A Spiffy Tale of MI6 Legend “Biffy” Dunderdale

BOOK REVIEW: A Suspicion of Spies: Risks, Secrets and Shadows – the life of Wilfred ‘Biffy’ Dunderdale

By Tim Spicer/Barbreck

Reviewed by: Tim Willasey-Wilsey

The Reviewer — Tim Willasey-Wilsey is a Visiting Professor and King’s College London and a former senior British diplomat. He is a Cipher Brief Expert.

REVIEW — Vladimir Putin was once asked what he thought of James Bond. His riposte was sharp: “The heroes of the KGB are not fictional.” Neither it seems were the heroes of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), the British organization which is better known as MI6.

SIS still insists on keeping its secrets tight. Its archive is closed and its officers are sworn to silence both before and after retirement. This is wise policy because few Russian military strategists, Iranian scientists or Chinese Communist Party officials would want to work for an organization which is either leaky or publicity hungry.

Occasionally SIS officers have broken the rules and written their stories. Three of the best are Henry Landau’s ‘All’s Fair’ (1934), John Whitwell’s ‘British Agent’ (1966) and Fred Winterbotham’s ‘The Ultra Spy’ (1989). An SIS agent, Paul Dukes, also wrote the gripping ‘The story of ST25’ (1938).

Over the years there have been attempts by academics and researchers to write the biographies of eminent SIS officers, but the absence of reliable facts and the paucity of photographs have made it a hopeless task.

Anthony Cave Brown’s vast tome on Sir Stewart Menzies tells us virtually nothing about a man who miraculously survived two battles at Ypres and then led SIS throughout the Second World War. Richard Deacon’s biography of Sir Maurice Oldfield is equally threadbare about the Chief who had to navigate such a difficult period after two traitors (Kim Philby and George Blake) had been discovered in the Service.

So, Tim Spicer is to be congratulated for his book A Suspicion for Spies for finding out so much about Wilfred Dunderdale, better known as Biffy because of his former prowess at boxing. Dunderdale’s career was so full of adventure that he joins the ranks of about a dozen friends of Ian Fleming thought to be models for James Bond. Spicer has tracked down relatives and has combed the archives for references to the man himself and operations with which he was associated.


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Born in Odessa, Dunderdale spoke fluent Russian, German, Polish, Turkish and French. As a young man he travelled to Vladivostok to take delivery of submarines intended for the Tsarist navy. He joined the Royal Navy and spent much of the war in the Black Sea before being integrated into SIS in Istanbul (then known as Constantinople). In 1924, he played a role in the abolition of the Caliphate, an act for which Britain is sometimes criticized to this day. On moving to Paris in 1926, he built up such a close relationship with the French military intelligence service (the Deuxième Bureau) that they cut him into some of their most secret casework. This included their liaison with the Poles over the ENIGMA cypher machine. Dunderdale, the French and Poles handed over a mock-up of the machine to the SIS Chief at Victoria Station on the eve of war in 1939. This led to the now legendary successes at Bletchley Park.

During that war Dunderdale was responsible for liaison with the Vichy French and the Poles. This led to inevitable tensions with General de Gaulle’s Free French. Even though many of the Deuxième Bureau officers who were aware of the breaking of the ENIGMA system remained in Vichy France (even after its occupation by the Germans) the ULTRA secret (as it was known) was maintained. Quite apart from this remarkable achievement Dunderdale set up networks of agents in France which collectively produced over 45 thousand intelligence reports  of which half were produced by the Poles. Some of the networks were betrayed and the JADE FITZROY network alone comprised 525 agents of which 70 lost their lives, often after the most brutal torture by the Gestapo.

After the war Dunderdale became associated with those officers who invested too much trust in Russian émigré groups, most of which were penetrated by the Soviets, even though he was not directly responsible for the disasters in the Baltic and Albania when agents, betrayed by Philby, were arrested and executed. SIS did not perform well during the Suez crisis in 1956 and was particularly blamed for the fiasco, the same year, when a diver (Commander Buster Crabb) disappeared when inspecting the hull of a Soviet cruiser berthed at Portsmouth. Although he served his full career, Dunderdale was increasingly portrayed as one of the old swashbuckling type of intelligence officer at a time when intelligence services were becoming increasingly professionalized and analytical in the face of the Soviet threat.


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Tim Spicer tells Biffy Dunderdale’s story with great relish and élan. The narrative flows easily and there are frequent treats; such as the role of Josephine Baker in Paris, how a carrier pigeon delivered a message from the south of France to England in 12 hours, Poland’s gold being spirited via Romania, Turkey, Lebanon, France and Senegal to London and New York, the horrific betrayals by Mathilde Carré with the sickening codename VICTOIRE, and a British Canberra photographic reconnaissance aircraft which flew deep into the Soviet Union.

Regrettably the destruction of wartime records means that we have no way of knowing the importance attached to Dunderdale’s wartime reporting. Much of it was tactical, such as details on German activities in French ports, and must have been valuable for the planning of D-Day. Material was also produced on the V1 and V2 vengeance weapons and on U-boat operations. To what extent it complemented, supplemented or was eclipsed by the ULTRA signals material would be fascinating to know.

The few criticisms are of the publisher. The lack of proper sourcing means that it is often impossible to judge the reliability of some sections of text. For example, the comments on SIS’s alleged relationship with Canaris seem to be sourced from Anthony Cave Brown who is known to be faulty on this subject. In other cases, Spicer has clearly struck gold and it would be useful to know where he found it. The other pity is that the photographs, maps and letters are miniscule. Many of them are real gems which have never been published before. Half the number of photos at double the size would have been far better.

Biffy Dunderdale lived a lavish lifestyle. He entertained generously at expensive restaurants and drove a Rolls Royce. Inside SIS he was not universally popular although respected for his intellect. His greatest strength was his ability to get on with foreigners. His languages and his cosmopolitan outlook helped enormously. He will be best remembered for the trust he inspired in (and the loyalty he showed towards) the French and the Poles at such a crucial moment in history and, later, for his close relations with the OSS at a time when some in SIS were resentful at the late arrival of their American cousins, lacking experience but brimming with ambition.

A Suspicion of Spies earns a solid 3 out of 4 trench coats

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