America's Great Game (55 page)

1
. Two such articles are particularly noteworthy: Douglas Little, “Mission Impossible: The CIA and the Cult of Covert Action in the Middle East,”
Diplomatic History
28, no. 5 (2004): 663–701; and W. Scott Lucas and Alistair Morey, “The Hidden Alliance: The CIA and MI6 Before and After Suez,”
Intelligence and National Security
15, no. 2 (2000): 95–120.

2
. See, for example, the Special Forum in the September 2012 issue of
Diplomatic History
. Academic historians of American foreign relations will notice the influence of other recent scholarly concerns on the pages that follow, in particular gender, Orientalism, modernization theory, and nongovernment actors in state-private networks. Explicit discussions of these concepts can be found occasionally in the endnotes.

3
. An excellent example of this approach in the field of intelligence history is Evan Thomas,
The Very Best Men: Four Who Dared: The Early Years of the CIA
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995).

One: Learning the Game

1
. Kermit “Kim” Roosevelt Jr. (hereafter KR), “The Lure of the East,”
The American Boy–Youth’s Companion
58 (May 1931): 58.

2
. KR,
A Sentimental Safari
(New York: Knopf, 1963), xiii.

3
. See Edward W. Said, introduction to
Kim
, by Rudyard Kipling (London: Penguin, 1989), 30–46.

4
. Archie Roosevelt (hereafter AR),
For Lust of Knowing: Memoirs of an Intelligence Officer
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1988), 4; KR to Edith Roosevelt, December 18, 1944, Part II, box 12, folder 6, Kermit Roosevelt and Belle Roosevelt Papers (hereafter KRBRP), Library of Congress, Washington, DC; KR,
Sentimental Safari
, xx.

5
. KR,
Sentimental Safari
, vii–viii.

6
. Kermit Roosevelt quoted in Peter Collier,
The Roosevelts: An American Saga
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), 198–199; Theodore Roosevelt quoted in Michael B. Oren,
Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present
(New York: Norton, 2007), 319; Rudyard Kipling to Kermit Roosevelt, August 2, 1917, I, 61, Kipling, Rudyard, KRBRP.

7
. Kermit Roosevelt [Sr.],
War in the Garden of Eden
(New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1919), 14–15, 25. Later, Kim Roosevelt too would testify to a similar childhood fascination with the
Nights
, specifically citing the translation by the great British explorer Sir Richard Francis Burton. KR,
Arabs, Oil, and History: The Story of the Middle East
(Port Washington, NY: Kennikat, 1969), 21.

8
. Kermit Roosevelt,
War in the Garden of Eden
, 165; Kipling to Kermit Roosevelt, September 3, 1918, I, 61, Kipling, Rudyard, KRBRP.

9
. Kermit Roosevelt,
War in the Garden of Eden
, 201–204.

10
. Priya Satia,
Spies in Arabia: The Great War and the Cultural Foundations of Britain’s Covert Empire in the Middle East
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); T. E. Shaw [Lawrence] to Kermit Roosevelt, December 27, 1928, I, 89, Shaw, Thomas Edward, KRBRP.

11
. Kermit Roosevelt III, interview by author, Washington, DC, April 12, 2010.

12
. Lodge quoted in Robert D. Dean,
Imperial Brotherhood: Gender and the Making of Cold War Foreign Policy
(Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2001), 21; TR quoted in ibid., 19; Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas,
The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made: Acheson, Bohlen, Harriman, Kennan, Lovett, McCloy
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986), 48.

13
. Peabody quoted in Isaacson and Thomas,
Wise Men
, 47; Peabody quoted in Thomas,
Very Best Men
, 82; Lodge quoted in Charles S. Maier,
Among Empires: American Ascendancy and Its Predecessors
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), 22.

14
. KR to Belle Roosevelt, October 22, 1928, II, 12.3, KRBRP; Endicott Peabody, Monthly Report, December 14, 1928, II, 12.8, KRBRP; William E. Mott to Belle Roosevelt, February 19, 1929, II, 12.3, KRBRP; KR to Belle Roosevelt, February 1, 1929, II, 12.3, KRBRP.

