Quotes from Ben Macintyre

The defining feature of this spy would be his falsity. He was a pure figment of imagination, a weapon in war far removed from the traditional battle of bombs and bullets.

Like all truly selfish people, Kliemann believed the minutiae of his life must be fascinating to all.

Secrets are the currency of intelligence work, and among professional spies a little calculated indiscretion raises the exchange rate.

As the real army plowed through the waves toward Normandy, two more fake convoys were scientifically simulated heading for the Seine and Boulogne by dropping from planes a blizzard of tinfoil, code-named "Window," which would show up on German radar as two huge flotillas approaching the French coast.

As the Battle of Normandy raged, the Germans held fast to the illusion, so carefully planted and now so meticulously sustained, that a great American army under Patton was preparing to pounce and the German forces in the Pas de Calais must remain in place to repel it.

Britain's counterespionage officers saw signs of treachery in everything Ivor Montagu did: they saw it in his friends, his appearance, his opinions, and his behavior. But above all, they saw it in his passionate, and dubious, love of table tennis.

One of the hazards of having a good idea is that intelligent people tend to realize it is a good idea and seek to play a part.

increased legibility of his handwriting only serves to reveal the inadequacy of his ability to spell

Of all the strands in Operation Fortitude, none was quite so bizarre, so wholly unlikely, as the great pigeon double cross, the first and only avian deception scheme ever attempted.

One night, the Carlton Club was hit by a bomb. The members of the surrounding clubs, in pajamas and slippers, formed long lines to save the library from the flames, passing books from hand to hand and discussing the merits of each as they passed. Such

Deception is a sort of seduction. In love and war, adultery and espionage, deceit can only succeed if the deceived party is willing, in some way, to be deceived.

'The Man Who Never Was,' by Ewen Montagu, remains the best book about wartime espionage written by an active participant - incomplete, and dry in parts, it nonetheless summons up the ingenuity and sheer eccentricity of those who played this strange and dangerous game.

The broad outlines of the Double Cross deception have been known since 1972, when Sir John Masterman, the former chairman of the double agent committee, controversially published his account of the operation in defiance of official secrecy.

I love telling stories, and am almost entirely unable to keep a secret.

I think I would have been a hopeless spy. I love telling stories and am almost entirely unable to keep a secret.