Talk:Eddie Chapman

message: Who is von Gröning?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.223.147.182 (talk) 21:54, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Von Groening 

message: Chapman was not a "double agent".  This is a mistake, along with most espionage terms, that is commonly made.  First of all, Chapman was indeed an agent.  However, the media and the public usually mistake an "agent" for what is really an intelligence officer.  Agents are basically just like Chapman, common folks who are employed off the books, so to speak.  They are usually foreign nationals.  They act as information gatherers, couriers, saboteurs, and scouts.  Often times, agents are mislead into thinking they are working for a different agency.  For instance, a paid CIA agent in Yemen might think he is working for al Qaeda or Jordanian intelligence, as he may feel less of a traitor helping another Arab nation.  However, a person that puts in an application at one of the 13 intelligence agencies in the US, goes through the screening process and is hired _IS NOT_ an agent.  There are a myriad of titles the person can hold.  However, the Case Officers handle the unofficially employed agents.  Note that the FBI does call some of their employees agents but that does not concern the US Intelligence Community.
Second, Eddie Chapman was not a "double agent".  According to proper terminology used within the US and British Intelligence Communities, he was a "Walk-in".  A double agent is such only when they are mutually employed and handled by two Intelligence agencies, with both parties working in tandem.  For instance, that agent mentioned before might be handled by both the Jordanians and the CIA.  He might also work for al Qaeda.  The different parties may use him to communicate with al Qaeda, or even conduct misinformation campaigns against them, with or without the agents knowledge.  A Walk-in, however, is an asset that walks up to a government representative and offers their services.  Such was the case with Pollard and Hanssen, who offered themselves to the Soviets.  Because Pollard was a sailor and Hanssen an FBI Intelligence officer, by working for an enemy they did not become "double agents".  They became "Walk-in" assets to the Soviet KGB.
But people in the IC don't mind.  The overwhelmingly common misuse of our terms helps us know if who we are talking to knows what they are talking about or not.
Signed,
An Intelligence Studies student at a military college.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by [anonymous] 14:40, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: People who want to make a successful career in military intelligence have to learn to use the terms the locals use, Otherwise they are liable to stand out as pompous ill-informed idiots. Throughout the first definitive account of Zigzag’s activities by J.C. MastermanMasterman J.C. The Double Cross System in the War of 1939 to 1945, Yale, 1972, he and all the other spies working for the Germans who were turned by the British are referred to as double agents. Hors-la-loi (talk) 08:35, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: More to the point; they were called double agents by the services, at the time, and ever since - so it's the correct terminology whichever way you look at it :D --Errant (chat!) 12:22, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Improper terminology 

message: If any "code buffs" don't quite like how I have restored "National Archives Records KV 2/461" as a web reference, please by all means improve it, but don't destroy it. If the MI5 web reference for this case goes awol again, then the NA records are one of the most respectable citation for Chapman's incredible war records. Thanks.
Dendrotek 15:59, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Hey; no I like that reference, although we are in an awkward position whereby the MI5 reference is the full text and you have to pay for the National Archives one. I just tidied it up a bit with the other references (for example; you put the date as 2001, when it actually dates from 1943 - 2001 was the "archive opening" date). It's probably a good idea to agree one to cite and have the other as an external link. We can mitigate the content disappearing by finding the page in the Wayback machine and adding an archiveurl= parameter to the template :) --Errant (chat!) 21:24, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  National Archives Records KV 2/461 

message: I have read carefully all through the NA files that are online via MI5, and note that, as I previously suspected, there is no mention in them of a "load bang during the night". It would of course, have been unnecessary for a simulated explosion sound to occur in Hatfield, just to convince the Abwehr, unless MI5 believed there were "unturned" German agents in the vicinity, which, according to what one reads, at this date, they did not - "Most secret sources".  Or that employees/residents of the town would blab, which again, they did not. Anyone else have views? Just for interest really, need not be posted, or might just merit a footnote.
Dendrotek 19:51, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: You'll find a lot of discrepancies like this within this topic area :) In such cases you have to be careful of WP:OR; putting your findings in the article would definitely violate that rule (unfortunately). However, I think it's fine the use common sense and not mention any loud bang in the article, based on this finding :) I've done that several times before. --Errant (chat!) 21:27, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: What does Macintyre say about Hatfield? I also think I remember Macintyre writing (if not in Zig-Zag but one of the other books) that it was not until post-war that British Intelligence were sure that they had mopped up all German agents. GraemeLeggett (talk) 21:54, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fake sabotage at DH Hatfield - did not include explosion noise? 

