Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
http://advanced.jhu.edu/about-us/faculty/nicholas-reynolds/ * https://www.harpercollins.com/cr-124171/nicholas-reynolds * http://www.npr.org/2017/03/18/520631331/chronicling-ernest-hemingways-relationship-with-the-soviets
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Married; wife’s name Becky.
EDUCATION:Oxford University, Ph.D.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Author and historian. Central Intelligence Agency, Washington, DC, officer and historian for CIA museum. Adjunct instructor, Johns Hopkins University. Military service: Joined U.S. Marine Corps, 1970s; infantry officer and historian; became colonel of reserves and officer in charge of field history.
AVOCATIONS:Caring for rescue pugs.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Historian Nicholas Reynolds served with both the Marine Corps and the Central Intelligence Agency. “Most recently,” declared the author of a biographical blurb found on the HarperCollins website, “he was the historian for the CIA Museum.” His works include historical analyses of modern Marine combat missions (Just Cause: Marine Operations in Panama, 1988-1990, A Skillful Show of Strength: U.S. Marines in the Caribbean, 1991-1996, Basrah, Baghdad, and Beyond: The U.S. Marine Corps in the Second Iraq War, and U.S. Marines in Iraq, 2003: Basrah, Baghdad and Beyond) as well as an examination of the relationship between novelist Ernest Hemingway and the Soviet Union’s espionage division (Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway’s Secret Adventures, 1935-1961).
Reynolds draws on a broad variety of primary sources to tell the story of the role the Marine Corps played in the first Iraq War. “Basrah, Baghdad, and Beyond is one of the first broad, theater-level accounts of the Marine Corps’s most recent conventional conflict,” stated James S. Robbins in the Naval War College Review. The Iraqi Freedom “campaign was one of the best documented in history, particularly on the Marine side; the Corps had embedded numerous historians and ‘lessons learned’ analysts at every level in the MEF,” Robbins said. “As hostilities wound down, a ‘kind of historical wolf pack’ was deployed to conduct a week’s worth of interviews with Marines from the MEF commander on down. Add to these materials journalists’ accounts, `mil-blogs,’ and participant memoirs, and one is left with an unequaled documentary record from which to draw.”
Novelist Ernest Hemingway served in the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s and became a fervent anti-fascist from the scenes he witnessed there. “Reynolds,” declared a Publishers Weekly reviewer, “gamely connects the author’s interactions with Soviet operatives in the Spanish Civil War to his fears of persecution” during the anticommunist frenzy of the 1950s. In the following decade he offered to help the Soviets—who were American allies during World War II—and his services were accepted. “The writer’s ‘at all costs’ opposition to fascism forms the theme of this book, an account of his fighting and spying adventures from the Spanish episode through the second world war to Castro’s revolution in Cuba,” wrote Mark Mason in the Spectator. “There was ‘only one form of government that cannot produce good writers’, said Hemingway in a speech, ‘and that system is fascism … a writer who will not lie cannot live and work under fascism.’ At this point you’re tempted to lump him in with today’s vacuous luvvies.”
In the early 1950s, however, Hemingway worried that his relationship with the Soviets would be misinterpreted. “He was concerned that he would one day be called in front of a committee and have to explain what he had done earlier,” Reynolds told Scott Simon in an interview for Weekend Edition Sunday. “He never came out, and this is in letters that he wrote mostly to his friend Buck Lanham, a U.S. Army officer. He never said, I’m worried that they’re going to find out that I signed up with the NKVD in ’40, ’41. But he came pretty close to that. He said, you know, I’ve done odd jobs for the Soviets, any one of which could wind me up in front of a committee or worse.” “Reynolds also reveals Hemingway’s practical contributions to the defeat of Nazism. In collaboration with the US Embassy in Havana, early in the Second World War, he set up a spy ring, ‘the Crook Factory,’ from his home in Cuba,” wrote Vin Arthey in the Scotsman. “He also armed his 38-foot fishing boat, Pilar, with submachine guns, bazookas and hand grenades to attack any Nazi U-boats he and his crew might spot in the Caribbean.” “In his later years, Hemingway became obsessed with the idea that he was under FBI surveillance,” stated a Kirkus Reviews contributor “and the author speculates that this delusion ‘deepened his depression.'” Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy, said William Gargan in Library Journal, is “intriguing” since it “highlight[s] the tension between Hemingway’s Soviet sympathies and his identity as a U.S. patriot.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, December 15, 2016, review of Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway’s Secret Adventures, 1935-1961.
Library Journal, February 1, 2017, William Gargan, “To Spy, or Not to Spy,” p. 85.
Naval War College Review, spring, 2006, James S. Robbins, “Contemporary Operational-level War Fighting,” p. 157.
Publishers Weekly, January 9, 2017, review of Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy, p. 59.
Reference & Research Book News, November, 2005, review of Basrah, Baghdad, and Beyond: The U.S. Marine Corps in the Second Iraq War.
