WEBVTT - The Irregulars 0:00:02.279 --> 0:00:04.080 When I mentioned the name Roll Dall, do you what 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:04.640 do you think of? 0:00:05.080 --> 0:00:08.840 Definitely you need the BFG. That was a classic Charlie 0:00:08.840 --> 0:00:10.559 and the Chocolate Factory. And I think there was a 0:00:10.600 --> 0:00:13.240 series of the glass gray Glass elevator. Love those. 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:15.960 When you picture Doll in your mind, what does he 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:16.400 look like? 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:21.440 Well, he's definitely older, gentleman, I would say, seventy ish, 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:24.239 kind of big guy. Not fat, certainly not fat. He 0:00:24.280 --> 0:00:26.279 doesn't like fat people. But like you know, a tall man, 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:30.840 bin cardigan sweater, a beard, sitting in a big kind 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:33.600 of comfy reading chair, kind of like masterpiece theater style. 0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:37.400 When I mentioned the name Roll Dahl, what do you 0:00:37.440 --> 0:00:37.720 think of? 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:38.479 So? 0:00:38.760 --> 0:00:44.360 I think of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda James 0:00:44.360 --> 0:00:48.519 and the Giant Peach, and that he was I think 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:49.880 an anti Stlite. 0:00:51.200 --> 0:00:54.600 Dad. What do you know about Roll Dahl? Almost nothing. 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:57.640 I think I Knowd's name, but if you ask me 0:00:57.720 --> 0:00:59.080 what he did, I. 0:00:59.000 --> 0:01:02.319 Don't think I could tell you anything about it. Did 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:04.640 you know the doll was a spy for British Intelligence? 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:06.839 No worry, I did not know that. 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:08.440 That's wild. He worked for my sex. 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:10.960 Very surprising. I'm very curious. 0:01:11.040 --> 0:01:13.320 Was this before he wrote his stories. It must have 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:17.000 been during the war. Roll Doll was a spy for 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:21.440 British intelligence. What his job was literally to seduce the 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:24.600 wives of powerful Americans and he was really good at it. 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:27.560 Okay, I don't think that's true. 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:32.560 I'm telling you I was a spy. I talked to 0:01:32.600 --> 0:01:34.760 a lot of people about rolldal and none of them 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:37.360 knew even a fraction of his full story. And the 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:42.720 full story is bananas. Forget the Roll Doll in your head, 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:45.559 the one who's the most successful children's author of all time. 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:48.640 Forget the image you have of him, which, if it's 0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:52.520 like mine, is a disheveled BFG look like grandfather figure 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:55.000 and a worn out cardigan and shaped like a spoon. 0:01:55.800 --> 0:01:57.880 Because the Roll Doll I'm about to introduce you to 0:01:58.280 --> 0:02:00.720 operated in the shadows of World War II as a 0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:05.160 dashing British spy. Honestly, we could do a whole ten 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:08.080 part series just about the spy unit Doll was recruited 0:02:08.080 --> 0:02:10.880 into during the war, a group of secret British agents 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:14.360 in America that called themselves the Irregulars, a name they 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:17.320 took from the informal network of child spies and Sharlock Holmes, 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:20.880 which also tells you how they see themselves, young men 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:25.080 operating in the shadows where traditional agents can't go. So. 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:28.400 Picture a handsome, twenty five year old Doll, four thousand 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:31.040 miles from home, thrust into this world without a single 0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:36.880 day of espionage training. Imagine how intimidated he feels walking 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:40.239 into a room with this collection of remarkably almost suspiciously 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:43.840 handsome and charming men who seemed born for this work. Doll, 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:46.799 on the other hand, feels like an imposter in way 0:02:46.840 --> 0:02:50.280 over his head. Let's hear from the man himself, Roll Dall, 0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:53.000 describing his unlikely employment goals. 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:58.400 My job was to try to help WinCE Churchill to 0:02:58.400 --> 0:03:04.640 get on with FDR and hell Winston. What was in 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:08.560 the old boy's mind in America? 