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CLASSIC: Roald Dahl: Children's Author and Secret Agent · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Saturday. Ridiculous Historians. Uh, we you know.
0:04
Speaker 1: Let's say there's Max, I'm Ben, this is Nol.
0:08
Speaker 2: Let's let's talk with you, Nol Tool, You're Nol, You're
0:12
Speaker 2: the this, I'm the Ben. You're the nom. I'm Nol. No,
0:16
Speaker 2: you're Max. We're not secret agents, guys. We don't have
0:19
Speaker 2: to have like weird nicknames or like, you know, alternate identities.
0:24
Speaker 2: Unlike Roald Dall, who was not only a cracker jack
0:27
Speaker 2: children's writer with some potentially problematic material that didn't age
0:30
Speaker 2: super well. But it is what it is, and I
0:32
Speaker 2: don't think it should be edited. I'm gonna die on
0:34
Speaker 2: that hill. We're gonna, well, don't die in the hill.
0:37
Speaker 2: I need you for the shows. Okay, I'll stick around,
0:39
Speaker 2: but you no, seriously, dude. It turns out that Roll
0:42
Speaker 2: Dall was friends with Ian Fleming, who may or may
0:48
Speaker 2: not have gotten the idea for the character of James
0:51
Speaker 2: Bond from Double O seven from Roll Dall, who was
0:54
Speaker 2: like an insane ace fighter pilot World War two era spy.
0:59
Speaker 2: This guy did some bonker stuff and I just I
1:03
Speaker 2: love this episode. Now. This was like such a eye
1:05
Speaker 2: opener for me for like a beloved childhood you know,
1:09
Speaker 2: favorite author of mine. I was like, whoa, this guy
1:11
Speaker 2: was serious. He definitely murdered some folks. It's weird. I
1:15
Speaker 2: don't know.
1:16
Speaker 1: I am pretty confident we don't get to it in
1:19
Speaker 1: this classic episode, but I did, I tell you no.
1:23
Speaker 1: I study rolled all twice in very different circumstances. First,
1:28
Speaker 1: I study, I study in literature when I was pursuing that,
1:34
Speaker 1: and then also he comes up a lot in international
1:38
Speaker 1: affairs because it was kind of stuff.
1:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, in this kind of stuff.
1:43
Speaker 1: Did you guys see the most recent derivation of his
1:48
Speaker 1: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was it Wonka?
1:51
Speaker 2: They just call it Wonka? Yeah, I mean, I don't
1:53
Speaker 2: think it's based on anything that he actually wrote. It's
1:56
Speaker 2: just sort of an extended Wonka universe. But I thought
1:58
Speaker 2: it was delightful because it's by the people that made
2:02
Speaker 2: Paddington and Paddington Two, which are damn near perfect movies too,
2:07
Speaker 2: even better than one. If you haven't seen it, do
2:08
Speaker 2: yourself a favor. But there are some really sweet moments
2:11
Speaker 2: in Wonka, and I think Timothy Shalamalar did a fine job.
2:15
Speaker 2: Is that the correct pronunciation?
2:18
Speaker 1: You heard?
2:18
Speaker 2: Little? So you guys want to hear something funny? No always, okay,
2:25
Speaker 2: is my birthday my birth My birthday has already happened.
2:31
Speaker 2: Your birthday's already happened. Happy birthday. Oh my gosh.
2:34
Speaker 1: Everybody has to get Max something for his birthday. We
2:37
Speaker 1: already got him a Lionel train set. Uh spoilers, So
2:42
Speaker 1: tune in, folks, as Noel and Max and I explore
2:46
Speaker 1: the amazing story of Rule Dohl, Children's author and secret agent. Indeed,
2:54
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. George didn't say
3:22
Speaker 1: a word. He felt quite trimbly. He knew something tremendous
3:25
Speaker 1: had taken place that morning. For a few brief moments
3:29
Speaker 1: he had touched with the very tips of his fingers
3:31
Speaker 1: the edge of a magic world. That's from George's Marvelous
3:35
Speaker 1: Medicine by the author Roald Doll. Hi, my name is Ben, my.
3:40
Speaker 2: Name is Nol And what a weaver of dreams that
3:44
Speaker 2: Roald Dall was.
3:45
Speaker 1: Yes, if you are like millions of children in the
3:49
Speaker 1: United States, the UK and beyond, then you grew up
3:53
Speaker 1: reading books by Roald Dahl, stuff like not just George's
3:57
Speaker 1: Marvelous Medicine, but Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
3:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, George is a deep cut for me. I've never
4:02
Speaker 2: read that. One. My favorites growing up were Matilda The
4:05
Speaker 2: Chocolate Factory books, including the Great Glass Elevator, which people
4:09
Speaker 2: kind of seem to forget about. They go, they go
4:11
Speaker 2: up into space and there's their space aliens and stuff.
4:13
Speaker 2: The Witches was super creepy and and the movie got
4:16
Speaker 2: The Witch's movie really freaked me out. It's fantastic. They
4:19
Speaker 2: pull their faces off and so they all have wigs
4:22
Speaker 2: and it's a mouse. No, it's fun. It's fun movie,
4:25
Speaker 2: but definitely back when they made movies for kids that
4:30
Speaker 2: gave kids nightmares. Yeah. Yeah.