Scotsman, April 26, 2017, Vin Arthey, review of Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy.
Spectator, April 29, 2017, Mark Mason, “Fighting Talk, but Little Action,” p. 35.
Sydney Morning Herald, May 12, 2017, Steven Carroll, review of Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy.
ONLINE
HarperCollins Website, https://www.harpercollins.com/ (October 25, 2017), author profile.
Weekend Edition Sunday, http://www.npr.org/ (March 18, 2017), Scott Simon, “Chronicling Ernest Hemingway’s Relationship with the Soviets.”
Chronicling Ernest Hemingway's Relationship With The Soviets
Listen· 6:18
Toggle more options
March 18, 20178:12 AM ET
Heard on Weekend Edition Saturday
CIA archivist Nicholas Reynolds discusses his new book, Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway's Secret Adventures. It describes Hemingway's relationship with Soviet intelligence.
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
You'd think it might be hard to find new insights into one of the most famous lives in literature, but Nicholas Reynold's new book does just that - "Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway's Secret Adventures," which reveals a secret that a writer who stripped them from the lives of others concealed in his own - that he'd offered to be a spy for Soviet intelligence and tried to spy for the U.S., too, during World War II.
Nicholas Reynolds, a former historian at the CIA Museum, joins us in our studios. Thanks so much for being with us.
NICHOLAS REYNOLDS: It's my pleasure.
SIMON: I'll explain in the interest of full disclosure, I'm on the Hemingway Council. Now, Hemingway is perhaps the best known American novelist. And even before he wrote "For Whom The Bell Tolls," he went off to witness the Spanish Civil War and crossed from being a journalist into a participant, didn't he?
REYNOLDS: Absolutely. So Hemingway before the Spanish Civil War was largely apolitical. And it was only in the Spanish Civil War that he starts to develop his own signature brand of politics. And if I had to characterize them in two or three words, I'd say anti-fascism is the governing idea there.
SIMON: And that wound up putting him in touch with elements of the Soviet espionage establishment?
REYNOLDS: That's exactly right. In Spain, on the anti-fascist side, the only serious support was from the Soviet Union. On the fascist side, that is, the nationalists, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy were supporting Francisco Franco.
SIMON: What did the Soviets potentially see in Ernest Hemingway, do you think?
REYNOLDS: So this was a guy who was a powerful propagandist. This was a guy with entree into the halls of power. The Soviets, I don't think, knew exactly what they wanted from Ernest, but they said this is a man with good enough potential. Let's see if we can get him to agree to work with us, and then we'll find exactly what his potential is. Maybe it's continue to slant news in our favor. Maybe it's just to help out and make introductions to people who could help us further.
SIMON: They've flattered him with a code name, didn't they?
REYNOLDS: They did. They gave him Argo, and Argo was a good codename for him that - in calling forth the sailor in Greek mythology.
SIMON: But let me understand this. Did any money change hands? Did any information change hands?
REYNOLDS: No money changed hands. Soviets used the word ideological recruitment, which, in this case, it was about an agreement on parts of the political ideology of the Soviets and their program and what Hemingway was willing to do. So there was an overlap there. It's in the antifascist realm. We have a passage in the Soviet file that says, no, it has not produced any significant political information.
SIMON: The United States and the Soviet Union were on the same side during World War II, and this is where your story enters Hem's aspirations to be useful to U.S. intelligence, too. I am fascinated by Hemingway's idea to weaponize jai alai players.
REYNOLDS: (Laughter) that's - yeah, that's got to be one of a kind. I can't imagine anybody else in the history of jai alai who has come up with the idea. But...
SIMON: Yeah. The whole idea is that if they ever on his fishing boat encountered a German sub, here's what they'd do.
REYNOLDS: They would - they - so the Germans would come close. The idea that the German submarine, which, you know, by any standard outweighed, outclassed, outgunned, outmanned, the Pilar, would come close and ask for, barter or steal at gunpoint fish. And at that point, the jai alai players would lob hand grenades down the conning tower of the German submarine. At the same time, other members of Ernest's crew would fire machine guns. And then Ernest even had a satchel charge, which was kind of like a small footlocker with handles on each end. And they would lob that onto the deck of the German submarine.
SIMON: A great movie but never quite happened.
REYNOLDS: Never quite happened, which is good for us because I think it would have ended badly for Ernest.
SIMON: United States in the post-war era was in the grip of a fear that we now put the label McCarthyism on it. And there were scores of writers and directors and actors and artists who lost their livelihoods. Was Hemingway fearful that he would be exposed for having had this whatever you call it with Soviet intelligence 10 years before?
REYNOLDS: So let me be very precise here. He was concerned that he would one day be called in front of a committee and have to explain what he had done earlier. He never came out, and this is in letters that he wrote mostly to his friend Buck Lanham, a U.S. Army officer.
