MI5 – The ExhaustNotes Blog

Susie and I were channel surfing on Netflix the other night and a trailer for Operation Mincemeat appeared. It looked like it might be interesting so we hit the play icon. Wow, this movie is great. The story is about the British military intelligence deception operation to convince the Nazis the 1943 Allied invasion of Europe would begin in Greece and not Sicily. Everyone knew Sicily was the logical choice, including the Germans, but the Brits managed to pull off a miracle and the Germans diverted the bulk of their forces to Greece. I won’t tell you much more about how MI5 did this (beyond what the trailer below shows) because I don’t want to spoil the movie for you.

Operation Mincemeat is a dark, foreboding movie, as it should be. Literally tens of thousands of lives and indeed, the future of humanity, hung in the balance.

One of the interesting characters in this true Operation Mincemeat story is a mid-level British Intel officer named Ian Fleming.

Johnny Flynn playing Ian Fleming in Operation Mincemeat. Here Fleming is intrigued by a Q Branch watch with a bezel that becomes a buzz saw. You have to pay attention or this and other scenes that inspired 007 will zip right by.

Yes, that Ian Fleming…the one who went on to create and write the James Bond stories. He and several other MI5 officers were working on spy novels while the real Operation Mincemeat was unfolding. At one point, the man in charge (played to perfection by Colin Firth) exclaimed, “My God, is there anyone here who isn’t writing a spy novel?” There were other James Bond references, including the senior MI5 person everyone referred to as “M,” Q Branch, and more.

Trust me on this: If you are a James Bond fan, you will love Operation Mincemeat.

Nah, that’s too restrictive. Anyone who enjoys a good movie will enjoy Operation Mincemeat. It’s on Netflix and it’s one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time. I enjoyed it so much I watched it again from start to finish the next day. It was that good. You can thank me later.

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I’m an old fart. I pretty much have everything I ever wanted, and that creates a problem for my family when birthdays and Christmas roll around. But they know I’m a reader, they buy books for me, and they have my preferences dialed. A recent gift was Ben MacIntyre’s The Spy and the Traitor. I could say it was great, but that would be a massive understatement. The Spy and the Traitor is riveting. It is a book I stayed up until 2:00 a.m. reading. It is that good. And it’s a true story.

Oleg Gordievsky is a former Russian KGB colonel who was Britain’s highest placed espionage asset for 30 years. I can’t say which parts of the story were more exciting…his espionage activities or his MI6 exfiltration from Soviet Russia when the KGB found out about him. You might wonder how the KGB finally tumbled to him; the answer would be Aldrich Ames, the CIA traitor currently rotting out the rest of his days in an Indiana federal penintentiary (properly so, in my opinion).

Trust me on this: If you want a page turner, pick up a copy of The Spy and the Traitor. You won’t be disappointed.

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