4:33
Speaker 1: And in the course of research for today's episode, one
4:37
Speaker 1: of the things I discovered is that there's this danger
4:42
Speaker 1: in young adult fiction without all of the trappings of
4:47
Speaker 1: banality you find in so much grown up adult, full
4:51
Speaker 1: adult fiction, you know, and we see stuff that's so
4:54
Speaker 1: much more honest, visceral and candidly frightening. Roald Dahl wrote
4:59
Speaker 1: some pretty dark stuff, and it's easy I think for
5:04
Speaker 1: maybe someone who just saw the newest adaptation of Charlie
5:08
Speaker 1: and the Chocolate Factory, right, I think it's easy for
5:10
Speaker 1: them to say, oh, this is just sort of kooky,
5:13
Speaker 1: but as most of us know, the original one is frightening, especially.
5:20
Speaker 2: There's no earthly way of knowing. In fact, Marilyn Manson
5:25
Speaker 2: sort of did a redo of that on one of
5:28
Speaker 2: his early records, showing how it kind of really worked
5:32
Speaker 2: on that absurdly creepy, dark level. But yeah, Dall, I
5:37
Speaker 2: kind of look at him as almost like a Dickens
5:40
Speaker 2: type figure in terms of the characters and the absurdity
5:43
Speaker 2: and some of the satire that he did. But it
5:45
Speaker 2: was in fact for kids. And today we have, you know,
5:48
Speaker 2: this genre of young adult fiction that tries to be
5:52
Speaker 2: a little bit more dark and edgy. But these books
5:56
Speaker 2: were written for children.
5:58
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, this isn't stuff like you know. Edward Gorey,
6:02
Speaker 1: for instance, has a child's book formats, but is pretty
6:07
Speaker 1: much clearly for adults. Roal Dall was writing for children,
6:13
Speaker 1: but he was doing much much more than that. And
6:17
Speaker 1: the true life story of Roald Dall is as interesting
6:22
Speaker 1: and strange, if not more interesting and strange, than some
6:25
Speaker 1: of the fictional stories he wrote, because it turned out
6:29
Speaker 1: that he lived during one of the most important, dangerous, magnificent,
6:37
Speaker 1: storied times in modern history.
6:40
Speaker 2: Absolutely right in the thick of World War Two, and
6:44
Speaker 2: Dahl himself even described the mission of Churchill and the
6:48
Speaker 2: British government and the Royal Air Force which he was
6:51
Speaker 2: a part of, as saving the world. I mean, he
6:54
Speaker 2: really looked at it that way, and that's not too
6:56
Speaker 2: far from the truth. And at the time, the United
7:00
Speaker 2: States was not about that war. We were in a
7:04
Speaker 2: very isolationist period. Guys like Charles Lindbergh really pushed for
7:09
Speaker 2: this America First ideology. MW does that sound familiar, But yeah,
7:14
Speaker 2: it was a big deal to get the United States
7:17
Speaker 2: on board the war effort to help fight the Nazis
7:21
Speaker 2: in what Doll himself described as a battle against like
7:24
Speaker 2: good and evil in the life or death situation that
7:27
Speaker 2: could literally result in the end of the world as
7:30
Speaker 2: it was known at that time.
7:33
Speaker 1: And so in today's episode, we're exploring one of the
7:38
Speaker 1: most fascinating things about Rule Doll that you might not know,
7:41
Speaker 1: which is that he was not just a fight race.
7:44
Speaker 1: He was not just a military man. He was not
7:46
Speaker 1: just a fantastically prolific children's author.
7:49
Speaker 2: He was a spy. Not only a spy like a superspy,
7:54
Speaker 2: like the spy totally.
7:56
Speaker 1: Yes, So let's give just a little bit of his
7:59
Speaker 1: background to get to the juicy once top secret stuff.
8:04
Speaker 1: Oh and by the way, shout out to our super
8:07
Speaker 1: producer for today, Ramsey Yunt. Thanks for coming, Ramsey.
8:11
Speaker 2: Yeah much appreciate it, saving the day, saving the day,
8:14
Speaker 2: saving the show. So Casey is out with the flu
8:16
Speaker 2: and we wish him a quick convalescence. Yes, yes, so.
8:21
Speaker 1: Please feel free to write to Ramsey and Casey as
8:24
Speaker 1: well as us if you would like.
8:25
Speaker 2: Roll Doll though, roll Dall, here's the thing.
8:28
Speaker 1: Born in September of nineteen sixteen and he lived until
8:35
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety so he.
8:37
Speaker 2: Had a full life.
8:38
Speaker 1: And he's one of those guys know that when I
8:42
Speaker 1: read the biography or something, I feel like I just
8:46
Speaker 1: haven't done anything. I'm like, what a jerk, I know, right,
8:50
Speaker 1: It's like, hey, I read, I read a lot of books,
8:53
Speaker 1: I guess, but I haven't helped engineer clandestine geopolitics, right,
9:00
Speaker 1: I haven't shot people out of the sky yet.
9:03
Speaker 2: So.
9:04
Speaker 1: Rould was born in Wales of Norwegian extract. His parents
9:09
Speaker 1: were both from Norway, and he was named after the
9:15
Speaker 1: Norwegian explorer that we've mentioned in previous episodes here Roald Amundson,
9:21
Speaker 1: So that's roa Ld. Actually his first language was Norwegian,
9:27
Speaker 1: which was startling to think of, you know. And like
9:31
Speaker 1: many kids, he went to a boarding school and some
9:34
Speaker 1: of the some of the experiences he had there definitely
9:39
Speaker 1: informed the way he approaches authority figures in his books.
9:42
Speaker 2: Oh for sure. And there's actually a book he wrote,
9:44
Speaker 2: i think his only work of nonfiction as in his
9:47
Speaker 2: later career, called Boy, where he talks about growing up
9:50
Speaker 2: and he talks about some really horrible experiences he had
9:53
Speaker 2: at that boarding school, one of which included being caned
9:57
Speaker 2: by the headmaster or by some high official till.
