Speaker 1: Welcome back to Saturday. Ridiculous Historians. Uh, we you know.
Speaker 1: Let's say there's Max, I'm Ben, this is Nol.
Speaker 2: Let's let's talk with you, Nol Tool, You're Nol, You're
Speaker 2: the this, I'm the Ben. You're the nom. I'm Nol. No,
Speaker 2: you're Max. We're not secret agents, guys. We don't have
Speaker 2: to have like weird nicknames or like, you know, alternate identities.
Speaker 2: Unlike Roald Dall, who was not only a cracker jack
Speaker 2: children's writer with some potentially problematic material that didn't age
Speaker 2: super well. But it is what it is, and I
Speaker 2: don't think it should be edited. I'm gonna die on
Speaker 2: that hill. We're gonna, well, don't die in the hill.
Speaker 2: I need you for the shows. Okay, I'll stick around,
Speaker 2: but you no, seriously, dude. It turns out that Roll
Speaker 2: Dall was friends with Ian Fleming, who may or may
Speaker 2: not have gotten the idea for the character of James
Speaker 2: Bond from Double O seven from Roll Dall, who was
Speaker 2: like an insane ace fighter pilot World War two era spy.
Speaker 2: This guy did some bonker stuff and I just I
Speaker 2: love this episode. Now. This was like such a eye
Speaker 2: opener for me for like a beloved childhood you know,
Speaker 2: favorite author of mine. I was like, whoa, this guy
Speaker 2: was serious. He definitely murdered some folks. It's weird. I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 1: I am pretty confident we don't get to it in
Speaker 1: this classic episode, but I did, I tell you no.
Speaker 1: I study rolled all twice in very different circumstances. First,
Speaker 1: I study, I study in literature when I was pursuing that,
Speaker 1: and then also he comes up a lot in international
Speaker 1: affairs because it was kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: Did you guys see the most recent derivation of his
Speaker 1: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was it Wonka?
Speaker 2: They just call it Wonka? Yeah, I mean, I don't
Speaker 2: think it's based on anything that he actually wrote. It's
Speaker 2: just sort of an extended Wonka universe. But I thought
Speaker 2: it was delightful because it's by the people that made
Speaker 2: Paddington and Paddington Two, which are damn near perfect movies too,
Speaker 2: even better than one. If you haven't seen it, do
Speaker 2: yourself a favor. But there are some really sweet moments
Speaker 2: in Wonka, and I think Timothy Shalamalar did a fine job.
Speaker 2: Is that the correct pronunciation?
Speaker 1: You heard?
Speaker 2: Little? So you guys want to hear something funny? No always, okay,
Speaker 2: is my birthday my birth My birthday has already happened.
Speaker 2: Your birthday's already happened. Happy birthday. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: Everybody has to get Max something for his birthday. We
Speaker 1: already got him a Lionel train set. Uh spoilers, So
Speaker 1: tune in, folks, as Noel and Max and I explore
Speaker 1: the amazing story of Rule Dohl, Children's author and secret agent. Indeed,
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. George didn't say
Speaker 1: a word. He felt quite trimbly. He knew something tremendous
Speaker 1: had taken place that morning. For a few brief moments
Speaker 1: he had touched with the very tips of his fingers
Speaker 1: the edge of a magic world. That's from George's Marvelous
Speaker 1: Medicine by the author Roald Doll. Hi, my name is Ben, my.
Speaker 2: Name is Nol And what a weaver of dreams that
Speaker 2: Roald Dall was.
Speaker 1: Yes, if you are like millions of children in the
Speaker 1: United States, the UK and beyond, then you grew up
Speaker 1: reading books by Roald Dahl, stuff like not just George's
Speaker 1: Marvelous Medicine, but Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Speaker 2: Yeah, George is a deep cut for me. I've never
Speaker 2: read that. One. My favorites growing up were Matilda The
Speaker 2: Chocolate Factory books, including the Great Glass Elevator, which people
Speaker 2: kind of seem to forget about. They go, they go
Speaker 2: up into space and there's their space aliens and stuff.
Speaker 2: The Witches was super creepy and and the movie got
Speaker 2: The Witch's movie really freaked me out. It's fantastic. They
Speaker 2: pull their faces off and so they all have wigs
Speaker 2: and it's a mouse. No, it's fun. It's fun movie,
Speaker 2: but definitely back when they made movies for kids that
Speaker 2: gave kids nightmares. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And in the course of research for today's episode, one
Speaker 1: of the things I discovered is that there's this danger
Speaker 1: in young adult fiction without all of the trappings of
Speaker 1: banality you find in so much grown up adult, full
Speaker 1: adult fiction, you know, and we see stuff that's so
Speaker 1: much more honest, visceral and candidly frightening. Roald Dahl wrote
Speaker 1: some pretty dark stuff, and it's easy I think for
Speaker 1: maybe someone who just saw the newest adaptation of Charlie
Speaker 1: and the Chocolate Factory, right, I think it's easy for
Speaker 1: them to say, oh, this is just sort of kooky,
Speaker 1: but as most of us know, the original one is frightening, especially.
