Book Review: Military and Scientific Affairs: Soviet Military Policy
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206702200126 |
| Author | Robert H. Johnston |
| Published date | 01 March 1967 |
| Date | 01 March 1967 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
112
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
tive.
He was
not
allowed,
for
instance,
to
see
the
financial
records:
"Constitutional
reasons
are
said
to
make papers
dealing
with
the
spend-
ing
of
secret
service
funds
unavailable
to
historians.
Unlike
many
of
the British
official
histories,
the
book is
documented,
but Foot's
fellow
craftsmen
may
not
find
"an
SOE
file"
or
"a Foreign
Office
file"
(p.
10)
an altogether
satisfactory
identification
of
sources. Sometimes
in
his
narrative
of events
in
France
it
is
hard
to
see
the
woods
for
the
trees:
the
multiplication
of
code
names
for
"circuits"
and
field
names
for
agents
leaves
one
more
than
a
little
confused.
But
the tale
he
tells
is
one
of
high
adventure
and
desperate
gallantry,
as
well
as
of-
inevitably-human
frailty
and
failure.
The
reader
is likely to remember
the
otherwise
unnamed
agent
Omier
who
indicated
to
the
Germans
the
hideaway
of
Michael
Trotobas,
one of SOE's
best
agents:
"The
raiding
party
came
out
one
man
short,
and
angry-
saying
their
inspector
had
been
killed,
and
they had
only
shot
in
return
a
ginger-haired
girl
and
a
man
in
GMR
uniform.
Oliver
was
shown
the
bodies,
and
realized
he
had
killed his
organiser.
The
casualty
rate
among
agents
was clearly
appalling.
Heavy
losses
were to
be
expected,
but
Foot's
comment,
"The
truth
is
that
wars
are
dangerous, and
people
who
fight
in
them
are
liable
to
be
killed"
is
hardly satisfying
and
indeed
a
little
silly.
On
that
enigmatic
figure
M.
J.
Buckmaster,
who
ran
SOE's
"F"
Section
with
which
the
book
is
mainly
concerned,
the
author
is
non-committal:
"he
was
not
universally
popular,
but
no
better
head
for
the
section
was
ever
in
sight"
Mr.
Foot
dwells
on
the
"language
difficulty"
which
presented
a
serious
recruiting
problem
for
SOE.
He
does
not
mention
that
there
was
one
part
of
the
Commonwealth,
at
least,
where
French
was
regularly
spoken,
or
that
the
problem
was
m
fact
partially
solved
by
recruiting
French
Canadians-mainly
from the
Canadian Army.
The
important
part
which
French
Canada
played
in
the
work
of
SOE
in
France
is
suggested
only
by
indirection,
in
references
to
a
few individuals.
Due
tribute
is
paid
to
the
heroic
and
unfortunate
Major
Gustave
Bi6ler
of
Le
Rkgiment de
Maisonneuve,
but
both
his
connection
with
the
Canadian
Army
and
his decorations
are
suppressed. Mr.
Foot's
extensive
bib-
liography
contains
many
books,
he
notes,
which
have
nothing
in
them
about his
subject;
but
he
is
not
acquainted
with
the
Canadian
Army's
official
history
which
does
include
an
account
of
the
part
played
by
Canadians
in
SOE
in
France.
Why
is
it
that
Oxford
historians
seem
to
do
this
sort
of
thing
so
much
better
than
anybody
else
Unversity
of
Toronto
C.
P
STACEY
SOVIET
MInLITARY
POLICY.
A
Historical
Analysis.
By
Raymond
L. Garthoff.
1966.
(New
York:
Frederick
A.
Praeger.
Toronto:
Burns
&
MacEachern.
viii,
276pp.
$7.80)
Since
the
appearance
in
1954
of
his
Somet
Military
Doctrne
Dr.
Raymond
Garthoff,
currently
of
the
U.S.
Department
of
State,
has
established
his
reputation as
the
leading
Western
authority
on
Soviet
military
affairs.
In
that
work
and
two
subsequent
ones
he
examined
questions of
strategy
and
varying
Soviet
opinions
on
military
desiderata
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