Albanian Assignment: The Memoir of an SOE Agent in World War Two

David Smiley had two active covert adventures with Albania, one inside and one outside that long-troubled Balkan nation. This book rather thoroughly portrays the first, laying out in detail his adventures as a British Liaison Officer with mountain chieftain Abbas Kupi's royalist cetas (guerrilla forces). The major benefit of Smiley's work is that it tantalizingly bridges the BLO adventures in Albania during WWII to the Cold War's major test of what became known as the "roll back" policy (forcing Soviet influence back within Soviet borders. It gives him a chance for a bit of self-justification, placing the blame for the failure of MI6 ops in Albania at the plate of alleged superspy Harold A.R. 'Kim' Philby. Smiley's work is not as thorough in its treatment of this wartime episode as Julian Amery's 1948 tome, "Sons of the Eagle", but its brevity is also a point for those impatient with esoteric Balkan names and terms. Like some of his World War II cohorts, Smiley became enamored of Albanians and sees them for what they are, charming survivors with a touch of hubris. One can only wish Smiley's autobiography or memoir would trace his colorful life from Sandhurst to his walnut farm near Alicante in Spain.