Speaker 2: There's no earthly way of knowing. In fact, Marilyn Manson
Speaker 2: sort of did a redo of that on one of
Speaker 2: his early records, showing how it kind of really worked
Speaker 2: on that absurdly creepy, dark level. But yeah, Dall, I
Speaker 2: kind of look at him as almost like a Dickens
Speaker 2: type figure in terms of the characters and the absurdity
Speaker 2: and some of the satire that he did. But it
Speaker 2: was in fact for kids. And today we have, you know,
Speaker 2: this genre of young adult fiction that tries to be
Speaker 2: a little bit more dark and edgy. But these books
Speaker 2: were written for children.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, this isn't stuff like you know. Edward Gorey,
Speaker 1: for instance, has a child's book formats, but is pretty
Speaker 1: much clearly for adults. Roal Dall was writing for children,
Speaker 1: but he was doing much much more than that. And
Speaker 1: the true life story of Roald Dall is as interesting
Speaker 1: and strange, if not more interesting and strange, than some
Speaker 1: of the fictional stories he wrote, because it turned out
Speaker 1: that he lived during one of the most important, dangerous, magnificent,
Speaker 1: storied times in modern history.
Speaker 2: Absolutely right in the thick of World War Two, and
Speaker 2: Dahl himself even described the mission of Churchill and the
Speaker 2: British government and the Royal Air Force which he was
Speaker 2: a part of, as saving the world. I mean, he
Speaker 2: really looked at it that way, and that's not too
Speaker 2: far from the truth. And at the time, the United
Speaker 2: States was not about that war. We were in a
Speaker 2: very isolationist period. Guys like Charles Lindbergh really pushed for
Speaker 2: this America First ideology. MW does that sound familiar, But yeah,
Speaker 2: it was a big deal to get the United States
Speaker 2: on board the war effort to help fight the Nazis
Speaker 2: in what Doll himself described as a battle against like
Speaker 2: good and evil in the life or death situation that
Speaker 2: could literally result in the end of the world as
Speaker 2: it was known at that time.
Speaker 1: And so in today's episode, we're exploring one of the
Speaker 1: most fascinating things about Rule Doll that you might not know,
Speaker 1: which is that he was not just a fight race.
Speaker 1: He was not just a military man. He was not
Speaker 1: just a fantastically prolific children's author.
Speaker 2: He was a spy. Not only a spy like a superspy,
Speaker 2: like the spy totally.
Speaker 1: Yes, So let's give just a little bit of his
Speaker 1: background to get to the juicy once top secret stuff.
Speaker 1: Oh and by the way, shout out to our super
Speaker 1: producer for today, Ramsey Yunt. Thanks for coming, Ramsey.
Speaker 2: Yeah much appreciate it, saving the day, saving the day,
Speaker 2: saving the show. So Casey is out with the flu
Speaker 2: and we wish him a quick convalescence. Yes, yes, so.
Speaker 1: Please feel free to write to Ramsey and Casey as
Speaker 1: well as us if you would like.
Speaker 2: Roll Doll though, roll Dall, here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Born in September of nineteen sixteen and he lived until
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety so he.
Speaker 2: Had a full life.
Speaker 1: And he's one of those guys know that when I
Speaker 1: read the biography or something, I feel like I just
Speaker 1: haven't done anything. I'm like, what a jerk, I know, right,
Speaker 1: It's like, hey, I read, I read a lot of books,
Speaker 1: I guess, but I haven't helped engineer clandestine geopolitics, right,
Speaker 1: I haven't shot people out of the sky yet.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: Rould was born in Wales of Norwegian extract. His parents
Speaker 1: were both from Norway, and he was named after the
Speaker 1: Norwegian explorer that we've mentioned in previous episodes here Roald Amundson,
Speaker 1: So that's roa Ld. Actually his first language was Norwegian,
Speaker 1: which was startling to think of, you know. And like
Speaker 1: many kids, he went to a boarding school and some
Speaker 1: of the some of the experiences he had there definitely
Speaker 1: informed the way he approaches authority figures in his books.
Speaker 2: Oh for sure. And there's actually a book he wrote,
Speaker 2: i think his only work of nonfiction as in his
Speaker 2: later career, called Boy, where he talks about growing up
Speaker 2: and he talks about some really horrible experiences he had
Speaker 2: at that boarding school, one of which included being caned
Speaker 2: by the headmaster or by some high official till.
