UNH professor uncover spies and espionage

Professor Douglas Wheeler’s study looks like it’s had the once over by Nixon’s plumbers. There are piles upon piles of books and scattered papers, and I half expect E. Howard Hunt to be hiding under the desk. However, after a 35-year teaching career at UNH, publishing numerous books about Portugal and Angola and holding previously the only professorship in North America dedicated to Portuguese history, not to mention earning decorations from the Portuguese government for his work in educating the world about the country’s culture, one should expect to see signs of so much productivity.

“Sorry about the mess,” he says, as we tip-toe through the field of paperwork to our seats. Retired from full-time teaching, Professor Wheeler puts my 25-year-old energy levels to shame; far from taking it easy, he’s still very busy pursuing his passions and interests. On Tuesday, Oct. 25 he presents “Spies In Time,” a talk and slide presentation exploring spying and intelligence activities. The talk is at Durham Public Library at 7p.m.

We begin our conversation by discussing a short paper of his published in the Association of Foreign Intelligence Officers journal earlier this year. (He is a member of this group, though he personally has not been involved with covert activities.) “Lingering World War II Mystery, The Leslie Howard Story” details the ambiguities surrounding the death of the 1930s matinee idol. Howard had been nominated for Oscars twice and starred in numerous Hollywood classics such as “Gone with the Wind” and “In Which We Serve.” His final picture was the anti-Nazi film “Pimpernel Smith.”

In June 1943 a plane on which Howard was a passenger was shot down by German forces as it flew from neutral Portugal to Britain, and all 17 on board were killed. It’s thought that the Germans mistakenly believed that Winston Churchill was on board.

“This story isn’t new, of course, and has actually been taught to generations of British, American and Australian intelligence officers for years,” cautions Wheeler, “but a new Freedom of Information law in Britain, and some evidence that I’ve discovered, does confirm that the ULTRA secret was involved in the tragedy.” ULTRA was the Allied codename for the secret intelligence gained from decrypts of German radio messages. In order to protect the secrecy of ULTRA (it remained secret until 1974) and the life of Winston Churchill, Leslie Howard’s plane was sacrificed. “The British deliberately built up Lisbon in the months leading up to the crash in order to deceive the Germans.… This disinformation operation may have worked too well,” Wheeler says.

Some key documents pertaining to the mystery are still, after all this time, unavailable to the general public. Howard’s son, Ronald Howard, spent years trying to find out more to the reason for his father’s death, but was unable to get his hands on many important documents before his death in 1996.

Wheeler’s interest in spies and espionage dates back to the early 1960s, when he spent two years as an Army intelligence officer in Maryland. He taught a class in espionage history at UNH, estimating that some 1,800 students took the class, a few of whom took careers in intelligence, though he admits “most were liberal arts majors picking up credits.” The class remained popular with UNH students for more than 30 years.

Next week, Professor Wheeler discusses a history of spying and espionage, from the Dreyfus Affair of the 1890s to today, and the intelligence failures in Iraq (though he is keen to add that Iraq is by no means the primary focus of the discussion). The events surrounding the wrongful conviction of Jewish artillery officer Alfred Dreyfus in France for spying and treason created a media blitz not seen before in history. “Intelligence and spying can be used for a positive good; however, this is not always the case, as with Dreyfus,” says Wheeler. “Politicized intelligence is not a good thing,” he adds, citing the recent intelligence difficulties in Iraq as “a complete intelligence failure.”

This should be a fascinating presentation next week, not just because of the subject matter but because Professor Wheeler is such an engaging individual. Indeed, the history of espionage has not even been the main focus of his career, but a mere side-project. Wheeler calls it, “a little bit of detective work.”


Douglas Wheeler
Professor emeritus of history at UNH, consultant for the State Department and the CIA, and member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers—will look at how human motives, traits and ideas shape the search for secret information and how it’s used and misused in international affairs.
Tuesday, Oct. 25 at 7 p.m.
Durham Public Library
603-868-6699