Elizabeth McIntosh (1915–2015)
Autor/a de Sisterhood of Spies
Sobre l'autor
Nota de desambiguació:
(eng) This author published works under her two married names Elizabeth P. MacDonald and Elizabeth P. McIntosh.
Obres de Elizabeth McIntosh
The Role of Women in Intelligence 1 exemplars
Etiquetat
Coneixement comú
- Altres noms
- MacDonald, Elizabeth P. (1st marriage)
MacDonald, Betty
Peer, Elizabeth (birth)
Heppner, Elizabeth P. - Data de naixement
- 1915-03-15
- Data de defunció
- 2015-06-08
- Gènere
- female
- Nacionalitat
- USA
- Lloc de naixement
- Washington, D.C., USA
- Lloc de defunció
- Lake Ridge, Virginia, USA
- Llocs de residència
- Hawaii, USA (childhood)
New York, New York, USA - Educació
- University of Washington
- Professions
- journalist
memoirist
Spy - Organitzacions
- Office of Strategic Services
- Biografia breu
- Elizabeth "Betty" Peer MacDonald grew up in Hawaii. During World War II, she worked for the Morale Operations branch of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA, in Ceylon alongside Julia McWilliams, later Julia Child, and Paul Child. After the war, she had assignments with Voice of America and the State Department, and joined the CIA in 1958. She shared an apartment in New York for a time with Jane Foster, another of their OSS colleagues. She married as her second husband Lt. Col. Richard Heppner (d. 1958) and then Frederick B. McIntosh. She wrote her memoirs and other books about the role of women spies.
- Nota de desambiguació
- This author published works under her two married names Elizabeth P. MacDonald and Elizabeth P. McIntosh.
Membres
Converses
YA American boy find minoan ruins underwater in Turkey a Name that Book (febrer 2014)
Ressenyes
Sisterhood of Spies: The Women of the OSS de Elizabeth P. McIntosh
Along with famous names like Julia Child and Marlene Dietrich, readers will discover such intrepid agents as Amy "Cynthia" Thorpe, who seduced a Vichy official and stole naval codes from the French embassy; Virginia Hall, who earned a Distinguished Service Cross for her work with the French resistance running an underground railroad for downed fliers; and others who recruited double agents, pioneered propaganda and subversion techniques, and tracked the infamous Nazi commando Otto Skorzeny.
Despite the corny title and sometimes (not always!) corny writing (it was written in another era), this is a fascinating story of the beginning of the CIA, the OSS in WWII. And you will get a brief glimpse of Julia Child before Paul Child and before Paris. If you love spy tales and can find this gem, enjoy.
Elizabeth McIntosh, a journalist who saw Pearl Harbor bombed by the Japanese in World War II, was invited to help her country by joining the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) and was intrigued by the idea of becoming a spy. But that was not what the OSS wanted her for, they wanted her to become a member of the MO, aka Morale Operations. She was sent to spy school, but she was told to never, never to try to become a spy, she just wasn't cut out for it. When she started out in the Morale Operations office, she had no idea what they wanted her to do or how to accomplish it. Elizabeth takes the reader on a trip that is at times hilarious, heart stopping, and sobering. When she writes of the natural beauty that she finds, her prose becomes poetic.
Elizabeth is taught how to create subversive propaganda to demoralize the enemy and to incite the local population. She is then sent on to Delhi,then Calcutta and eventually Kumming, China. On the way she made friends, learned what its like to be one of the few women in a war zone (you get invited to lots of parties), became enchanted, intrigued and dismayed by foreign places, and devised ways to make things difficult for the Japanese with the propaganda she created. Elizabeth also learned to follow her own ideas and realized that she can even do better in this field than many men.
In this memoir the reader not only learns how the propaganda was created and dispersed, but how Elizabeth had to overcome many issues. She persuaded the British in New Delhi to let her use their printing press (by making outrageous promises she could never keep), create Japanese military orders that looked like they came from General Togo (with seemingly unobtainable rice paper, perfect calligraphy, the right chop), among many other problems. Many times she writes of these problems with a self-deprecating humor. Elizabeth described the many people who came through - going on to set up their own printing posts behind enemy lines and what they were able to accomplish. The pastor, a shy, quiet man, who set up his shop beneath a convent in Canton and drove the Japanese crazy with his sly, disruptive flyers and articles. She writes of the Japanese MO efforts and how the Allies counter them.