Speaker 1: He was bloody Yeah, Headmaster Jeoffrey Fisher. And you're correct.
Speaker 2: Boy.
Speaker 1: Tales of Childhood was his almost an expose, you know,
Speaker 1: but so far in the past. You'll always hear that thing.
Speaker 1: Oh it was a different time. That's how they disciplined them.
Speaker 1: But luckily for us and luckily for young readers around
Speaker 1: the world, he did survive that horrific boarding school experience,
Speaker 1: and in nineteen thirty four, when he finished school, he
Speaker 1: crossed the Atlantic on the RMS Nova Scotia and hiked
Speaker 1: through Newfoundland and eventually he got a job. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that was in September of nineteen thirty nine when he
Speaker 1: started working for the Shell Oil Company in East Africa.
Speaker 1: And it was at this time when England declared war
Speaker 1: on Germany. And like many you know, strapping youths his age,
Speaker 1: he decided to heed the call of war and go
Speaker 1: join his compatriots and serve his country. So he drove
Speaker 1: from Dare s Salaam to Narobi and there was a
Speaker 1: Royal Air Force headquarters there and that is where he
Speaker 1: signed up to become a fighter pilot. And just want
Speaker 1: to say up front, some of this information we got
Speaker 1: from a fantastic book called The Irregulars, Roll Dahl and
Speaker 1: the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington, which was written
Speaker 1: by a journalist, American journalist by the name of Janette Konnant. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's a fantastic book. It's actually a fairly recent book too,
Speaker 1: and we can't recommend it enough.
Speaker 2: It's the kind of thing that.
Speaker 1: We would read for fun, which is always a beautiful
Speaker 1: thing to say. But one thing that is definitely not
Speaker 1: beautiful would be the reality of life as an aircraftman
Speaker 1: in World War Two, especially this time. He was accept
Speaker 1: did as Noel said in Nairubi for flight training with
Speaker 1: sixteen other men, but only four of those, counting Rule Doll,
Speaker 1: would survive the war.
Speaker 2: And it's interesting because they were so desperate for pilots
Speaker 2: that even at six foot six, quite lanky bean pole
Speaker 2: of a man, he was accepted. And in the irregulars
Speaker 2: it's described as he had to quote curl up into
Speaker 2: a fetal position with his knees tucked tightly under his
Speaker 2: chin in order to sit in the cockpit and his
Speaker 2: head stuck out above the windshield like some kind of
Speaker 2: cartoon character. But because the pilots were so in demand,
Speaker 2: he was accepted, and then he trained very quickly, I
Speaker 2: think two months doing test flights Shadan Kenya exactly. And
Speaker 2: then next thing you know, he is thrust into the fray.
Speaker 1: Right flying an obsolete craft Gloster Gladiator, the last biplane
Speaker 1: fighter used by the Royal Air Force ever. And if
Speaker 1: you have ever flown in a biplane, it's a fantastic
Speaker 1: experience and it's terrifying to imagine having to conduct any
Speaker 1: sort of mission of war in one of those things.
Speaker 1: He almost died, as it turns out, right when he
Speaker 1: again with this obsolete technology and we're talking obsolete even
Speaker 1: in the late nineteen thirties. He almost died because he
Speaker 1: was flying and was.
Speaker 2: Low on fuel. Yeah, and he crashed landed in the
Speaker 2: desert in Egypt, and was able to pull himself from
Speaker 2: the wreckage, from that fetal position, from the wreckage and
Speaker 2: get far enough away quickly enough to avoid the subsequent
Speaker 2: explosion and the hail of machine gun fire that was
Speaker 2: set off by that blaze. Can you imagine, just like
Speaker 2: trudging through I think he was picked up eventually by
Speaker 2: a patrol and rescued.
Speaker 1: And this dodging of a conflagration in machine gun fires
Speaker 1: especially miraculous. We consider the piss poor condition he was
Speaker 1: in immediately. His skull was fractured, his nose was smashed.
Speaker 1: Most importantly, he was temporarily blind, so he had no
Speaker 1: idea what was going on, and.
Speaker 2: He remained blind for some time. Actually, his face was
Speaker 2: reconstructed by a plastic surgeon, and you know, he sustained
Speaker 2: spinal damage which caused him significant pain that would endure
Speaker 2: for the rest of his life. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And as it turned out, the Royal Air Force made
Speaker 1: an inquiry into the crash, and they learned that the
Speaker 1: place he had been told to go was the wrong place.
Speaker 1: It wasn't even supposed to be flying that way.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine, just like with the technology they had
Speaker 2: at the time, managing all of that, sending these you know,
Speaker 2: squad and keeping things secret and having people end up
Speaker 2: in the right place with these obsolete aircrafts. I mean,
Speaker 2: I think more people would be crashing in the desert
Speaker 2: in this situation, you know, given the circumstances.
