by hilzoy
Julia Child was a spy. Seriously.
From the AP:
"Famed chef Julia Child shared a secret with Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg and Chicago White Sox catcher Moe Berg at a time when the Nazis threatened the world.They served in an international spy ring managed by the Office of Strategic Services, an early version of the CIA created in World War II by President Franklin Roosevelt."
Though, on reflection, I can see her cooking as a sort of two-pronged attack: use delectable dishes to tempt people into all sorts of confidences and confessions now, while laying the groundwork for serious cholesterol problems in later life.
Open thread.
Her spy days pre-date her cooking days. Can't remember if she was married to Paul Child when she was in the OSS -- it's where they met -- but she took up cooking, post marriage, at a school in Paris.
Oh, the things I learn from having read the Julie/Julia blog, and then getting my own copy of MTAOFC
http://blogs.salon.com/0001399/
Posted by: Susan Kitchens | August 14, 2008 at 01:27 AM
It must be election time. We've got the obligatory news post about how the darkies are taking over.
Every election year.
Every time I think I reach maximum cynicism...
Posted by: now_what | August 14, 2008 at 01:55 AM
This is an action/comedy movie waiting to happen.
Posted by: Anthony Damiani | August 14, 2008 at 06:08 AM
She discusses it in My Life in France.
Posted by: theophylact | August 14, 2008 at 08:09 AM
Hasn't this been known for a good long while?
Posted by: slaney black | August 14, 2008 at 08:39 AM
slaney: not by me, but then that doesn't mean much. If she discusses it in My Life In France, I suppose it's old news.
I just read it and had this lovely set of mental images of Julia Childs luring people to give up their secrets with rich buttery sauces, all the while cooing at them in that inimitable voice.
Posted by: hilzoy | August 14, 2008 at 09:06 AM
Her spy days definitely predated her effort to master the art of French cooking -- which she first started in the 1950s when, I believe, her husband was stationed in Paris by the State Department. If memory serves correctly, she began her career for the government in Burma, but in any event, somewhere in that part of the world, and that's where she met her husband. She is originally from California.
Posted by: Barbara | August 14, 2008 at 09:11 AM
I think Burma is right. I remember this from a biographical documentary some years back.
Posted by: Tom Hilton | August 14, 2008 at 09:23 AM
Berg's story is told in The Catcher Was a Spy, by Nicholas Dawidoff.
Dawidoff repeats the standard joke about Berg - that he could speak a dozen languages, but couldn't hit in any of them.
Posted by: Bernard Yomtov | August 14, 2008 at 09:49 AM
From recently reading My Life in France my recollection is that she and her future husband Paul Child met while serving with OSS in Burma and later in China, but I think it misleading to label either a "spy" as I understood that both were serving in support roles. This isn't to diminish in any way their jobs, after all information has to be got speedily to the people who need it, but I understand the word spy to mean a person generally posing as someone else who gathers information not readily available and oftentimes under very dangerous circumstances. My understanding is that Julia and Paul analyzed and expedited. Of course the problem with talking about people who worked for OSS is that they worked for OSS, and therefore shouldn't necessarily be believed.
Posted by: Michael Slater | August 14, 2008 at 10:10 AM
Was this during Operation Save the Giblets?
Posted by: Michael Drake | August 14, 2008 at 10:50 AM
Berg, IIRC, was given the job of whacking Werner Heisenberg while the latter was speaking in Switzerland if it looked like it would be necessary to derail the German atomic program.
Posted by: Davis X. Machina | August 14, 2008 at 12:27 PM
now_what,
I saw the same article, but as usual, I was more interested in what they didn't discuss, which was what percentage of multi-racial families or people they expect to see in the coming decades.
Posted by: Incertus | August 14, 2008 at 12:46 PM
Now did you know she created (helped create?) a shark repellent for floating mines while working at OSS. Apparently NASA still uses it...
Posted by: Bob Loblaw | August 14, 2008 at 12:53 PM
Davis,
Yes, in 1944. He was supposed to shoot Heisenberg right in the middle of his presentation (or maybe a little higher) if it sounded like he was working on an atomic bomb. Berg had a gun and a cyanide capsule for himself.
Dawidoff makes the reasonable point that by then any Nazi A-bomb project would not have depended on Heisenberg, and doubts that he would have been allowed to go to Switzerland at all if he had been involved in such work.
Posted by: Bernard Yomtov | August 14, 2008 at 02:23 PM
How certain are you guys about this Heisenberg story?
Posted by: hairshirthedonist | August 14, 2008 at 03:26 PM
now_what: I can't wait. I'm white married to to an American Indian. Maybe when the US turns brown we can have some peace between the races. I might say though that there will always be people who will judge others by their appearance even if the only difference is the color of their eyes.
Posted by: sootytern | August 14, 2008 at 03:57 PM
Hmmm. Now that I think about it, that Mark Bittman fellow looks a little shifty. And that whole "Iron Chef" cell...
I'll never be able to watch the Food Network the same way again.
Posted by: FearItself | August 14, 2008 at 05:02 PM
How certain are you guys about this Heisenberg story?
Oops. Almost answered that. Caught it just in time.
Did you hear about Heisenberg getting stopped for speeding?
The cop asks him,
"Do you have any idea how fast you were going?"
"No," he says, "but I know exactly where I am."
Posted by: Bernard Yomtov | August 14, 2008 at 05:21 PM
I'm surprised that there hasn't been anything here about the murder of the Arkansas Democratic party chair. I know there's not really a lot to say about it (yet), but still, surprising that it hasn't warranted a mention, unless I simply missed it (which is always possible).
Posted by: tgirsch | August 14, 2008 at 09:56 PM
With all due apologies to Dan Ayckroyd's classic Julia Child sketch, my reaction to learning that she was an OSS agent was to say to myself in an appropriate falsetto, "Oh, dear, I appear to have cut the dickens out of this enemy agent's throat..."
Posted by: Prodigal | August 14, 2008 at 10:07 PM
"Julia Child was a spy. Seriously."
This is news that came out decades ago. Not surprising in the slightest. Here's a piece from 2002. Another old piece. It was in every obit when she died.
Boston Globe:
"Yes, in 1944. He was supposed to shoot Heisenberg right in the middle of his presentation (or maybe a little higher) if it sounded like he was working on an atomic bomb."No, he was supposed to shoot him afterwards, when he exited, unsurprisingly.
Posted by: Gary Farber | August 14, 2008 at 11:56 PM
No, he was supposed to shoot him afterwards, when he exited, unsurprisingly.
According to Dawidoff Berg told Earl Brodie, an agent he was working with, that "his job was to shoot [Heisenberg] right there in the audience."
Dawidoff's footnoting scheme is unclear, but this seems to have been based on an interview with Brodie.
Besides, my version leaves room for a little joke.
Posted by: Bernard Yomtov | August 15, 2008 at 10:59 AM
I'm surprised that there hasn't been anything here about the murder of the Arkansas Democratic party chair.
Apparently when you're unemployed, you're supposed to shoot liberals. I must have missed that email.
Posted by: Hogan | August 15, 2008 at 11:43 AM