Analysis & Opinions - The Cipher Brief

Bodyguard of Lies: British Intelligence and D-Day

| June 06, 2019

Seventy-five years ago, on D-Day, June 6, 1944, a German agent operating in Britain began sending a series of urgent radio messages to his Nazi spy-masters. They stated that the Allied landings in Normandy were diversions, and the main Allied attack was coming to a zone to the North, the Pas-de-Calais area. The German high command acted on its prize agent's intelligence and diverted 22 divisions to meet Allied forces in Calais. Hitler awarded his prize agent the Iron Cross for his "extraordinary services" to Germany.

The agent, however, was not what his German masters thought. In reality, he was a British double-agent, working for Britain's MI5, under the codename "GARBO". A Spanish businessman, GARBO, whose real name was Juan Pujol Garcia, had become an ardent anti-fascist during the previous Spanish civil war....

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For more information on this publication: Belfer Communications Office
For Academic Citation: Walton, Calder.“Bodyguard of Lies: British Intelligence and D-Day.” The Cipher Brief, June 6, 2019.

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