Spymistress: The True Story of the Greatest Female Secret Agent of World War II

“Vera Atkins—whose list of aliases goes on for a full paragraph—was the most successful agent of World War II. The secret of her success was not some gadget or gimmick, but deep understanding of the power of influence and information. She knew that it is brains and not bombs; guile and not guns that win the covert side of war.”

In Spymistress: The True Story of the Greatest Female Agent of World War II, Will Stevenson tells the long secret story of Vera Atkins (her principle alias) who served as the head of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE).

SOE was established by Winston Churchill as a covert organization to work around the staid, old fashioned Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). The new SOE was tasked with everything from intelligence gathering to aiding and training resistance fighters to planning the assassination of Hitler. Vera’s story was kept a secret until her recent death, and now it and the story of others who spent lifetimes operating in secret can finally be told.

Mr. Stevenson sheds the first light on Atkins’ remarkable story. Born in Bucharest, Romania, as Vera Maria Rosenberg to Jewish parents, Vera’s early life put her under constant threat of imprisonment or deportment under Britain’s Alien Act of 1793 and the Official Secrets Act. But like few others of her time Vera, along with key figures like Churchill, saw the coming storm over Nazi dominated Europe and understood that it would take more than conventional means to win, but also unconventional tactics waged by covert fighters.

Along with Vera Atkins we learn about SOE and its personnel whose stories put the best spy thrillers to shame. Among her friends she counted an anti-Nazi German diplomat, Bill Stephenson (aka Intrepid), the American pilot Chuck Yeager, and a wide cast of businessmen, scholars, and regular people ready and willing to do the extraordinary. They and their accomplishments are all brought to light, some for the very first time.

But Vera Atkins was more than a social butterfly; she was a cool political operator as well. She could negotiate the corridors of power that had grown even more treacherous with the onset of war, but she could also find her way around the laws of the very country she was defending.

Vera Atkins—whose list of aliases goes on for a full paragraph—was the most successful agent of World War II. The secret of her success was not some gadget or gimmick, but deep understanding of the power of influence and information. She knew that it is brains and not bombs; guile and not guns that win the covert side of war.