He never said, I'm worried that they're going to find out that I signed up with the NKVD in '40, '41. But he came pretty close to that. He said, you know, I've done odd jobs for the Soviets, any one of which could wind me up in front of a committee or worse.
SIMON: At the time, Ernest Hemingway took his life in 1961, he was - not a metaphor - he was seeing spies under his bed and in the cupboard. Is it possible that even in his textbook paranoia, Ernest Hemingway was right, and the FBI was trying to develop information against him?
REYNOLDS: I think no. And I base my argument on what's in the FBI file. And if Hemingway were under investigation, the file would reflect that word - investigation - and it would be with a view to prosecuting of something.
After his death, the last word in the file is written by J. Edgar Hoover himself. And Hoover says, I know Hemingway was not a communist. It's in his own handwriting in the file. And he says, I - he was just a rough, tough guy, and he was always for the underdog.
SIMON: Nicholas Reynolds' new book, "Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway Secret Adventures." Thanks so much for being with us.
REYNOLDS: My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.
Nicholas Reynolds
Nicholas Reynolds
Photo by Becky Reynolds
Biography
Nicholas Reynolds has worked in the fields of modern military history and intelligence off and on for forty years, with some unusual detours. Freshly minted PhD from Oxford University in hand, he joined the United States Marine Corps in the 1970s, serving as an infantry officer and then as a historian. As a colonel in the reserves, he eventually became officer in charge of field history, deploying historians around the world to capture history as it was being made. When not on duty with the USMC, he served as a CIA officer at home and abroad, immersing himself in the very human business of espionage. Most recently, he was the historian for the CIA Museum, responsible for developing its strategic plan and helping to turn remarkable artifacts into compelling stories. He currently teaches as an adjunct professor for Johns Hopkins University and, with his wife, Becky, cares for rescue pugs.
Fighting talk, but little action
Mark Mason
Spectator. 333.9844 (Apr. 29, 2017): p35.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 The Spectator Ltd. (UK)
http://www.spectator.co.uk
Listen
Full Text:
Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway's Secret Adventures, 1935-1961
by Nicholas Reynolds
William Morrow, 20 [pounds sterling], pp. 384
On 11 May 1937, at the Gare St-Lazare in Paris, Ernest Hemingway said goodbye to a friend who was leaving Europe. Like Hemingway, John Dos Passos had been in Spain to support the Republic in its civil war against the fascist Franco. But he became disillusioned when the Soviets (also fighting against Franco) murdered someone he knew. As the train was about to leave, Hemingway asked Dos Passos not to report the event. Dos Passos refused: what was the point of fighting a war for civil liberties if you destroyed those liberties in the process? 'Civil liberties, shit,' replied Hemingway. 'Are you with us or are you against us?'
The writer's 'at all costs' opposition to fascism forms the theme of this book, an account of his fighting and spying adventures from the Spanish episode through the second world war to Castro's revolution in Cuba. There was 'only one form of government that cannot produce good writers', said Hemingway in a speech, 'and that system is fascism ... a writer who will not lie cannot live and work under fascism.' At this point you're tempted to lump him in with today's vacuous luvvies pontificating on politics as they collect the latest Oscar. But Hemingway was better than that, and knew exactly how liberated writers had become under Stalin. Years after that speech, he admitted that in Spain he'd become 'so stinking righteous' it gave him 'the horrors to look back on'.
And he was always careful to insist that he was an anti-fascist, not a communist. This helps explain why he survived McCarthyism, and was never called before the House Un-American Activities Committee. A pity, really, because he told a friend that had the summons arrived he'd have said 'slowly and carefully for the microphone' that the committee members 'appear to me to be cocksuckers'.
His actual achievements never amounted to very much. He agreed to spy in China for the Soviet Union's NKVD (they gave him the codename 'Argo', after Jason's and the Argonauts' ship, because he loved the sea so much); but in the end he never met any of their operatives over there. During the second world war he assembled a surveillance team to help the US government spot potential fascists in Cuba. Called the Spook Factory, it comprised 'a bizarre combination of bartenders, wharf rats, down-at-heel pelota players, former bull fighters, Basque priests ... and assorted exiled counts and dukes'. But they didn't spot anything of note, and Hemingway soon got bored.
Instead, he trawled the Caribbean in his fishing boat, looking for German submarines. 'I can really have myself a party,' he told the US ambassador to Cuba,
provided you will get me a bazooka to punch
holes in the side of the submarine, machine
guns to mow down the people on the deck, and
hand grenades to lob down the conning tower.
He never attacked a single U-boat.
Hemingway's only real contribution came in France, where his 1944 reports on German troop placements helped the Allies in their march on Paris. Reporting to an American officer who described him as 'God, as painted by Michelangelo', Hemingway commandeered a hotel in which he housed German prisoners of war, forcing them to remove their pants--as 'a man without pants was less likely to escape'. (We have to assume the American meaning, though removing the British kind would surely have been even more effective.) He also forced the Germans to wear frilly jackets as they served their captors dinner. Arriving in Paris after its liberation, Hemingway parked himself at the Ritz, where his bathtub was soon filled with hand grenades and his basin with bottles of brandy.