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:11.600 I mean, how cool is he playing it there as 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:13.560 if he's just setting a lunch with some old pals 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:16.360 and not orchestrating an alliance between the two most powerful 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:19.520 leaders in the free world. As you'll hear, Doll's whole 0:03:19.560 --> 0:03:23.520 life is one surprise after another. It defies all expectations. 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:26.399 We would never expect a writer like say Stephen King 0:03:26.520 --> 0:03:29.920 to secretly conduct espionage, or Jason Bourne to retire from 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:32.400 his spy work to pen forty nine beloved books that 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:36.880 change children's literature forever. The combination simply should not exist 0:03:36.960 --> 0:03:39.680 in one human being. But then, how do you explain 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:46.080 Roll Dall impossibly implausibly real. Welcome to his deeply bizarre universe. 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:55.040 I promise it'll only get stranger from here. For my 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:59.880 hard podcasts, Imagine Entertainment and Parallax. This is the secret 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:09.040 world of Role Dall. I'm your host, Aaron Tracy. I 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:11.640 also teach in the English department at Yale, So books 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:13.880 have always been a huge part of my life, and 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:17.080 dolls were the foundation, the first ones I ever cracked 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:19.880 open and read on my own. Doll's stories are would 0:04:19.880 --> 0:04:21.840 turn me onto reading. But that's only part of why 0:04:21.839 --> 0:04:24.760 I've spent decades obsessed with Roll Doll. I'm even more 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:27.800 fascinated by what an enigma he is. He tries on 0:04:27.880 --> 0:04:30.719 all these different masks, kind of like Bob Dylan. He's 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:33.359 impossible to nail down. The man is a total cipher, 0:04:33.480 --> 0:04:35.320 which is maddening when you think about the fact that 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:40.680 we offer him up to our most impressionable population. I 0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:42.800 have two young kids. They're going to grow up reading 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:46.320 Doll like millions of others. Now, when my wife and 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:48.320 I hire a babysitter, you better believe we do a 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:50.760 little digging into who she is first. But we just 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:53.839 happily bring Doll into our children's rooms, and not to 0:04:53.839 --> 0:04:56.600 get too precious about it, but into their hearts and minds, 0:04:56.800 --> 0:04:59.640 letting him worm directly into their ears night after night. 0:05:00.680 --> 0:05:04.680 Shouldn't we have some idea of who this guy is? Well, 0:05:05.080 --> 0:05:10.239 I promise you you don't, but you're about to. Another 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:12.640 reason I'm really obsessed with Doll is because he lives 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:16.120 the noisiest, craziest, most adventurous life you've ever heard. As 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:19.440 a writer, I'm a writer. Literally, no one would describe 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:21.720 me as adventurous. I write a ton of TV and 0:05:21.760 --> 0:05:24.000 audio dramas. But at eleven am as I record this 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:26.919 and I'm still in my bathroom. The most adventurous I 0:05:26.920 --> 0:05:30.160 ever am is changing up my smoothie recipe by adding peppermint. 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:33.719 That's what being a writer is. But no one told 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:36.480 Roald Dahl. You may only know Dahl for his books, 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:39.039 but when we're done with this series, you're gonna feel 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:41.840 like his writing is about the nineteenth most interesting thing 0:05:41.880 --> 0:05:45.120 about him, which is especially bananas. When you'll get the numbers. 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:48.279 The man has sold over three hundred million books. He's 0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:51.320 been translated into sixty three languages. And we put that 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:55.480 three hundred million copies sold into context. Herman Melville, Henry James, 0:05:55.560 --> 0:05:59.720 Virginia Woolf, Tony Morrison, Philip Roth, fellow children's author Shel Silverstein. 