FDR's 12 Apostles: The Spies Who Paved the Way
    for the Invasion of North Africa

Now available for the Amazon Kindle!

Hal W. Vaughan



Under-Secretary of State Dean Acheson pins a medal on six of Murphy’s vice consuls at a State Department ceremony on March 13, 1946. From left: W. Stafford Reid, Kenneth Pendar, David W. King, Dean Acheson, Leland L. Rounds, Frederic Culbert, Harry A. Woodruff. Photo courtesy of Mrs. Edith Kunhardt (daughter of Harry Woodruff).

In May 2006, the U.S. Postal Service issued a special series of stamps honoring six American diplomats. Robert D. Murphy was among them.

Hal W. Vaughan is a former U.S. Foreign Service officer, a documentary film producer, and a journalist who has worked for ABC News, the New York Daily News, and Voice of America. As a diplomat and newsman, he has lived and worked in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.

Hal Vaughan's most recent book, Doctor to the Resistance, is now available in paperback. He lives with his physician wife in Paris.


Praise for Doctor to the Resistance by Hal Vaughan:

“…a powerful, moving story, full of pathos, drama and humanity, that leaves the reader awestruck at the unassuming valor of an extraordinary family…” -- Thomas Childers, author, In the Shadows of War

“A wonderful story, meticulously researched and lovingly told.” -- Donald and Petie Kladstrup, co-authors, Wine and War: The French, the Nazis, and the Battle for France's Greatest Treasure

“…a vividly written account of genuine selfless heroism…” -- Ernest May, author, Strange Victory: Hitler's Conquest of France

Hal Vaughan's first-time told story of FDR’s secret agents and OSS partners who prepared the invasion of North Africa.


In the spring of 1941, President Roosevelt bypasses the State Department and appoints American diplomat Robert Murphy and twelve vice consuls to plan the invasion of Vichy North Africa -- code-named "Operation Torch." The neophyte spies, hailing from Patrician, ivy league backgrounds, are stationed in Algiers, Casablanca, Marrakesh, and Tunis under the guise of "shipping agents." As they carry out their clandestine activities, they mix it up with Gestapo agents and double-crossing seductresses, brawling, indiscreet colleagues, and even a homicidal clergyman.

Praise for FDR's 12 Apostles:
"FDR's 12 Apostles" brings together all the parts of a complicated process into a coherent whole. There have been many books on the landings in North Africa, but no author has had command of so much material or has handled it so well. He has woven the complex story of the North African occupation around the activities of the twelve consuls, but his book is much more, not only a readable coverage of a vast enterprise but also the best presentation currently in print.

--Arthur Layton Funk
Author, The Politics of Torch, and
Professor Emeritus, University of Florida


"A sometimes hilarious, always engrossing look at one of the most extraordinary, muddled but crucial episodes of World War II. Vaughan details the mishaps and misunderstandings that led to the one battle in which French and Americans fought each other, despite efforts to have the 1942 Allied landings in North Africa go off unopposed.


"Hal Vaughan's well researched and detailed account gives real meaning to the phrase ‘the fog of war.’"
--Charles L. Robertson, Smith College Professor Emeritus, and author of The International Herald Tribune: The First Hundred Years and International Politics Since World War II: A Short History.


A reader responds to Doctor to the Resistance :

"Dear Mr. Vaughan:

Your book grabbed my attention right away. I remembered a German girl whose family feared the Nazis and fled to Paris but was trapped there during the 1942 famine. She described eating potato peelings that she scoured garbage for. The family finally made it to America.

The story you present is very sad but heroic. I like that you don't overdramatize the events, and you write with humor to ease the brutality. I imagine many truths are hidden for a long time during and after wars.

Thank you for your enlightening book."

-- Nancy Hieronymus

Praise for FDR's 12 Apostles: "A sometimes hilarious, always engrossing look at one of the most extraordinary, muddled but crucial episodes of World War II..."

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