10:00
Speaker 1: He was bloody Yeah, Headmaster Jeoffrey Fisher. And you're correct.
10:05
Speaker 2: Boy.
10:06
Speaker 1: Tales of Childhood was his almost an expose, you know,
10:11
Speaker 1: but so far in the past. You'll always hear that thing.
10:15
Speaker 1: Oh it was a different time. That's how they disciplined them.
10:18
Speaker 1: But luckily for us and luckily for young readers around
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Speaker 1: the world, he did survive that horrific boarding school experience,
10:27
Speaker 1: and in nineteen thirty four, when he finished school, he
10:30
Speaker 1: crossed the Atlantic on the RMS Nova Scotia and hiked
10:34
Speaker 1: through Newfoundland and eventually he got a job. Yeah, and
10:38
Speaker 1: that was in September of nineteen thirty nine when he
10:41
Speaker 1: started working for the Shell Oil Company in East Africa.
10:45
Speaker 1: And it was at this time when England declared war
10:50
Speaker 1: on Germany. And like many you know, strapping youths his age,
10:56
Speaker 1: he decided to heed the call of war and go
11:00
Speaker 1: join his compatriots and serve his country. So he drove
11:05
Speaker 1: from Dare s Salaam to Narobi and there was a
11:09
Speaker 1: Royal Air Force headquarters there and that is where he
11:15
Speaker 1: signed up to become a fighter pilot. And just want
11:18
Speaker 1: to say up front, some of this information we got
11:22
Speaker 1: from a fantastic book called The Irregulars, Roll Dahl and
11:25
Speaker 1: the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington, which was written
11:29
Speaker 1: by a journalist, American journalist by the name of Janette Konnant. Yes,
11:34
Speaker 1: it's a fantastic book. It's actually a fairly recent book too,
11:37
Speaker 1: and we can't recommend it enough.
11:39
Speaker 2: It's the kind of thing that.
11:41
Speaker 1: We would read for fun, which is always a beautiful
11:46
Speaker 1: thing to say. But one thing that is definitely not
11:49
Speaker 1: beautiful would be the reality of life as an aircraftman
11:55
Speaker 1: in World War Two, especially this time. He was accept
12:00
Speaker 1: did as Noel said in Nairubi for flight training with
12:03
Speaker 1: sixteen other men, but only four of those, counting Rule Doll,
12:08
Speaker 1: would survive the war.
12:10
Speaker 2: And it's interesting because they were so desperate for pilots
12:14
Speaker 2: that even at six foot six, quite lanky bean pole
12:19
Speaker 2: of a man, he was accepted. And in the irregulars
12:26
Speaker 2: it's described as he had to quote curl up into
12:29
Speaker 2: a fetal position with his knees tucked tightly under his
12:32
Speaker 2: chin in order to sit in the cockpit and his
12:34
Speaker 2: head stuck out above the windshield like some kind of
12:37
Speaker 2: cartoon character. But because the pilots were so in demand,
12:42
Speaker 2: he was accepted, and then he trained very quickly, I
12:47
Speaker 2: think two months doing test flights Shadan Kenya exactly. And
12:51
Speaker 2: then next thing you know, he is thrust into the fray.
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Speaker 1: Right flying an obsolete craft Gloster Gladiator, the last biplane
13:02
Speaker 1: fighter used by the Royal Air Force ever. And if
13:07
Speaker 1: you have ever flown in a biplane, it's a fantastic
13:12
Speaker 1: experience and it's terrifying to imagine having to conduct any
13:17
Speaker 1: sort of mission of war in one of those things.
13:20
Speaker 1: He almost died, as it turns out, right when he
13:26
Speaker 1: again with this obsolete technology and we're talking obsolete even
13:30
Speaker 1: in the late nineteen thirties. He almost died because he
13:34
Speaker 1: was flying and was.
13:36
Speaker 2: Low on fuel. Yeah, and he crashed landed in the
13:39
Speaker 2: desert in Egypt, and was able to pull himself from
13:44
Speaker 2: the wreckage, from that fetal position, from the wreckage and
13:47
Speaker 2: get far enough away quickly enough to avoid the subsequent
13:52
Speaker 2: explosion and the hail of machine gun fire that was
13:56
Speaker 2: set off by that blaze. Can you imagine, just like
14:00
Speaker 2: trudging through I think he was picked up eventually by
14:03
Speaker 2: a patrol and rescued.
14:06
Speaker 1: And this dodging of a conflagration in machine gun fires
14:10
Speaker 1: especially miraculous. We consider the piss poor condition he was
14:15
Speaker 1: in immediately. His skull was fractured, his nose was smashed.
14:19
Speaker 1: Most importantly, he was temporarily blind, so he had no
14:23
Speaker 1: idea what was going on, and.
14:24
Speaker 2: He remained blind for some time. Actually, his face was
14:28
Speaker 2: reconstructed by a plastic surgeon, and you know, he sustained
14:34
Speaker 2: spinal damage which caused him significant pain that would endure
14:38
Speaker 2: for the rest of his life. Yeah.
14:40
Speaker 1: And as it turned out, the Royal Air Force made
14:43
Speaker 1: an inquiry into the crash, and they learned that the
14:46
Speaker 1: place he had been told to go was the wrong place.
14:50
Speaker 1: It wasn't even supposed to be flying that way.