message: I believe "Perhaps as a result of this disinformation, the Germans never corrected their aim ..." is not fully up to expected Wikipedia standards.  Why "perhaps"? And who says so? I propose to modify this section, based mainly on Masterman and MI5.  Photos taken to be used in Chapman transmissions were not used.  He may have been involved peripherally, but Garbo and Tate were the main channels and the techniques for V1's were different to those for V2's.  --Dendrotek 22:38, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  V1 & V2 aiming point deception 

message: According to Chapman’s claims, at some stage during his imprisonment in Jersey, he met Eric Pleasants.  However, this is not mentioned at all in Macintyre, which in other respects is quite comprehensive, not in MI5, not in National Archives, nor in the Daily Telegraph Obituary.  His account was apparently written in “I Killed To Live - the Story of Eric Pleasants as Told to Eddie Chapman” Cassell & Company Ltd. 1957, which I have no desire to read! I feel we should alter the reference to Pleasants in the Article and perhaps change it to a Note on the lines of my comment here.  If nobody objects I will do this soon. --Dendrotek 20:27, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Giving opinions on the veracity of statements, or author's work, needs to be left to sources. I gave a quick tidy but having thought a bit longer, the appropriate action would be to put it in the post-war section as  something along the lines of "Chapman ghost-wrote the autobiography of Eric Pleasants, a British citizen who served with the Waffen-SS during the war. Chapman claimed to have (first) met Pleasants while he was imprisoned in Jersey. The book I Killed to Live – The Story of Eric Pleasants as told to Eddie Chapman was published in 1957" [give reference to pages in Chapman's book].GraemeLeggett (talk) 18:32, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I've made a modification. Suggesting within the article text that it's not true because it's not in certain sources is Original Research. Citing a source that identifies the absence is different. But as it is attributed as a claim by Chapman it only needs that to be stated. (thanks be to google) Pleasants is mentioned in Booth's Zigzag in the chapters "Prisoners of war" and the author's "Note on Sources" where he lists various files in the archives and touches on how Chapman's, Faramus' and Pleasants' accounts of Jersey differ.GraemeLeggett (talk) 22:06, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: That all looks good. Although it's probably a good idea to avoid using "claimed" as that is a value judgement :) (see WP:CLAIM). Sadly, unless a reliably published source identifies this discrepancy and comments on it we can't really make too much comment ourselves. Of course, one presumes Pleasant was involved in his autobiography (I can't find any record of him disputing it) so it can't be total cock and bull. But this is Chapman so who knows what artistic license they put into it!  --Errant (chat!) 23:36, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

text: I had found it as a google book search but the copy was bereft of page numbers. GraemeLeggett (talk) 22:48, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Eric Pleasants - Second sentence of Section Second World War 

message: I now realise that this Article has a different Notes & Citations style and templates use compared with some others.  The Section headed Notes is actually used both for pure citations e.g. No. 9, and for Citations plus Notes, e.g. No. 14.  It is probably too big a job to change it now, besides others may not like to do so.  I can continue inserting Notes along with any new Citations, e.g. pages referred to, in the present style.--Dendrotek 10:38, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: The way it is at the moment is quite common across Wikipedia. "Notes" is used in many article for both specific citations and other forms of notes. Nothing to worry about. Articles evolve and improve with time through many hands contribution; eg there are some editors who just go around sorting out minor formatting in articles.  GraemeLeggett (talk) 13:00, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notes & Citations Style 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The article states that Chapman blew up the "safe of the headquarters of the Edinburgh Co-operative Society." Aside from a short lived co-op in the 19th century, to the best of my knowledge, the 'Edinburgh Co-operative Society' has never existed. I think the largest co-op in the city at the time was St. Cuthbert's Co-operative Society, so it could have been St Cuthbert's? Lots of other sources erroneously say it was 'the Edinburgh Co-operative Society'.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mikejamesshaw (talk • contribs) 16:45, 22 September 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Edinburgh Co-operative Society" 

message: It is stated with a citation reference to a book by Nicholas Booth that Chapman may have been awarded the German War Merit Cross "as the Iron Cross was only ever given to military personnel". However the wikipedia article on the Iron Cross states it was also awarded to civilians as late as WWII, and I am aware it was awarded during WWI to another Briton (by then living in Germany) Houston Stewart Chamberlain who was too old to enlist but had pleased the Kaiser by his anti-British writings. The chances are the author of the page referenced may have been in error to use this as a reason the decoration could not have, in his opinion, been an Iron Cross. The award to H S Chamberlain BTW also chronologically contradicts the statement earlier in the paragraph that Chapman was "the first Englishman to receive such an award since the Franco-Prussian War".Cloptonson (talk) 09:09, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Iron Cross award