:


> Sig,
> 
> I was one that downloaded the book during ebook week. It's been on my "to buy someday" list, so I was delighted to find it for free. Now to work down my TBR stack so that it bubbles to the top.


Glad you got it. And I hope you enjoy it. You only have a stack? I have a room devoted to TBR! Whittle away.

Sig


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## koland (Nov 24, 2008)

sigrosenblum said:


> Glad you got it. And I hope you enjoy it. You only have a stack? I have a room devoted to TBR! Whittle away.
> 
> Sig


It's easier to cal lit a stack ... it won't even fit in the "library" anymore (the actual room where it should be, with two walls of floor to ceiling books, of which probably half is TBR. It spills over to the living room (four more shelves on the wall, basically an entire bookshelf), a tiny pile next to the fireplace, another atop a dvdshelf (and used to be a bit bigger, but I re-arranged some to sell after the dozens of free downloads in the last year, some of which were in my TBR pile). I refuse to count the ones on the computer and Kindle - they take no room and don't "pile up" (just slow down searches to read something new). I have managed to get all of the downstairs TBR and ebooks into a database, so I can at least look thru those to see what I've missed. Someday I might get the rest onto the list (no, ONE DAY, ONE DAY, just keep repeating that !!!!). ;^)

Years of book bargains, too much working == TBR pile big enough to crush my car's springs (not that it would fit inside). Since getting the Kindle, though, my reading has picked back up, as it is so easy to carry around (which, unfortunately, has also mean the physical pile hasn't gone down much; but at least it isn't growing anymore).


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

koland said:


> It's easier to cal lit a stack ... it won't even fit in the "library" anymore (the actual room where it should be, with two walls of floor to ceiling books, of which probably half is TBR. It spills over to the living room (four more shelves on the wall, basically an entire bookshelf), a tiny pile next to the fireplace, another atop a dvdshelf (and used to be a bit bigger, but I re-arranged some to sell after the dozens of free downloads in the last year, some of which were in my TBR pile). I refuse to count the ones on the computer and Kindle - they take no room and don't "pile up" (just slow down searches to read something new). I have managed to get all of the downstairs TBR and ebooks into a database, so I can at least look thru those to see what I've missed. Someday I might get the rest onto the list (no, ONE DAY, ONE DAY, just keep repeating that !!!!). ;^)
> 
> Years of book bargains, too much working == TBR pile big enough to crush my car's springs (not that it would fit inside). Since getting the Kindle, though, my reading has picked back up, as it is so easy to carry around (which, unfortunately, has also mean the physical pile hasn't gone down much; but at least it isn't growing anymore).


What is it about books that we cling to them so? If I ever get rid of one--even a duplicate--I regret it and feel guilty, as if I had abandoned a friend. And--somehow--they are friends, aren't they?

Sig
http://sigrosenblum.7p.com/


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## koland (Nov 24, 2008)

sigrosenblum said:


> What is it about books that we cling to them so? If I ever get rid of one--even a duplicate--I regret it and feel guilty, as if I had abandoned a friend. And--somehow--they are friends, aren't they?
> 
> Sig


I suppose they are. I gave away several bookshelves of old computer books and software (alas, only a portion of what I have, from the days when you actually got manuals with software development tools - sometimes enough to fill an entire shelf with just one program's books), but keep moving around the rest of them. College texts have mostly gone away, but not the ones from my major or a few related classes. Hey, I really have gone back and used them for reference once or twice; who cares that now I could probably just look up the info on the web and would do so first! Replacing them electronically would be expensive and I don't seem to be able to let them go. Sadly, I've had to purge shelves of fiction more than once (cross country moves and limited space/money have meant large trips to the used bookstore). I really need to do so again with cookbooks, especially after my mother purged her shelves and I seem to have aquired several additional boxes of such. Most of which I'd probably never even open. It just keeps going back to that "but what if I need this" that many of us were raised with (not helped by actually using such just-in-case keepers over the years and now a philosophy being embraced by the media again now that we are officially in a recession).

Keepers include a couple of different Tolkien collections (one to read, one to ....; my "originals" long since destroyed by reading and moving) and a few favorite authors, a few signed copies, a few from authors we know and a few that are not available in other versions. Even the "fav authors" section I would replace entirely with e-versions, if money and DRM were not a factor, now that ereaders have advanced to be a comfortable way to read.


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

koland said:


> I suppose they are. I gave away several bookshelves of old computer books and software (alas, only a portion of what I have, from the days when you actually got manuals with software development tools - sometimes enough to fill an entire shelf with just one program's books), but keep moving around the rest of them...


Now--after much angst--my simple guilt-free solution: I keep everything!

