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Blackford Oakes #5
The Story of Henri Tod
In the summer of 1961 just as the Berlin Wall is about to slam shut the last escape route out of Eastern Europe, President Kennedy needs to know what the Soviets are up to, and Blackford Oakes is sent to Germany to get the answers. When Oakes's contact, Henri Tod, turns up missing, Blackford locks horns with East Germany's unscrupulous communist boss.
267 pages, Paperback
First published December 31, 1983
24 people are currently reading
183 people want to read
About the author
William F. Buckley Jr.
183 books337 followersWilliam Frank Buckley, Jr. was an American author and conservative commentator. He founded the political magazine National Review in 1955, hosted 1,429 episodes of the television show Firing Line from 1966 until 1999, and was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist. His writing style was famed for its erudition, wit, and use of uncommon words.
Buckley was "arguably the most important public intellectual in the United States in the past half century," according to George H. Nash, a historian of the modern American conservative movement. "For an entire generation he was the preeminent voice of American conservatism and its first great ecumenical figure." Buckley's primary intellectual achievement was to fuse traditional American political conservatism with economic libertarianism and anti-communism, laying the groundwork for the modern American conservatism of US Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater and US President Ronald Reagan.
Buckley came on the public scene with his critical book God and Man at Yale (1951); among over fifty further books on writing, speaking, history, politics and sailing, were a series of novels featuring CIA agent Blackford Oakes. Buckley referred to himself "on and off" as either libertarian or conservative. He resided in New York City and Stamford, Connecticut, and often signed his name as "WFB." He was a practicing Catholic, regularly attending the traditional Latin Mass in Connecticut.
Buckley was "arguably the most important public intellectual in the United States in the past half century," according to George H. Nash, a historian of the modern American conservative movement. "For an entire generation he was the preeminent voice of American conservatism and its first great ecumenical figure." Buckley's primary intellectual achievement was to fuse traditional American political conservatism with economic libertarianism and anti-communism, laying the groundwork for the modern American conservatism of US Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater and US President Ronald Reagan.
Buckley came on the public scene with his critical book God and Man at Yale (1951); among over fifty further books on writing, speaking, history, politics and sailing, were a series of novels featuring CIA agent Blackford Oakes. Buckley referred to himself "on and off" as either libertarian or conservative. He resided in New York City and Stamford, Connecticut, and often signed his name as "WFB." He was a practicing Catholic, regularly attending the traditional Latin Mass in Connecticut.
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
May 7, 2024
The Berlin Wall is going up, and Blackford Oakes tries to do something about it. It's a lot of melodrama, but well written.
The best parts of the novel for me are the chapters where President Kennedy tries to figure out what is going on, and gets completely off track. Hilarious. For years it was verboten to make fun of JFK, but Buckley was brave enough to do it.
The best parts of the novel for me are the chapters where President Kennedy tries to figure out what is going on, and gets completely off track. Hilarious. For years it was verboten to make fun of JFK, but Buckley was brave enough to do it.
November 20, 2018
Summary: As East Germany takes steps to stem the emigration of its people to the west through East Berlin in 1961, Blackford Oakes is tasked to find out what their intentions are and how they and Moscow will respond if NATO and the US intervenes.
After appearing weak and inexperienced in an initial meeting with Nikita Khrushchev President Kennedy learns that East Germany is taking steps to partition East and West Berlin to stem the tide of people emigrating from East to West Berlin and West Germany. This would violate agreements made at the end of World War II, and could trigger a new war, perhaps even a nuclear conflict between the US and the Soviet Union. CIA agent Blackford Oakes is tasked with getting critical intelligence to determine whether Berlin will be completely isolated from the West, and what the East will do if NATO responds.
Oakes key contact with East Berlin and the East Germans is Henri Tod. Tod leads a resistance organization from West Berlin against the Communists. They call themselves The Bruderschaft and are not above violent efforts to subvert the Communists. He has become enemy Number One but has eluded capture. But the Communists have discovered an Achilles heel. Tod, whose real name was Toddweiss, was a German Jew, who along with his beloved sister Clementa, was shielded by the Wurmbrand family, when Jews were being sent to the death camps. They spirit him out of the country when he becomes draft-eligible. They pay with their lives and Clementa is sent to a camp to die. But she is liberated by Soviet troops, only to become their captive. Thought dead, she lives, and becomes the means to lure Tod and capture him, with Oakes being involved as an intermediary.