Details like this help drive Nicholas Reynolds's book along, compensating for the lack of actual drama. There are appearances by characters like Willi Munzenberg --a German member of the Comintern so versatile and energetic he was known as 'the five most interesting men in Europe'--and a US ambassador so formal that in his memoirs he refers to his own wife as 'Mrs Philip W. Bonsal'. As ever in these stories, the biggest enmities are between those on the same side. Hemingway hates the FBI, partly because he assumes their mostly Catholic agents would have supported the Spanish fascists. He calls them 'Franco's Bastard Irish'.
But of course we know how it's going to end. Throughout his life Hemingway was drawn to war. 'It is wicked to say,' he once wrote about war, 'but that is the thing I love ... best.' Was it a death wish, a subconscious attempt to escape 'the Black Ass' (his term for depression)? His own name for the anti-U-Boat operation was 'Friendless' (borrowed from one of his cats)--not literally true, because he had a crew with him, but he wrote that they would have been 'happy as goats' if it had led to their deaths.
In his final weeks Hemingway made several suicide attempts, one of which involved trying to walk into an airplane's whirring propeller. Eventually, you could say, he proved that happiness is indeed a warm gun, whichever way you point it.
To spy, or not to spy
William Gargan
Library Journal. 142.2 (Feb. 1, 2017): p85.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Listen
Full Text:
Reynolds, Nicholas. Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway's Secret Adventures, 1935-1961. Morrow. Mar. 2017.384p. illus. notes, bibliog. index. ISBN 9780062440136. $27.99; ebk. ISBN 9780062440150. LIT
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
This book grew out of an exhibit the author curated while working as a historian for the CIA Museum in McLean, VA. Drawing on his intelligence background, Reynolds uncovers a trove of documents that point to American novelist Ernest Hemingway's recruitment in 1940 by the NKVD, the precursor of the KGB. Although there is evidence for the recruitment, there is no proof Hemingway ever actually spied for the Soviets. Much of the story is filled out by supposition, signaled by phrases such as "perhaps," "may have," and "most likely." Hemingway's attraction to the Soviets is attributed mostly to an alliance against fascism in the Spanish Civil War. Reynolds ably researches Hemingway's World War II adventures, both in Cuba and Europe, including clandestine activities supporting America's war effort. The final chapters cover Hemingway's predicament as an American in Cuba in the years leading up to Castro's Revolution and the Bay of Pigs, his reaction to Senator McCarthy's Communist witch hunt, and his paranoid delusions concerning FBI surveillance. Includes a generous selection of photographs. VERDICT An intriguing study highlighting the tension between Hemingway's Soviet sympathies and his identity as a U.S. patriot, particularly during the Cold War. Recommended for Hemingway enthusiasts and for readers interested in the history of Soviet espionage in the United States. [See Prepub Alert, 10/3/16.1--William Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY
Contemporary operational-level war fighting
James S. Robbins
Naval War College Review. 59.2 (Spring 2006): p157.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2006 U.S. Naval War College
http://www.nwc.navy.mil/press
Listen
Full Text:
Reynolds, Nicholas E. Basrah, Baghdad, and Beyond: The U.S. Marine Corps in the Second Iraq War. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2005.276 pp. $32.95
Basrah, Baghdad, and Beyond is one of the first broad, theater-level accounts of the Marine Corps's most recent conventional conflict. It is not an official history but, in the author's words, "a framework for understanding Marine participation in the Iraq war." The book opens with Operation ENDURING FREEDOM and swiftly moves to the preparation, planning, and execution of IRAQI FREEDOM (OIF). It is an operational-level account, focused primarily on campaign planning and execution from the point of view of I Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF), operating as part of the Coalition Forces Land Component Command. The book is based generally on such primary sources as interviews, official documents, contemporary reports, and firsthand observations. The author, retired Marine Corps Reserve colonel Nicholas E. Reynolds, served as Marine Corps Officer in Charge of Field History from 1999 to 2004 and supervised Marine history operations during IRAQI FREEDOM. His work has benefited from the fact that this campaign was one of the best documented in history, particularly on the Marine side; the Corps had embedded numerous historians and "lessons learned" analysts at every level in the MEF. As hostilities wound down, a "kind of historical wolf pack" was deployed to conduct a week's worth of interviews with Marines from the MEF commander on down. Add to these materials journalists' accounts, "mil-blogs," and participant memoirs, and one is left with an unequaled documentary record from which to draw.