Speaker 1: That's a really good point too. Fast forward to let's
Speaker 1: say nineteen forty one or so, he finally gets out
Speaker 1: of the hospital from.
Speaker 2: This crash, and again because of that desperation, he's back
Speaker 2: in the air. Yep.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he is rated fully fit for flying duties, although
Speaker 1: we will find out later that's not exactly the case unfortunately.
Speaker 2: So what happens next, Well, next he is sent on
Speaker 2: what basically amounted to a suicide mission. The Italians had
Speaker 2: German reinforcements and the British were outnumbered in protecting Greece.
Speaker 2: Doll was sent as part of the eighty Squadron to
Speaker 2: basically protect the island of Greece, and that was only
Speaker 2: one of two RAF squadron to cover this entire region,
Speaker 2: and they were severely outnumbered.
Speaker 1: Severely outnumbered is a great way to put it. His
Speaker 1: first aerial combat occurs in the same year, in April,
Speaker 1: and he attacks six other planes at once. They're Junker's
Speaker 1: Ju eighty eights. These are bombers, right. He manages German planes, yeah,
Speaker 1: German plans. He manages to shoot one down and later
Speaker 1: the I think the next day. It was like the
Speaker 1: fifteenth and the sixteenth. So he shot down one plane
Speaker 1: one day and another plane the day after. Which does
Speaker 1: that make him a fighting ac yet? No?
Speaker 2: By my standard?
Speaker 1: Sure?
Speaker 2: Yeah, by our standards, Yeah, for sure. I'm not sure
Speaker 2: what the qualification for a status was, but certainly a badass.
Speaker 1: Right, and his career as an airman continues. He is
Speaker 1: in a time and in a position that is notoriously dangerous. Right,
Speaker 1: he is not only surviving, but arguably he's thriving.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty insane. In that campaign, which ultimately the
Speaker 2: Germans totally ousted the Brits from Greece and won the day,
Speaker 2: around thirteen thousand British fighter pilots were killed, wounded or imprisoned,
Speaker 2: and as.
Speaker 1: The Germans were advancing on Athens, Doll was evacuated along
Speaker 1: with this volks to Egypt and the squadron got back together.
Speaker 1: They put the band back together at Haifa. From Haifa,
Speaker 1: he continued to fly, but in June he began to
Speaker 1: get the worst, most debilitating headaches you could imagine, like
Speaker 1: beyond migraines, to the point where he.
Speaker 2: Actually blacked out a few times during flight. And then
Speaker 2: he got checked out and the medics told him it
Speaker 2: was probably because of altitude or like G's the gravitational effects,
Speaker 2: But it turned out and that was not the case,
Speaker 2: and it was just a holdover from that head injury
Speaker 2: he got during that fateful crash back in Egypt his
Speaker 2: first flight. So he was discharged honorably.
Speaker 1: Yes, it was honorably discharged. He was originally hoping that
Speaker 1: as he recovered, he would be able to one day
Speaker 1: in the future become an instructor for newer pilots, newer
Speaker 1: air servicemen. But then something happened, a plot twist occurred.
Speaker 1: He had a meeting at a club with a very
Speaker 1: influential figure named Major Harold Balfour, who was serving as
Speaker 1: the Undersecretary of State for Air. Balfour was impressed. I
Speaker 1: was like, this guy has walking the walk. He's a
Speaker 1: fighter race at least Balfour thought he.
Speaker 2: Was niece, right.
Speaker 1: So Balfour appoints Dahl, who is still a young cat
Speaker 1: by the way, at this time twenty four ish. Yeah, yeah, right, God,
Speaker 1: what are we doing with our lives?
Speaker 2: No, man, we're doing this, I guess. Yeah, well you
Speaker 2: know we are.
Speaker 1: So Balfer gets Dall a position as assistant Air Attache
Speaker 1: at the British Embassy in DC, and this launches another
Speaker 1: series of travels and incredibly important meetings. Initially, Doll is
Speaker 1: amazed by all the luxuries in North America, but ten
Speaker 1: days in, almost two weeks in, he hates it. He
Speaker 1: thinks his job is pointless. He doesn't understand like what
Speaker 1: he's doing.
Speaker 2: And while he's it was meant to be like a
Speaker 2: public relations kind of a position, right, and he wasn't
Speaker 2: feeling it at all. He didn't want to do it
Speaker 2: in the first place. I mean, when Valfour based insisted
Speaker 2: that this is the job for you, Dall is quoted
Speaker 2: as saying, oh, no, sir, please sir, anything but that's sir.