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:02.680 Add up all of their sales of all of their books, 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:05.440 and it equals about twenty five percent of Dolls. That's 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:09.279 a nutting number. Here's another one. In twenty eighteen, the 0:06:09.320 --> 0:06:12.560 Hollywood Reporter wrote that Netflix spent around one billion dollars 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:16.400 for the rights to Dolls works. But of course his 0:06:16.480 --> 0:06:19.320 impact is so much bigger than the stats. The man 0:06:19.400 --> 0:06:22.800 has permeated our collective consciousness. I have never in my 0:06:22.960 --> 0:06:25.719 life unwrapped a candy bar without part of me wondering, 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:28.120 even for just a millisecond, if there might be a 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:32.560 golden ticket in there, Which is meant to say, I 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:35.080 don't have my issues with the man. He could be difficult, 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:38.680 sometimes incredibly nasty to those he's closest to, kind of 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:41.040 like some of his characters, it's easy to forget how 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:43.520 he actually treats the kids in his books, especially the 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:44.679 ones who aren't the heroes. 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:47.880 Take missus glup straight to the fudge room, but look sharp, 0:06:48.160 --> 0:06:49.760 or her little boys are able to get poured into 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:50.279 the boiler. 0:06:50.520 --> 0:06:52.120 You bot him up. I know it. 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:55.680 Goodbye Missus gloup adiu Alvider's Yep. 0:06:56.040 --> 0:06:58.159 All those children on the chocolateur A get tortured in 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:02.040 gruesome ways. Same in the Witches, same in Matilda. There's 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:05.520 so much nastiness there, leaks off the page, staining your fingers. 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:10.720 When he died in nineteen ninety, the Washington Post, my 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:14.800 hometown newspaper, did not mince words. Quote. No children's author 0:07:14.840 --> 0:07:18.280 of the past thirty years has regularly sparked more controversy 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:21.600 than Roald Dahl. On the one hand, kids consistently name 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:24.600 him their favorite writer. On the other, our best critics 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:30.320 maintained that his books are larded with gratuitous violence, bigotry, sexism, vulgarity, greed, 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:33.400 and all manner of foulness. And that's not some hit 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:40.040 piece or social media takedown, it's his obituary. Dahl's nastiness 0:07:40.040 --> 0:07:42.520 and his controversies have sucked up a lot of oxygen 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:44.560 in the past few years. I now look at the 0:07:44.560 --> 0:07:47.040 spines of his books on my shelf, not that differently 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:49.480 than I look at JK. Rowlings, which is to say, 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:53.600 kind of queasily. We'll definitely get into all that. It's fascinating, 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:56.800 sometimes ugly stuff from a guy who helped shape generations, 0:07:57.360 --> 0:07:59.600 but for now, I'll just say it's a strange, super 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:02.400 complicated thing to admire so much about Doll with the 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:05.200 knowledge that he wouldn't have come to my Hanaka party. 0:08:07.840 --> 0:08:10.880 My friend, the writer Ben Dolnik, captures the dilemma perfectly 0:08:10.960 --> 0:08:13.520 in a short essay he wrote. He writes about watching 0:08:13.520 --> 0:08:19.000 his daughter fall heglong quote into that extraordinary, silent, inexpensive schedule, 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:22.600 disrupting passion of reading. Ben wrestles with watching her cherish 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:25.040 books written by a man who may have been repelled 0:08:25.080 --> 0:08:28.960 by her very existence. I wanted to start the show 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:31.240 off by talking to friends about their perceptions of Doll, 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:34.319 because the weirdness that people see in him is really telling. 0:08:35.080 --> 0:08:37.800 Here's the opening of a BBC profile from nineteen eighty two. 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:41.400 This is how a venerable, respected network introduces one of 0:08:41.400 --> 0:08:44.600 the world's most famous authors. The man who lives in 0:08:44.600 --> 0:08:49.400 this house makes very good orange marmalade. He also reads orchids. 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:51.760 He has never eaten a dish of tripe in his life, 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:54.319 and he wishes that his dog could speak to him. 0:08:54.600 --> 0:08:57.760 He's Roald dal who else in the world will be 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:00.840 introduced like that? He makes very good or marmalade and 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:03.600 has never eaten s tripe. But that's how people talk 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:09.640 about Doll. He's a curiosity, a character, not a man. Honestly, 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:11.640 I think it's at least partly due to his appearance 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:15.080 a real life giant at six foot six plus. He's 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:18.080 got that name that's so unusual for most people, and 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:20.960 his creativity is just so off the charts. So with 0:09:21.040 --> 0:09:23.320 all that, he can't possibly be like you and me, right, 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:26.560 he must be some fantastical creature that just wandered