OPERATION WAPPEN

A writer offers the history of a failed CIA/MI6 coup in 1950s Syria.

It was not until about a half-century later that Maddock, a Marine veteran who participated in early Cold War operations, found evidence of his potential involvement in a planned joint CIA/MI6 coup in Syria code-named Operation Wappen. Fearing the encroachment of communism in the Middle East, the United States spent millions of dollars bribing Syrian military officers in anticipation of the forthcoming 1957 coup. After some of these officers told the Syrian government, the U.S. denied involvement, and, in the words of Maddock’s book subtitle, the failed overthrow became “A War That Never Was.” Though Operation Wappen is the author’s titular focus, the first half of the book attempts to place the attempted coup in the context of not just Cold War history, but also world history spanning nearly two centuries. The true origins of the Cold War are traced by the author to the death of Gen. George Patton. An entire chapter is devoted to espionage conspiracy theories, including cyanide spray guns, that question the official government account that Patton died in a car crash. While referencing problematic sources (such as Killing Patton by former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard, and Wikipedia, which is cited throughout the volume), the work provides speculations about the general’s death that fit into the author’s personal Cold War recollections, which accompany his story of the failed Syrian coup. His other dissections of past events have a distinctly conservative ideological bent that may turn off some readers in his attempt to challenge modern “revisionist” historians hampered by “political correctness.” Maddock’s analysis of American history, for example, emphasizes the advantages held by an “advanced civilization” over “primitive” Native Americans while his appraisal of the Middle East bluntly describes “the 1300 Years’ War” between Muslims and the West. His examination of Operation Wappen, including his personal experiences with the Marines, adds a captivating chapter to the history of the Cold War in the Middle East. But it’s a story often muddled by politicized and sometimes irrelevant historical analysis.

An intriguing exploration of Operation Wappen that gets bogged down by political tangents.