Panagiotis Dimitrakis. The Hidden War in Argentina: British and American Espionage in World War II. London: I.B. Tauris, 2019. xiii + 251 pp. $115.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-78831-341-4.
Reviewed by Michael R. Hall (Georgia Southern University)
Published on H-War (December, 2019)
Commissioned by Margaret Sankey (Air University)
The Hidden War in Argentina: British and American Espionage in World War II is filled with fascinating revelations about espionage in Argentina, lumps of information culled from archives, entertaining spy missions that frequently failed to materialize, interagency rivalries and bureaucratic mismanagement, and a kaleidoscopic array of brief biographies of personalities who appear randomly throughout the book. Panagiotis Dimitrakis, who earned a PhD from King’s College in London, has published several books, mostly with I. B. Tauris, dealing with espionage and intelligence in various global settings during the twentieth century. In this book, the author, who posits that “the games of espionage can be related, metaphorically, to tango,” states that “risk-taking, adventurous and committed individuals, British, Germans and Americans, working in the shadows, are the characters of this book” (p. 1).
Unfortunately, much of the information in the book is presented as raw data without any significant analysis, theoretical context, or interpretive framework. Notwithstanding the author’s assertion that “great care has been taken for their [the spies’] stories and background information to be presented in chronological order,” neither the chapters nor the information within the individual chapters progress chronologically (p. 2). The failure of the author to link adjacent paragraphs with logical transitions is equally problematic. Fascinating and well-researched biographies, filled with relevant and irrelevant information, of virtually all of the characters in the book are randomly dropped into the text. Some of the information provided, such as the spy’s favorite meal or hair color, is never connected to espionage activities and seems superfluous. One can only wonder why the author was compelled to reveal that German major general Friedrich Wolf had a “square pug nose and blue eyes” (p. 194). At best, this information could have been relegated to a footnote. Even more whimsical, Demitrakis reveals that Ralph Henry Van Deman was born in 1865, “the year the Civil War ended” (p. 85). The reader is left to wonder how this information is relevant to US espionage in Argentina during World War II.
Demitrakis’s assertion that Buenos Aires, with “its large avenues and immense buildings” is “reminiscent of Chicago” is a bit perplexing, since most writers would compare Buenos Aires to Paris (p. 95). Some of the author’s attempts at inserting surplus information is detrimental. For example, his assertion that US senator Henry Clay, who died in 1852, coined the term “Good Neighbor” “in the late nineteenth century” makes no sense (p. 72). One has to wonder how the book’s outside readers and editors could have allowed the author to insert German scientist “Alfred Einstein” into a discussion of German espionage in Argentina in 1933 (p. 74). Sadly, it is not clear what themes the author is seeking to present or how far he believes German, British, and American espionage in Argentina made a difference to the final outcome of World War II. The book lacks a conclusion, which is not surprising since there was no discernable introduction. Demitrakis concludes his study by stating: “As for MI6's man in Buenos Aires, Reginald Miller continued his mission and, under the 1947 reorganization of MI6, the old Latin American expert was named Western Hemisphere Controller under the Chief Controller, Pacific Region” (p. 214). This anticlimactic statement at the end of a study on espionage in Argentina during World War II is emblematic of the problems inherent in this book.
Nevertheless, although the book has significant flaws, it reveals an unmitigated volume of unique anecdotes, newly revealed archival resources, and the author’s passion for history. Demitrakis provides a wealth of information about German spy master Johannes Siegfried Becker, MI6 espionage activities, the German battleship Admiral Graf Spee, and the role of J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI in Argentina. Used judiciously, The Hidden War in Argentina: British and American Espionage in World War II can serve as a resource tool for students and historians of World War II espionage and intelligence activities to explore new paths of inquiry for themselves.
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Citation:
Michael R. Hall. Review of Dimitrakis, Panagiotis, The Hidden War in Argentina: British and American Espionage in World War II.
H-War, H-Net Reviews.
December, 2019.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=54406
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