into 0:09:26.600 --> 0:09:28.880 our world. People are desperate for him to be a 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:32.160 real life BFG or a Mistrench bol or Willy Wonka, 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:36.440 which fine is not that unfair or unusual. We definitely 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:39.480 imagine Hemingway was as haunted as his characters. We'd feel 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:42.480 cheated if Phoebe waller Bridge wasn't as raw or hilarious 0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:45.800 as hers. But here's the crucial difference. Those other writers' 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:49.840 characters operate within the boundaries of recognizable human behavior. Doll's 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:52.920 creations exist in a universe where children turn into blueberries 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:57.240 and giants roam the countryside collecting dreams. So was Doll 0:09:57.360 --> 0:10:00.600 really is? Mischievous and outlandish? Whimsical and grow Tescus his 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:05.520 characters sort of? Now, I'm incredibly excited to tell you 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:09.600 about Doll's very strange life as a very real secret agent. 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:20.760 Picture Doll in his early twenties, that critical moment when 0:10:20.760 --> 0:10:23.199 most of us are fumbling to find our path. Not 0:10:23.320 --> 0:10:25.480 long before, he'd been soaring through the skies as a 0:10:25.520 --> 0:10:28.160 fighter pilot for the Royal Air Force, but a series 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:31.760 of catastrophic crashes have left him broken, his flying career 0:10:31.960 --> 0:10:35.360 abruptly terminated. So now he's at a crossroads. The war 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:37.840 continues to rage, but his part in it has been 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:39.760 stripped away, and he's looking for what to do with 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:45.120 his life. Doll finds himself at a cocktail party in 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:49.800 London that a date has tried him to. He towers 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:53.560 awkwardly above the crowd, nursing a drink, contemplating an early exit. 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:56.199 It's an elite crowd, but it's a lot of rehearsed 0:10:56.200 --> 0:11:00.400 anecdotes and performative laughter. Then something catches his eye, a 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:03.959 solitary figure standing apart. Not a film star or socialite, 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:07.160 but someone far more intriguing to a political obsessive like 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:11.440 dahl Major Harold Balfour, a member of Churchill's war cabinet, 0:11:11.720 --> 0:11:14.000 one of the men literally deciding the fate of Britain. 0:11:14.240 --> 0:11:17.720 As German bombs fall in London. Dahl Sen says this 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:20.720 could be his chance. Impressing the Major might lead to something, 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:23.520 though he has no idea that this conversation will alter 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:27.240 the trajectory of his entire life. Let me pause here 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:29.120 for a quick sec to set the scene for what's 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:31.320 going on in the world, because it's crucial to what 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:35.680 Doll is about to become part of. The late nineteen 0:11:35.720 --> 0:11:38.280 thirties and early forties are one of those rare times 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:40.319 that it's not an exaggeration to say the fate of 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:43.560 the world is at stake. Hitler isn't just winning battles. 0:11:43.640 --> 0:11:46.480 He's winning the war, mostly because the US is sitting 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:50.080 on the sidelines. The British ambassador warns his government that 0:11:50.240 --> 0:11:52.880 nine out of ten Americans are determined to stay out 0:11:52.880 --> 0:11:55.920 of the war, in other words, to not help Britain. 0:11:56.480 --> 0:11:58.800 The most famous of these is Charles Lenburg. 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:06.160 It is not that England is losing war, and I 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:09.800 have been forced to the conclusion that we cannot win 0:12:10.040 --> 0:12:13.400 this war for England, regardless of how much assistance we sin. 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:18.600 That is why the America First Committee has been formed. 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:22.480 And this is while Germany is sweeping through Europe. The 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:27.720 Nazis take Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:33.040 Luxembourg and France, and America we're just watching an unfold Many, 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:36.079 if not most, Americans are still traumatized from the first 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:38.559 time we joined at a World War twenty years earlier. 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:42.080 The memory of American boys coming home in coffins We're 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:44.959 not coming home at all, remains raw. The thinking is 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:48.560 simply that Hitler is not our problem. The public isn't 0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:50.720 yet aware of what's going on with the Jews of Europe. 