Most of the fifteen months that Elizabeth lives overseas, she is working in Kumming, a base of operations for Americans and specifically the OSS. The Chinese are not totally engaged in fighting the Japanese, as much as fighting each other. There are multiple factions - Nationalist, Communists, warlords, pirates, etc. The ordinary Chinese people are not nationalistic, just pragmatic. As Elizabeth learns its easier to appeal to their humor or greed, instead of their nationalism.
When the end of the war comes, the two A-bombs, she is deeply saddened, deeply affected. But the end does come, people are released from the Japanese internment camps (how those people had suffered) and at last the OSS operations can be stopped and its operators go home. But, however, not before the Chinese factions erupt into clashing with each other. She leaves knowing that civil war is on the way. Her trip home is a study in how not to travel in military transport. It has its humorous moments.
Ms. McIntosh believed deeply in her work with the OSS and believed that it had application in the post-war world. In this she was proved right with the formation of the CIA, in which she came to work years later.… (més)
Elizabeth is taught how to create subversive propaganda to demoralize the enemy and to incite the local population. She is then sent on to Delhi,then Calcutta and eventually Kumming, China. On the way she made friends, learned what its like to be one of the few women in a war zone (you get invited to lots of parties), became enchanted, intrigued and dismayed by foreign places, and devised ways to make things difficult for the Japanese with the propaganda she created. Elizabeth also learned to follow her own ideas and realized that she can even do better in this field than many men.
In this memoir the reader not only learns how the propaganda was created and dispersed, but how Elizabeth had to overcome many issues. She persuaded the British in New Delhi to let her use their printing press (by making outrageous promises she could never keep), create Japanese military orders that looked like they came from General Togo (with seemingly unobtainable rice paper, perfect calligraphy, the right chop), among many other problems. Many times she writes of these problems with a self-deprecating humor. Elizabeth described the many people who came through - going on to set up their own printing posts behind enemy lines and what they were able to accomplish. The pastor, a shy, quiet man, who set up his shop beneath a convent in Canton and drove the Japanese crazy with his sly, disruptive flyers and articles. She writes of the Japanese MO efforts and how the Allies counter them.
Most of the fifteen months that Elizabeth lives overseas, she is working in Kumming, a base of operations for Americans and specifically the OSS. The Chinese are not totally engaged in fighting the Japanese, as much as fighting each other. There are multiple factions - Nationalist, Communists, warlords, pirates, etc. The ordinary Chinese people are not nationalistic, just pragmatic. As Elizabeth learns its easier to appeal to their humor or greed, instead of their nationalism.
When the end of the war comes, the two A-bombs, she is deeply saddened, deeply affected. But the end does come, people are released from the Japanese internment camps (how those people had suffered) and at last the OSS operations can be stopped and its operators go home. But, however, not before the Chinese factions erupt into clashing with each other. She leaves knowing that civil war is on the way. Her trip home is a study in how not to travel in military transport. It has its humorous moments.
Ms. McIntosh believed deeply in her work with the OSS and believed that it had application in the post-war world. In this she was proved right with the formation of the CIA, in which she came to work years later.… (més)
This book gives amazing empowerment to women. The beginning stages of OSS depended largely on a newer strategy than previously held with spying. Women came from all walks of life and took charge of the new opportunities to make a difference. Each woman noted in this book gave everything they had willingly and took risks unimaginable to the women of the era. From simple coding and support in the offices of a newly forming branch of warfare to the brave and life endangering risks of spying in enemy camps and infilterating the most dangerous of areas for information and rescue. They took charge of new challenges and made a permanent and lasting impression for women world wide to follow. It gives me great motivation and encouragement to get through days I think are tough, even knowing that I haven't even begun to be challenged as they were. Very good book for research of the special ops of WWII.… (més)
Llistes
Premis
Potser també t'agrada
Estadístiques
- Obres
- 6
- Membres
- 339
- Popularitat
- #70,285
- Valoració
- 3.6
- Ressenyes
- 5
- ISBN
- 6