The Proteus Operation

The Proteus Operation is a science fiction novel which was written by James P. Hogan and published in 1985. Alternate history, time travel, and parallel universes form the basis of its plot, in which a group of military commandos, diplomats, and scientists travel back to 1939. They try to prevent the Axis Powers from winning World War II.

The Planet Earth and the 20th Century in This Novel

In this novel, we learn that our history is the result of multiple meddlings with the timeline. Originally the First World War was a complete wake-up call for the human race, leading to a greater internationalism and a "Never Again" spirit towards war that would eventually wear away the differences between the various power-blocs until, by the 21st century, a global League of Nations oversees a planet totally at peace.

Unfortunately the people who feel they have lost out because of the social transformations enabled by decades of peace and co-operation (the aristocracy, corporate dynasties, etc) come up with a plan to build a functional "Time Machine" and change history for their benefit. Their scheme is to go back as far as they can (the very early 1920s) and mentor the fledgeling Nazi Party (which, on its own in the original history, simply faded out after the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch). They regard the Nazis as the perfect tool for destroying the Soviet Union and establishing an elitist tyranny to which they can re-locate and live the lives of luxury and entitlement they believe have been stolen from them.

Adolf Hitler, however, has other plans. He uses the Uptime history lessons he receives to ensure that Western Europe falls swiftly, and then he drops a few of the Uptime nuclear weapons to remove the Soviet Union from the map. That done, he destroys his end of the "Time Conduit" and declares independence from his former sponsors. By the 1970s, Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan have conquered everything other than North America, Australasia, and parts of South America. Africa has suffered an enormous genocide every bit as complete as the one inflicted upon the Jews, and the Axis powers stand poised to start a final war that the United States is bound to lose, given the great Nazi German military power.

There is an organization in this altered timeline who, having discovered the secret behind the Nazi successes of the previous decades, decide that it will build its own Time Machine to go back to stop their present nightmare of upcoming Nazi world domination from developing. Its Time Machine is not as advanced or powerful, so they can only open a gate to 1939. The plan is to establish a cross-time military alliance between the American President John F. Kennedy - holding power in their 1985 - and his precessor Franklin D. Roosevelt. But things go wrong, and it is up to the Uptime agents, cut off in 1939, to keep the western Allies,including the United Kingdom and the United States in the fight, while working to close off Hitler's gateway to the alternate 2020s before he gets his atomic bomb and missile advantage.

In the end, they succeed, and the "Alternate Timeline" they create in the process turns out to be our own world.

Historical figures in the book

*Adolf Hitler
*Heinrich Himmler
*Reinhardt Heydrich
*Wilhelm Canaris
*Winston Churchill
*Anthony Eden
*Duff Cooper
*Frederick Lindemann
*Franklin D. Roosevelt
*Albert Einstein
*Leo Szilard
*Edward Teller
*Enrico Fermi
*Isaac Asimov