0:12:50.880 --> 0:12:52.920 The reports of them being rounded up and sent to 0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:57.200 concentration camps is just too impossible to believe, so we 0:12:57.280 --> 0:13:00.720 choose not to. Britain, of course, is on the brink. 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:03.400 You know this, You've seen the movies, read the books, 0:13:03.480 --> 0:13:07.080 listen to the podcasts, Think Churchill Pacing War Rooms by Lamplight, 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:11.319 Britain's darkest hour. If FDR doesn't send help and fast, 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:15.600 England is done. So put yourself in Winston Churchill's position. 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:18.720 Your island nation stands as one of the last flickering 0:13:18.800 --> 0:13:21.840 lights of democracy in Europe. Your cities are being bombed 0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:25.320 into rubble. Your people are sleeping in subway tunnels, and 0:13:25.400 --> 0:13:30.160 across the Atlantics, it's America, powerful, untouched and stubbornly unwilling 0:13:30.200 --> 0:13:32.760 to join the fight. What wouldn't you do to change 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:36.080 their minds? At that point? Is anything off the table? 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:40.040 This is where espionage becomes not just an option but 0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:46.880 a necessity. Okay, So back to our cocktail party. Dollspot's 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:49.880 Major Balfour, a man who's signature on documents can move 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:53.920 troops and redirect warplanes. Doll takes a deep breath, and, 0:13:54.000 --> 0:13:57.120 with that peculiar confidence that will define him throughout his life, 0:13:57.200 --> 0:14:01.079 he crosses the room, introduces himself in some begins to chat. 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:06.720 Doll gives great chat. His conversation has all the hallmarks 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:10.800 of his later fiction. Wickedly funny, wildly creative, a little dirty, 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:14.080 totally compelling, Doll is one of those people who just 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:17.160 instinctively knows how to captivate. I'm always so jealous of 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:20.080 those people, the ones who have small crowds gathered around 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:22.880 them at parties, funny and magnetic without being at all 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:26.480 self conscious. The Major, like everyone else who meets Dall 0:14:26.520 --> 0:14:30.480 in this period, is taken with him. And then it happens. 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:33.160 The Major tells Doll that he's looking for smart, well 0:14:33.280 --> 0:14:35.480 educated young men to go to America to join the 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:39.720 British embassy. This conversation has changed everything, but not how 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:42.680 Doll thinks it has. Doll thinks he's being recruited for 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:46.240 a diplomatic post. What the Major leaves out is what 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:52.880 he really has in mind for Doll. Military intelligence. The 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:56.760 head of the Irregulars has tasked the Major with finding brilliant, articulate, charming, 0:14:57.040 --> 0:15:01.040 morally flexible young men with military backgrounds to join his outfit. 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:04.640 The Major seems to have found such a man. The 0:15:04.720 --> 0:15:12.600 very next week, Dolls out a plane to Washington. When 0:15:12.640 --> 0:15:16.280 Dohl first arrives in DC, he's entranced. It's this big 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:19.760 cauldron of power ego mixed with ambition, mixed with secks, 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:22.560 mixed again with power, Yet it all feels as intimate 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:26.240 as a college campus. Everybody knows everybody. I grew up 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:28.600 in DC and then the Northwest part of it. Walk 0:15:28.640 --> 0:15:31.760 into any restaurant, linger in any bookstore, sit at any 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:35.240 coffee shop counter, and people are talking politics. It's in 0:15:35.240 --> 0:15:38.000 the water supply, just like the entertainment industry in LA. 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:43.040 So every room Doll enters is an opportunity. Doll's trickiest 0:15:43.120 --> 0:15:46.080 endeavor when he first arrives is finding decent housing in 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:49.960 the notoriously overcrowded city. He opens the newspaper and looks 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:53.080 through the classifieds. He finds a surprisingly nice place that 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:56.320 he can actually afford. The reason he can afford it 0:15:56.360 --> 0:15:58.440 is because there was a bloody murder suicide in it 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:03.440 last week. Victim Rosemary Sigley, was a beautiful young researcher 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:06.640 for the agency that becomes the CIA. She was also 