The book naturally focuses on the relationship between campaign planning and execution, and one can see from the beginning in Afghanistan that the most important elements in the process are relationships, communication, and trust. Reynolds highlights the importance of human factors in command; even though technology makes it possible for a commander to lead "virtually" from a distant networked headquarters, warfare is still a human undertaking, and the personal touch is important. Personalities play a central role. MEF commander Lieutenant General James T. Conway is as ubiquitous throughout the book as he was in the theater, leading his men from the front to the extent practicable. "Almost like a commander in the U.S. Civil War," Reynolds writes, "he wanted to see, and be seen by, his Marines before the battle." Brigadier General James N. Mattis, 1st Marine Division commander, followed this example as well, and "in search of a purer form of war fighting, set off on the battlefield with a tiny retinue and a cell phone." By staying close to the front and interacting personally with their field officers, the generals were better able to adapt to the fluidity of the battle space. This ties into another theme developed throughout the book, namely that "the plan itself was nothing but the planning was everything." That is, planning processes that encumber themselves with too much detail at the front end waste time by emphasizing form over function. A good plan is one that allows the war fighter to prepare to adapt as conditions on the ground inevitably change. If good processes are in place, it does not matter whether the plan is complete to the last bullet, bean, and Band-Aid.
The evolution of the planned air phase of the offensive is one example. The original plan followed the Operation DESERT STORM model, with a month-long aerial preparation to induce "shock and awe" among the Iraqis. The long duration of the planned air campaign was of special concern to the MEF because it affected how the Marine air wing could be utilized--if the air and ground campaigns were asynchronous, as was originally planned, it would be more difficult to commit airframes to ground-support missions. But as the start of the war neared, the air campaign was shortened, first to around two weeks, then to five days, and ultimately to a planned fifteen hours. Ironically, the attempted decapitation strike on the Iraqi leadership on the night of 19-20 March forced the ground phase into action prematurely to secure the southern oil fields, and the air "preparation" followed a day later. This had the benefit of achieving a measure of surprise on the Iraqi ground forces, who had expected to face a period of aerial bombing before fighting on the ground, and resulted in a completely synchronous battle space for the Marine air-ground elements, which was what the Marine commanders had wanted from the beginning.
James S. Robbins is a professor of international relations at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C., and a senior fellow in National Security Affairs at the American Foreign Policy Council. Dr. Robbins received his PhD in international relations from the Fletcher School of Diplomacy. His research interests include terrorism and national security strategy, political theory, and military history. He is a widely published author in the national security field and a contributing editor for National Review Online. His work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Times, as well as other publications. Dr. Robbins is a frequent commentator on international television and radio including the BBC, Voice of America, FNC, MSNBC, CNBC, and CNN/FN. He is the author of Last in Their Class: Custer, Pickett, and the Goats of West Point (Encounter Books, 2006).
The ground campaign plan itself underwent significant revisions as the battle unfolded. It was originally planned for 125 days, which overestimated the resistance potential of the regime. Saddam Hussein had no well-thought-out defensive plan, no evident strategic concept. Thus as Iraqi forces collapsed before them, the Marines had to adapt to the greatly accelerated timeline. Likewise, coalition forces found that the planned-for opposition from elite Republican Guard and Special Republican Guard units was not as deadly as that from Fedayeen Saddam and other irregular forces, particularly in built-up areas. These fighters--General Mattis called them "as worthless an example of men as we've ever fought"--lacked the firepower to engage decisively, but as was shown in battles such as An Nasiriyah, they were flexible, opportunistic, and oblivious of the laws of war, and they could do heavy damage to isolated groups of Marines.
At An Nasiriyah--which the author describes as "an uninviting Third World 'sprawl of slums and industrial compounds,' with two- to-three-story concrete buildings set on a grind of bad roads and alleyways, many strewn with garbage and raw sewage"--the narrative dips into the tactical level to give a sense of the battlefield environment, though the focus of the book is on the operational level. There is a gripping account of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines being engaged by A-10s that had mistaken them for Iraqis. There are illustrative tactical anecdotes scattered throughout, such as the account of First Lieutenant Brian R. Chontosh, whose combined anti-armor team platoon was caught in an ambush on the highway to Baghdad. Lieutenant Chontosh directed his driver through a gap in the berm by the side of the road directly into the enemy positions, then dismounted and personally engaged the enemy with a succession of weapons (M-16, 9mm pistol, AK-47, RPG), ending the ambush with a burst of sudden violence and physical bravery. Chontosh was awarded the Navy Cross.
Baghdad represented another planning evolution. Most planners believed that Saddam would make his stand in the capital and that Baghdad would be the scene of punishing urban warfare. The Marines faced some tough fighting along the approaches to the city from irregular troops and foreign fighters. Originally, Baghdad was assigned wholly to Army V Corps, to avoid boundary conflicts between two corps-level elements. The MEF was assigned cordoning and support responsibilities, though the land component commander, Lieutenant General David D. McKiernan, had felt that should circumstances arise in which the MEF would be more directly involved, the natural split would be the Tigris River. When it became clear by 3 April that the regime was "going down fast, going down final," the Marines were assigned half the city and shifted plans several times in a few days from cordoning to conducting raids, and then to moving decisively into the city center, where they were greeted by enthusiastic crowds of Iraqis.
