Friends and Allies, also known as Mirror Image, is a mystery short story by Isaac Asimov.
Part of the Union Club series, it was first published in the February 1982 issue of Gallery magazine. Later collected in The Union Club Mysteries.
Summary[]
At the Union Club, Griswold counters a discussion about international alliances by asserting there are no permanent friends or allies, only temporary alignments of interest. He illustrates this with a story from 1956, during the height of the Cold War.
American intelligence had successfully infiltrated British intelligence and received a crucial piece of information: a date written as "6/8". This date was related to a planned British action that would affect the American response to Soviet movements in Eastern Europe. An American agent in London retrieved the date and passed it to a second American operative, who transcribed it as "June 8". When the expected event did not occur on that date, it caused significant tension and fear that the intelligence operation had been compromised.
Griswold was consulted to resolve the crisis. He deduced that the error was not one of espionage but of interpretation. The first agent, being British, would have written the date in the day/month format, meaning "6 August". The second agent, being American, automatically interpreted it in the month/day format as "June 8". Griswold advised his contact to wait until August 6. The event occurred on that correct date, allowing the U.S. to respond appropriately to the crises in Poland and Hungary and, later, to the Suez Crisis, without triggering a larger conflict.
Characters[]
- Griswold
- Club Member (the narrator)
- Jennings
- Baranov
- Jim
- The First Agent
- The Second Agent
Historical Figures mentioned[]
- Prince Charles
- Lady Diana
- John Foster Dulles (U.S. Secretary of State)
Places / Factions[]
- Britain, France, and Israel (nations involved in the Suez Crisis)
- Egypt
- The Soviet Union
- Poland and Hungary (sites of revolts in 1956)