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    Agent Garbo: the brilliant, eccentric double agent who tricked Hitler and saved D-Day
    Unavailable
    Agent Garbo: the brilliant, eccentric double agent who tricked Hitler and saved D-Day
    Unavailable
    Agent Garbo: the brilliant, eccentric double agent who tricked Hitler and saved D-Day
    Ebook385 pages6 hours

    Agent Garbo: the brilliant, eccentric double agent who tricked Hitler and saved D-Day

    By Stephan Talty

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Were the D-Day landings saved from failure because of a lone secret agent?

    Agent Garbo tells the astonishing story of a self-made secret agent who matched wits with the best minds of the Third Reich — and won. Juan Pujol was a nobody, a Barcelona poultry farmer determined to oppose the Nazis. Using only his gift for daring falsehoods, Pujol became Germany’s most valued agent: it took four tries before the British believed he was really on the Allies’ side.

    As Agent Garbo, Pujol turned in a masterpiece of deception worthy of his big-screen namesake. He created an imaginary million-man army, invented armadas out of thin air, and brought a vast network of fictional subagents whirring to life. His unwitting German handlers believed every word, and banked on Garbo’s lies as their only source of espionage within Great Britain.

    For his greatest performance, Pujol had to convince the German High Command that the D-Day invasion of Normandy was a feint, and that the real attack was aimed at Calais. The Nazis bought it, turning the tide of battle at the crucial moment.

    Based on years of archival research and interviews with Pujol’s family, Agent Garbo is a true-life thriller set in the shadow world of espionage and deception.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherScribe Publications
    Release dateJul 25, 2012
    ISBN9781921942785
    Unavailable
    Agent Garbo: the brilliant, eccentric double agent who tricked Hitler and saved D-Day
    Author

    Stephan Talty

    Stephan Talty is the New York Times bestselling author of The Black Hand, The Good Assassin, Agent Garbo, and A Captain’s Duty. His books have been made into two films, the Oscar-winning Captain Phillips and Only the Brave. He’s written for publications including the New York Times Magazine, GQ, and Playboy. He lives outside New York City with his family.

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    Reviews for Agent Garbo

    4/5

    26 ratings4 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Solidly written World War II story of espionage that answered some questions for me but raised others. I enjoyed reading about the imaginary spy network conjured up by Juan Pujol Garcia and his Allied handlers, but I ended the book wanting to know more about the mechanics: how did Pujol make decisions about who his subagents should be? How did they make sure that his Welsh fascist sounded different from his Indian fanatic or his Greek seaman? What special flair did Pujol bring to the messages to make them so unique and convincing to the Nazis? Maybe this information wasn't available or has already been covered elsewhere, but more specific examples of Pujol's imagination would have been more interesting and also helped bolster Talty's case that Garbo was a key part of the Allied deception strategy prior to D-Day. It also would've made his part of the operation more interesting -- tales of wireless messages being sent seems a little ho-hum next to stories of dummy aircraft, sermons about lowered morality (due to the influx of GIs), and other "evidence" of an imaginary US army. Still worth reading, though, and an impetus to more research.
    • 5/5
      If Double Cross is the broad overview of the double agents in WWII, Agent Garbo is a deeper look into one of the most fascinating and enigmatic figures of the war. Very well done.
    • 4/5
      The first research project I ever did in high school was on deception campaigns in WW2. I'd read a little bit about them before, but I didn't realize exactly how much deception was involved in the Allied efforts against Nazi Germany. Since then, I've read just about everything I could find on the subject, and no matter how much I read, I always seem to learn something new.That was certainly true of Agent Garbo. I had, of course, read about Garbo's operation -- how he had a "spy network" of dozens of fictitious "agents" who fed him "intelligence" that he sent on to the Abwehr. Of course, all of those efforts were coordinated by the British XX Committee, which oversaw all of the double agents operating against the Germans, and they were all absolutely essential to the eventual Allied victory in Europe.But there was a lot about the man I didn't know. I'd never read of his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, or his failed businesses, or his propensity for exaggeration and his incredible imagination. I also didn't realize that his wife was just as responsible for his work with British intelligence as he was -- she's the one who finally got him in with the British government, after he'd tried repeatedly.Talty's book is well researched, and well written. This is no dry history text, or boring biography; it is a living story, told as well as any spy thriller ever written. So much of it seems too incredible to believe; truth really is stranger than fiction.This is a book that I would heartily recommend to anyone who wants to learn more about wartime intelligence in World War 2, or anyone who just wants to read a fascinating account of the life of an extraordinary man.
    • 4/5
      "Agent Garbo may have been largely responsible for the success of D-Day." That claim seems totally irrational - before you read the book. After reading the story of his exploits, you may reconsider your original opinion. There is no question that the soldiers who participated in D-Day and who experienced tremendously high casualty rates deserve the utmost in respect, admiration and appreciation. But what would have happened if in the first few days after the landing the Germans had moved their reserves to oppose the Allied troops? Or if the Germans had spent more effort in fortifying Normandy in the first place? Read "Agent Garbo" and you will find out the astonishing levels of deception and diversion that the Allies used. Most of us have heard about the dummy tanks and fake airplanes that were used to fool the Axis powers. But did you know that an entire fake Army was created that was supposed to make the "real" landing at Calais, and that Germany decided not to commit its reserves at Normandy so they could move on Calais when the real invasion came? And did you know that a central part of that deception was a Spanish citizen who was so motivated to stop Germany that he tried three times, unsuccessfully, to become a spy for the British, and ultimately developed his own fake spy network that he used - on his own - to give disinformation to the Germans?This is a story that could easily be dismissed as the product of an over-active imagination - if it weren't so well-researched and filled with corroborating detail. It hasn't got quite the page-turning quality of a James Bond yarn, but the fact that this is a true story more than makes up for that. If you want to learn a fascinating bit of history or even if you just want a good spy story, this is the book you should read.