Meanwhile, East German leader Walter Ulbricht also has his own Achilles, a nephew Caspar, who he has taken under his wing as a personal assistant, perhaps to atone for killing his father. Caspar has discovered the rail car used by Hitler, abandoned in a rail yard, and turns it into a love nest for him and his girlfriend Claudia. Their paths cross with Tod when Tod is wounded after an assassination of an East German official and the rescue him from his pursuers, nursing him back to health in the rail car, and becoming converts to his cause and a source of critical information.
Blackford Oakes has all this to deal with, as he tries to get the needed intelligence to the President. How will he respond to the likely trap using Tod's sister? How will he work with the independent Tod and his rogue organization? How will they react to the intelligence they are passing along to Oakes? And what will the U.S. government do?
The book is a page turner, moving quickly between Kennedy, Khruschev and Ulbricht, Oakes and Tod, Caspar and Claudia. Perhaps the most fascinating element is the challenge of divining an enemy's intent and character, what action one should take, and how one's adversary will respond. Anyone who has studied this era realizes how easily things could have turned out otherwise than they did, a salutary lesson for our own day.
After appearing weak and inexperienced in an initial meeting with Nikita Khrushchev President Kennedy learns that East Germany is taking steps to partition East and West Berlin to stem the tide of people emigrating from East to West Berlin and West Germany. This would violate agreements made at the end of World War II, and could trigger a new war, perhaps even a nuclear conflict between the US and the Soviet Union. CIA agent Blackford Oakes is tasked with getting critical intelligence to determine whether Berlin will be completely isolated from the West, and what the East will do if NATO responds.
Oakes key contact with East Berlin and the East Germans is Henri Tod. Tod leads a resistance organization from West Berlin against the Communists. They call themselves The Bruderschaft and are not above violent efforts to subvert the Communists. He has become enemy Number One but has eluded capture. But the Communists have discovered an Achilles heel. Tod, whose real name was Toddweiss, was a German Jew, who along with his beloved sister Clementa, was shielded by the Wurmbrand family, when Jews were being sent to the death camps. They spirit him out of the country when he becomes draft-eligible. They pay with their lives and Clementa is sent to a camp to die. But she is liberated by Soviet troops, only to become their captive. Thought dead, she lives, and becomes the means to lure Tod and capture him, with Oakes being involved as an intermediary.
Meanwhile, East German leader Walter Ulbricht also has his own Achilles, a nephew Caspar, who he has taken under his wing as a personal assistant, perhaps to atone for killing his father. Caspar has discovered the rail car used by Hitler, abandoned in a rail yard, and turns it into a love nest for him and his girlfriend Claudia. Their paths cross with Tod when Tod is wounded after an assassination of an East German official and the rescue him from his pursuers, nursing him back to health in the rail car, and becoming converts to his cause and a source of critical information.
Blackford Oakes has all this to deal with, as he tries to get the needed intelligence to the President. How will he respond to the likely trap using Tod's sister? How will he work with the independent Tod and his rogue organization? How will they react to the intelligence they are passing along to Oakes? And what will the U.S. government do?
The book is a page turner, moving quickly between Kennedy, Khruschev and Ulbricht, Oakes and Tod, Caspar and Claudia. Perhaps the most fascinating element is the challenge of divining an enemy's intent and character, what action one should take, and how one's adversary will respond. Anyone who has studied this era realizes how easily things could have turned out otherwise than they did, a salutary lesson for our own day.
December 31, 2008
It is August 1961. Rumors are swirling that Kruschev is about to partition Berlin. President Kennedy, still smarting from the Bay of Pigs disaster, orders the CIA to find out what Kruschev is up to.
Enter Blackford Oakes, super-spy, who travels to Berlin and contacts a group of German dissidents, the Bruderschaft, headed by the brilliant thirty-three year-old Henri Tod. Throw in an idealistic young couple, one of whom is a mole (and nephew) of the Chairman of the Council of State of the German Democratic Republic, Walter Ulbricht, a long-lost sister of Henri Tod who was taken to Auschwitz in World War II, and some entertaining ruminations by JKF, and you end up with another charming, witty and thrilling novel by William F. Buckley Jr.
Best-known for his political commentary, Buckley writes a great novel, sleek and well-paced, with endearing characters and devious Cold War machinations and politics. Henri Tod is no exception. In fact, it is the best Oakes novel yet, mainly because of the underlying tragedy of the Berlin Wall. The reader feels that Buckley was outraged at the time, and in the book even quotes an editorial from his magazine National Review, in which he promises the Soviets that the U.S. will fight to maintain a free and undivided Berlin. Sadly, he was wrong about that, and expresses his sentiments through Oakes, who tells his superior when informed that JKF will not send in the tanks: “Whittaker Chambers died last month. I think he was right that he left the winning side to join the losing side.”
