Guy Gaunt: The Boy From Ballarat Who Talked America Into the Great War

Description

GUY GAUNT’s infiltration of America’s leadership changed the course of history. When the Great War began he was the British naval attaché in Washington, beached for recklessness at sea. Taking over a network of disaffected immigrants he thwarted all efforts by the powerful German-American establishment in the United States to stop America from supporting the Allies. The exposure of a sinister German underground showed President Woodrow Wilson that America could not remain neutral. The Foreign Office never forgave him for outclassing its fledgling Secret Service.

Toughened by early life in the turbulent Australian goldfields, Guy built a career by playing outside the rules. He dodged his way up the ranks of the Royal Navy, married for money, snatched up a country estate, won a seat in Parliament and faked his disappearance to run off with the wife of the King’s doctor. He was active again in World War II—new life, new wife—but the Whitehall mandarins took a cruel revenge.