Was JRR Tolkien a Spy?

According to Telegraph.co.uk, the famous fantasy writer of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, who was also a world-renowned linguist, was recruited to crack Nazi codes before the Second World War began.

Recently released government records show that Tolkien was trained by the British Government Code and Cypher School (GCCS) at a top-secret code-breaking center in Buckinghamshire, England.

Tolkien, a respected linguist who went as far as creating his own languages such as the Elvish included in The Lord of the Rings, was ''earmarked'' to crack Nazi codes in the event that Germany declared war.

According to the records, British intelligence officials recruited and trained Tolkien along with a "cadre" of other British intellectuals recommended by England's best universities.

This group of 50 intellectuals included Alan Turing, the master code-breaker and computer intelligence guru who was prosecuted after the war due to his homosexuality and committed suicide in 1954. Current British Prime Minister Gordon Brown recently issued an official apology for the treatment of Turing on September 10, 2009.

Turing and others helped England fight off German U-Boat attacks by breaking codes and allowing the British Navy to find and destroy them.

Tolkien, however, did not participate despite being trained by the GCCS. Tolkien, who was a professor of English literature at Oxford University at the time, turned down a £500-a-year job with the code-breaking department. It is not known why he declined.

Tolkien had already published The Hobbit and went on to write his masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings. Many reviewers and fans have seen parallels in his work and the events of World War II, although Tolkien himself rejected the notion.

Tolkien's code-breaking training came to light last week in a new exhibition at GCHQ, the new name for GCCS, the British government's spy headquarters.

According to the records reported on by Telegraph.co.uk, many of the names on the list of intellectuals recruited by the British government were provided by officials at Oxford and Cambridge University.

The same records indicate the GCCS was active in trying to break Nazi codes beginning in the mid-1930s when war with Germany begin to look inevitable.

Even today the records are shrouded in secrecy, and only the 10,000 employees of the GCHQ have access to the display. Members of the general public cannot get in.

The records show Tolkien visited the code-breaking base for three consecutive days in March 1939, just six months before the war broke out and was tested for spy work during this time in addition to training. The records record the word "keen" beside JRR Tolkien's name.

See also The Hobbit Films Cleared by Legal Settlement.

Sources:

Telegraph.co.uk