14:52
Speaker 2: Can you imagine, just like with the technology they had
14:55
Speaker 2: at the time, managing all of that, sending these you know,
14:59
Speaker 2: squad and keeping things secret and having people end up
15:03
Speaker 2: in the right place with these obsolete aircrafts. I mean,
15:06
Speaker 2: I think more people would be crashing in the desert
15:08
Speaker 2: in this situation, you know, given the circumstances.
15:10
Speaker 1: That's a really good point too. Fast forward to let's
15:14
Speaker 1: say nineteen forty one or so, he finally gets out
15:18
Speaker 1: of the hospital from.
15:19
Speaker 2: This crash, and again because of that desperation, he's back
15:22
Speaker 2: in the air. Yep.
15:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, he is rated fully fit for flying duties, although
15:28
Speaker 1: we will find out later that's not exactly the case unfortunately.
15:32
Speaker 2: So what happens next, Well, next he is sent on
15:38
Speaker 2: what basically amounted to a suicide mission. The Italians had
15:43
Speaker 2: German reinforcements and the British were outnumbered in protecting Greece.
15:49
Speaker 2: Doll was sent as part of the eighty Squadron to
15:53
Speaker 2: basically protect the island of Greece, and that was only
15:57
Speaker 2: one of two RAF squadron to cover this entire region,
16:02
Speaker 2: and they were severely outnumbered.
16:04
Speaker 1: Severely outnumbered is a great way to put it. His
16:09
Speaker 1: first aerial combat occurs in the same year, in April,
16:14
Speaker 1: and he attacks six other planes at once. They're Junker's
16:21
Speaker 1: Ju eighty eights. These are bombers, right. He manages German planes, yeah,
16:26
Speaker 1: German plans. He manages to shoot one down and later
16:31
Speaker 1: the I think the next day. It was like the
16:33
Speaker 1: fifteenth and the sixteenth. So he shot down one plane
16:36
Speaker 1: one day and another plane the day after. Which does
16:40
Speaker 1: that make him a fighting ac yet? No?
16:42
Speaker 2: By my standard?
16:44
Speaker 1: Sure?
16:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, by our standards, Yeah, for sure. I'm not sure
16:46
Speaker 2: what the qualification for a status was, but certainly a badass.
16:51
Speaker 1: Right, and his career as an airman continues. He is
16:56
Speaker 1: in a time and in a position that is notoriously dangerous. Right,
17:02
Speaker 1: he is not only surviving, but arguably he's thriving.
17:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty insane. In that campaign, which ultimately the
17:12
Speaker 2: Germans totally ousted the Brits from Greece and won the day,
17:17
Speaker 2: around thirteen thousand British fighter pilots were killed, wounded or imprisoned,
17:25
Speaker 2: and as.
17:26
Speaker 1: The Germans were advancing on Athens, Doll was evacuated along
17:31
Speaker 1: with this volks to Egypt and the squadron got back together.
17:36
Speaker 1: They put the band back together at Haifa. From Haifa,
17:40
Speaker 1: he continued to fly, but in June he began to
17:47
Speaker 1: get the worst, most debilitating headaches you could imagine, like
17:53
Speaker 1: beyond migraines, to the point where he.
17:55
Speaker 2: Actually blacked out a few times during flight. And then
17:58
Speaker 2: he got checked out and the medics told him it
18:01
Speaker 2: was probably because of altitude or like G's the gravitational effects,
18:06
Speaker 2: But it turned out and that was not the case,
18:08
Speaker 2: and it was just a holdover from that head injury
18:10
Speaker 2: he got during that fateful crash back in Egypt his
18:15
Speaker 2: first flight. So he was discharged honorably.
18:20
Speaker 1: Yes, it was honorably discharged. He was originally hoping that
18:27
Speaker 1: as he recovered, he would be able to one day
18:31
Speaker 1: in the future become an instructor for newer pilots, newer
18:35
Speaker 1: air servicemen. But then something happened, a plot twist occurred.
18:41
Speaker 1: He had a meeting at a club with a very
18:47
Speaker 1: influential figure named Major Harold Balfour, who was serving as
18:52
Speaker 1: the Undersecretary of State for Air. Balfour was impressed. I
19:01
Speaker 1: was like, this guy has walking the walk. He's a
19:03
Speaker 1: fighter race at least Balfour thought he.
19:06
Speaker 2: Was niece, right.
19:07
Speaker 1: So Balfour appoints Dahl, who is still a young cat
19:11
Speaker 1: by the way, at this time twenty four ish. Yeah, yeah, right, God,
19:14
Speaker 1: what are we doing with our lives?
19:16
Speaker 2: No, man, we're doing this, I guess. Yeah, well you
19:19
Speaker 2: know we are.
19:20
Speaker 1: So Balfer gets Dall a position as assistant Air Attache
19:24
Speaker 1: at the British Embassy in DC, and this launches another
19:30
Speaker 1: series of travels and incredibly important meetings. Initially, Doll is
19:36
Speaker 1: amazed by all the luxuries in North America, but ten
19:39
Speaker 1: days in, almost two weeks in, he hates it. He
19:43
Speaker 1: thinks his job is pointless. He doesn't understand like what
19:49
Speaker 1: he's doing.
19:50
Speaker 2: And while he's it was meant to be like a
19:52
Speaker 2: public relations kind of a position, right, and he wasn't
19:55
Speaker 2: feeling it at all. He didn't want to do it
19:57
Speaker 2: in the first place. I mean, when Valfour based insisted
20:00
Speaker 2: that this is the job for you, Dall is quoted
20:03
Speaker 2: as saying, oh, no, sir, please sir, anything but that's sir.
20:07
Speaker 2: But Balfour was like, nope, and he made it an
20:09
Speaker 2: order and said, according to the irregulars that it was
20:13
Speaker 2: jolly important. Yes, so he saw maybe through just the
20:19
Speaker 2: way Dahl kind of carried himself. He was reported to
20:22
Speaker 2: be quite dashing and good at talking to people and
20:27
Speaker 2: very you know ingratiating or whatever. So maybe he saw him, Okay,
20:30
Speaker 2: well you can't fly. You were a good soldier, but
20:34
Speaker 2: now I think we can use you in America.
20:37
Speaker 1: Yes, And so Dall kept his stiff upper lip, sucked
20:41
Speaker 1: it in, and as we say, he crossed the Atlantic
20:44
Speaker 1: and he hated it. There's a quote that there's a
20:48
Speaker 1: quote we found this pretty funny. He notes how priorities
20:52
Speaker 1: had shifted. He said, I'd just come from the war.
20:55
Speaker 1: People were getting killed. I had been flying around seeing
20:58
Speaker 1: horrible things. Now almost instantly I found myself in the
21:01
Speaker 1: middle of a pre war cocktail party in America.
21:04
Speaker 2: Not to mention that back in London, I mean they
21:07
Speaker 2: were getting bombed right by the Nazis, you know, it
21:10
Speaker 2: was I mean there was even a period where Dahl
21:13
Speaker 2: lost track of his family, you know, when he was away,
21:16
Speaker 2: and he was told, well, they probably got bombed, you know,
21:20
Speaker 2: and he did eventually find them, but he came from
21:22
Speaker 2: you know, this experience of everything is just bleak and fallen,
21:27
Speaker 2: crumbling infrastructure. To being in d C where they had
21:32
Speaker 2: not yet declared war on the Japanese, you know, in
21:35
Speaker 2: Pearl Harbor is what brought them into the fight. Like
21:38
Speaker 2: you said earlier, there was this isolationist thing and we're like, well,
21:40
Speaker 2: we're here in DC, you know, living it up with
21:43
Speaker 2: the swells. Yeah.
21:44
Speaker 1: Can you imagine you're someone saying, so rule Dall, you're
21:49
Speaker 1: from England, TA, how's your family? And he's like, I
21:51
Speaker 1: don't know, they might be dead.
21:53
Speaker 2: Well, have you tried the shrimp?
21:54
Speaker 1: It's a really disconcerting thing in this time, in this
21:58
Speaker 1: sort of if we're going Joseph Campbell with it, in
22:00
Speaker 1: this journey in the wilderness, in this dark knight of
22:03
Speaker 1: the Soul or whatever, this is, when Dall meets another
22:07
Speaker 1: person that will change his life an author named cs Forrester.
22:12
Speaker 2: Cs Forrester had written this very popular series of books
22:17
Speaker 2: featuring a character Horatio Hornblower, who was a navelman and
22:22
Speaker 2: you know, all these adventures and Dall and his cohorts
22:26
Speaker 2: in the RAF would have been super familiar with these,
22:29
Speaker 2: you know, in their downtime reading these books. And he
22:34
Speaker 2: was approached by this man who came directly to see
22:37
Speaker 2: him and wanted to interview him about that crash in
22:41
Speaker 2: Egypt that we talked about earlier where he went down
22:44
Speaker 2: and had to run away from the explosion and very
22:47
Speaker 2: heroic stuff. Because there was a newly established organization within
22:52
Speaker 2: the British government that was based in the United States
22:55
Speaker 2: called the British Information Services, and their job was kind
22:59
Speaker 2: of to helps sway American sentiment towards supporting the war
23:05
Speaker 2: effort and aiding Britain, who has always been a huge
23:08
Speaker 2: ally of ours, but yet because of that isolationist position,
23:12
Speaker 2: it wasn't something that our government was interested in getting
23:15
Speaker 2: involved in. And one way of doing that and swaying
23:20
Speaker 2: that opinion was with stories of heroism and these you know,
23:25
Speaker 2: these moments like what happened to.
23:27
Speaker 1: Dahl And we'll say it propaganda, Okay, yes, yeah, it's propaganda.
23:31
Speaker 2: That doesn't mean it's not true.
23:33
Speaker 1: That just means it's a narrative with an end goal.
23:38
Speaker 1: It's persuasive writing. So Forrester has a deal where he's
23:42
Speaker 1: going to sort of ghost write, is what they assumed.
23:47
Speaker 1: They assumed that it would be like Saturday Evening post
23:51
Speaker 1: features fighter Ace rule dall as told to CS Forrester,
23:56
Speaker 1: you know the way that a lot of politicians today
23:59
Speaker 1: don't actually write their own books. But turns out that
24:02
Speaker 1: after Forrester read Doll's account, he thought, I don't have
24:06
Speaker 1: to change this. This guy is actually a bang up writer.
24:09
Speaker 1: He's top notch or the bee's knees or aces or
24:13
Speaker 1: whatever people said at the time. The point is he
24:16
Speaker 1: was surprisingly good. And they published the article with the
24:21
Speaker 1: name shot Down over in Libya, and.
24:23
Speaker 2: That was sort of a more sensationalized title that was
24:25
Speaker 2: different from Doll's original title, which was the slightly more
24:28
Speaker 2: tongue in cheek a piece of cake, which is a
24:31
Speaker 2: term that fighter pilots used kind of jokingly to refer
24:34
Speaker 2: to like maneuvers. It's a piece of cake, right. But
24:38
Speaker 2: the fun thing about this is that maybe, in an
24:42
Speaker 2: effort to impress this very famous writer who he looked
24:46
Speaker 2: up to, he fictionalized the hell out of his account.
24:51
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, that's the always the problem when somebody's reminiscing
24:55
Speaker 1: about their past events, isn't it.
24:57
Speaker 2: He was.
25:00
Speaker 1: Maybe a little more heroic, as you recall friends and
25:03
Speaker 1: neighbors from earlier in the episode.
25:06
Speaker 2: He was not shot down not in real life, he
25:09
Speaker 2: was not. He ran a gas Yeah, he ran out
25:12
Speaker 2: of gas. But it worked.
25:15
Speaker 1: He was actually promoted, and I think it has something
25:19
Speaker 1: to do with his success in this field and this
25:24
Speaker 1: particular article. A piece of cake shot down over Libya.
25:29
Speaker 1: They could have just combined it into one sentence, A
25:31
Speaker 1: piece of cake shot down over there.
25:32
Speaker 2: That would have been good.
25:33
Speaker 1: It would been cool. This leads him to another significant meeting.
25:38
Speaker 1: He meets a fellow named William Stevenson, and this is.
25:41
Speaker 2: Where the super spy world kind of opens up for Doll.
25:46
Speaker 2: Stevenson was the mastermind behind this secret ring I guess
25:52
Speaker 2: of intelligence agents called the British Security Coordination or BSc.
25:58
Speaker 1: This was a top secret institution set up in New
26:03
Speaker 1: York City by m I six in nineteen forty under
26:08
Speaker 1: the authorization of Churchill, m.
26:10
Speaker 2: I six being sort of the British equivalent of the CIA, Yeah, yeah,
26:15
Speaker 2: or the os SA at the time.
26:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're yeah, they're the they're the guys in the
26:21
Speaker 1: dark with the trench coats, right exactly, or in the
26:23
Speaker 1: case of mi I six, just fantastic tailored suits, yeah exactly.
26:26
Speaker 2: In the case of Roldall the dashing young men in
26:30
Speaker 2: the Taylor's suits with the cocktails at the cocktail parties,
26:34
Speaker 2: betting influential heiresses and politicians. Yes, exactly, and that is betting.
26:40
Speaker 2: Be D D I n G. Let's be clear about that.
26:44
Speaker 1: Sir William Stevenson, as as we noted, is the head
26:49
Speaker 1: of this organization that the United Kingdom's public and the
26:54
Speaker 1: US public have no idea exists. He was doing some
27:00
Speaker 1: things that were technically illegal, like he was passing, you know,
27:04
Speaker 1: like UK secrets to Roosevelt. He was passing US secrets
27:08
Speaker 1: to the UK. And he was also masterminding in a
27:13
Speaker 1: very serious way, this push to alter the US opinion
27:19
Speaker 1: the average voter. Given the way the US government works,
27:24
Speaker 1: the average voter had to support this idea. We had
27:27
Speaker 1: to be persuaded that it was somehow worth American lives
27:32
Speaker 1: to send people across the seas and spend enormous amounts
27:37
Speaker 1: of money to save other people in foreign lands, which
27:42
Speaker 1: today happens all the time.
27:45
Speaker 2: Frankly, absolutely, but I mean it feels like there's a
27:48
Speaker 2: real parallel between the attitude of the government in our
27:52
Speaker 2: country right now and the way things were back then.
27:55
Speaker 1: And so what happens when Dall and Stevenson meet.
28:02
Speaker 2: So what came of this meeting with Stevenson was Dall
28:05
Speaker 2: being first kind of recruited as a freelancer for the BSc.
28:10
Speaker 2: And a lot of that had to do with his
28:11
Speaker 2: success at writing all of these pieces that are ultimately
28:14
Speaker 2: propaganda pieces, including a piece about Gremlins. He wrote a
28:18
Speaker 2: book or a short story about Gremlins that got picked
28:21
Speaker 2: up by Disney, and he had like personal meetings with
28:23
Speaker 2: Walt Disney and Gremlins. I mean, you know, like obviously
28:26
Speaker 2: the Gremlins the movie, but the Gremlins were originally these
28:29
Speaker 2: little creatures that would mess with fighter pilots and it
28:32
Speaker 2: was this lore, especially in Britain in the RAF that
28:36
Speaker 2: they would make their planes malfunction and they blamed it
28:40
Speaker 2: on Gremlins and throw Oren. Yeah.
28:42
Speaker 1: One great example of that lore in fiction comes from
28:48
Speaker 1: The Twilight Zone in the famous episode Shatner Yeah, with
28:52
Speaker 1: William Shatner who sees Grimlin on the wing of a plane.
28:56
Speaker 1: Although it is a commercial play which makes it creepy,
29:00
Speaker 1: owns a great show.
29:00
Speaker 2: I love it. But yeah, So that was probably what
29:03
Speaker 2: got Stevenson's attention was Doll's success, and he wrote a
29:06
Speaker 2: lot of different pieces that ended up in a lot
29:08
Speaker 2: of different places that were perceived as being successful propaganda.
29:13
Speaker 2: And part of the BSC's mission was similar to what
29:16
Speaker 2: the British Information Services Mission was, was to turn that
29:20
Speaker 2: public opinion towards supporting the United Kingdom in that war effort.
29:25
Speaker 2: But he only freelanced for like a handful of months
29:27
Speaker 2: before he was made a full fledged member of this
29:31
Speaker 2: group known as the Baker Street Irregulars, which was named
29:35
Speaker 2: after the spy ring that Sherlock Holmes kind of managed
29:40
Speaker 2: in those books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and they
29:43
Speaker 2: were sort of street urchins that were sort of like
29:46
Speaker 2: if you're a Game of Thrones fan, his little birds
29:48
Speaker 2: that would, like, you know, whisper things and find secrets
29:51
Speaker 2: and tell him so he could be on top of
29:53
Speaker 2: He had eyes and ears everywhere, and that was what
29:57
Speaker 2: Doll was a part of. And he wasn't the only
30:00
Speaker 2: soon to be beloved author that was in this group, right.
