Sir William Samuel Stephenson CC MC DFC (born William Samuel Clouston Stanger, 23 January 1897 – 31 January 1989) was a Canadian soldier, fighter pilot, businessman and spymaster who served as the senior representative of the British Security Coordination (BSC) for the Western Allies during World War II.

[3] In addition, Stephenson has been credited with changing American public opinion from an isolationist stance to a supportive tendency regarding the United States' entry into World War II.

In January 1916, during World War I, he volunteered for service in the 101st Overseas Battalion (Winnipeg Light Infantry), Canadian Expeditionary Force.

On 15 August 1917, Stephenson was officially struck off the strength of the Canadian Expeditionary Force and granted a commission in the Royal Flying Corps.

[5] Posted to 73 Squadron on 9 February 1918, he flew the Sopwith Camel biplane fighter and scored 12 victories to become a flying ace before he was shot down and crashed his plane behind enemy lines on 28 July 1918.

[7][page needed] His Royal Air Force (RAF) Service file indicates that he was repatriated from the Holzminden prisoner-of-war camp on 9 December 1918.

As early as April 1936, Stephenson was voluntarily providing confidential information to British MP Winston Churchill about how Adolf Hitler's Nazi government was building up its armed forces and hiding military expenditures of £800,000,000.

[7]: p.27 After World War II began (and over the objections of Sir Stewart Menzies, wartime head of British intelligence) now-Prime Minister Winston Churchill sent Stephenson to the United States on 21 June 1940, to covertly establish and run British Security Coordination (BSC) in New York City, over a year before U.S. entry into the war.

[17] Stephenson's initial directives for BSC were to Later this was expanded to include "the assurance of American participation in secret activities throughout the world in the closest possible collaboration with the British".

[citation needed] While it was still neutral, agreement was made for all trans-Atlantic mails from the U.S. to be routed through the British colony of Bermuda, 640 miles off the North Carolina coast.

[18][19][20] With BSC working closely with the FBI, the censors were responsible for the discovery and arrest of a number of Axis spies operating in the US, including the Joe K ring.

BSC covert intelligence and propaganda efforts directly affected wartime developments in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Mexico, the Central American countries, Bermuda, Cuba and Puerto Rico.

His employees included secretive communications genius Benjamin deForest "Pat" Bayly and future advertising wizard David Ogilvy.

Stephenson employed Amy Elizabeth Thorpe, codenamed CYNTHIA, to seduce Vichy French officials into giving up Enigma ciphers and secrets from their Washington embassy.

[23] At the height of the war Bayly, a University of Toronto professor from Moose Jaw, created the Rockex, the fast secure communications system that would eventually be relied on by all the Allies.

[24] Not least of Stephenson's contributions to the war effort was the setting up by BSC of Camp X, the unofficial name of the secret Special Training School No.

[26][27][28] Reports indicate that Camp X graduates worked as "secret agents, security personnel, intelligence officers, or psychological warfare experts, serving in clandestine operations.

By mid-1944, Hydra (as the Camp X transmitter was known) was transmitting 30,000 and receiving 9,000 message groups daily – much of the secret Allied intelligence traffic across the Atlantic.

"Wild Bill" Donovan, who had recently toured British defences and gained the confidence of Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

Although Roosevelt didn't establish exactly what Sir William had in mind, the organization created represented a revolutionary step in the history of American intelligence.

Intrepid may not have technically been the father of CIA, but he's certainly in our lineage someplace.On 8 August 2008, Stephenson was recognized for his work by Major General John M. Custer, Commandant of the U.S. Army Intelligence Corps.

A historic plaque erected at the park reads as follows: On this site British Security Co-ordination operated Special Training School No.

103 trained Allied agents in the techniques of secret warfare for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) branch of the British Intelligence Service.

Nigel West's 1998 book Counterfeit Spies asserts that "Intrepid" was probably not Stephenson's codename, but BSC's telegraphic address in New York.

Intelligence historian David A. T. Stafford asserts that a more reliable source on Stephenson's career is H. Montgomery Hyde's The Quiet Canadian, published in 1962, before Stevenson's book.

[38] But generally acknowledged as the most accurate account of Stephenson's life is Bill Macdonald's The True Intrepid (1998), with a foreword by the late CIA staff historian Thomas Troy.