SWEET-ESCOTT, BICKHAM• 533but in the event, his skills were not required, as a political settlement
was reached before the target could be found.SUPREME HEADQUARTERS ALLIED EXPEDITIONARY
FORCE (SHAEF).As General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Allied
headquarters moved across Europe, the 21st Army Group’scounter-
intelligencedivision, headed byDick White, supervised the work of
theSpecial Counterintelligence Units, which identified and turned
members of the enemy’sstay-behind networks.
SWEET-ESCOTT, BICKHAM.After Winchester and Balliol, Bick-
ham Sweet-Escott joined the British Overseas Bank and throughout
the 1930s traveled constantly across Europe. He spoke German flu-
ently, and his experiences in the Balkans led him to write a book for
Chatham House, which brought him to the attention of theSecret
Intelligence Service(SIS). Although he was alerted to the fact that
the intelligence services had earmarked him for special work in the
event of war, Sweet-Escott heard nothing from SIS until his return in
March 1940 from a business trip to Italy on behalf of Courtaulds’
financial directorate, the textile company he had recently joined.
Sweet-Escott’s entry intoSection D’s Balkan subsection, with re-
sponsibility forGreeceandHungary, was the start of a five-year
career in clandestine operations. He became a senior staff officer in
Special Operations Executive(SOE) when that organization was
formed in May 1940. Sweet-Escott’s first task was the denial of Ro-
manian oil to the Nazis, and he handled the London end of two ill-
fated schemes: the first, to buy up all the Danube’s oil barges, and
the second, to blow up the river narrows known as theIron Gates.
The latter operation was abandoned when several key figures in the
plot, including Merlin Minshall, were arrested by the local police.
Wartime service in SOE took Sweet-Escott to the Middle and Far
East, where he held senior staff appointments. At the conclusion of
hostilities he returned to banking and became general manager of the
Ionian Bank. He completed the first draft of his war memoirs in the
autumn of 1954 and submitted it to the War Office, but after a delay
of six months was warned that publication would ‘‘render him liable
to prosecution.’’ In November 1962 the frustrated author approached
Dame Irene Ward, an indomitable campaigner on behalf of those