When people ask what you do for a living, there are few answers you could give that would sound more impressive than “spymaster.” But that was exactly what William Stephenson did during World War II, as he was absolutely instrumental in establishing the UK’s intelligence network in North America and creating a tight-knit relationship between numerous different agencies from both sides of the Atlantic. And if that wasn’t good enough, he also had a badass codename: Intrepid. And sure, Stephenson was crucial to Britain’s comeback success in the war, but it’s the cool title and nickname that really matter.
To add to his accolades, Stephenson is among the people who have served as inspiration for the most famous spy in the world, 007 himself, because one of the many agents who worked with him was none other than Ian Fleming. Fleming once wrote: “James Bond is a highly romanticized version of a true spy. The real thing … is William Stephenson.”
Early Years & World War I
William Samuel Stephenson was born William Samuel Clouston Stanger in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, on either January 11 or 23, 1897; the exact date is unclear from the records. He was the second of four children to William and Sarah Stanger, a Scottish and an Icelandic immigrant, respectively, although their eldest died in infancy.
William’s time with his birth parents was brief. In 1901, his father died of progressive muscular atrophy, a condition exacerbated by a lifetime of grueling hard labor. His mother was left with three children to raise on the pittance that she earned as a charwoman. She turned for help to one of her friends, another Icelandic immigrant named Kristin Stephenson, who lived in a house in Point Douglas alongside her husband, Vigfus, and their children, and she offered to take William in and raise him as one of their own. It’s unclear what became of Sarah Stanger and her other children from that point on, but Vigfus and Kristin adopted young William and became William Stephenson.
Life with the Stephensons was pleasant, but not easy. All of William’s adoptive siblings had to find jobs to support the family, and, eventually, so did he. He left school after finishing the sixth grade and began working at a lumberyard, later switching to a position as a telegram delivery boy. William was still with the Great North West Telegraph Company in 1914 when World War I started. Two years later, he decided he did not want to stand idly by while the rest of the world fought so Stephenson enlisted with the 101st Battalion, Winnipeg Light Infantry, and got sent to training camp. A few months later, he was headed for Britain aboard the SS Olympic, and from then on to France.
Unfortunately for Stephenson, his time in the trenches was not only short-lived but also almost got him killed. Less than a week after arriving in France, he was wounded and gassed in combat. He survived but had to be sent back to England for convalescence.
Stephenson needed a whole year to get back on his feet, but he put that time to good use. He took courses at Exeter College on wireless communications, aeronautics, navigation, and internal combustion engines. He got back into shape by canoeing and boxing. Stephenson had been passionate about pugilism for years, and now he had the opportunity to do it competitively in the featherweight class and even won a championship at the Inter-Allied Games. He also became good friends with another boxer, a burly American named Gene Tunney, who would go on to become the world heavyweight champ.
When it was time to get back to the action, Stephenson wanted to become a pilot, so he joined the Cadet Wing of the Royal Flying Corps. By February 1918, he was ready to return to France, this time as part of the RAF.
Suffice it to say that Stephenson excelled as a pilot. He became a flying ace and earned several medals, downing anywhere between 12 and 26 enemy aircraft, depending on who you ask. But you know the old saying: some days you’re the windshield, other days you’re the bug. Being a pilot during World War I was one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, and, inevitably, somebody else had Stephenson’s number. In July 1918, his plane got hit and went down in enemy territory. Stephenson survived the crash but was captured and sent as a prisoner of war at Holzminden.
His time as a POW is poorly documented. Stephenson said that he and his fellow prisoners would pass the time by holding competitions to see who could steal the most stuff from the German officers. He managed to escape from the camp in October 1918, shortly before the war ended, and he would have been released, anyway. By 1919, he was back living in Winnipeg.
Now that the war was over, Stephenson needed to find a way to make a living. Eventually, he would become a rich and successful entrepreneur, but that success did not happen overnight. His first venture was opening a hardware business called Franco-British Supply alongside a friend named Charles Wilfrid Russell. Unfortunately, the two of them picked a bad time to start a new company in Winnipeg, as there was a recession that culminated in a general strike. Nobody was looking to buy what Stephenson was selling, so just a year later, the company filed for bankruptcy. Now, there were almost a hundred creditors all over North America looking to recoup some of their losses. Stephenson thought it wise to make himself scarce, so soon after the bankruptcy date in 1922, he packed up his bags and moved to England.