"Phase IV" planning, which is discussed throughout the book, is particularly noteworthy given that it has yet to terminate. Reynolds notes early in the narrative, "there was very little guidance from higher headquarters on Phase IV, not even a basic policy decree." Marine planners tried to get ahead of the question even without guidance, knowing that they would have to handle at least some Phase IV duties. Questions sent to higher authorities on basic planning guidelines--whether the Iraqi electrical grid, the economy, or the human infrastructure (e.g., the bureaucracy and police) would be intact--were met with "hazy assumptions" or no answers at all. As it turned out, the men on the ground adapted to the situations as they encountered them, and they generally did well. Stopgap solutions provided the basics for the Iraqis and kept order, at least for a few months after the brief initial "looting" phase. The author notes well the significance of the "surprise move" by the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, who on 23 May 2003 disbanded the Iraqi army and, perhaps more significantly, canceled their pensions. The "predictable result" of this short-sighted move was to destabilize the country and give birth to the insurgency, but the long-term effects go beyond the scope of the work under review.
The author periodically discusses the use of contemporary networked planning tools and makes some good observations on the "near obsession" with PowerPoint in the military. Some such briefings are the result of the distillation of hours of staff work, carefully reduced to a few key concepts, artfully constructed and carefully worded to fit on a slide. However, after being sent up the chain a few levels, other hands (not necessarily commanders) might begin editing, changing, rewording, or rearranging slides based on personal preferences or random inputs, without the benefit of the depth of knowledge that was behind the original briefing. "The result could be a course of action that looked good on a PowerPoint slide but had not been thoroughly staffed," Reynolds writes. "That part of the plan would be 'one PowerPoint brief' deep, and would either collapse of its own weight or have to be rescued by planners scrambling to do the staff work to back up the change." The Marines generally resisted putting too much detail into early planning, since the plans were certain to change later on. In addition, their experience in Afghanistan taught them that large planning staffs and detailed plans hundreds of pages long were unnecessary, even counterproductive. It was better to rely on "common sense, good liaison officers, and 'hand con'" (i.e., relationships based on a handshake). Reynolds also gives a favorable account of the British planning system, which is highly informal while still professional and abjures PowerPoint completely.
Sometimes higher commands received too much information, from official channels and otherwise. It was "literally impossible to get away from TV images of the war." Media accounts of actions on the battlefield would occasionally have a negative impact on information management; press reports were generally seen at higher headquarters more quickly than official reports, and in some cases when the situation was hot, headquarters would be pressing down the chain to get more information right away. This tended to make the information jam even worse; as one staff officer observed memorably, "If you want information bad, you will get bad information." Reynolds also occasionally mentions the negative role of pundits, "the experts on television with their nonstop stream of commentary and free advice, usually from thousands of miles away. This stands in contrast to the attitude toward the embedded reporters, who were held in high repute by the men on the ground and were generally seen as providing accurate reportage.
Reynolds's tone is sometimes colloquial, which keeps the book accessible, especially given the subject matter. The book is inevitably acronym heavy, so it helps if the reader is comfortable in that environment. A useful glossary is provided. The author notes that the reader who had a hard time keeping track of the specialized terminology would not be alone: "In this war, there was an often-confusing mix of civilian and military acronyms whose meanings were not entirely clear to everyone." One shortcoming is the lack of adequate maps; the few that are included are reference maps that do not show force dispositions, plans, or movements. That being said, Basrah, Baghdad, and Beyond is an excellent book for officers or other professionals seeking to improve their understanding of contemporary operational-level war fighting and could profitably be studied at intermediate-level professional military education schools for seminars on operational art. There is clearly much more to be written about this campaign, but this book provides a good framework to launch the process.
Robbins, James S.
Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway's
Secret Adventures, 1935-1961
Publishers Weekly.
264.2 (Jan. 9, 2017): p59.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway's Secret Adventures, 1935-1961
Nicholas Reynolds. Morrow, $27.99 (336p)
ISBN 978-0-06-244013-6
This thoroughly researched exploration of Hemingway's military adventurism fails to deliver a convincing conclusion.
