This book is about one of the greatest spies of World War II, Mrs. Betty Pack, aka Miss Betty Thorpe. The story begins when Betty was making the rounds at her coming out and sleeping with many men and suddenly found out she was pregnant but didn't know who the father was. So she needed to find someone to marry and fast. So she latched on to Arthur Pack, who worked for the Foreign Service for England and at the time was stationed in Washington D.C. where Betty lived with her retired military father and her rich socialite mother. She gets Arthur to marry her but he wants her to get an abortion because people will know that she was pregnant before she was married and that will hurt his career. However, she can't get one because she's too far along so instead he finds a kindly couple to take the child in and foster him. This breaks Betty's heart.
Eventually, Arthur will get a prime posting in Spain right when the revolution is going on. Betty begins a passionate love affair with a man, Carlos, she met when she was a child and wanted desperately back then. When she became pregnant and needed to have an abortion she fled back to England and on the way she met Lord Castlerosse who was to assess her for the Secret Intelligence Office. He was pleased and introduced her to his boss Lord Beaverbrook who decided that she was perfect for work as a spy. She came from good stock, was beautiful, was intelligent, and had a shaky moral compass. Just as important she had a good cover as a diplomat's wife.
She also converted to Catholicism and had lessons with a handsome priest with whom she began an affair with. When the priest was rounded up by the Rebels in power she appealed to the Secret Intelligence Office to help get him out. They let her know which jail he was being held at and she used her considerable feminine wiles on a high church official to get him out of jail and out of the country. She had shown them she was capable.
Later from her new posting on the border of Spain and France as the war had taken over the country and caused them to leave the Embassy, only some had stayed behind at the new Embassy in northern Spain at a hotel. When England lost contact with them they asked Arthur to go over there to find out what was going on. When Betty had not heard from him the next day she took a driver and went over there herself and got captured. She used her feminine wiles to get out and went back. She radioed the Secret Intelligence Service who told her they were sending naval ships to get them out but it would take four days. Betty still determined to get her husband out went back over there and got stopped again, but this time by a different man who told her he couldn't let her proceed because of the fighting. She told him she'd take the risk so he gave her a pass and let her go. She risked her life and finally made it to the Embassy and gave her report to the Embassy Director who had a message for her to take back to England, which she did.
Later they relocated the Embassy in France and Carlos's wife came to her and begged her to find her husband who had been captured by the Rebels. So she sought help from the Secret Intelligence Office to find Carlos. In the meantime, she helps them sneak a prisoner out of prison. And when they do find Carlos the only way to get him out is by order of one of the leaders of the rebellion a hard man named Indalecio Prieto. But it's a rare man that Betty can't charm to her way of things. And England asked that she give him a list of men to be released and he released them as well.
The Service wanted Betty in Poland and made up some excuse that Arthur had made a mistake and needed a new post there. It was 1938 and things were heating up there politically. Betty took up a lover who provided her with information that she passed on to Secret Intelligence. They decided to make her a formal offer of work. To make her an official spy for Britain for pay. She agreed. Soon her lover dried up with information and she was told to begin sleeping with Count Lubienski who was chef de cabinet to Poland's foreign minister, Colonel Josef Beck, who was the dominant force in determining Poland's political future.
Lubienski told her everything from the secret peace talks Poland was having with the Nazis to the plans they were making with other nations to help them attack Germany. But most important he told her about the machine the Poles had created to decipher the Enigma code of Germany. Yes, the Poles cracked the Enigma device, not England and they did so in 1934 but didn't tell anyone for five years. In January 1939 Poland would give England a replica of their Enigma machine and the Germans would slightly change the code over the years and Alan Turing would adjust the machine to the new code as it changed. Soon it became too hot for Betty inside Poland and her and her husband was sent back to Chili, which upset Betty because all of the action was going on in Europe right now. But the Secret Intelligent Agency had other plans for Betty.
