Tim Spicer, many congratulations on the new book. What sort of man was Wilfred ‘Biffy’ Dunderdale?
Suave, sophisticated, multi-lingual, highly intelligent, charming but with a core of steel.
You mention he was suave and sophisticated but also ruthless. He himself mentioned his intelligence career as ‘40 years of licensed thuggery’. Was he comfortable at the more thug-end of espionage work?
Biffy was first and foremost an intelligence officer, an agent recruiter and a network runner. However he was not averse to the harder end of intelligence work. He was awarded his MBE for putting down a mutiny on a Imperial Russian submarine. There are also reports of him undertaking offensive operations against Bolshevik agents “in which some blood was shed”.
His early life in Odessa would seem to be the most perfect location for on the job training. What was the port city like in the first quarter of the 20th century?
Odessa “a fabled land of gold, abundance and sin”. A special place European, cosmopolitan and modern, the gateway to southern Russia. A busy port city, thousands of expatriate foreigners – businessmen, merchant sailors, soldiers as well as a well developed criminal fraternity. A population of 400,000 Russians, Ukrainians, Tatars, Cossacks, British, Greeks, Italians, Americans and Georgians. A typical Odessan was described as “shrewd, a maneuverer and a man of ingenuity”. Biffy learnt this quickly.
Biffy was in Constantinople for downfall of the Ottoman Empire. What part did he play?
Constantinople was Biffy’s first SIS posting. He helped the military plan the quiet departure of the Sultan and the repatriation of British ladies from the Sultan’s Harem without fuss and adverse publicity. This was helped by the generous application of gold sovereign.
We’re at the dawn of a new age of cryptography in the intelligence services, and Biffy seems to embrace the technology. How important was Biffy in the British understanding of Cryptanalyst Services?
Biffy understood the value of signals intelligence in support of human intelligence operations, from the earliest of days of his career. He encouraged and used technical operations against the Bolsheviks in the Crimea and later in Istanbul where he first encountered the French Intelligence Officer Gustav Bertrand. Later, in Paris Biffy and Bertrand tried to persuade their respective governments to pay attention to Polish efforts to crack the German ENIGMA machine. Eventually sense prevailed and Biffy and Bertrand obtained a Polish copy of ENIGMA. Biffy brought this to Britain 16 days before the outbreak of WWII. Thus ensuring Bletchley Park were ahead of the game.
What was his relationship with Josephine Baker, the singer and French secret agent during World War Two?
Biffy knew Josephine Baker in Paris before the war. Biffy was a regular at her shows and certainly knew that she had been recruited by the Deuxième Bureau as an agent. After the chaos of 1940 Biffy helped the French re-establish contact with her which led to her continuing work in support of the French Intelligence Services.
Inevitably his friendship with Ian Fleming seems interesting. There are many supposed inspirations for James Bond – is the case for Biffy a strong one?
Fleming collected real life information and was an astute observer of his fellow human beings. Bond is a pastiche of many people that Fleming knew of which Biffy is one. Biffy’s most prominent part in the Bond jigsaw is in “From Russian with Love”, which Biffy helped Fleming to write. There are many Biffy “markers” in the story – a train journey to bring back the latest encoding machine to London, a Russian defector, direct reference to Biffy’s decorations, and to his background.
What was Biffy’s (role?) in SIS?
He rose through the ranks from the station in Constantinople, to Head of Station in Paris. In 1940 he was running the section of SIS which dealt with Vichy, his own independent networks in France, liaison with Polish Intelligence and OSS. After the war, he was a senior and well respected officer, given a pretty free hand as “Controller Special Liaison”. He survived the shake-up of SIS in the fifties and retired after a full career in 1959.
What are you working on next?
The biography of Charles Gossage-Grey, a friend of Biffy’s in Paris. An American who worked for SIS from the late 1930’s to 1941. He then joined OSS and subsequently the CIA. His early life is also interesting. He was a reporter for the Chicago Tribune reporting on the Mexican American war. In World War I he was a fighter ace flying for the French Air Force in the La Fayette Squadron.
Tim Spicer is a historian and the author of A Suspicion of Spies: Risk, Secrets and Shadows – the Biography of Wilfred ‘Biffy’ Dunderdale.