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:10.280 a wealthy heiress. Her murder was a giant scandal, and 0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:12.960 two days after there was a line of people outside 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:15.040 waiting to see if the scene of the crime would 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:17.800 be rented at a discount. You gotta love the real 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:24.000 estate market. But what's important for us is that Doll 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:26.560 is the first man in that line, which tells you 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:28.960 so much about who he is. The future author of 0:16:29.000 --> 0:16:32.360 tales filled with darkly comic violence, isn't remotely bothered by 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:35.800 the apartment's bloody history. If anything, there's a flicker of 0:16:35.840 --> 0:16:39.480 fascination as he signs the lease. The apartment's gruesome backstory 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:43.600 isn't a deterrent, It's almost an attraction. The man loves gruesome. 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:46.240 Here's one of his most beloved books, with a little 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:47.440 girl torturing her. 0:16:47.280 --> 0:16:58.000 Nemesis, when if you tried to poison me, Oh, Matilda. 0:16:58.080 --> 0:16:58.720 I knew it. 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:02.600 So Much of Doll's fiction pulls the reader towards scenes 0:17:02.640 --> 0:17:05.240 of fear and dread. There's a ton of children in 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:09.320 peril and adults with real bad intentions, danger lurking, and 0:17:09.359 --> 0:17:12.480 what we thought were safe spaces. He's able to conjure 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:15.000 these scenes so well because they're part of his fabric. 0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:19.760 Dahl SE's darkness everywhere, which means he barely notices it anymore. 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:23.159 When Dall moves into Rosemary's place, it takes him two 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:25.800 nights before he spots the rusty bloodstains still in the 0:17:25.800 --> 0:17:29.680 carpet and the single bullet hole in the ceiling. Lots 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:33.040 of people me very much included, would immediately move out. 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:36.440 Doll simply makes a mental note of it, another detail 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:39.199 and the strange tapestry of his life, and goes to 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:41.840 sleep under the same roof where a bullet ended someone 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:47.840 else's now. Dall is ostensibly in DC to work for 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:50.200 the British Embassy, so that's what he does for a while. 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:54.600 He pushes diplomatic papers, attends formal functions, fills out reports, 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:59.359 and he's suffocating. Each morning he sits before stacks of documents, 0:17:59.520 --> 0:18:03.640 watching the clock move with excruciating slowness. Dahl wants something 0:18:03.680 --> 0:18:06.280 bigger for his life. He's searching for something with meaning. 0:18:07.240 --> 0:18:10.159 But what Dall doesn't realize is that someone is watching 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:17.240 his every move. The big legendary figure you need to 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:20.680 know about right now is William Stephenson code name Intrepid. 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:24.400 Stevenson is Winston Churchill's head of espionage in America. He's 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:26.760 one of the key inspirations for James Bond, who was 0:18:26.800 --> 0:18:29.080 created by one of his agents. This gives you a 0:18:29.119 --> 0:18:32.840 sense of what Stephenson looks like, impeccably dressed, handsome features 0:18:33.000 --> 0:18:37.040 and penetrating eyes that catalog everything. His clean cut compose 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:39.320 and emanates the confidence of a man who can have 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:42.080 you vanished with a single phone call. This is the 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:47.840 man whose attention now turns to Roll Dall to accomplish 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:50.879 Britain's mission during this really scary time. Stevenson is the 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:54.960 one who assembles that elite, spiring the Irregulars. Writer and 0:18:55.080 --> 0:18:58.560 historian Jeanette Conan calls their operation one of the most 0:18:58.560 --> 0:19:01.919 controversial and almost certainly one of the most successful covert 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:07.359 action campaigns in the Annals of Espionage. Stevenson's eye for 0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:11.040 talent is wild. Just for starters. There's Rolldall, of course, 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:14.880 and Ian Fleming, who later creates James Bond, essentially immortalizing 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:17.879 his own experiences here, and David Ogilvy, who goes on 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:22.280 to invent modern advertising. Three world class creators of fantasy. 