Talk:Double-Cross System

I was under the impression that the 'twenty committee' took its name from the fact that double cross (XX) meant twenty in latin. The way it is worded makes it seem the other way around. It is slightly inelegantly worded, as is. So if no one objects I'll have a tinker with that opening paragraph. Some time.

I believe you'll find most Wikipedia editors, if not all members of the human race, lack objections as far as the work of others is concerned. -- Itai 00:48, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

just made the edit that was suggested above.  Tempshill 23:39, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Tricycle and Garbo confusion

Is the article referring to Tricycle or Garbo? Are they the same person?

No, Garbo was Joan Pujol Garcia.

By the way, a number of people have improved the article on Pujol quite a bit recently, and are trying to get the article to Good or possibly even Featured status in time for D-Day. Anyone who is interested in this subject is invited to evaluate the article. Thanks! K8 fan (talk) 06:00, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

German support

I don't have reliable sources to hand, but I've read multiple accounts that suggest that the Abwehr was aware of and even supported the British counterintelligence efforts at high levels, possibly up to Canaris himself (who was known to be in contact with British intelligence since before the war). This seems like an important aspect of the events that should be included in this article; does anyone have references? chrylis (talk) 07:57, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Canaris is reported to have made overtures to MI6 and we know that he was executed on Hitlers orders in the last months of WW2. A report of a senior Abwher officers meeting in Berlin in 1941 contains a statement by Canaris that "Abwehr has nothing to do with persecution of Jews. Activity against Jews is no concern of ours, we hold ourselves aloof from it" (source National Archives file HW19/327). In the latter parts of WW2 those responsible for allied deception plans made their activities increasingly hard to swallow but they always were swallowed. It all seems to point to the Abwehr deliberately looking the the other direction. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.5.96.246 (talk) 21:12, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Sam Fisher

I am ignorant on the topic, but is the "Sam Fisher" entry correct? Sam Fisher is a character in the Splinter Cell series of videogames, as voiced by Michael Ironside, so there's potentially either an amazing coincidence or some vandalism. 82.39.212.232 (talk) 19:22, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Agents who didn't switch sides?

Is there a reason that Josef Jakobs is listed as a Double Cross agent? His article just says he was captured, tried, and shot. It makes no mention of his being turned, and given his execution, it sounds pretty unlikely that he was. This looks to me like it's just an error. Does anyone know of any reason to think otherwise?

Likewise, the listing of Günther Schütz doesn't seem correct. His page indicates that he wasn't Rainbow, but rather the person who recruited Rainbow to work for Germany. And then it describes how he was eventually dropped into Ireland where he was captured, escaped, recaptured, and then spent the rest of the war in prison. I don't understand why he's on this list here. KeithyIrwin (talk) 07:57, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Name

Please someone explain the origin of the term "Double cross". In the lead it's suggested that it comes from the Roman numeral XX i.e. 20, but that raises several questions, like -

• What were the other 19 committees?
• If it's 20, why has the name transferred to "double cross" and not the more logical "double-ecks", "two-cross", or even "two-ecks"? Why has the name even transferred to anything? And how did this nickname "double cross" then become a verb (we don't say "he twenty-committee'd me", do we?)
• Wartime agencies weren't usually numbered in Roman numerals - cases in point are "MI5" and "MI6", dating from more or less that time, which were not written as "MI-V" or "MI-VI".
• Are we certain that the name "Twenty committee" led to the name "double cross", and that it wasn't vice-versa?

Could it not be argued that "double cross" simply comes from the fact that "to cross someone" means "to deceive them", and so "double-cross" is a "double deception"? (And therefore the nickname "Twenty committee" developed thereafter?) After all, the agents themselves are called "double agents". That doesn't come from the XX in the committee's name, does it? Thanks! BigSteve (talk) 11:42, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

It was the "Double cross system", which naturally received to shorthand XX. When the committee was established it was named the "Twenty Committee" (not Committee 20, or 20th Commitee). The whole point was obfuscation as to its actions. The committee never had XX, or double cross, in its name. As to your last sentence; yes, the article explains this is how it happened :) I admit only briefly... I have notes to expand it (and have done a little work) but it does need a lot more detail on how the Twenty Commitee formed etc. --Errant ^(chat!) 13:28, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Brilliant! Thanks for the reply, and I hope you get time to do it :-) BigSteve (talk) 09:10, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Gander

If you search the article for the word "Gander", the text says Gander was Kurt Goose, but the list says Gander was Hans Reysen. Contradiction? Or were there two Ganders? Or am I missing something else? Art LaPella (talk) 04:29, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Please fix or explain...

... this strange paragraph:

’However R V Jones refused to call off the plan absent written orders, which never came, and the deception continued.’

This whole article has spaces, gaps and textual oddities that need fixing, preferably by someone who knows the facts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.167.234.198 (talk) 08:05, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

LCS had the strings not MI5

The XX Committee was just the interface to the London Controlling Section that did all the deception planning and provided all desinformation to be channeled. The LCS had interfaces to many other services and their double agents (eg French, Indian), as deception happened globally. Ref.: Thaddeus Holt: The Deceivers: Allied Military Deception in the Second World War. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 2004, ISBN 0-29784-804-6. --SCIdude (talk) 16:17, 27 January 2020 (UTC)