Speaker 2: But Balfour was like, nope, and he made it an
Speaker 2: order and said, according to the irregulars that it was
Speaker 2: jolly important. Yes, so he saw maybe through just the
Speaker 2: way Dahl kind of carried himself. He was reported to
Speaker 2: be quite dashing and good at talking to people and
Speaker 2: very you know ingratiating or whatever. So maybe he saw him, Okay,
Speaker 2: well you can't fly. You were a good soldier, but
Speaker 2: now I think we can use you in America.
Speaker 1: Yes, And so Dall kept his stiff upper lip, sucked
Speaker 1: it in, and as we say, he crossed the Atlantic
Speaker 1: and he hated it. There's a quote that there's a
Speaker 1: quote we found this pretty funny. He notes how priorities
Speaker 1: had shifted. He said, I'd just come from the war.
Speaker 1: People were getting killed. I had been flying around seeing
Speaker 1: horrible things. Now almost instantly I found myself in the
Speaker 1: middle of a pre war cocktail party in America.
Speaker 2: Not to mention that back in London, I mean they
Speaker 2: were getting bombed right by the Nazis, you know, it
Speaker 2: was I mean there was even a period where Dahl
Speaker 2: lost track of his family, you know, when he was away,
Speaker 2: and he was told, well, they probably got bombed, you know,
Speaker 2: and he did eventually find them, but he came from
Speaker 2: you know, this experience of everything is just bleak and fallen,
Speaker 2: crumbling infrastructure. To being in d C where they had
Speaker 2: not yet declared war on the Japanese, you know, in
Speaker 2: Pearl Harbor is what brought them into the fight. Like
Speaker 2: you said earlier, there was this isolationist thing and we're like, well,
Speaker 2: we're here in DC, you know, living it up with
Speaker 2: the swells. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine you're someone saying, so rule Dall, you're
Speaker 1: from England, TA, how's your family? And he's like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, they might be dead.
Speaker 2: Well, have you tried the shrimp?
Speaker 1: It's a really disconcerting thing in this time, in this
Speaker 1: sort of if we're going Joseph Campbell with it, in
Speaker 1: this journey in the wilderness, in this dark knight of
Speaker 1: the Soul or whatever, this is, when Dall meets another
Speaker 1: person that will change his life an author named cs Forrester.
Speaker 2: Cs Forrester had written this very popular series of books
Speaker 2: featuring a character Horatio Hornblower, who was a navelman and
Speaker 2: you know, all these adventures and Dall and his cohorts
Speaker 2: in the RAF would have been super familiar with these,
Speaker 2: you know, in their downtime reading these books. And he
Speaker 2: was approached by this man who came directly to see
Speaker 2: him and wanted to interview him about that crash in
Speaker 2: Egypt that we talked about earlier where he went down
Speaker 2: and had to run away from the explosion and very
Speaker 2: heroic stuff. Because there was a newly established organization within
Speaker 2: the British government that was based in the United States
Speaker 2: called the British Information Services, and their job was kind
Speaker 2: of to helps sway American sentiment towards supporting the war
Speaker 2: effort and aiding Britain, who has always been a huge
Speaker 2: ally of ours, but yet because of that isolationist position,
Speaker 2: it wasn't something that our government was interested in getting
Speaker 2: involved in. And one way of doing that and swaying
Speaker 2: that opinion was with stories of heroism and these you know,
Speaker 2: these moments like what happened to.
Speaker 1: Dahl And we'll say it propaganda, Okay, yes, yeah, it's propaganda.
Speaker 2: That doesn't mean it's not true.
Speaker 1: That just means it's a narrative with an end goal.
Speaker 1: It's persuasive writing. So Forrester has a deal where he's
Speaker 1: going to sort of ghost write, is what they assumed.
Speaker 1: They assumed that it would be like Saturday Evening post
Speaker 1: features fighter Ace rule dall as told to CS Forrester,
Speaker 1: you know the way that a lot of politicians today
Speaker 1: don't actually write their own books. But turns out that
Speaker 1: after Forrester read Doll's account, he thought, I don't have
Speaker 1: to change this. This guy is actually a bang up writer.
Speaker 1: He's top notch or the bee's knees or aces or
Speaker 1: whatever people said at the time. The point is he
Speaker 1: was surprisingly good. And they published the article with the
Speaker 1: name shot Down over in Libya, and.
Speaker 2: That was sort of a more sensationalized title that was
Speaker 2: different from Doll's original title, which was the slightly more
Speaker 2: tongue in cheek a piece of cake, which is a
Speaker 2: term that fighter pilots used kind of jokingly to refer
Speaker 2: to like maneuvers. It's a piece of cake, right. But
Speaker 2: the fun thing about this is that maybe, in an
Speaker 2: effort to impress this very famous writer who he looked
Speaker 2: up to, he fictionalized the hell out of his account.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, that's the always the problem when somebody's reminiscing
Speaker 1: about their past events, isn't it.
