The assessment places A Sailor's Odyssey at about 90 percent trustworthiness, with an important qualification. Because it appeared only six years after the Second World War, some intelligence subjects were still secret and the memoir may omit them or repeat contemporary cover stories. Cunningham's normal level of detail makes abrupt acceleration through a sensitive episode especially noticeable. Such thin treatment is a clue to investigate against other evidence and does not show that the episode was unimportant. Reliability can vary by subject even within a memoir that is generally accurate.
Notable Point · 31:28-34:20
Account for wartime secrecy in Cunningham's memoir
Cunningham's 1951 memoir is broadly valuable, but postwar secrecy and possible cover stories limit what it can safely reveal about intelligence matters.