30:04
Speaker 2: One of them was a little guy under the name
30:06
Speaker 2: of Ian Fleming.
30:07
Speaker 1: Right, the author of the famous James Bond series. But
30:12
Speaker 1: today Ian Fleming is a little bit more well known
30:17
Speaker 1: as a guy who was a spy. Roald Dahl doesn't
30:21
Speaker 1: get some of the credit that he deserves for this,
30:24
Speaker 1: especially when you consider that they were living undercover at
30:29
Speaker 1: the time. Just like CIA agents or CIA assets might
30:34
Speaker 1: have a job in an embassy as the it guy
30:38
Speaker 1: that actually does happen, he was working as a public
30:43
Speaker 1: relations dude, a PR man.
30:45
Speaker 2: That was the front. But when you hear some of
30:47
Speaker 2: the stuff we're about to tell you, I don't think
30:49
Speaker 2: you'd be too hard pressed to believe that James Bond
30:53
Speaker 2: may have been based on Dall himself. That's how I
30:56
Speaker 2: see it, I really do. He's definitely part of it.
30:59
Speaker 2: Absolutelympletely agree.
31:05
Speaker 1: I love the way that our author Lorie L. Dove,
31:10
Speaker 1: writing for House of Works, describes dolls spy career. Did
31:15
Speaker 1: this sentence stick out to you?
31:17
Speaker 2: By all reports, he was both very good and very
31:20
Speaker 2: bad at it. He was living extremes, I know, because
31:24
Speaker 2: a big part of it was, you know, obviously keeping secrets.
31:27
Speaker 2: And in a biography called Storyteller, Dahl's daughter actually sort
31:33
Speaker 2: of said, yeah, Dad was a pretty bad gossip and
31:37
Speaker 2: really didn't know when to keep his mouth shut. But
31:40
Speaker 2: the part that he was really good at was ingratiating himself.
31:43
Speaker 2: Two powerful people, and that included, as we said earlier,
31:47
Speaker 2: powerful women who he let's just go and say it, seduced. Yeah,
31:53
Speaker 2: we were talking about this off air.
31:56
Speaker 1: Dall was a phenomenally talented little thought a ladies man,
32:01
Speaker 1: and this really came in handy. This was a skill
32:05
Speaker 1: that could be applied to sway in the opinions of
32:07
Speaker 1: important people. But Noel, I know there was a quote
32:13
Speaker 1: that you have been waiting to bring to the air.
32:16
Speaker 2: I gotta do it, I gotta do it. In Storyteller,
32:19
Speaker 2: the Authorized Biography of Roll Dall by Donald sturruty ten,
32:27
Speaker 2: he has a quote from one of Doll's close friends,
32:29
Speaker 2: a man with a gloriously British name, Creek Moore Fath,
32:34
Speaker 2: who described Doll as being quote one of the biggest
32:39
Speaker 2: cocksmen in Washington. I'm just going to leave that there,
32:43
Speaker 2: all one word, by the way, all one word. And
32:46
Speaker 2: you know he is in the same way that you know.
32:50
Speaker 2: It doesn't quite hold up today in some of the
32:53
Speaker 2: James Bond movies, the way we see Bond manipulating women
32:57
Speaker 2: and being a bit of a rake, right, that was Doll.
33:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, So he had numerous affairs, one with the heiress
33:08
Speaker 1: to the standard oil fortune one with a congresswoman named
33:13
Speaker 1: Claire booth Luce who later became an ambassador. And this
33:19
Speaker 1: is just the beginning. But you have to wonder how
33:25
Speaker 1: effective of a spy he was because he was swaying opinions,
33:29
Speaker 1: but then he was talking about it, so it was
33:32
Speaker 1: probably not a secret, or at least a very open
33:36
Speaker 1: secret that he was sleeping around dc.
33:38
Speaker 2: OH for sure. And he eventually became pals with the
33:41
Speaker 2: guy by the name of Charles Marsh, who was a
33:43
Speaker 2: Texan newspaper tycoon who was a huge fan of Churchill
33:49
Speaker 2: and a big proponent of allying with the UK in
33:55
Speaker 2: support of the fight against Hitler. And this was the
33:58
Speaker 2: big goal, right, so he was probably able to kind
34:02
Speaker 2: of help sway that in some of the reporting in
34:05
Speaker 2: Marsh's papers. He also became close to a lot of
34:10
Speaker 2: other prominent American journalists and several big time US officials,
34:16
Speaker 2: including the Vice President Henry Wallace, who he played tennis
34:19
Speaker 2: with on a regular basis.
34:24
Speaker 1: There's a quote from Marsh's daughter, Antoinette Marsh Haskell that
34:30
Speaker 1: I love In a piece written by Chris Irving over
34:34
Speaker 1: at the Telegraph, he quotes Antonette Marsh Haskell is saying
34:37
Speaker 1: girls just fell at Roll's feet. I think he slept
34:40
Speaker 1: with everybody on the East and West coast that was
34:42
Speaker 1: worth more than fifty thousand dollars a year. And he also,
34:47
Speaker 1: by virtue of knowing these titans of industry and government,
34:50
Speaker 1: he was able to function as not just a propagandist,
34:57
Speaker 1: but a clandestine avenue of information, of transmission of information.
