Word: pintos
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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SPYCATCHER (213 pp.)-Oreste Pinto -Harper...
When Eisenhower was boss of SHAEF, he dubbed Colonel Oreste Pinto "the greatest living authority on security." After the fall of France, when Britain was overrun with refugees, it had been Pinto, a Dutch intelligence officer, who put them through the security sieve to pick out the spies and the phonies; and when the Normandy invasion was roaring ahead, Pinto panted along behind, dowsing for underground traitors and saboteurs...
Until late 1942, Pinto was assigned to British Counterintelligence, a body which requires gentlemanly behavior of its agents. British spycatchers are not permitted, as Gestapo agents were, to pull out fingernails and toenails, or to crack open stubborn skulls with screw-hoops of steel. In some cases they are not even permitted to call a suspect a liar; they must say politely: "I suggest that your answer to my last question contained certain inaccuracies." Moreover, since no confession obtained under duress is valid in British law, the catcher must take care not to hector or bully his man beyond...
Swedish & Swahili. Pinto, who had hunted spies in World War I, had first-rate qualifications for his job. He could ask, look and listen in Dutch, Flemish, English, French, German and Italian, and also had "a competent working knowledge of Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Rumanian and Swahili." For places, faces and cases, Pinto's memory was tenacious: he can still remember "not only what presents were given to me on my third birthday but who gave them and at what time of day they arrived." Stored in his mind like a library of microfilms were detailed pictures...
Frequenters of the local magazine racks have grown accustomed, I suppose, to seeing piles of little booklets devoted to the cult of science-fiction. Generally, these publications have the appeal of Western pulps, with space ships substituted for Faithful Ol' Pinto, ray-gun for the six-shooter, and a mobile-graced beany for the standard ten-gallon...