UNITED KINGDOM

Spy Cases

The Debate

Bristow, Desmond, and Bill Bristow. A Game of Moles: The Deceptions of an MI6 Officer. Boston & London: Little, Brown, 1993.

Surveillant 3.4/5 notes that this book presents the "part Bristow played within Section V -- the counterintelligence arm of MI6." He spent the "wartime years working for MI6 in Gibraltar and Algiers ... [and] retired in 1954.... [He] remains convinced that Roger Hollis of MI5 was a Soviet spy, that Guy Liddell was in the same category, and that David Footman (chief of MI6's political section for Central Europe) was working for the Russians, too."

For West, WIR 13.4, the author's account of his adventures in wartime Spain is "one entertaining anecdote after another." The book "dovetails with Philby's memoirs,... [as] the only detailed recollections in the public domain of Section V's activities.... [It] offers a fascinating insight into a rather obscure corner of the secret war."

Defty, I&NS 10.1, suggests that Bristow's critical stance toward his former employers may be "in no small part the result of his friendship with Peter Wright.... Bristow digresses rather often, apparently unable to contain his anger at 'how badly many worthy people have been treated by the powers that be....' [T]he charges he makes [against Hollis and Liddell] are largely a reiteration of those of his friend Peter Wright, and they are thankfully largely confined to one chapter." Most of the book "offers an engaging, occasionally revealing, and often diverting insight into some of more successful wartime deception operations conducted by SIS in the Mediterranean theatre."

Cornish, Kimberley. The Jew of Linz. London: Century, Random House, 1998.

West, History 26.4, notes that the author "alleges that [philosopher Ludwig] Wittgenstein was a Marxist and identifies him as a central figure [the 'fifth man'] in the Cambridge spy ring: the talent spotter and recruiter.... The central thesis for The Jew of Linz is that virtually everything Philby and Blunt ever said regarding their controller should be disbelieved, unless it happens to support the author's interpretation. Alas, his research failed to take him to Moscow, where the KGB files tell quite a different story."

Deacon, Richard [Donald McCormick]. The Greatest Treason: The Bizarre Story of Hollis, Liddell and Mountbatten. London: Century, 1990.

According to Surveillant 1.3, Deacon "contends that the real 'fifth man' was ... Guy Liddell and working in the shadows was a very closeted homosexual in the figure of Earl Mountbatten of Burma." The timing of this release was unfortunate, following the different account in Andrew and Gordievsky's KGB. The first printing was caught in a libel suit in 1989 and the "book was withdrawn. This edition deletes the offending passages."

Glees, Anthony. Secrets of the Service: British Intelligence and Communist Subversion, 1939-51. London: Jonathan Cape, 1987. Secrets of the Service: A Story of Soviet Subversion of Western Intelligence. New York: Carrol & Graf, 1987.

Although he believes Glees' writing "is flat and repetitive," Cecil, I&NS 3.2, seems pleased that the author "makes mincemeat of the Wright-Pincher so-called evidence" against Roger Hollis. More broadly, however, Glees is writing in support of "an untenable thesis"; and "in the process he has distorted his evidence."

See Clifton J. Child, "In Defence of 'Tom' Delmer and Dr. Otto John: Notes for the Record," Intelligence and National Security 4, no. 1 (Jan. 1989): 127-136. Child was Chief Political Intelligence Officer with the Political Warfare Executive Special Operations Directorate during World War II. Here, he disputes the suggestion made by Glees that Denis Sefton Delmer was a Communist mole during and after the war.

Kerr, Sheila. "Roger Hollis and the Dangers of the Anglo-Soviet Treaty of 1942" Intelligence and National Security 5, no. 3 (Jul. 1990): 148-157.

Three documents are reproduced here: (1) "a covering letter dated 6 July 1942 from Sir David Petrie, Director General of MI5, to Sir Alexander Maxwell at the Home Office, which accompanied [2] Roger Hollis's letter of 25 June 1942 to Petrie, and [3] his [Hollis'] memo on the revolutionary programme of the Communists." Hollis essentially warned about contradictions between Stalin's adherence to the Anglo-Soviet Treaty of 1942 and the revolutionary aims of Communist doctrine. Kerr sees Hollis' letter and memo as offering "the best available proof that Hollis was not a Soviet agent."

Perry, Roland. The Fifth Man. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1994.

Surveillant 3.6 identifies Perry as an Australian journalist who argues that the "Fifth Man" was not John Cairncross but Lord Nathaniel Mayer Victor Rothschild. The author purports to base his information on interviews with Yuri Modin. [Modin's own book does not support this conclusion]. The "evidence is circumstantial and relies on the acceptance of a complex pattern of similarities to clues supplied by the Russians." To Kerr, I&NS 12.2, "Perry's case against Rothschild is unconvincing because of dubious sources and slack methods.... [A]necdotal evidence and innuendo [are] simply inadequate to prove that Rothschild was a Soviet agent."

Pincher, Chapman.

1. Their Trade Is Treachery. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1981.

For Cram, Pincher's book is a "detailed exposition of the case against [Roger] Hollis and Graham Mitchell." It is an "example of 'mole mania.'" Angleton pointed Pincher toward the story, but the information came from Peter Wright. Rocca and Dziak comment that although some critics "maintain that he is careless with data, Pincher sheds light on such past activities as Soviet strategic deception operations during World War II ... and KGB defector Golitsyn's revelations."