Speaker 2: He was.
Speaker 1: Maybe a little more heroic, as you recall friends and
Speaker 1: neighbors from earlier in the episode.
Speaker 2: He was not shot down not in real life, he
Speaker 2: was not. He ran a gas Yeah, he ran out
Speaker 2: of gas. But it worked.
Speaker 1: He was actually promoted, and I think it has something
Speaker 1: to do with his success in this field and this
Speaker 1: particular article. A piece of cake shot down over Libya.
Speaker 1: They could have just combined it into one sentence, A
Speaker 1: piece of cake shot down over there.
Speaker 2: That would have been good.
Speaker 1: It would been cool. This leads him to another significant meeting.
Speaker 1: He meets a fellow named William Stevenson, and this is.
Speaker 2: Where the super spy world kind of opens up for Doll.
Speaker 2: Stevenson was the mastermind behind this secret ring I guess
Speaker 2: of intelligence agents called the British Security Coordination or BSc.
Speaker 1: This was a top secret institution set up in New
Speaker 1: York City by m I six in nineteen forty under
Speaker 1: the authorization of Churchill, m.
Speaker 2: I six being sort of the British equivalent of the CIA, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: or the os SA at the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're yeah, they're the they're the guys in the
Speaker 1: dark with the trench coats, right exactly, or in the
Speaker 1: case of mi I six, just fantastic tailored suits, yeah exactly.
Speaker 2: In the case of Roldall the dashing young men in
Speaker 2: the Taylor's suits with the cocktails at the cocktail parties,
Speaker 2: betting influential heiresses and politicians. Yes, exactly, and that is betting.
Speaker 2: Be D D I n G. Let's be clear about that.
Speaker 1: Sir William Stevenson, as as we noted, is the head
Speaker 1: of this organization that the United Kingdom's public and the
Speaker 1: US public have no idea exists. He was doing some
Speaker 1: things that were technically illegal, like he was passing, you know,
Speaker 1: like UK secrets to Roosevelt. He was passing US secrets
Speaker 1: to the UK. And he was also masterminding in a
Speaker 1: very serious way, this push to alter the US opinion
Speaker 1: the average voter. Given the way the US government works,
Speaker 1: the average voter had to support this idea. We had
Speaker 1: to be persuaded that it was somehow worth American lives
Speaker 1: to send people across the seas and spend enormous amounts
Speaker 1: of money to save other people in foreign lands, which
Speaker 1: today happens all the time.
Speaker 2: Frankly, absolutely, but I mean it feels like there's a
Speaker 2: real parallel between the attitude of the government in our
Speaker 2: country right now and the way things were back then.
Speaker 1: And so what happens when Dall and Stevenson meet.
Speaker 2: So what came of this meeting with Stevenson was Dall
Speaker 2: being first kind of recruited as a freelancer for the BSc.
Speaker 2: And a lot of that had to do with his
Speaker 2: success at writing all of these pieces that are ultimately
Speaker 2: propaganda pieces, including a piece about Gremlins. He wrote a
Speaker 2: book or a short story about Gremlins that got picked
Speaker 2: up by Disney, and he had like personal meetings with
Speaker 2: Walt Disney and Gremlins. I mean, you know, like obviously
Speaker 2: the Gremlins the movie, but the Gremlins were originally these
Speaker 2: little creatures that would mess with fighter pilots and it
Speaker 2: was this lore, especially in Britain in the RAF that
Speaker 2: they would make their planes malfunction and they blamed it
Speaker 2: on Gremlins and throw Oren. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One great example of that lore in fiction comes from
Speaker 1: The Twilight Zone in the famous episode Shatner Yeah, with
Speaker 1: William Shatner who sees Grimlin on the wing of a plane.
Speaker 1: Although it is a commercial play which makes it creepy,
Speaker 1: owns a great show.
Speaker 2: I love it. But yeah, So that was probably what
Speaker 2: got Stevenson's attention was Doll's success, and he wrote a
Speaker 2: lot of different pieces that ended up in a lot
Speaker 2: of different places that were perceived as being successful propaganda.
Speaker 2: And part of the BSC's mission was similar to what
Speaker 2: the British Information Services Mission was, was to turn that
Speaker 2: public opinion towards supporting the United Kingdom in that war effort.
Speaker 2: But he only freelanced for like a handful of months
Speaker 2: before he was made a full fledged member of this
Speaker 2: group known as the Baker Street Irregulars, which was named
Speaker 2: after the spy ring that Sherlock Holmes kind of managed
Speaker 2: in those books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and they
Speaker 2: were sort of street urchins that were sort of like
Speaker 2: if you're a Game of Thrones fan, his little birds
Speaker 2: that would, like, you know, whisper things and find secrets
Speaker 2: and tell him so he could be on top of
Speaker 2: He had eyes and ears everywhere, and that was what
Speaker 2: Doll was a part of. And he wasn't the only
Speaker 2: soon to be beloved author that was in this group, right.
Speaker 2: One of them was a little guy under the name
Speaker 2: of Ian Fleming.
Speaker 1: Right, the author of the famous James Bond series. But
Speaker 1: today Ian Fleming is a little bit more well known
Speaker 1: as a guy who was a spy. Roald Dahl doesn't
Speaker 1: get some of the credit that he deserves for this,
Speaker 1: especially when you consider that they were living undercover at
Speaker 1: the time. Just like CIA agents or CIA assets might
Speaker 1: have a job in an embassy as the it guy
Speaker 1: that actually does happen, he was working as a public
Speaker 1: relations dude, a PR man.
Speaker 2: That was the front. But when you hear some of
Speaker 2: the stuff we're about to tell you, I don't think
Speaker 2: you'd be too hard pressed to believe that James Bond
Speaker 2: may have been based on Dall himself. That's how I
Speaker 2: see it, I really do. He's definitely part of it.
Speaker 2: Absolutelympletely agree.
Speaker 1: I love the way that our author Lorie L. Dove,
Speaker 1: writing for House of Works, describes dolls spy career. Did
Speaker 1: this sentence stick out to you?
Speaker 2: By all reports, he was both very good and very
Speaker 2: bad at it. He was living extremes, I know, because
Speaker 2: a big part of it was, you know, obviously keeping secrets.
Speaker 2: And in a biography called Storyteller, Dahl's daughter actually sort
Speaker 2: of said, yeah, Dad was a pretty bad gossip and
Speaker 2: really didn't know when to keep his mouth shut. But
Speaker 2: the part that he was really good at was ingratiating himself.
Speaker 2: Two powerful people, and that included, as we said earlier,
Speaker 2: powerful women who he let's just go and say it, seduced. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we were talking about this off air.
Speaker 1: Dall was a phenomenally talented little thought a ladies man,
Speaker 1: and this really came in handy. This was a skill
Speaker 1: that could be applied to sway in the opinions of
Speaker 1: important people. But Noel, I know there was a quote
Speaker 1: that you have been waiting to bring to the air.
Speaker 2: I gotta do it, I gotta do it. In Storyteller,
Speaker 2: the Authorized Biography of Roll Dall by Donald sturruty ten,
Speaker 2: he has a quote from one of Doll's close friends,
Speaker 2: a man with a gloriously British name, Creek Moore Fath,
Speaker 2: who described Doll as being quote one of the biggest
Speaker 2: cocksmen in Washington. I'm just going to leave that there,
Speaker 2: all one word, by the way, all one word. And
Speaker 2: you know he is in the same way that you know.
Speaker 2: It doesn't quite hold up today in some of the
Speaker 2: James Bond movies, the way we see Bond manipulating women
Speaker 2: and being a bit of a rake, right, that was Doll.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So he had numerous affairs, one with the heiress
Speaker 1: to the standard oil fortune one with a congresswoman named
Speaker 1: Claire booth Luce who later became an ambassador. And this
Speaker 1: is just the beginning. But you have to wonder how
Speaker 1: effective of a spy he was because he was swaying opinions,
Speaker 1: but then he was talking about it, so it was
Speaker 1: probably not a secret, or at least a very open
Speaker 1: secret that he was sleeping around dc.
Speaker 2: OH for sure. And he eventually became pals with the
Speaker 2: guy by the name of Charles Marsh, who was a
Speaker 2: Texan newspaper tycoon who was a huge fan of Churchill
Speaker 2: and a big proponent of allying with the UK in
Speaker 2: support of the fight against Hitler. And this was the
Speaker 2: big goal, right, so he was probably able to kind
Speaker 2: of help sway that in some of the reporting in
Speaker 2: Marsh's papers. He also became close to a lot of
Speaker 2: other prominent American journalists and several big time US officials,
Speaker 2: including the Vice President Henry Wallace, who he played tennis
Speaker 2: with on a regular basis.
Speaker 1: There's a quote from Marsh's daughter, Antoinette Marsh Haskell that
Speaker 1: I love In a piece written by Chris Irving over
Speaker 1: at the Telegraph, he quotes Antonette Marsh Haskell is saying
Speaker 1: girls just fell at Roll's feet. I think he slept
Speaker 1: with everybody on the East and West coast that was
Speaker 1: worth more than fifty thousand dollars a year. And he also,
Speaker 1: by virtue of knowing these titans of industry and government,
Speaker 1: he was able to function as not just a propagandist,
Speaker 1: but a clandestine avenue of information, of transmission of information.
