His mission: to convince the Germans that instead of attacking Sicily, the Allied armies would invade Greece. It hoodwinked Nazi espionage chiefs, sent German troops racing in the wrong direction, and saved thousands of lives by deploying a secret agent who was different, in one crucial respect, from any spy before or since: he was dead. Operation Mincemeat was the most successful wartime deception ever attempted, and certainly the strangest. In this interview with the admirable Five Books, Macintyre recommended his own favorite spy books.One April morning in 1943, a sardine fisherman spotted the corpse of a British soldier floating in the sea off the coast of Spain, setting in train a course of events that would change the course of World War Two. I find myself feeling intensely sorry, not for him, but for them. "He's toast." The faces of the press handlers are suddenly ashen. Moments later, the full transcript comes through. We are sitting on the bus, heading back to Manchester from Rochdale, when one of the press pack receives a text saying something important has been picked up on Mr Brown's radio microphone. The strange, fizzing, slightly acrid alchemy of a huge breaking story is almost indescribable. I think that will go down as one of Brown's best performances.
I, on the other hand, am turning to a colleague and saying: "That was great, the first time he has had a proper conversation with a real voter.
At that moment, although we cannot yet hear him, Mr Brown is snarling: "That was a disaster. I am in the knot of journalists who have just witnessed a vigorous exchange of views between Gillian Duffy and the Prime Minister. If you look carefully, you can see me in the background at the precise instant Gordon Brown probably lost the election.
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