I Spy
Stephenson’s first company was a big flop, but this did not deter him. Somehow, he arrived in England still flushed with cash, and he was looking to invest. Ever since his days as a telegram delivery boy, Stephenson had developed an interest in radio and wireless technology, so he invested in the General Radio Company and Cox Cavendish Electrical Company Limited. And not only did he contribute funds, but Stephenson was also a pretty good tinkerer in his own right, despite having no formal education in electronics, and patented a wireless photography system that was a precursor to the fax machine.
By August 1923, Stephenson was managing director at the radio company and even returned to Canada as its representative to showcase their products at various electronics exhibitions. This voyage was notable because, on the return trip, Stephenson met a tobacco heiress from Springfield, Tennessee, named Mary French Simmons. The two fell in love and got married on July 22, 1924.
Some have cast doubt over the true extent of Stephenson’s personal involvement in his work related to the transmission of images, but assuming the claims are true, his patent turned Stephenson into a millionaire by the time he turned 30. His wife’s fortune probably didn’t hurt, either. Even so, he had no intention of slowing down, so over the following decade Stephenson kept expanding and diversifying his business interests. He founded a holding company called British Pacific Trust that invested in a number of different industries such as aircraft manufacturing, steel production, cement, and real estate. Stephenson even got into the movie business at one point, helping to form Sound City Films, later known as Shepperton Studios.
Stephenson’s business took him all over the globe, making connections and meeting the top industrialists, inventors, engineers, politicians, and financiers that the world had to offer. It is unclear when exactly Stephenson first met Winston Churchill, but the British statesman and future Prime Minister would go on to rely heavily on William Stephenson’s skills and expertise in the tough years that would follow.
It was during these frequent trips to continental Europe that Stephenson also became acquainted with the perilous rise of Nazism. As a prominent businessman with his fingers in many pies, Stephenson met with a lot of important people and had access to sensitive information. It was only natural that he would make for an enticing target for British intelligence to approach, just to convince him to keep his ears open whenever he traveled abroad.
And that’s how William Stephenson became a spy, although the exact year is a bit of a mystery. It could have been as early as 1936, but as you might expect, these people are pretty big on secrecy and not the kind to “spy and tell.” Stephenson himself approached the subject very loosely, saying in an interview that: “We were all friends, you see…Churchill and the rest. We were a group of friends who saw the war coming.”
By 1938, Stephenson had already become an invaluable, although unofficial asset, who was gathering intelligence and doing research into German rearmament on a large scale, something that was forbidden according to the Treaty of Versailles. Stephenson saw this as a major threat, believing that Britain was “woefully unprepared” for a war with Germany. And so did Churchill, although the latter had trouble convincing Parliament of this fact. Sure, we all know that hindsight is 20/20, but Churchill’s predecessor as Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, would forever be remembered and criticized for his foreign policy of appeasement when it came to Nazi Germany.
There is a story from around this time, one which is poorly documented, even by espionage standards, and most likely apocryphal, but we absolutely had to include it since it involves Stephenson volunteering to assassinate Hitler. A big ol’ “allegedly” here that, in 1938, Stephenson was corresponding with his contacts back in Britain about “suggestions for averting the impending calamity.” Stephenson believed that the best course of action was for a lone English sniper to take out Hitler during a rally. Not only that, but he offered to be the one to do it, and then disavow any connections to the British Government and accept the consequences. However, the foreign secretary at the time, Lord Halifax, vetoed any such measures, believing that assassination should not be used “as a substitute for diplomacy.”
Of course, as we all know by now, Stephenson’s fears were wholly warranted and later proven correct when Hitler started invading his neighbors. Once World War II was out in full force, Churchill became the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and began working closely with America. Even though it would be a while before the US would enter the fray, President Roosevelt wanted help from British intelligence to collect information…and Churchill had just the guy in mind. So in the spring of 1940, Stephenson packed up his bags again and went to New York City.
