Cast No Shadow: The Life of the American Spy Who Changed the Course of World War II

 

Summary (from the publisher): The legend of Betty Pack is simple enough. She was a beautiful American spy recruited first by the British Secret Intelligence Service in 1938 and later by the American OSS. Her method of obtaining information was singular: seduction. In Cast No Shadow, Mary Lovell, author of Straight On Till Morning, the internationally acclaimed and best-selling biography of Beryl Markham, gives us for the first time the complete story behind the legend of this modern-day Mata Hari, a story more astounding than the legend. Betty Pack's milieu was the aristocratic world of international diplomatic society. The wife of a career British diplomat--the marriage for both partners had quickly become an arrangement of convenience, not passion--Betty would be witness to and participant in many of the most intense historic moments of the twentieth century: in civil war-torn Madrid, besieged Warsaw, occupied Paris, wartime Washington. In each locale, Betty's entree into diplomatic circles and her own penchant for seeking out men at the center of conflict made her a spy whose love of adventure was matched only by her talent for uncovering the enemy's secrets. Betty often knew what information her spymasters wanted; more important, she knew whom to approach and seduce in order to obtain it. 

Relying on top-secret and heretofore unrevealed documents from British Intelligence as well as on Betty's own memoir written shortly before her death, Mary Lovell offers a remarkable portrait of a woman whose adeptness for intrigue in affairs of espionage and passion is astonishing. Cast No Shadow is a story of subterfuge and romantic expediency that exposes the hidden human intrigue of World War II and the life of a woman whose contribution to the Allied effort was invaluable and unique.

Review: This fascinating biography reveals the life of Betty Pack, a beautiful American diplomat's wife who was recruited by the British Secret Intelligence Service in 1938 and later by the American OSS. In pursuit of information, Betty used her tremendous sex appeal and charisma to seduce her targets, who then willingly gave her what inside information she wanted. 

In Lovell's writing, Betty Pack emerges as a highly complicated individual. A rather dreadful mother, one of her children was raised by a foster mother and the other largely by servants in the household of her estranged husband. She clearly had a broad take on fidelity. Even long after falling out of love with her husband and moving on to other lovers, she still had her own brand of loyalty to him and was devoted to helping him pursue his career goals. Even when in love with other men, she seemed to feel no compunction about sleeping with targets in the pursuit of information and explained that saving British and American lives was worth it. Or as Lovell describes it, "Betty would enjoy an extra-curricular affair outside her main emotional relationship" (38). Cool under pressure, she demonstrated her willingness to risk her life many times over. 

I found Betty's story and her role in obtaining secret information absolutely fascinating. It was at times hard to keep up with which man she was in love with or in a relationship with, because it seemed to be constantly fluctuating. But by far the most baffling part of Betty's story was her son, who was clearly conceived before she and her husband's marriage. It seems his untimely birth four months too soon after their marriage was found to be an embarrassment to her husband's career. This, coupled with his suspicions that he may not be the baby's father, led to the baby being placed with a foster family in England at just ten day sold. Betty and her husband kept the existence of their son secret from most everyone for years and rarely visited or even wrote the boy. Even after the Packs welcomed a daughter some years later, they still kept their son hidden. 

Betty's life reads like a movie script. Her bravery, and at times risky behavior in pursuit of behind the scenes information, allowed her to become "one of the most successful women spies of World War II" (3). Even after the war, her life seems glamorous. During the war, Betty fell in love with one of her targets, Charles Brousse. He ended up divorcing his wife and bought Chateau Castellnou for her in 1946. Although he was much older and Betty grew restless at home with an elderly spouse, it still presents as quite a fairy tale conclusion. Before her death of cancer, Betty was interviewed about her experiences and wrote a memoir about her life, both of which were used as sources by Mary Lovell. I found this to be a well researched, interesting biography about an interesting part of the war work and especially since it was about a woman's role. 

Stars: 4

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• A Scandalous Life: The Biography of Jane Digby by Mary S. Lovell 
• The Riviera Set by Mary S. Lovell 
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