The novel ends with the tragedy of the Berlin Wall, as well as personal ones. It is a thoroughly delightful, if sobering, experience.
Enter Blackford Oakes, super-spy, who travels to Berlin and contacts a group of German dissidents, the Bruderschaft, headed by the brilliant thirty-three year-old Henri Tod. Throw in an idealistic young couple, one of whom is a mole (and nephew) of the Chairman of the Council of State of the German Democratic Republic, Walter Ulbricht, a long-lost sister of Henri Tod who was taken to Auschwitz in World War II, and some entertaining ruminations by JKF, and you end up with another charming, witty and thrilling novel by William F. Buckley Jr.
Best-known for his political commentary, Buckley writes a great novel, sleek and well-paced, with endearing characters and devious Cold War machinations and politics. Henri Tod is no exception. In fact, it is the best Oakes novel yet, mainly because of the underlying tragedy of the Berlin Wall. The reader feels that Buckley was outraged at the time, and in the book even quotes an editorial from his magazine National Review, in which he promises the Soviets that the U.S. will fight to maintain a free and undivided Berlin. Sadly, he was wrong about that, and expresses his sentiments through Oakes, who tells his superior when informed that JKF will not send in the tanks: “Whittaker Chambers died last month. I think he was right that he left the winning side to join the losing side.”
The novel ends with the tragedy of the Berlin Wall, as well as personal ones. It is a thoroughly delightful, if sobering, experience.
October 24, 2012
William F. Buckley's Cold War spy novels never caused any sleepless nights for John Le Carre or Ian Fleming (much less Gore Vidal), but some were better than others, and this -- along with Stained Glass -- shows the Blackford Oakes series at its best. Oakes is in Berlin to check on rumors that Khruschev is about to order construction of a wall that will seal off the eastern half of the city, thus blocking the escape route to the West. As with the other Oakes novels, there is more talk than action, and most of the talk involves Henri Tod, a Holocaust survivor and freedom fighter who has been a thorn in the side of Moscow's German puppet. A pivotal role is played by a pair of lovers who stumble into Adolf Hitler's private rail car, moldering and forgotten in an East Berlin storage center. We all know (or ought to know) that the story must end in tragedy, but the Berlin setting gives The Story of Henri Tod an intensity and power missing from Buckley's other novels.
August 26, 2022
I think I’ve struggled with rating most of the Oakes series. They are always well-written, fun, well-rounded, historical spy novels. Occasionally they venture into Le Carre’s realm of political and social anger. This one does that and quite well, but on the side of conservative politics. Buckley’s politics and his interest in politics interferes with this novel a bit, but it also features on of the more moving human stories in an Oakes novel.
September 7, 2012
An excellent Cold War thriller featuring Buckley's hero Blackford Oakes on assignment in Berlin. Packed with action and suspense, I found it hard to put down! Although a fictional story, it is filled with historical details that give the reader an insight into that period. Fiction based on fact. I also found a certain measure of inspiration for my own writing career, in that Buckley patterned Blackford Oakes after himself. In a way, it is autobiographical. And so my own character Will Nickerson, who features in Ranch Park and It's A Place For Trees is based primarily on myself, although my stories are entirely different from Buckley's, aside from being in the mystery genre. I admit that I have a long ways to go before I can come close to producing the kind of fiction that the late great William Buckley did.
May 10, 2009
The Story of Henri Tod, I feel, is one of the more enjoyable of the Buckley spy novels I've read. The many subplots gradually merge to make an exciting climax to the story I was given a better knowledge of the crisis over Berlin and a better feel for the yearning for liberty that I often take for granted. One is easily drawn to sympathize with the suffering characters and to hope for their success, though deep-down one realizes that the restoration of freedom to East Berlin would in the end lag another 30+ years and that the novel will not have a happy ending. We can thankfully recognize that Berlin itself now has such an ending, thanks in no small part to conservatives like the author who stood athwart history and yelled, "Halt!"
October 18, 2022
You could call this WFB's version of The Spy Who Came In from the Cold. In fact, someone probably already has. Blackford Oakes is in Berlin around the time the wall is to be built (secretly, of course). He's interfacing with what could be called the anti-Soviet Resistance. The wall is built. People have to get across. Or not. In fact, a plot to interfere with the building of the wall is afoot! But WFB is not interested in alternate history here, so you can imagine how that goes.