The BSC
Stephenson’s first contact in America was the Director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover. Allegedly, their introduction was made by his old boxing pal, Heavyweight Champ Gene Tunney. Stephenson’s main objective in America was to set up the British Security Coordination or BSC, a covert organization whose goals were to look after British interests in the US, counter German propaganda, protect their assets from sabotage, and just generally maintain public opinion pro-Britain and anti-Nazi.
Hoover wanted to get on board, but he refused to do so without a direct order from the White House since it would be contravening America’s neutrality laws. Fortunately, he received word that President Roosevelt wanted “the closest possible marriage between the FBI and British Intelligence.” And so it was that the BSC opened up its shop at the Rockefeller Center in Manhattan, although anyone who would mistakenly wander into their headquarters would find themselves inside the British Passport Control Office, not even realizing they were actually talking to a spy about getting their passport renewed.
At its height, the BSC had just shy of 1000 members. It wasn’t just spies but also journalists and radio workers who tried to minimize both Nazi sympathies and support for isolationism, which argued that the United States of America should stay out of the war. And then there were also plenty of officers and agents who kept open lines of communication with an ever-expanding network of contacts from other agencies. This included one Ian Fleming, who was working as a naval liaison officer when he met William Stephenson and, clearly, saw in him qualities that he thought would make for an interesting spy character. Roald Dahl, beloved children’s author who wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach, was also another one of Stephenson’s little spies, or Intrepid, as he was known now.
Stephenson’s first major score as head of the BSC was helping to engineer the Destroyers-for-bases deal from September 1940 that saw Britain receive 50 destroyers from the United States without the latter breaking its neutrality laws. One of Stephenson’s closest associates during his time with the BSC was Bill Donovan, an American lawyer and former soldier who would serve as the head of the Office of Strategic Services or OSS, the precursor to the CIA. Stephenson arranged for Donovan to take an extended trip to England to see the situation for himself. This was done through secret channels, and not even the American embassy in London knew about it. This was probably for the best since the American ambassador, Joseph Kennedy (the father of JFK), was convinced that Britain’s defeat was inevitable and kept advising Washington not to get involved.
Donovan needed to see how things stood. After all, as much as he wanted to help the UK, he would advise against it if he thought that American assets would simply be destroyed or, even worse, captured by the Germans. After a few weeks in England, Donovan returned home convinced that Britain desperately needed American help…and that they should provide it.
Donovan got FDR onboard, but the president was still shackled by the limitations of America’s Neutrality Act, not to mention that he had an election coming up and didn’t want to seem too pro-war. Eventually, after enough legal finagling and loopholes, the deal was done. FDR got senior military officials to certify that the 50 aging destroyers were “not essential to” the defense of the United States. Instead of simply providing aid, America made a trade in exchange for 99-year leases on British naval and air bases. And Roosevelt pulled it off without the need for congressional approval. Of course, he still caught a lot of flak from his political opponents, but overall, it was a crucial deal that helped turn the tide, and it represented only the beginning of the Anglo-American cooperation during the war.
When he wasn’t securing military assets, William Stephenson was looking after Britain’s image in America. As we said, there were plenty of interest groups who promoted isolationist views, feeling that this wasn’t America’s war…and then, of course, there were others who were openly in favor of Nazi Germany. Stephenson had BSC agents infiltrate these groups all over the country to keep tabs on who was doing what. At the same time, he was making powerful allies in the media. The New York Times, New York Post, New York Herald Tribune, and the Baltimore Sun were all sympathetic to the British cause or, at the very least, not big fans of Nazism. At one point, the BSC even subsidized a radio station in New York called WRUL and turned it into a non-stop propaganda and recruitment channel.
The Man They Call Intrepid
Of course, all the propaganda work became less necessary after the United States officially joined the war in December 1941. Once that had happened, Stephenson could redirect his attention elsewhere, and he started by opening a spy school in Canada, on the shores of Lake Ontario. Unofficially known as Camp X, this was the place during the war where American and Canadian agents trained to do their super secret spy stuff like espionage, sabotage, unarmed combat, weapons training, and even silent assassinations. The agents who trained here were not protected by the Geneva Convention, and many of them were captured, tortured, and executed by the enemy, while those who survived received no individual recognition for their efforts. And the camp had an advanced secret communications network that they called Hydra, which the Canadians kept using until the late 60s during the Cold War. Not particularly relevant, but we thought it sounded cool. Nowadays, what’s left of Camp X is a park called Intrepid Park, in honor of Stephenson’s codename during the war.
