[2] O'Brien became a journalist, working at the Daily Telegraph, initially as assistant and eventually as editor of the Peterborough column.

His duties, which were to secure favourable publicity for the council and its activities and to provide articles and photographs for the foreign press, in fact represented Britain's counter to Goebbels' Nazi propaganda.

[3] Aside from maintaining a network of supporters in the foreign press and pointing out German lies (including their claims that they had sunk Royal Navy ships, which were, in fact, inland naval bases bearing the HMS prefix), according to his son Donough, O'Brien penned the lyrics to the Colonel Bogey tune "Hitler Has Only Got One Ball".

During the period of 1947 to 1948, he was tasked with protecting the founder of the newly formed nation of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

Since the Spanish Civil War Spain had been out of favour in British circles and its obscurity as a holiday destination at the time was indicated by O'Brien's question "Costa Brava, where is that?"

Years later with the number of British tourists visiting Spain reaching 2 million, O'Brien was awarded the Order of Isabella the Catholic by General Franco.