FDR's 12 Apostles

the long version

Nineteen months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, FDR sent twelve "vice consuls" to Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia on a classified assignment. Their objective? To prepare the groundwork for what eventually became Operation TORCH, the Anglo-American invasion of North Africa that repelled the Nazis and enabled the liberation of Italy. The twelve Americans included an ex-Cartier jewel salesman and wine merchant from a patrician family; a madcap Harvard anthropologist; a Coca-Cola salesman and Paris playboy who ran with Ernest Hemingway and the Lost Generation crowd; a rather Elizabethan adventurer-cum-interpreter; a construction expert; a distinguished lawyer; some American ex-French Foreign Legionnaires and Paris bankers; and an Annapolis graduate and hero of WWI. These vice consuls were soon caught up in a web of espionage and treachery that included double-dealing mistresses, Gaullist and Vichy agents, and a homicidal French monk. Based on recently declassified foreign records as well as the memoirs of Ridgway Brewster Knight (one of the twelve "apostles"), FDR's 12 Apostles is a fascinating account of international intrigue. - Jacket flap.