Book review of a novel by Nick McDonell, Atlantic Monthly Press, NY, 2009.
The action in this novel unrolls in East Africa and Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is kind of an odd amalgam, but the story moves on in a satisfactory fashion and keeps the reader engaged.
Misperception, trust and betrayal are the core issues investigated. The tale begins with an armed attack on a Somali village that the protagonist, a newly minted CIA officer, seems to have unwontedly instigated. Following is a series of intrigues as he and others try to unravel the mystery of the motives for the massacre and who did it. Other characters include a Harvard academic, a brilliant Somali student - who happens to have had relatives in the village Рhis society coed girl friend, a jaundiced CIA chief and a panoply of various hangers-on. Although some characters have substance to them, most are fairly shallow as befits the speedy pace of the story. I thought the hero was a bit too perfect. His basic flaw was naivet̩.
On the one hand the novel is a spy thriller, but on another it is a satirical portrayal of Harvard – its politics, student life, clubs and old boy networks. As such the book appeals to Harvard insiders, but these aspects of it leave the rest of us a bit perplexed. The East African scenario appealed to me and by and large I found descriptions accurate. Author McDonell noted in a forward that he distorted tribes and geography, which he indeed did; shrinking distances and using wrong names for people of this or that tribe. I doubt, however, that many readers will catch these discrepancies. In one instance, however, he relates an incident in Nairobi and later refers to it as having occurred in Khartoum. Maybe he was just trying to see if we were alert?
Don’t read this book for political insight into the complex politics of terrorism, Somalia or Kenya. Nor should you believe that it accurately reflects how the CIA operates. Yet with those disclaimers, it remains a good yarn.
Showing posts with label adventure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label adventure. Show all posts
Friday, October 30, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
The Meinertzhagen Mystery – The Life and Legend of a Colossal Fraud
Review of an expose by Brian Garfield, Potomac Books, Washington, DC 2007.
In this exhaustively researched tome, author Garfield provides evidence that Richard Meinertzhagen, Kenyan colonial official, hunter, East African WWI intelligence chief, soldier, Zionist, spy, ornithologist, diarist and well connected British gentlemen, was a fraud. Indeed faced with the documentation and discussion, readers will probably conclude that Meinertzhagen (MINE-ert-ZAHG’n) faked many escapades for which he became famous. However, he did so successfully; he was even Ian Flemming’s model for agent 007, James Bond. The reality is that Meinertzhagen was a scoundrel, a man who ensured that he wrote his own press and who freely borrowed the accomplishments of others. Even so, he was also an engaging and entertaining companion (he often provided shock value in either words or purported deeds). He counted many distinguished and high placed personalities who were fellow members of Britain’s ruling aristocracy as friends and acquaintances.
Let’s look back at the record. Meinertzhagen’s embellishments began in Kenya. As a colonial official and a military officer, he claimed responsibilities – being in charge of this or that fort, for example, that never existed - or heroic accomplishments that were anything but heroic. His early reputation as a fearless warrior arose from a 1905 massacre of Nandi leaders, including the Laibon. Meinertzhagen recounted that in the midst of a round of peace talks, the Kenyans treacherously attached their interlocutors, especially Meinertzhagen. In turn the colonial officers responded and killed 23 of the Nandis. This account was supported by other Europeans present. However, careful investigation by Garfield indicated that Meinertzhagen’s story covered up the brutal massacre of the Nandi delegation by maxim guns as they arrived at the appointed site - even before they sat down to talk.
As East African theater intelligence chief during World War I, Meinertzhagen constantly took credit for operations not his own. He earned some legitimate credit for forcefully criticizing the inept British generalship, especially at Tanga, but there again he claimed to have exchanged pistol fire personally with German General von Lettow-Vorbeck – an event that never happened. Later on an undercover operation, he claimed to have murdered a German officer and eaten the dead man’s still warm dinner. Time and again in his diaries – that were substantially re-written by himself in later years – Meinertzhagen makes himself look good. (Meinertzhagen’s Kenya Diary: 1902-1906 was republished in 1983.) Author Garfield shows that there is never corroborating evidence in any official documents or others’ accounts of the same time periods.
Meinertzhagen’s greatest (fictitious) accomplishment occurred later in the war. When attached in a relatively junior position to General Allenby’s force in Palestine, Meinertzhagen took sole credit for the daring drop of a haversack filled with false documents for the Turks to find. The documents were intended to (and probably did ) mislead the enemy as to the true intentions of the British forces. While some sort of ruse like this apparently did occur, it was planned and executed by others – not Meinertzhagen; yet he claimed and received credit for the exploit for years.