Sig

http://sigrosenblum.7p.com/


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

Hi all:

Just added some things to my book site. Please visit when you get a moment.

http://sigrosenblum.7p.com/

Thanks!


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

Please try the first chapter of "Spymaster" at my site. Eisenhower called him "the last hero."

Thanks.

Sig 
http://sigrosenblum.7p.com/


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## WilliamM (Feb 10, 2009)

do you cover the OSS Operational groups at all that he started before the CIA?


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

Fuzzy Dunlop said:


> do you cover the OSS Operational groups at all that he started before the CIA?


Yes. It's mostly about the OSS, in fact. Though it is a biography of the man. See a sample at Amazon, Mobipocket or at my website: http://sigrosenblum.7p.com/


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

Mark Twain: "Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't."

Sig

http://sigrosenblum.7p.com/


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

Here's the start of the Amazon preview:

Everyone knows the CIA. But very few know the man who started the ball rolling, the hard-driving "Wild Bill" Donovan, the man they call "The Father of the CIA." He was a hero of the trenches in World War I. And he ultimately put in place the wide-ranging spy network known as OSS--Office of Srategic Services--which was the model for the CIA which followed. How he did it--slogging and slugging every step of the way--is the story told in _Spymaster_...



Thanks for looking!

Sig

http://sigrosenblum.7p.com/


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

Mark Twain: "Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't."

Sig

http://sigrosenblum.7p.com/


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

Peter De Vries: "I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork."

Sig

http://sigrosenblum.7p.com/


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

Raymond Chandler: "The faster I write the better my output. If I'm going slow I'm in trouble. It means I'm pushing the words instead of being pulled by them."

Sig 
http://sigrosenblum.7p.com/


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

If you are fascinated by spies, cloak-and-dagger doings and the improbable origins of the CIA, you'll want to sample "Spymaster."


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## vikingwarrior22 (May 25, 2009)

sigrosenblum said:


> Please try the first chapter of "Spymaster" at my site. Eisenhower called him "the last hero."
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> ...


I read your first chapter and hope to buy this Monday. Sounds solid. Thanks. Have a good week vw


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

vikingwarrior22 said:


> I read your first chapter and hope to buy this Monday. Sounds solid. Thanks. Have a good week vw


Thanks a lot VW. Hope you enjoy it. I think you will like this guy: No-nonsense, two fisted--real. Please let me know, right after you turn the last page!


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

George Orwell: "Good prose is like a windowpane."

Sig 
http://sigrosenblum.7p.com/


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## Jeff (Oct 28, 2008)

I'm about half way (location 862) and really enjoying your book, Sig. Among many other interesting facts, I never knew about the German offer during WW-I to help Mexico regain the land ceded under the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, nor did I know that Sterling Hayden, Julia Child and John Ford worked for the OSS during WW-II.


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

Jeff said:


> I'm about half way (location 862) and really enjoying your book, Sig. Among many other interesting facts, I never knew about the German offer during WW-I to help Mexico regain the land ceded under the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, nor did I know that Sterling Hayden, Julia Child and John Ford worked for the OSS during WW-II.


Thanks so much, Jeff. Nice to hear--especially from you!


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## Jeff (Oct 28, 2008)

I really enjoyed _Spymaster_.

EDIT: My review has been removed from Amazon at the author's request.


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

Jeff said:


> I really enjoyed Spymaster and posted a review here on Amazon.


Thanks, Jeff. From a top-notch scholar like you, that's praise indeed!


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

Jeff said:


> I really enjoyed _Spymaster_.
> 
> EDIT: My review has been removed from Amazon at the author's request.


Jeff misunderstood me. We had a perfectly understandable difference of opinion and he decided to remove it--in its entirety. Which is OK. I'm still glad that Jeff liked the book. His approval means a lot to me.


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

JIM BISHOP: "A good writer is not, per se, a good book critic. No more than a good drunk is automatically a good bartender."

Sig

http://sigrosenblum.7p.com/


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

George Bernard Shaw: "I finished my first book seventy-six years ago. I offered it to every publisher on the English-speaking earth I had ever heard of. Their refusals were unanimous: and it did not get into print until, fifty years later, publishers would publish anything that had my name on it."


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

A snippet from the book:

On December 29th they reached Longeau. Battle-wise French veterans showed them the ropes: how to fling hand grenades--they called them potato mashers. How to slip on a gas mask quickly, before the cloud of death scorched your lungs and tore your eyes. How to thrust and parry with the bayonet, and sink it deep into flesh and bone.

They were almost ready, yet the front was quiet. No thud and crash of shells, no battle cries from the attacking Boche. But the enemy was there, watching, waiting.

