Charles Marsh's second wife Alice Glass was a long-time lover of future President Lyndon Johnson. Roald Dahl had an affair during the war with American Congressperson, playwright, and anti-communist crusader Claire Booth Luce. Sir William Stephenson, head of "British Security Coordination" in the United Stated during World War II, was a Canadian by birth. I also picked up some interest historical gossip/trivia/factoids that I hadn't known before.
I gained a lot of insight into Wallace in this book, something I didn't expect going into it. The young Dahl socialized often with Wallace, and they shared a very close mutual friend in the wealthy generous and ambitious Texas newspaper magnate Charles Marsh. Dahl was never part of FDR's inner circle, but he was an occasional guest at Hyde Park, and kept particularly close tabs on the President's relationship with his peculiar and independent Vice President Henry Wallace. What I did like from the book was the unexpected insight it provides into some of the internal politics of FDR's administration between Pearl Harbor and the elections of November 1944, in which Roosevelt won a remarkable fourth term.
There's something rather limiting about the scope of the book: the really genuinely important British spies in Washington DC during World War II were working for the Soviets! As author Conant admits, "A lot of what passed for espionage in those day could be described as enterprising reporting." Interesting up to a point, but not exactly page-turning material. Moreover, the premise of "The Irregulars" sounds really interesting: Roald Dahl and a group of other young talented "dashing" British spies in wartime Washington DC! Moreover, one of those other young talented "dashing" British spies was Ian Fleming! But Dahl and Fleming had relatively little to do with one another.Īnd then you realize that the main focus of Dahl's "espionage" work involved collecting ordinary daily stories about the Vice-President, and also doing research on the post-war relationship of Britain and the United States regarding commercial international air travel.
Roald Dahl wrote the two favorite books of my childhood: "James and the Giant Peach" and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." So there's a possible inherent interest in learning more about the early career of a creative writer. There were somewhat more parts of this books of which I would say "I liked it" than of which I would say "it was okay." Two and a half stars seems about right.
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