15
. KR to Belle Roosevelt, May 24, 1929, II, 12.3, KRBRP; KR, untitled poem, no date, I, 14, Roosevelt, Kermit Jr. (Kim), KRBRP.

16
. Kermit Roosevelt to KR, July 24, 1934, I, 14, Roosevelt, Kermit Jr. (Kim), KRBRP; KR quoted in Thomas,
Very Best Men
, 108.

17
. KR to Ethel Roosevelt, March 1, 1935, II, 12.4, KRBRP; KR to Belle Roosevelt, October 15, November 2, July 9, July 25, and July 30, 1935, II, 12.4, KRBRP.

18
. KR to Belle Roosevelt, December 4, 1935, II, 12.4, KRBRP; KR to Belle Roosevelt, July 9, and October 19, 1936, II, 12.5, KRBRP; KR to Kermit Roosevelt, April 20, 1937, II, 12.5, KRBRP; Peabody to Kermit Roosevelt, February 26, 1938, I, 79, Peabody, Endicott, KRBRP.

19
. KR to Belle Roosevelt, November 24, 1940, I, 142, Roosevelt, Kermit, KRBRP. For more about the Room, see Joseph E. Persico,
Roosevelt’s Secret War: FDR and World War II Espionage
(New York: Random House, 2001), 10–13.

20
. For more on Donovan, see Douglas Waller,
Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage
(New York: Free Press, 2011). KR to Kermit Roosevelt, March 11, 1941, I, 14, Roosevelt, Kermit Jr. (Kim), KRBRP; KR to Belle Roosevelt, no date, I, 142, Roosevelt, Kermit (son), KRBRP; KR,
Countercoup: The Struggle for the Control of
Iran (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979), 23–24; “Theater Service Record,” December 26, 1944, 658, Roosevelt, Kermit, Personnel Files, 1941–45, Records of the Office of Strategic Services, Record Group (hereafter RG) 226, National Archives (hereafter NA), College Park, MD.

21
. Peabody to Belle Roosevelt, June 16, 1943, I, 142, Roosevelt, Kermit, KRBRP.

Two: Beginning the Quest

1
. AR to Katherine Tweed, no date, 12.7, Archibald B. Roosevelt Jr. Papers (hereafter ABRP), Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

2
. AR,
Lust of Knowing
, 11, 33, 19.

3
. Ibid., 26.

4
. Ibid., 14, 16.

5
. Ibid., 24, 26.

6
. Ibid., 23. The nonconformist trait in the Archibald Roosevelt family was even more pronounced in the case of Archie’s sister Theodora, who moved to South America in the late 1930s to pursue a career in modern dance. Later, as Theodora Keogh, she published a series of novels noted for their daring form and subject matter.

7
. AR to Grace Roosevelt, no date, 12.7, ABRP; John M. Potter to G. E. Buxton, June 3, 1942, 658, Roosevelt, Archibald Bulloch, Personnel Files, 1941–45, RG 226, NA.

8
. TR quoted in Oren,
Power, Faith, and Fantasy
, 319; Jardine quoted in Peter L. Hahn,
Crisis and Crossfire: The United States and the Middle East Since 1945
(Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2005), 2.

9
. For an authoritative recent account of US-Arab relations emphasizing the missionary tradition, see Ussama Makdisi,
Faith Misplaced: The Broken Promise of U.S.-Arab Relations: 1820–2001
(New York: PublicAffairs, 2010).

10
. Theologian Samuel Hopkins, quoted in Abbas Amanat and Magnus T. Bernhardsson, eds.,
U.S.-Middle East Historical Encounters: A Critical Survey
(Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2007), 2. See Rashid Khalidi,
Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America’s Perilous Path in the Middle East
(Boston: Beacon, 2004), 30–35.

11
. Jack Philby’s influence would later return to haunt both the Americans and the British in the shape of his son, the double agent Kim Philby.

12
. See Thomas W. Lippman,
Arabian Knight: Colonel Bill Eddy USMC and the Rise of American Power in the Middle East
(Vista, CA: Selwa, 2008).

13
. Carleton S. Coon,
A North Africa Story: The Anthropologist as OSS Agent, 1941–1943
(Ipswich, MA: Gambit, 1980), 15–16.

