Evolution of Spying

One of the oddest dinner parties I've attended took place at Washington's plush Watergate apartment complex in the mid-1980s. Along with me, the host, a retired gentleman spook, had invited one or two other OSS/CIA alumni, a colorful British journalist and backstairs Thatcher advisor, the newly-knighted Sir Alfred Sherman and Hollywood legend Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Although I knew Sir Alfred well from numerous visits to London, I was there mainly as a friend of Fairbanks. And he was there because, in between star turns on stage and screen, Doug had done naval and intelligence work during World War II and—as I had long suspected—continued to dabble in the dark arts as a civilian.