Bigot

.. . I REVIEWS 433 BIGOT1 ERNEST SIRLUCK The object of Mr. Ingersoll'~ book is abundantly clear: it is to persuade Americans of the mortal danger of supporting British foreign policy. "During the war," he writes (the whole paragraph is in italics), ",the British attempted to manipulate our military policy so that we would fight the war the way they wanted it fought-which was an anti-Russian way. They did not succeed~ Now, with equal determination, they are attempting to manipulate American foreign policy to link our future irretrievably with theirs. If they succeed, and if there is a third world war, we will surely fight it for them-against the Russians" (p. 356). But altho~gh Mr. Ingersoll's object can be readily defined, it cannot profitably be discussed, for it is one of the chief curiosities of this very curious book that its main tenet is supported not by direct argument but ., wholly by implication. Mr. Ingersoll's method is to examine Britain's conduct of the war (more exactly, of Operation OvERLORD, the FranceGermany operation of 6 June 44 to 7 May 45), derive therefrom certain ~.conclusions about her intentions, and from these conclusions deduce_her current foreign policy. What does lend itself to review, therefore, is Mr. Ingersoll's examination_of Britain's conduct of the war. Here too Mr. Ingersoll is clear and unambiguous. .His view resolves itself into two propositions: :first, that Britain was determined to prevent the cross-Channel oper_ation and mount a Mediterranean-Balkan effort instead , because, while she recognized that the former would win the war more ''quickly and economically, she was determined to prevent Russian influence from penetrating the Balkans (pp. 3-83, especially 52 ff.); secondly; that when events and the headquarters to which Mr: Ingersoll was attached had made OvERLORD inevitable, Britain was determined to prevent it from taking the purely military route through Frankfurt and to direct it instead along the political (i.e., anti-Russian) route through Hamburg and Berlin, ac- ~epting the additional cost with composure, since the expenditure would be ' largely American (pp. 147-328, especially 184-228 and 285 ff.). If the reader wonders how such facts about the war as are generally known can be made to "support" these conclusions, his attention may be· drawn to Mr. Ingersoll's masterly skill in the use of half-truths. An example -()[the method may be illuminating. Mr. Ingersoll is C(O)ncerned to demonstrate that the British, whose Intelligence organization gave them a "monopoly '_' on information ·about the enemy, used this monopoly in repeated atte~pts to sabotage OvERLORD. He illustrates: 1 Top Secret. By RALPH INGERSOLL. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co. [Toronto: MacLeod]. 1946. Pp. ·373. ($3.75) . In military terminology "Bigot" indicates the highest grade of secrecy; in this sense it appears in Mr. Ingersoll's book and is applicable to a good deal of his subject-matter. Whether the' dictionary meaning of the word is applicable to Mr. Ingersoll the reader will determine for himself. I . 434 THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY One of the CossAc2 planpers' greatest contributions to military archives was a monster plan known as RANKIN, RANKIN was a plan for movement into Germany in the· event of sudden collapse. One month after the final decision to cross the Channel had been made in Washington, CossAc planners put on paper the statement-based,.of course, exclusively on British Intelligence-that so near was Germany's collaps~ that RANKIN should have priority over OvERLORD for their attention. (P. 72.) To discuss the assumptions behind this typical statement-the assumption that the British actually enjoyed a monopoly of information about the enemy (i.e., that the American organizations for air reconnaissance, eco- · nomic research, wireless interception, prisoner of war interrogation, undercover opera.tion.s, etc., were in fact useless), and the further assumption that although the clearing-house for this information was an Anglo-A~erican headquarters, the British were never~heless not only willing but able to falsify it-would be to deal with the controversial. But the statement itself purports to be factual. C_ ertain questions of fact may therefore be raised: (1) Why was a plan developed for...