14
. William Eddy, “The Moors Draw Their Knives in Tangier,” 1957, 17.1, William Alfred Eddy Papers (hereafter WAEP), Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ; Eddy quoted in R. Harris Smith,
OSS: The Secret History of America’s First Central Intelligence Agency
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), 51.

15
. Patton quoted in Stewart Alsop and Thomas Braden,
Sub Rosa: The OSS and American Espionage
(New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1964), 87.

16
. In an otherwise quite critical account of TORCH, historian Bradley F. Smith notes that “Eddy had performed his intelligence tasks brilliantly”
(The Shadow Warriors: O.S.S. and the Origins of the C.I.A
. [New York: Basic Books, 1983], 156).

17
. AR,
Lust of Knowing
, 64, 50; AR, unpublished essay about Siblini, 3.5, ABRP; AR,
Lust of Knowing
, 68.

18
. AR,
Lust of Knowing
, 70; see, for example, AR, “Anti-American Activities of French Among Arabs,” January 23, 1943, II, 1.9, KRBRP.

19
. AR,
Lust of Knowing
, 79; AR, “Anti-American Propaganda Conducted by the French Authorities Among the Arabs,” March 23, 1943, II, 1.10, KRBRP.

20
. AR to Jay Allen, February 15, 1943, II, 1.9, KRBRP; AR, “Conversation with the Sultan of Morocco,” March 23, 1943, II, 1.10, KRBRP; AR to Robert Sherwood, “Annual Pilgrimage to Mecca,” September 15, 1943, 3.6, ABRP.

21
. Smith,
OSS
, 64.

22
. AR, “A Few Facts about the Bey’s Abdication,” no date, 3.9, ABRP; AR,
Lust of Knowing
, 101, 108; AR, “Summary of the Arab Situation in Tunisia,” no date [July 1943], 3.9, ABRP.

23
. AR, “Report on My Activities,” no date [July 1943], 3.10, ABRP; AR,
Lust of Knowing
, 114.

24
. AR,
Lust of Knowing
, 110.

25
. There is a strong similarity between Archie Roosevelt’s kind of Arabism and the “post-Orientalist,” Cold War US discourse about the Middle East described by cultural historian Melani McAlister in her groundbreaking book,
Epic Encounters
. According to McAlister, “American power worked very hard to fracture the old European logic and to install new frameworks,” emphasizing the values of “affiliation, appropriation, and co-optation” instead of “distance, othering, and containment.” McAlister detects expressions of this post-Orientalist impulse in American popular culture; I do so in CIA covert operations. See Melani McAlister,
Epic Encounters: Culture, Media, and U.S. Interests in the Middle East since 1945
, updated ed. with a post–9/11 chapter (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 11, 2.

Three: OSS/Cairo

1
. Collier,
The Roosevelts
, 303; KR to Kermit Roosevelt, February 23, 1932, II, 12.3, KRBRP; AR,
Lust of Knowing
, 350, 118.

2
. KR,
Countercoup
, 23–24. One of Ted Roosevelt’s sons, Quentin II, did in fact enter Chinese aviation, dying in a plane crash in 1949 while en route from Shanghai to Hong Kong on a mission for the CIA. Collier,
The Roosevelts
, 449.

3
. Dean Acheson to Peter Karlow, June 27, 1946, I, 142, Roosevelt, Kermit (son), KRBRP; Belle Roosevelt, diary, June 10, 1942, I, 136, Diaries 1942–1945, KRBRP.

4
. KR,
Countercoup
, 36. A son of missionaries and critic of European imperialism, Landis worked to dissolve British monopolies in Egypt and quietly encourage Egyptian nationalists. See Oren,
Power, Faith, and Fantasy
, 458–460.

5
. KR,
Arabs, Oil, and History
, 4; Stephen Penrose to T. F. Bland, April 2, 1944, 658, Roosevelt, Kermit, Personnel Files, 1941–45, RG 226, NA; Prospectus for NE Project #27, SOPHIA, April 18, 1944, 55, “History of OSS Cairo,” RG 226, NA.