You might notice at this point that, other than Stephenson’s early years as a pilot with the RAF, most of his work was done at his desk or in meetings. Not quite as many perilous encounters with evil villains in secret lairs, fighting off deadly henchmen with sharp bowler hats as one might expect from a super spy. Certainly, no drinking shaken Martinis with sexy ladies with suggestive names like Pussy Galore and Plenty O’Toole.
But the reality is that we simply don’t know the true extent of Intrepid’s goings-on, and we probably never will. He certainly traveled a lot. It’s not like he had a 9-to-5 office job. During the war, he made over 40 trips to Britain alone, but most of them were confidential and undocumented, made using aliases. You know, like a spy… After the war, most of the BSC records were destroyed, and the people who used to work there knew how to keep a secret, so his activities will remain a mystery.
The best we can do is a quick description courtesy of the head of the UK’s Special Operations Executive, Colin Gubbins, who considered Stephenson’s actions “a series of brilliant individual coups against Axis powers in the true tradition of secret intelligence with modern embellishments which in fact had an influence on military operations in the main theaters…We who were in SOE owe a profound debt to Stephenson and to all who worked in cooperation with him in so many vital aspects of inter-allied achievement.”
Even so, we still know what Stephenson did in broad strokes. We know that he established a censorship station in Bermuda with the support of his American counterpart, Bill Donovan. Over 1,000 censors, intelligence officers, and codebreakers worked there during the war, examining every piece of transatlantic mail for useful information. Their biggest success was busting the so-called “Joe K” ring led by US-born German spy Karl Ludwig. Ludwig and his agents were sending information to Berlin about Allied ships in New York Harbor so they could be targeted by German U-boats.
Life after the War
At various points during World War II, William Stephenson represented MI5, MI6, the Special Operations Executive, the Political Intelligence Department, the Office of Naval Intelligence, the Security Executive, and the Special Branch of Scotland Yard. In an unusual move for a spy, he received public recognition for all of his efforts, and he was knighted in 1945, as personally recommended by Winston Churchill, who wrote in his recommendation letter: “This one is dear to my heart.”
Still, very few people knew the true extent of his work. The public announcement in the newspaper simply referred to Stephenson as being “employed in a department of the Foreign Office.” The Americans, too, wanted to show their appreciation for Agent Intrepid’s invaluable contributions to the war effort, so they awarded Stephenson the Medal of Merit, making him one of the first foreigners to receive this honor.
Following the war, Stephenson stepped away for some much-needed rest & relaxation and bought a little place in Jamaica. He and his wife would often host fancy dinner parties, shindigs, and soirées where the guest lists were a “who’s who” from the worlds of entertainment, politics, and the media. This was his life for about five years until Stephenson got bored with his little island retreat and started lusting after the big city again. So in 1951, the Stephensons sold their house in Jamaica and moved to New York City, where they lived right above Greta Garbo in a lavish apartment that took up an entire floor.
A civilian again, Stephenson returned to Corporate America, but without as much aplomb as before. He encouraged development and investment opportunities in the Caribbean, as well as his native Canadian province of Manitoba, but he suffered a stroke in the early 60s that slowed him down considerably. After a long and grueling recovery, the Stephensons decided to say goodbye to the business world forever, so they packed up their bags again and moved to Bermuda, for good this time.
They spent the next decade-and-a-half here in relative solitude, although the people who came to visit Stephenson, the ones from his previous life as a spymaster, all said that he stayed well informed of all significant global developments. He still had a telex machine, which he used to send and receive messages from all over the world. Whether or not Stephenson still moonlighted as Intrepid, we can only speculate.
Mary Stephenson was the first to go, dying in 1977 of cancer. Since they had no children of their own, William Stephenson adopted his late wife’s nurse, Elizabeth, as his daughter. He lived for 12 more years, dying on January 31, 1989, at the age of 92. His funeral, like his life, was furtive and hush-hush. As per Stephenson’s last wishes, his death was announced only after the funeral had already taken place, thus ensuring that only a handful of his closest friends and family would attend.