35:03
Speaker 2: So he told.
35:05
Speaker 1: He told Stevenson and the other folks at the UK
35:08
Speaker 1: that he believed, for instance, the president, President Franklin Roosevelt,
35:14
Speaker 1: was sleeping around with the Crown Princess of Norway who
35:18
Speaker 1: had been granted asylum in the US.
35:20
Speaker 2: He also, I think gave first word to the UK
35:23
Speaker 2: that the US was going to the moon.
35:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was telling people important things.
35:30
Speaker 2: I mean, he even worked his way up to becoming
35:32
Speaker 2: so cozy with Roosevelt himself that he was pretty regularly
35:36
Speaker 2: invited to vacation with the man at his Hyde Park
35:41
Speaker 2: estate in New York.
35:43
Speaker 1: Yes, and in nineteen forty four he began experiencing back
35:49
Speaker 1: pain and underwent a series of treatments that kept him
35:53
Speaker 1: in traction for several months. While he was recovering, President
35:58
Speaker 1: Roosevelt unfortunately passed away and Germany lost the war. Well,
36:02
Speaker 1: that part was fortunate, that's very fortunate, But it's sad
36:05
Speaker 1: that Roosevelt passed away. Yeah, but yeah, imagine being rolled
36:09
Speaker 1: dall and coming out from this dreadful recovery, this hard
36:14
Speaker 1: earned recovery, and then find and then learning that you know,
36:19
Speaker 1: you won the war.
36:19
Speaker 2: I would say it was probably a little bittersweet, Ben,
36:22
Speaker 2: But then you know, it did give him the opportunity
36:24
Speaker 2: to leave that spies life, that's washbuckling coxsman life behind him.
36:31
Speaker 1: Yes, he settled down. He married Patricia Neil in nineteen
36:37
Speaker 1: fifty three. Their marriage lasted for thirty years.
36:43
Speaker 2: And this episode is not about the subsequent career that
36:46
Speaker 2: Dahlwood had, but we as we know, he became a
36:50
Speaker 2: giant of literature and beloved very much to this day.
36:55
Speaker 2: And not a lot of people know where a lot
36:59
Speaker 2: of that stuff came from. And Ben, do you like
37:01
Speaker 2: the term fabulous? Yeah, isn't that a fun one? It's
37:04
Speaker 2: a good one.
37:05
Speaker 1: It's a you know, I'm torn because fictionist was another
37:09
Speaker 1: one that we discovered on the show that I really enjoyed.
37:11
Speaker 1: But fabulous as well, I would describe him as such.
37:14
Speaker 2: But basically, Dahl, even with that fictionalization of his you know,
37:18
Speaker 2: war efforts and that plane crash in Egypt, he was
37:22
Speaker 2: kind of a professional liar, which is what a spy is.
37:26
Speaker 2: And ultimately what a good author is, right is to
37:29
Speaker 2: tell a convincing lie.
37:32
Speaker 1: Or to find the truth of the human experience through fiction,
37:37
Speaker 1: which is a lie. I completely agree, And I also
37:40
Speaker 1: have to wonder what would have happened had he not
37:45
Speaker 1: been in the hospital for those few months. Would he
37:48
Speaker 1: have continued, because as we know, when he comes out
37:52
Speaker 1: of the hospital, he's lost sort of his taste for
37:55
Speaker 1: the spy's life, and he's ready to go home and
37:58
Speaker 1: settle down. He feels he's served his car. But what
38:01
Speaker 1: if he continued, how would our image of James Bond
38:05
Speaker 1: have changed. I'd like to hear some fabulousm from you folks,
38:09
Speaker 1: let us know. And while you're at it, we cannot
38:13
Speaker 1: recommend the book The Regulars enough. If you want to
38:15
Speaker 1: read something related, we'd also like to recommend Churchill's Ministry
38:19
Speaker 1: of Ungentlemanly Warfare by Giles Milton. And it's about the
38:25
Speaker 1: Other Front, not this is about Churchill's clandestine activities to
38:30
Speaker 1: try to assassinate.
38:31
Speaker 2: Hitler and our pals Holly and Tracy over stuff you
38:34
Speaker 2: missed in history class. Actually just recently did a two
38:36
Speaker 2: part episode on the ministry of ungentlemanly warfare, so pop
38:40
Speaker 2: over and check that out and definitely pick up the book.
38:43
Speaker 2: And I would like to end with a nice quote
38:45
Speaker 2: from Dahl himself that I think ties a lot of
38:48
Speaker 2: this together. Quote, truth is far too precious a commodity
38:52
Speaker 2: to be used lightly.
38:53
Speaker 1: And with that, huge thank you to our friend and
38:56
Speaker 1: super producer Ramsey yunt our super producer case.
39:00
Speaker 2: Pegrum, thanks to Alex Williams for composing our theme and
39:04
Speaker 2: sound cues, and thanks to Laurie L. Dove for writing
39:09
Speaker 2: the article for how Stuff Works that we refer to
39:12
Speaker 2: several times in this episode.
39:14
Speaker 1: You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, We're on
39:20
Speaker 1: the usual Internet places you'll see us there Ridiculous History, or.
39:24
Speaker 2: You can get us anywhere that you get your podcasts.
39:25
Speaker 2: You already know that you're getting it from wherever you're
39:27
Speaker 2: going to get it. You don't need us to tell you.
39:29
Speaker 2: But most importantly, thanks to you for listening, and we
39:32
Speaker 2: really hope that you'll join us for the next episode
39:34
Speaker 2: of ridiculous history. Have a great day everyone. For more
39:41
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Speaker 2: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.