Reynolds gamely connects the author's interactions with Soviet operatives in the Spanish Civil War to his fears of
persecution during the post-WWII American Red Scare. He also documents Hemingway's contact with the NKVD
Soviet spy agency, antisubmarine patrol efforts in his fishing boat in Cuban waters, and creation of an amateur
counterintelligence operation in Havana in 1942, as interesting sidelines to his creative life. But the author, a military
historian, rarely accounts for the role Hemingway's tremendous ego played as a motivating force. Hemingway's
activities in 1944 post-invasion France did assist in Paris's liberation, but also prompted a U.S. Army investigation for
violating noncombatant status. The book is filled with admissions that "no one is likely to ever know" the extent of
Hemingway's involvement with the Soviets and overly puffed-up martial language, such as describing combat coverage
as "ridfing] to the sound of the guns." In addressing Hemingway's later years, Reynolds notes that "fantasy and reality
mixed in Hemingway's thoughts and politics," but doesn't adequately address how depression, narcissism, and celebrity
treatment may have affected the writer's conduct. In concluding that Hemingway was "a gifted but overconfident
amateur" in politics and espionage, Reynolds overstates the toll those pursuits took on the writer. (Mar.)
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway's Secret Adventures, 1935-1961." Publishers Weekly, 9 Jan. 2017, p.
59. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA477339345&it=r&asid=1f94db042a4882ccdd09710a6442787d.
Accessed 1 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A477339345
10/1/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1506881142068 2/3
Reynolds, Nicholas: WRITER, SAILOR,
SOLDIER, SPY
Kirkus Reviews.
(Dec. 15, 2016):
COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Reynolds, Nicholas WRITER, SAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY Morrow/HarperCollins (Adult Nonfiction) $27.99 3, 14
ISBN: 978-0-06-244013-6
A military historian uncovers evidence of Ernest Hemingway's dabbling in espionage. While working on an exhibition
at the CIA Museum, retired Marine Corps and CIA officer Reynolds (U.S. Marines in Iraq, 2003: Basrah, Baghdad and
Beyond, 2016) discovered "tantalizing traces" of Hemingway's involvement in the Office of Strategic Services and
Russia's NKVD, the precursor of the KGB. Beginning with that tenuous evidence, the author has assembled fragments
from FBI and NKVD files, sometimes more suggestive than definitive, to create this mostly engrossing story of
Hemingway's disillusionment with American politics, his sympathy with communism, and his attraction to adventure
and subversion. Two events changed Hemingway's political perspective: a devastating hurricane in the Florida Keys in
1935, when the government failed to evacuate stranded World War I veterans, "who died by the hundreds"; and the
refusal of the U.S. to support the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. Both made him "passionately pro-Republican
and antifascist" and therefore a likely recruit for the NKVD. He seems not to have engaged in much actual spying
either for the Soviets or, later, the Americans, to whom he also ferried information. During a trip to China with his wife,
Martha Gellhorn, he reported to Washington about "the friction...between the Nationalists and the communists,"
information that did not come from secret meetings or stolen papers. In 1942, living in Cuba, he headed what he called
the "Crook Factory," a motley collection of friends who reported to the American ambassador about any odd behavior
among German or Spanish businessmen on the island. Like most of his spying activities, this one was short-lived. In his
later years, Hemingway became obsessed with the idea that he was under FBI surveillance, and the author speculates
that this delusion "deepened his depression and made his final illness worse." Although Reynolds is forced to guess
about much of Hemingway's secret life as a spy, his conclusions seem consistent with the well-known portrait of the
novelist striving to prove his manliness and power.
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"Reynolds, Nicholas: WRITER, SAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Dec. 2016. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA473652367&it=r&asid=cd179035919853cf07c7804752528a18.
Accessed 1 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A473652367
10/1/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1506881142068 3/3
Basrah, Baghdad, and beyond; the U.S. Marine
Corps in the second Iraq War
Reference & Research Book News.
20.4 (Nov. 2005):
COPYRIGHT 2005 Ringgold, Inc.
http://www.ringgold.com/
Full Text:
1591147174
Basrah, Baghdad, and beyond; the U.S. Marine Corps in the second Iraq War.
Reynolds, Nicholas E.
Naval Institute Press
2005
276 pages
$32.95
Hardcover
DS79
Reynolds (history, US Naval War College) examines Operation Iraqi Freedom of 2001-2003 as a Marine and a skilled
historian with extraordinary access to primary resource material and significant participants in-country as well as out.
Although focused primarily on Americans' battles in the main theater in Iraq, Reynolds describes the events leading up
to the opening gambit as well as the fighting northward in Kurdistan and Mosul, the role of British forces, the
occupation of 2003, and the process of recording and memorizing the lessons learned. Reynolds also supplies a helpful
summary of the action, a chronology of events, and a troop list for March to November of 2003.
([c] 2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR)
Source Citation (MLA 8
th Edition)
"Basrah, Baghdad, and beyond; the U.S. Marine Corps in the second Iraq War." Reference & Research Book News,
Nov. 2005. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA138494738&it=r&asid=6e91a7564991e2c38484b74ad107d7ee.
