At the time, the United States was far behind in their intelligence-gathering efforts, while Europe had been in the business for decades. In this richly researched and one of the unlikeliest of stories to emerge from World War II, Professor Graham recounts the inspiring true story of how librarians, researchers, and those whose hands would more likely hold a book than a weapon, became spies for the Allies and played an immense part in the winning of WWII. This book, she writes, is “a lesson in the ability of ordinary people to make great changes. Even to help win wars.”
The Allies Greatest Agent
We meet one researcher, Adele Kibre, who was enlisted into the spy world. Already well known in the research fields for tracking down rare archival documents throughout Europe, Kibre quickly agreed to use not only her research skills, but also her ability to charm those who guarded those documents. Sent for training at a spy school in England—its exact location is never disclosed—she’s taught the skills that an agent needed and accepted the danger that could follow; she became, as Graham notes, “the Allies’ greatest agent.”In this thrilling and suspenseful account, we read about a Lithuanian group known as the Paper Brigade, who smuggled books from Jewish libraries and synagogues to hide in the ghetto, we meet scholars and researchers who were “easy to overlook,” but who possessed expertise in areas like map-reading, data usage, and having a sharp eye for details.
Training the New Spy Recruits
But they still had to be trained. Among the first tasks was to erase their identities and memorize cover stories. They’d need to demonstrate skills in observation and how well they held up under interrogation. Members of the training staff tossed students into a dark room and shone a light in their eyes or screamed insults at them while they stood in difficult positions.One of the most significant lessons occurred when the students, thinking the training for the day was over, would engage in a relaxed conversation, sharing real-life details which turned into one of the hardest lessons to learn: Don’t trust anyone. No matter how friendly they appear, a spy never gives up their cover. “Demonstrating the seriousness of this exercise,” Graham writes, “was very, very important.”
Graham solidly builds the case in this incredible story of how researchers helped change the course of the war. We know about the invasion of North Africa, but it was the research conducted that uncovered the availability of raw materials like petroleum; and it was knowledge of ocean depths that gave the Normandy D-Day invasion the best chance for success. And, if the Axis knew where Nazi tank parts were made—a real-life assignment given to Kibre—those factories could become targets for bombing raids.
Similar Emotional Scars, Little Recognition
Graham pays tribute to these men and women who undertook a dangerous task in service to their country. In their doing so, they suffered the same mental toll that soldiers in the field experienced, like PTSD symptoms and the moral conflicts of spying on colleagues.At the conclusion of WWII, it was the physicists who worked on the atom bomb that received the accolades, leaving the spy work of the librarians and researchers to become “hidden history.” It’s time,” Graham writes, “for this story to be told … to remember the scholars and the bookworms who helped to win the war, and who fought to give future generations a better world than the one they lived in.”
Graham’s own research for the book brought her around the world to dealers in the rare-book trade, and the main libraries in Britain, Washington, and New York. Other stops included the university libraries “from Ann Arbor to Austin to New Haven to Princeton.” Like the scholars and researchers she writes about, Graham has done a remarkable service: telling their story, one that had been kept on a shelf for too long.