Just when Donovan's men thought they might miss the action, the Germans struck. First, with the snap of rifles across the open space; then, with shells that assaulted the ear, arched and fell, scattering body parts and dirt.

A dugout--shelter for a lieutenant and twenty-four men--fell in on itself, old timbers splintering, rocks and clay cascading, burying them all. Those who had seen rushed to the spot and clawed at the earth.

Donovan tells what happened in a letter to his wife: "Some diggers were hysterical, making so much noise that I thought we would have the whole German artillery firing on us. I handed one of them a good punch in the jaw, and that quieted all of them&#8230;and then started working with a little entrenching tool to find a soldier&#8230;I made a hole leading to his face, but his breathing was that of a man about to die&#8230;Under me was a cold muddy dead hand sticking up out of the earth&#8230;.As I looked about, it was brought home to me that nothing could be done, that this was their tomb." Fifteen men were still down there, buried in silence. Donovan--unwilling to risk others--called off the search.

In three days, wisps of gas swirled toward them. And--in spite of their masks--one by one, they lost their sight, until&#8230;



.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Sig--

I'm looking forward to reading your bio of Donovan, it's been in my virtual "To Be Read" stack for too long! (I bought it in December! ) I've got 41 pages of home page, and I've been working my way through, roughly, oldest to newest. I'm still in my November purchases!

However, I'm reading a Nelson DeMille book loosely based on the OSS, _The Talbot Odyssey_, and this seems like a perfect time to move it up the stack to the top!

Your snippet was intriguing. My husband and I just visited the Imperial War Museum in London, where they had a tremendous exhibit on the trenches of WWI.








The exhibit had cases on gas masks, weaponry including a very long bayonet, and, in the WWII section of the museum, there was an Enigma machine. So your book will also follow that visit up nicely.

Looking forward to it!

Betsy


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Sig--
> 
> I'm looking forward to reading your bio of Donovan, it's been in my virtual "To Be Read" stack for too long! (I bought it in December! ) I've got 41 pages of home page, and I've been working my way through, roughly, oldest to newest. I'm still in my November purchases!
> 
> ...


Thanks for bumping Bill! I hope you enjoy his adventures. And if I ever get to London again, I will surely visit the Museum. Sounds fascinating.


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

Another snippet from "Spymaster":

But Donovan was more than an organizer. He was an experimenter who would try anything that showed the least bit of promise, however exotic or eccentric.

There was the land mine disguised as camel dung to be left on a desert road; the explosive that looked like a piece of coal and would find its way into a Nazi locomotive; an innocent-looking candle that would burn down till it reached a bomb and killed a Nazi in his bed.

Dr. Stanley Lovell was Donovan's chief gremlin in the development of these oddball devices. Some of them worked; some were merely good for a laugh; others seemed the work of a mental institution.

Among the practical gadgets was an explosive magnet that gripped the side of a ship. When the covering was worn away by the salt water--hours after the agent had gone--the unit blew up, sending the ship to the bottom. The underground in Norway used this brainstorm against Nazi troop carriers near Oslo and Narvik. The result: thousands of Germans drowned, without guessing why.

There was TNT called "Aunt Jemima" because it looked and acted like flour. To deceive the Nazis, it could be baked and even eaten. But agents knew that there was to be no smoking after the meal.

Lovel gave Eleanor Roosevelt--the wife of the President--credit for the weird Bat Project. The idea was to tie bombs to bats, drop them over Japan and let them do what bats do naturally: cling to the eaves of Japanese houses. Since these flimsy structures were far from fireproof, they would burst into flame when the time fuses went off. Goodbye city.

At least that was the plan. But it was never applied in the field, for a test in the U.S. went haywire when the bats headed straight for an OSS building and turned it into toast. This bats-in-the-belfry idea could have worked, but the question occurs: Why not just use good old incendiary bombs and leave the bats at home?

Roosevelt--much like Donovan--liked oddball, off-the-wall concepts. A fellow in California got in touch with Mrs. Roosevelt and thought that by dropping hornets, bees and wasps on the enemy we could panic them. FDR passed along the idea of the bat attack, but he balked at the insects, and said to Eleanor that he thought the man had "bees in his bonnet."

Link Maker is not working, so please use this: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001G0N58M


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

Samuel Johnson: "It is advantageous to an author that his book should be attacked as well as praised. Fame is a shuttlecock. If it be struck at only one end of the room, it will soon fall to the ground. To keep it up, it must to struck at both ends."


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

Thomas Carlyle: "A well-written life is almost as rare as a well-spent one."


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## sigrosenblum (Dec 22, 2008)

A woman asked publisher Jonathan Cape, "Do you keep a copy of every book you print?" 

"Madam," he replied, "I keep thousands."


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