Accessed 1 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A138494738
MAY 12 2017
SAVE
PRINT
Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy review: Nicholas Reynolds on the life of Hemingway
Steven Carroll
SHARE
SHARE ON FACEBOOK
SHARE ON TWITTER
LINK
http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/writer-sailor-soldier-spy-review-nicholas-reynolds-on-the-life-of-hemingway-20170510-gw1ap9.html
Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy. By Nicholas Reynolds
Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy. By Nicholas Reynolds Photo: Supplied
Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway's Secret Adventures, 1935/61
Nicholas Reynolds
William Morrow, $32.99
Writers go their own way, not beholden to ideologies of the day. Ernest Hemingway believed this and lived it: the publication of For Whom the Bell Tolls losing him many friends on the left because of its depiction of the Spanish Civil War. But this doesn't mean that he wasn't deeply political, as this study demonstrates. Nicholas Reynolds, ex-CIA, creates a file-cum-portrait of a man of dramatic parts. Hemingway was recruited by the Soviets in the 1940s (NKVD, later KGB) and also supplied information to OSS, later CIA. All to defeat Hitler. Just how valuable he was is uncertain. His exploits in France in 1944, it seems, were not all bravado (French resistance fighters he coordinated and went on life and death patrols with attested to his skills). But in the end, says Reynolds, he was a professional writer, an intrepid war correspondent and an amateur spy.
Book review: Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway’s Secret Adventures, by Nicholas Reynolds Was Ernest Hemingway really a spy? VIN ARTHEY Published: 10:00 Wednesday 26 April 2017 Share this article 0 HAVE YOUR SAY Was America’s Nobel laureate also a Soviet spy? asks Vin Arthey In the 250 pages of this story (the remaining 100 pages give sources, notes and outline the key players) CIA historian Nicholas Reynolds takes us through eight countries, three wars and a revolution. The pace is breathtaking, and that’s the effect Reynolds wants to achieve, because it is how Ernest Hemingway lived his life – certainly the last 26 years of his life, which are the span of this book. It begins in 1935, when Hemingway was already a famous author and enjoying being with his young family, writing and fishing in Key West, Florida, his adopted home. The deaths of many First World War veterans working on New Deal building projects on the Keys in the devastating hurricane that year affected him deeply. He turned against Roosevelt’s economic and social policies, and his passionate articles in journals such as the Daily Worker were noted in Moscow. Now focusing his writing on political journalism, within months he was filing reports and features from the civil war in Spain, and was embedded as a correspondent with the Soviet-supported International Brigades. He was invited to observe military training at a secret Soviet training camp and, according to Reynolds, in 1940 was deliberately targeted by the NKVD, the forerunner of the KGB, to spy for the USSR. It must be said that the evidence for this claim, although convincingly deployed, is circumstantial, and when describing the recruitment, Reynolds is careful to use terms like “probably”, “may”, “would likely” and “might have”. The source of the recruitment claims is Alexander Vassiliev, a former KGB officer who, when the Soviet Union collapsed, was tasked by his bosses to read old NKVD and KGB files and share his notes with Western historians. All well and good, but what neither we nor Nicholas Reynolds can do is check the original files. We do know that the sharing was a commercial arrangement between a KGB faction and a publishing group, that it did not raise as much money for the KGB pension fund as was intended, and that the KGB officers who devised the project were eventually sidelined. There is no real evidence to say, as Reynolds does, that Ernest Hemingway “signed on” with the NKVD, although there is evidence to suggest that Hemingway was a fellow traveller with the communists, and it is true that the alleged recruiter, Jacob Golos, did succeed in enlisting other Americans to spy for the Soviet Union. But this alleged treachery is only one theme of Reynolds’s book. There is apt reference to Hemingway’s novels and short stories throughout and the book is full of anecdotes and quips about his adventuring, drinking and womanising. Reynolds also reveals Hemingway’s practical contributions to the defeat of Nazism. In collaboration with the US Embassy in Havana, early in the Second World War, he set up a spy ring, “the Crook Factory”, from his home in Cuba. He also armed his 38-foot fishing boat, Pilar, with submachine guns, bazookas and hand grenades to attack any Nazi U-boats he and his crew might spot in the Caribbean. On the fields of battle, in Spain and in France and Belgium during the Second World War, Hemingway the war correspondent was often at the centre of military action, assisting and protecting soldiers who were under orders to protect him; senior officers sought out and enjoyed his company. Once the war was over, however, Hemingway’s problems multiplied. He suffered serious injuries in two plane crashes and was prey to a range of physical and mental illnesses. He was a supporter of Fidel Castro, but abandoned his Cuban home after President Kennedy’s botched CIA invasion. Typically, Hemingway chose a shotgun for his suicide in 1961. Readers of this book will be aware that his premature death “probably” prevented a political past catching up with him. Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway’s Secret Adventures, by Nicholas Reynolds, is published by William Morrow, £20
Read more at: http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/culture/books/book-review-writer-sailor-soldier-spy-ernest-hemingway-s-secret-adventures-by-nicholas-reynolds-1-4423669