William Stephenson - The Spy in Rockefeller Center

Everybody knows that spies hang out in secret hideaways, isolated from the rest of the world. Not William Stephenson. This famous British spymaster, whose code name was “Intrepid,” had his offices in a beautiful suite in Rockefeller Center, in the heart of New York City.

Stephenson is included in our 100 not merely for his work in British intelligence, but also for helping William J. Donovan (Number 24) organize the Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.) and train its operatives.

Varied Interests

Stephenson was born in Winnipeg, Canada, in 1896. During World War I, he was an air ace of the British flying corps, with more than two dozen downed enemy planes to his credit. His feats won him British and French decorations. Shot down and made a prisoner of war, he escaped to fight another day. These were the kinds of experiences that would later inspire Winston Churchill (Number 3) to give him the code name “Intrepid.”

Following World War I, Stephenson took on new roles, as both financier and inventor. He had investments in every major product of the time, from radios to airplanes, he was also a boxing champion.

Among his foreign business interests, Stephenson had holdings in Germany. This gave him the opportunity to keep track of what Adolf Hitler (Number l) was doing to prepare for war. Stephenson sent the data along to Churchill, the future British prime minister. When Churchill finally took that office, he had plans for Stephenson.

A Spy by Any Other Name

In 1940, the Canadian financier was given the title of Passport Control Officer, con-ducting business in Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan. His real job was security coordinator in the Western hemisphere for British intelligence. He became one of Churchill’s chief contacts with President Roosevelt (Number 2); some sources say that Intrepid was the major contact.

Stephenson ran a spy network throughout North and South America. There were Nazi agents throughout Latin America, and Stephenson made sure that the United States, not yet in the war and lacking a spy network of its own, received information vital to its interests. He was also aware of Nazi agents in the United States, which sometimes put him in conflict with J. Edgar Hoover of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Turf would be a problem throughout the war as both Hoover and Stephenson went after the same Nazi spies.

Creating an American Spy Ring

Intrepid’s major job was helping the United States to get the Office of Strategic Services off the ground. The most important aspects were recruitment and training. Stephenson gave Donovan tips on physical and psychological characteristics of potential agents. More importantly, he provided training areas in Canada, where agents were taught all the dirty tricks of spying and staying alive behind enemy lines, including tactics of assassination, sabotage, the use of weapons, and radio contact.

There is no doubt that one of Stephenson’s tasks on behalf of Churchill was get-ting the United States into the war. After one conversation with President Roosevelt, Intrepid reported back to London that FDR did not want to face a war the way Wood-row Wilson did back in World War I. Roosevelt was determined that the country come in united, not divided.

The Thrill of the Chase

After the war, Stephenson was honored for his work by both Great Britain and the United States. He was knighted in 1946 by King George VI and given the Legion of Merit by the United States, the country’s highest decoration for a foreigner. But Intrepid could not shake the thrill of the chase. He found himself involved in incidents involving the Soviet government. He helped the Canadian authorities track down the atomic spy Dr. Alan Nunn May and assisted the Soviet defector, Igor Gouzenko.

There were undoubtedly other ways that Intrepid served Great Britain, Canada, and the United States after World War II that are still secret. He did, after all, have more than 40 years to go in an extraordinarily event-filled life, and he would have found it difficult not to be involved.

William Stephenson died in 1989 at the age of 93.