Constantinides notes that, although he never gives them, Pincher clearly "had access to sources with highly privileged information." The book contains "a wealth of information," some of which must await further authoritative disclosures before it can be evaluated.

2.. Too Secret Too Long. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1984. New York: St. Martin's 1984.

Rocca and Dziak find that "Pincher makes a massive effort to demonstrate that ... Sir Roger Hollis[] was a Soviet 'mole'.... Pincher's evidence is incomplete and fractious.... Notwithstanding the controversy, the work surfaces numerous operations, cases and details ... never before or rarely aired in published literature."

3. Treachery: Betrayals, Blunders, and Cover-ups: Six Decades of Espionage against America and Great Britain. New York: Random House, 2009.

Goulden, Washington Times, 19 Jul. 2009, notes that this is the same story that the author has been telling since 1981. Some of the "anomalies" in Hollis' career that Pincher points to are "thin gruel"; others, however, "are more disturbing." The reviewer notes that Picher "does not burden readers with chapter notes, so one is expected to accept his text at face value.... More glaring, he is most selective in the evidence he chooses to present." Goulden concludes that Hollis may have been "[a]n ineffectual spymaster,... but treason remains unproven."

For a Publishers Weekly (via Amazon.com) reviewer, Pincher "makes convincing use of recently released Soviet records to assert" that Hollis was a "supermole." He "establishes credible connections among significant coincidences, counterproductive actions, and inactions in Hollis's career."

Nicholson, Providence Journal (http://www.projo.com), 26 Jul. 2009, calls this "a riveting account of duplicity and incompetence at the highest levels." The reviewer sees the author adding "compelling details to the charge" that the man who headed MI5 from 1956 to 1965, Sir Roger "Hollis (codenamed Elli)[,] was one of the most spectacularly successful Russian spies ever."

West, Nigel. [Rupert Allason] Mole Hunt: Searching for Soviet Spies in MI5. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1987. New York: William Morrow, 1989.

Cram comments that "[b]ecause West does not know the facts about [the] Fluency [committee], he exaggerates its effectiveness." He concludes pre-Andrew-Gordievsky that Guy "Liddell could not have been the 'Fifth Man.'" He "makes a general case" against Graham Mitchell, "but does make a strong case against him." Hollis and Mitchell were "cleared" by Gordievsky.

West, William J. The Truth about Hollis: An Investigation. London: Duckworth, 1989. Spymaster: The Betrayal of MI5. New York: Wynwood Press, 1990.

Surveillant 2.5 notes that "[c]alling Hollis the possible 'fifth man' adds a datedness to this work, since that individual has been officially identified as John Cairncross." Chambers dismisses the book as "paranoid ramblings." In a lengthy review, Kerr, I&NS 5.3, looks at many of West's accusations, and dismisses them rather handily. The reviewer concludes that West has failed to prove his case, "because his research is inadequate and because he has misinterpreted his research.... [H]is speculations grow into facts, leaving reality behind."

Wright, Peter, with Paul Greengrass. Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer. New York: Viking, 1987. UB271G72W758

Cram sees the book as "filled with errors, exaggerations, bogus ideas, and self-inflation"; nevertheless, it "is one of the outstanding works in the field of intelligence literature.... [I]t is so full of bombast, the joy of the hunt, English eccentricities, and factual data that it must be required reading for anyone interested in intelligence." It is Wright's obsession that "beginning with Golitsyn's 1963 visit to England,... the British services, particularly MI-5, were penetrated by the Russians."

According to Smith, IJI&C 2.1, Spycatcher is "uneven, bitter, sloppy, and fascinating." The author "bitterly resents the small size of his gov't pension.... The generally sober and convincing description of his work is certainly the most interesting part.... [E]xaggeration and distortion ... are less apparent there than in the sections dealing with the activities into which Wright branched out. These include spy-pursuing...; in particular, his efforts to identify his boss, Sir Roger Hollis, as a Russian spy.... [T]he parts ... concerned with the pursuit of Hollis have more than their share of the purple prose and unconvincing, sometimes ludicrous, details that come and go in the book."

NameBase focuses on the history of the book, commenting that "Wright's book was a major challenge to Britain's secrecy laws, as British officials banned the book and then tried unsuccessfully to win an injunction against publication in a widely-reported trial in Australia. This of course guaranteed that the book would be a bestseller, whereupon some of Wright's allegations received more attention than they probably deserved."

For Gelber, I&NS 4.2, the book is "full of fascinating stories and vignettes.... [But] Wright clearly has several chips on both shoulders about the British class system and public school attitudes.... He emerges from his own story as quirky, dogged and pernickety.... He is not a particularly admirable man."

Clark comment: The credibility of Gelber's review is lessened by some glaringly off-the-mark -- and in the final analysis unnecessary -- remarks. For example, he avers that intelligence "[s]ervices employ full-time special and disinformation staffs to confuse comment, for instance by leaking selected or even entirely fictional accounts of some operation or career." The implication of large numbers of people engaged in manipulation of the public record simply does not reflect reality. And he follows that by arguing that "the CIA fabricated an entire Penkovsky 'diary,'" a mantra heard often over the years from anti-CIA types but an untruth that has long been put to rest for those who pay attention to such things.

See also D. Cameron Watt, "Fall-out from Treachery: Peter Wright and Spycatcher," Political Quarterly 59 (Apr.-Jun. 1988): 206-218.

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