In Profile: Sir William Stephenson

We are today starting a new weekly feature here at Gods entitled In Profile.  This feature will appear every Monday or Tuesday and will consist of brief biographies of historical figures who have had a positive impact in the development or defense of human freedom, prosperity or knowledge.  Its main focus will be on largely forgotten heroes.  In that spirit, our first biography will be of Canadian spymaster Sir William Stephenson:

"James Bond is a highly romanticized version of a true spy. The real thing is ...William Stephenson"  Ian Fleming, The Times, October 21st, 1962

Born near Winnipeg, Manitoba, January 11th, 1896, Stephenson served in the First World War as an infantryman and was promoted to the rank of acting Sergeant before he turned 19.  Joining the Royal Flying Corp. (the forerunner to the Royal Air Force) in 1917 he became a fighter ace scoring 12 kills.  Finishing the war at the rank of Captain we has awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Military Cross, the Croix de Guerre and the Legion d'Honneur. 

After the war he briefly taught at the University of Manitoba and developed a process to send pictures over radio waves, the first of its kind.  Business interests took Stephenson to Germany frequently and he soon acquired industrial information proving German re-armament, in clear violation of the Versailles Treaty.  He passed along this information to Winston Churchill, then still in the political "wilderness."  Upon Churchill's appointment as prime minister in May of 1940 Stephenson was made head of the British Security Co-Ordination Service (BSC), effectively in charge of British intelligence and propaganda efforts in the western hemisphere.  It was in this capacity that Stephenson founded Camp X, a super secretive training and communications center near Whitby, Ontario.  Among his students was James Bond creator Ian Fleming.

After the entry of the United States into the war Stephenson was instrumental in securing, from President Roosevelt,  the appointment of "Wild Bill" Donovan as head of the new OSS, the precursor to the CIA.  He then worked closely with Donovan to train and recruit OSS agents for operations through out Europe.

In September of 1945 it was Stephenson, tipped off by his friend and top Canadian External Affairs official Norman Robertson, who realized the importance of the defection of Soviet cipher clerk Igor Gouzenko, and quickly placed him under protective custody.  With him Gouzenko carried documents proving that the Soviets had established an elaborate spy ring that was supplying Moscow with detailed information about the development of the first atomic bomb at Los Alamos and Oak Ridges.

Knighted in 1945 he later retired to Bermuda where he died, largely forgotten, on January 31st, 1989.  In 1979 a movie, starring film legend David Niven, was produced entitled A Man Called Intrepid.  Intrepid had been Stephenson's code name as assigned by Churchill at the beginning of the war.

The Wikipedia bio is here, a book on Stephenson is avaliable here, and the Camp X Historical Society site is here, the Intrepid Society of Winnipeg is here, and the Churchill Centre's bio of Stephenson is here.