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:26.280 So picture Roll Doll, James Bond, and Don Draper all 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:29.000 hanging out, drinking and seducing their way through a foreign 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:31.520 capital during wartime, and you start to have a sense 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:33.720 of what it's like. The whole thing feels like the 0:19:33.720 --> 0:19:37.440 premise of a prestige TV series. Beautiful Rakish young men 0:19:37.480 --> 0:19:40.600 recruited into a shadow organization far from home because of 0:19:40.600 --> 0:19:44.680 their smarts, persuasiveness, and talent for deception, tasked with doing 0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:48.440 whatever they have to to save the free world from fascism. 0:19:50.040 --> 0:19:54.640 The mission of the Irregulars is broad gathering intelligence, sabotaging enemies, 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:58.840 and creating propaganda that shifts public opinion. Their official history 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:01.760 describes them as howard with the vague task of doing 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:04.000 all that was not being done and could not be 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:07.159 done by other means, Which, come on is a license 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:10.600 to operate in the gray areas if I've ever heard one. 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:13.679 Doll can't believe he's been recruited into this group. A 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:17.120 month ago, he was languishing in the English countryside, desperate 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:20.159 to figure out his life, hungry for purpose. Now he's 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:23.840 found a role filled with subterfuge, deceit, storytelling, and role play. 0:20:24.240 --> 0:20:26.800 In other words, all of his natural skills with the 0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:31.160 highest stakes imaginable. The personal stakes for Doll are huge too. 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:33.520 He can't go home to Buckingham Sure after this and 0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:36.040 tend to the sheep. This job is about to become 0:20:36.040 --> 0:20:39.359 his whole identity. You can tell how formative it all 0:20:39.440 --> 0:20:41.360 is for Doll by the fact that it echoes through 0:20:41.359 --> 0:20:44.800 his later fiction like a recurring dream. Willy Wonka with 0:20:44.840 --> 0:20:48.119 an air of mystery beneath a playful exterior, constantly testing 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:51.159 those who enter his orbit. He's definitely inspired by Stevenson 0:20:51.240 --> 0:20:53.680 and others Doll works for in the Spy Game, also 0:20:53.760 --> 0:20:56.560 the Secret Society and the Witches that performs covert missions. 0:20:56.960 --> 0:20:59.359 All of these stories that are going to captivate millions 0:20:59.400 --> 0:21:03.840 of children are born in the shadows of wartime espionage. 0:21:04.040 --> 0:21:06.680 So far, though the Irregulars are failing at their task 0:21:06.720 --> 0:21:09.880 of winning America to their side, they're forced to get creative. 0:21:10.400 --> 0:21:12.560 One of my favorite tactics of theirs is when they 0:21:12.640 --> 0:21:16.560 hire a Hungarian astrologer, Louis de Wall. The assignment they 0:21:16.600 --> 0:21:20.280 give him to publicly predict Hitler's demise based on the 0:21:20.320 --> 0:21:23.080 positions of the stars and therefore make Germany seem less 0:21:23.080 --> 0:21:26.520 scary to Americans. It's like a pr smear campaign on 0:21:26.600 --> 0:21:30.120 the fascist dictator. Can't you just picture these younger regulars 0:21:30.160 --> 0:21:33.159 around a table at two am at some smoky Georgetown bar, 0:21:33.600 --> 0:21:37.159 whiskey flowing. One says, what if we just told Americans 0:21:37.200 --> 0:21:39.480 they have nothing to lose because the stars have already 0:21:39.480 --> 0:21:42.080 decided the Third Reich is done for and instead of 0:21:42.119 --> 0:21:44.840 laughing it off. There's a long silence. They look at 0:21:44.840 --> 0:21:49.159 each other intensely and say that is brilliant. They're so 0:21:49.240 --> 0:21:52.200 tickled with their idea they send Louis on a national tour. 0:21:55.760 --> 0:21:59.600 Stevenson's main tactics, however, involved targeting the upper echelons of 0:21:59.600 --> 0:22:01.879 the US government, and this is both to bring the 0:22:01.960 --> 0:22:05.040 US into the war, and once that's accomplished, to make 0:22:05.080 --> 0:22:09.240 sure London maintains significant influence. If Britain can get someone 0:22:09.280 --> 0:22:12.880 close to the American president, that would be huge. Enter 0:22:13.080 --> 0:22:17.800 young Roll Doll. It turns out one of Doll's skills 0:22:17.840 --> 0:22:21.360 in particular makes him especially effective with the irregulars. It's 0:22:21.400 --> 0:22:24.800 the same skill he'll later become legendary for his storytelling. 0:22:25.600 --> 0:22:28.560 Doll has recently begun writing short stories. It's not yet 0:22:28.560 --> 0:22:31.840 the all consuming passion it will become. Like many young writers, 0:22:31.960 --> 0:22:36.280 Doll is trying to find his voice by writing mostly autobiographically. Specifically, 0:22:36.440 --> 0:22:39.760 he's churning out brief fiction pieces inspired by his childhood 0:22:39.920 --> 0:22:43.439 and his time in the Royal Air Force. The stories 0:22:43.440 --> 0:22:46.600 are clever and dark, a little scary, and totally original. 0:22:48.080 --> 0:22:51.280 One story in particular centers on these grotesque little creatures 0:22:51.280 --> 0:22:55.359 he calls Gremlins whose sabotage aircraft a fun Gothic story, 0:22:55.520 --> 0:22:58.320 which doubles is a fable for American and British cooperation. 0:22:59.359 --> 0:23:02.000