Although other events were more sensational – including the death of his wife under mysterious circumstances and a missed opportunity to assassinate Hitler – Meinertzhagen, who was an accomplished ornithologist, went to great lengths to steal bird specimens from museums and to falsify accounts of their range in his own scholarly articles. The upshot is that he individually undermined much of the legitimate ornithology of the early 20th century.
Why did he do all this? Of course, no one knows. Apparently he was driven to polish his image so as to gain fame and respect. Nonetheless, Meinertzhagen gradually fell out of favor. Winston Churchill disowned him early on, but the cocoon of privilege protected Meinertzhagen through out his life and he was never really called to answer for the extent of his fabrications and frauds. At the end he was just deemed to be an odd eccentric.
The unraveling of the fictions took years. In sorting through them, author Garfield proved to be as tenacious in debunking them as Meinertzhagen had been in creating them. Consequently, the book is an interesting study showing that while history ought to be based on corroborated empirical data, it often isn’t.
In this exhaustively researched tome, author Garfield provides evidence that Richard Meinertzhagen, Kenyan colonial official, hunter, East African WWI intelligence chief, soldier, Zionist, spy, ornithologist, diarist and well connected British gentlemen, was a fraud. Indeed faced with the documentation and discussion, readers will probably conclude that Meinertzhagen (MINE-ert-ZAHG’n) faked many escapades for which he became famous. However, he did so successfully; he was even Ian Flemming’s model for agent 007, James Bond. The reality is that Meinertzhagen was a scoundrel, a man who ensured that he wrote his own press and who freely borrowed the accomplishments of others. Even so, he was also an engaging and entertaining companion (he often provided shock value in either words or purported deeds). He counted many distinguished and high placed personalities who were fellow members of Britain’s ruling aristocracy as friends and acquaintances.
Let’s look back at the record. Meinertzhagen’s embellishments began in Kenya. As a colonial official and a military officer, he claimed responsibilities – being in charge of this or that fort, for example, that never existed - or heroic accomplishments that were anything but heroic. His early reputation as a fearless warrior arose from a 1905 massacre of Nandi leaders, including the Laibon. Meinertzhagen recounted that in the midst of a round of peace talks, the Kenyans treacherously attached their interlocutors, especially Meinertzhagen. In turn the colonial officers responded and killed 23 of the Nandis. This account was supported by other Europeans present. However, careful investigation by Garfield indicated that Meinertzhagen’s story covered up the brutal massacre of the Nandi delegation by maxim guns as they arrived at the appointed site - even before they sat down to talk.
As East African theater intelligence chief during World War I, Meinertzhagen constantly took credit for operations not his own. He earned some legitimate credit for forcefully criticizing the inept British generalship, especially at Tanga, but there again he claimed to have exchanged pistol fire personally with German General von Lettow-Vorbeck – an event that never happened. Later on an undercover operation, he claimed to have murdered a German officer and eaten the dead man’s still warm dinner. Time and again in his diaries – that were substantially re-written by himself in later years – Meinertzhagen makes himself look good. (Meinertzhagen’s Kenya Diary: 1902-1906 was republished in 1983.) Author Garfield shows that there is never corroborating evidence in any official documents or others’ accounts of the same time periods.
Meinertzhagen’s greatest (fictitious) accomplishment occurred later in the war. When attached in a relatively junior position to General Allenby’s force in Palestine, Meinertzhagen took sole credit for the daring drop of a haversack filled with false documents for the Turks to find. The documents were intended to (and probably did ) mislead the enemy as to the true intentions of the British forces. While some sort of ruse like this apparently did occur, it was planned and executed by others – not Meinertzhagen; yet he claimed and received credit for the exploit for years.
Although other events were more sensational – including the death of his wife under mysterious circumstances and a missed opportunity to assassinate Hitler – Meinertzhagen, who was an accomplished ornithologist, went to great lengths to steal bird specimens from museums and to falsify accounts of their range in his own scholarly articles. The upshot is that he individually undermined much of the legitimate ornithology of the early 20th century.
Why did he do all this? Of course, no one knows. Apparently he was driven to polish his image so as to gain fame and respect. Nonetheless, Meinertzhagen gradually fell out of favor. Winston Churchill disowned him early on, but the cocoon of privilege protected Meinertzhagen through out his life and he was never really called to answer for the extent of his fabrications and frauds. At the end he was just deemed to be an odd eccentric.
The unraveling of the fictions took years. In sorting through them, author Garfield proved to be as tenacious in debunking them as Meinertzhagen had been in creating them. Consequently, the book is an interesting study showing that while history ought to be based on corroborated empirical data, it often isn’t.
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