Buckley's account is no idealized world. And his hero is no saint. But right is still right and wrong is still wrong in this series. He truly sees a moral difference between the two sides of the Cold War, and writes to highlight it. He does a surprisingly decent job of doing so.
Buckley's account is no idealized world. And his hero is no saint. But right is still right and wrong is still wrong in this series. He truly sees a moral difference between the two sides of the Cold War, and writes to highlight it. He does a surprisingly decent job of doing so.
February 17, 2020
I enjoyed The Story of Henri Tod, but not as much as the preceding four in the series. Except toward the end of the story, the book had a copious bunch of philosophizing and peoples' stream of consciousness, but not a whole lot of anything happening. It was like Mr. Buckley wanted to tell the story of the Berlin Wall and Henri Tod, but there weren't enough words to make a novel. However, it could have just been that the author was just in a philosophical mood when writing it. It was a good story. It bogged down in places; but it was still enjoyable. Also... Either my vocabulary is increasing or Mr. Buckley felt sorry for his readers; I only had to look up a dozen or so words and phrases this time, rather than the multitude that I have had to check on in the previous books.
September 26, 2020
Buckley's writing is effortless, and the story is somewhat interesting due to the "cold war at noon" setting, but the details of the story feel unimportant, the extended time setting up some of the characters only to see them off the scene in a half-sentence is sort of jarring. It's obviously on purpose, but I don't think it really *works* that well as a literary device.
I have one more of these Blackford Oakes books but it'll be down toward the bottom of the "to read" pile now.
I have one more of these Blackford Oakes books but it'll be down toward the bottom of the "to read" pile now.
January 1, 2026
I was in a vintage book store and they had this in leather bound on sale; I am trying to collect leather bound and it seemed interesting enough, so I gave it a shot. Didn't really know anything about the series or author, or even realize it was an installment in a series, but dont think much prior knowledge was needed for it. Overall, fine read. Not exactly my cup of tea when it comes to writing style but the story kept me engaged well enough.
April 5, 2018
Buckley is a bit like Broccoli. I know it's good for me, but I can only finish so much in one sitting. This wasn't his best, but I enjoyed it. I learned some things along the way, and as always with Buckley, added to my vocabulary.
June 23, 2020
Fictional but plausible history
As with Marco Polo, Buckley again inserts Oakes into a maelstrom of intrigue, this time in Berlin. Bad luck follows good luck, and everything and everyone is expendable in pursuit of the interests of two implacable systems colliding at The Wall.
As with Marco Polo, Buckley again inserts Oakes into a maelstrom of intrigue, this time in Berlin. Bad luck follows good luck, and everything and everyone is expendable in pursuit of the interests of two implacable systems colliding at The Wall.
November 7, 2017
I Book-$1.99-Early Bird Books A good book,but not one of Buckley's best. 31/2stars
July 1, 2018
A smart, historical spy novel set during the lead up to the building of the Berlin Wall, with some fun moments of Buckley inserting himself into the narrative.
July 4, 2018
1st Buckley book I ever read and read it several times over the years. So interesting.
August 6, 2019
Nothing grabbed my attention, tickled my curiosity, taught me something new or prevented me from putting the book down. Enjoy.
September 9, 2020
Read in 1984. Blackford Oakes thriller.
May 4, 2023
I thoroughly enjoyed this story and appreciate the play on his name!
June 9, 2024
Too similar to 'Stained Glass'. (Was the sibling love inspired by Nabokov's 'Ada'?) The psychology of trust and betrayal got overcomplicated.
November 29, 2024
The raising of the Berlin Wall provides the background to this Blackford Oakes novel. No happy endings here.
July 29, 2025
flawless, devastating
March 12, 2015
This was one of the better ones in the series. Wow! To think of Clemetina merely sewing despite all that was happening at the end of the book. I'm sure a whole paper could be written on women's roles of the time period and there could be a whole lot said in merely just the last chapter of this awesome book!!
July 6, 2014
A very interesting story about a CIA agent in 1961 Berlin who's trying to figure out what the Russians are up to. Along with way, he gets involved with a young man who's the leader of a resistance group.
March 24, 2009
Berlin before the Wall but after JFK is elected. Some good quotes about how all socialism is the desire to control other people's lives.
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April 7, 2018Not bad spy drama but as a story teller,I think his son Christopher is better. Like another father/son writer duo,Kingsley and Martin Amis,the second half has learned at the knee.
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews