Secret intelligence chief, born in Point Douglas, near Winnipeg, Manitoba, C Canada, of Scottish descent. Educated in Winnipeg, he became involved in British secret intelligence through visits to Germany to buy steel in the early 1930s. His information on Enigma, the German cipher machine, led to MI6's acquisition of a prototype in 1939. In 1940 he was appointed British intelligence chief in North and South America, representing the interests of MI5, MI6, and Special Operations Executive. The novelist Ian Fleming, a member of his wartime staff, is said to have adopted Stephenson as a model for the character M in the James Bond books.
Sir William Samuel Stephenson, CC , MC , DFC (January 23, 1897 – January 31, 1989) was a Canadian soldier, airman, businessman, inventor, spymaster, and the senior representative of British intelligence for the entire western hemisphere during World War II. Stephenson is best-known by his wartime intelligence codename of Intrepid.
Early life
Born William Samuel Clouston Stanger, January 23, 1897 in the Point Douglas area of Winnipeg, Manitoba, he left school at a young age. While recovering from being gassed in 1916, Stephenson learned to fly and then transferred to the British Royal Flying Corps on August 16, 1917. Posted to 73 Squadron on February 9, 1918, Stephenson flew the British Sopwith Camel fighter biplane and scored twelve victories before he was shot down and captured by the Germans on July 28, 1918.
By the end of World War I he had achieved the rank of Captain and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Military Cross. His medal citations perhaps foreshadow his later achievements, and read:
For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty.
This officer has shown conspicuous gallantry and skill in attacking enemy troops and transports from low altitudes, causing heavy casualties.
Between the Wars
After the war Stephenson returned to Winnipeg and with a friend Wilf Russell he started a hardware business - largely inspired by a can opener Stephenson had taken from his POW camp.
As early as April 1936 Stephenson was voluntarily providing confidential information to the British, passing on detailed information to British opposition MP Winston Churchill about how Hitler's Nazi government was building up its armed forces and hiding military expenditures of eight hundred million pounds sterling. Churchill used Stephenson's information in Parliament to warn against the appeasement polices of the government of Neville Chamberlain.
World War II
After World War II began (and over the objections of Sir Stewart Menzies, wartime head of British intelligence) now-Prime Minister Winston Churchill sent Stephenson to the United States on June 21, 1940 to covertly establish and run the British Security Coordination (BSC) in New York City, over a year prior to the US entering the war.
The BSC office, headquartered in room 3603 in Rockefeller Center, became an umbrella organization that by the end of the war represented the British intelligence agencies MI5, MI6 (SIS or Secret Intelligence Service), SOE (Special Operations Executive) and PWE (Political Warfare Executive) throughout North America, South America and the Caribbean.
Stephenson's initial directives for BSC were 1) to investigate enemy activities, 2) institute security measures against the threat of sabotage to British property, and 3) organize American public opinion in favour of aid to Britain.
Stephenson's official title was British Passport Control Officer. His unofficial mission was to create a secret British intelligence network throughout the western hemisphere, and to operate covertly and very broadly on behalf of the British government and the Allies in aid of winning the war.
Stephenson was soon a very close advisor to FDR, and suggested to Roosevelt that he put Stephenson's good friend William J.
In his role as the senior representative of British intelligence in the western hemisphere, Stephenson was one of the few people in the hemisphere authorized to view raw Ultra transcripts from the British Bletchley Park codebreaking of German Enigma ciphers.
Under Stephenson, the BSC directly influenced US media (including the writing of American newspaper columnists Walter Winchell and Drew Pearson) and other media in the hemisphere towards pro-British and anti-Axis viewpoints.
Stephenson worked for no salary.
Not least in Stephenson's accomplishments and contributions to the war effort was the setting up by BSC of Camp X in Whitby, Ontario, the first training school for clandestine wartime operations in North America. Around 2,000 British, Canadian and American covert operators were trained here from 1941 through 1945, including students from the ISO, OSS, FBI, RCMP, US Navy and US Military Intelligence services, and the Office of War Information, among them five future directors of what would eventually become the American Central Intelligence Agency.
Graduates of Camp X operated in Europe in Spain, Portugal, Italy, and the Balkans as well as in Africa, Australia, India, and the Pacific.
BSC purchased a ten-kilowatt transmitter from Philadelphia radio station WCAU and installed the transmitter at Camp X.
Recognition and honours
Sir William Stephenson died in Paget, Bermuda at the age of 92.
For his wartime work, Stephenson was knighted by the British in the 1945 New Year's Honours List. General Donovan presented Stephenson with the award and the citation paid tribute to his "invaluable assistance to America in the fields of intelligence and special operations".
"The Quiet Canadian" was formally recognized by his home and native land late in his life; William Stephenson was made a Companion of the Order of Canada on December 17, 1979 and invested in the Order on February 5, 1980.
On May 2, 2000 CIA Executive Director David W. Carey, representing DCI George Tenet and DDCI John Gordon, accepted a bronze maquette (replica) statuette of Sir William Stephenson, which was given to the CIA by the Intrepid Society of Winnipeg, Manitoba. In his remarks, Carey said:
Sir William Stephenson played a key role in the creation of the CIA. OSS worked closely with and learned from Sir William and other Canadian and British officials during the war.
In recommending Stephenson for knighthood, Winston Churchill wrote "This One is Dear to My Heart."
"James Bond is a highly romanticized version of a true spy.
In the town of Whitby, Ontario, there is a street named after him, which connects to streets with names such as Intrepid and Overlord.
A true "man of mystery," much of Stephenson's known biographical information has been proved fictitious.
Sources
British-born Canadian author William Stevenson (no relation) wrote a 1976 book A Man Called Intrepid about Stephenson. There are doubts about the veracity of much of what he wrote
Nigel West in Counterfeit Spies casts doubt on much of Stevenson's account;
John Colville (who was one of Churchill's private secretaries) in his 1981 book The Churchillians took issue with Stevenson's description of Stephenson's relationship with Churchill during the war. He pointed out that Stephenson was not Churchill's personal liaison with Roosevelt, that in fact (as is well known) the two men corresponded directly and constantly. Indeed Colville never heard Churchill speak of Stephenson at all.
There are however numerous other references to the Stephenson-Churchill connection in, for example, Maclean’s magazine December 1, 1952, The Times October 21, 1962 and many references to the relationship in Hyde’s biography The Quiet Canadian (1962).
Former British intelligence agent Kim Philby refers to Stephenson as a friend of Churchill in his book My Silent War.
Controversial historian David Irving in Churchill’s War reveals evidence of a secret communications link between Roosevelt and Churchill that was run by the FBI but controlled through Stephenson’s office.
A dinner in Stevenson's book at Lord Beaverbrook's house in May or June 1940 is highly doubtful too.
In the papers of William Stevenson at the University of Regina there is only one reference to the Beaverbrook dinner.
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