They wanted Betty to get a divorce which she gladly went about doing. By this time Betty's daughter was six-years-old but Betty felt no maternal feelings toward the child. She was desperate to get back in the game. They sent her to America where she would be operating out of Washington D.C. and over time she would get information out of the Italian Embassy and the Vichy Embassy that would prove to be of immense importance to the war effort. She would be constantly watched by Hoover's F.B.I. agents ready to arrest her for spying even though she was spying for the good of her country and had the backing of her president.
This book was an incredibly interesting story about a woman who sought the thrills and excitement that spying brought her and ended her restlessness and loved to use her intelligence as well as her charms to solve problems for the good of the world. She was an amazing woman who led one helluva life. Sadly she died of cancer at a relatively young age of fifty-three. This book is told in a unique way by a conversation that was had at the end of her life between her and a man named Hyde who was writing a book about her as they traveled through Ireland. It's a refreshing way to tell a historical story that is completely accurate as he kept notes on the encounter. Overall this is a fantastic book that tells a story that you'll want to hear. I give this book five out of five stars.
Quotes
History is a nightmare.
-James Joyce (Ulysses)
You will find it difficult to, I think to live on the surface
in the company of Spaniards. We do not understand this way of existing. That is
why we’re the despair of the Anglo-Saxons.
What you call dramatics, we call truth!
-Howard Blum (The Last Goodnight: A World War II Story of
Espionage, Adventure, and Betrayal p 103)
What also distinguished him—and this was undoubtedly the
secret of Castlerosse’s success—was his quick wit and brash, mischievous
charm. A society doyenne out to get
revenge for some slight approached him at a party, tapped his massive
waist-coated belly with a catty finger, and snarled, “If this stomach were on a
woman, I would think she was pregnant.” Without missing a beat, his lordship drawled
back, “Madam, a half-hour ago it was on a woman and by now she very well might
be pregnant.”
-Howard Blum (The Last Goodnight: A World War II Story of
Espionage, Adventure, and Betrayal p 107)
From the moment she boarded the train—tried to unsuccessfully
to light her cigarette with a box of Spanish matches and in her frustration
quipped, “This is the only thing in Spain that doesn’t strike,” a friendship
was born.
-Howard Blum (The Last Goodnight: A World War II Story of
Espionage, Adventure, and Betrayal p 108)
“I could never love anyone completely. I am twenty-six
already and the thing you mean is never likely to happen to me.” Now at fifty-three, a lifetime of experiences
behind her, she saw that her prediction had proven true. Her heart could soar.
Yet it would never find long-term fulfillment.
A steady, companionable happiness would always elude her.
-Howard Blum (The Last Goodnight: A World War II Story of
Espionage, Adventure, and Betrayal p 170)
Cast a cold Eye
On Life, on Death
Horsemen, pass by!
-W. B. Yeats
He might have suggested that confusing passion for love
was, in its too human way, an honest mistake.
-Howard Blum (The Last Goodnight: A World War II Story of
Espionage, Adventure, and Betrayal p 240)
If she continually convinced herself that she was falling
in love, than one day, she wanted to believe, it would actually be true. She would
be at peace and would finally settle into an imagined happiness. Her restlessness
would vanish.
-Howard Blum (The Last Goodnight: A World War II Story of
Espionage, Adventure, and Betrayal p 271)
Spies lie by inclination, and governments are in the
business of endorsing these falsehoods. Truth inevitably falls by the wayside.
-Howard Blum (The Last Goodnight: A World War II Story of
Espionage, Adventure, and Betrayal p 319)
He looked at her and was suddenly reminded of something
Stephenson had said: Betty was “the greatest unsung hero of the war.”
-Howard Blum (The Last Goodnight: A World War II Story of
Espionage, Adventure, and Betrayal p 463)
Listed On Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Last-Goodnight-Espionage-Adventure-Betrayal-ebook/dp/B00Y86F5QG/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1KLRSM0WM9J7N&keywords=the+last+goodnight+howard+blum&qid=1567768198&s=gateway&sprefix=the+last+goodnight%5C%2Caps%2C171&sr=8-1
No comments:
Post a Comment