The Dutch Affair Revisited or the Destructive Power of Organizational Warfare

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Notes

¹ Lou de Jong, Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog (The Hague: Staatsuitgeverij 1979).

² M.R.D. Foot, SOE in the Low Countries (London: St Ermin's Press 2001); M.R.D. Foot, ‘The Dutch Affair’, Intelligence and National Security 20/2 (2005) pp.341–3.

³ Psychologists would probably replace stupidity with the diagnosis of ‘tunnel vision’. This metaphor denotes the reluctance of individuals to consider alternatives to their preferred line of thought; this could include physicians treating afflictions, detectives considering crime suspects, or anyone predisposed to a favored outcome. However, the Dutch section was not the only section being deaf to signs that sets had been turned (see Foot, SOE in the Low Countries, p.192).

⁴ L. Marks, Between Silk and Cyanide (New York: Simon & Shuster 1998) pp.134, 185, 222, 305; Pieter Hans Hoets, Englandspiel ontmaskerd (Amsterdam: Donker 1990) p.164. Foot, SOE in the Low Countries, p.155.

⁵ Marks, Between Silk and Cyanide, p.335.

⁶ Ibid., p.240.

⁷ Wikipedia, English language, entry ‘Englandspiel’, consulted 9 December 2011.

⁸ The two squadrons of bombers flying agents into enemy territory were, in RAF eyes, an unwelcome diversion from its prime mission, to bomb Germany into smithereens. Losses of aircraft and crews were very high.

⁹ Until March 1943 SOE had only two other trump cards (not counting Churchill's enthusiasm!): its secret armies in France and its successful operation in Norway (the destruction of the heavy water plant).

¹⁰ Jo Wolters, Dossier Nordpol (Amsterdam: Boom 2003) p.83.

¹¹ Possibly because a cessation directly after the issuance of the directive would have been too obvious a giveaway.

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Hugh Van Der Mandele

Dr Hugh van der Mandele (1945) read economics in Wageningen and Groningen. He was a consulting economist with FAO, HVA International and IWACO (now Haskoning) and concluded his career freelance. He has now retired. Next year his third book will be published, mainly on economics. He lives with his wife in Harlingen, the Netherlands, and has six children and seven grandchildren.