Speaker 2: So he told.
Speaker 1: He told Stevenson and the other folks at the UK
Speaker 1: that he believed, for instance, the president, President Franklin Roosevelt,
Speaker 1: was sleeping around with the Crown Princess of Norway who
Speaker 1: had been granted asylum in the US.
Speaker 2: He also, I think gave first word to the UK
Speaker 2: that the US was going to the moon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was telling people important things.
Speaker 2: I mean, he even worked his way up to becoming
Speaker 2: so cozy with Roosevelt himself that he was pretty regularly
Speaker 2: invited to vacation with the man at his Hyde Park
Speaker 2: estate in New York.
Speaker 1: Yes, and in nineteen forty four he began experiencing back
Speaker 1: pain and underwent a series of treatments that kept him
Speaker 1: in traction for several months. While he was recovering, President
Speaker 1: Roosevelt unfortunately passed away and Germany lost the war. Well,
Speaker 1: that part was fortunate, that's very fortunate, But it's sad
Speaker 1: that Roosevelt passed away. Yeah, but yeah, imagine being rolled
Speaker 1: dall and coming out from this dreadful recovery, this hard
Speaker 1: earned recovery, and then find and then learning that you know,
Speaker 1: you won the war.
Speaker 2: I would say it was probably a little bittersweet, Ben,
Speaker 2: But then you know, it did give him the opportunity
Speaker 2: to leave that spies life, that's washbuckling coxsman life behind him.
Speaker 1: Yes, he settled down. He married Patricia Neil in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty three. Their marriage lasted for thirty years.
Speaker 2: And this episode is not about the subsequent career that
Speaker 2: Dahlwood had, but we as we know, he became a
Speaker 2: giant of literature and beloved very much to this day.
Speaker 2: And not a lot of people know where a lot
Speaker 2: of that stuff came from. And Ben, do you like
Speaker 2: the term fabulous? Yeah, isn't that a fun one? It's
Speaker 2: a good one.
Speaker 1: It's a you know, I'm torn because fictionist was another
Speaker 1: one that we discovered on the show that I really enjoyed.
Speaker 1: But fabulous as well, I would describe him as such.
Speaker 2: But basically, Dahl, even with that fictionalization of his you know,
Speaker 2: war efforts and that plane crash in Egypt, he was
Speaker 2: kind of a professional liar, which is what a spy is.
Speaker 2: And ultimately what a good author is, right is to
Speaker 2: tell a convincing lie.
Speaker 1: Or to find the truth of the human experience through fiction,
Speaker 1: which is a lie. I completely agree, And I also
Speaker 1: have to wonder what would have happened had he not
Speaker 1: been in the hospital for those few months. Would he
Speaker 1: have continued, because as we know, when he comes out
Speaker 1: of the hospital, he's lost sort of his taste for
Speaker 1: the spy's life, and he's ready to go home and
Speaker 1: settle down. He feels he's served his car. But what
Speaker 1: if he continued, how would our image of James Bond
Speaker 1: have changed. I'd like to hear some fabulousm from you folks,
Speaker 1: let us know. And while you're at it, we cannot
Speaker 1: recommend the book The Regulars enough. If you want to
Speaker 1: read something related, we'd also like to recommend Churchill's Ministry
Speaker 1: of Ungentlemanly Warfare by Giles Milton. And it's about the
Speaker 1: Other Front, not this is about Churchill's clandestine activities to
Speaker 1: try to assassinate.
Speaker 2: Hitler and our pals Holly and Tracy over stuff you
Speaker 2: missed in history class. Actually just recently did a two
Speaker 2: part episode on the ministry of ungentlemanly warfare, so pop
Speaker 2: over and check that out and definitely pick up the book.
Speaker 2: And I would like to end with a nice quote
Speaker 2: from Dahl himself that I think ties a lot of
Speaker 2: this together. Quote, truth is far too precious a commodity
Speaker 2: to be used lightly.
Speaker 1: And with that, huge thank you to our friend and
Speaker 1: super producer Ramsey yunt our super producer case.
Speaker 2: Pegrum, thanks to Alex Williams for composing our theme and
Speaker 2: sound cues, and thanks to Laurie L. Dove for writing
Speaker 2: the article for how Stuff Works that we refer to
Speaker 2: several times in this episode.
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Speaker 2: But most importantly, thanks to you for listening, and we
Speaker 2: really hope that you'll join us for the next episode
Speaker 2: of ridiculous history. Have a great day everyone. For more
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