UNITED KINGDOM

Spy Cases

Generally

Carran, Edward. The Soviet Spy Web. London: Ampersand, 1961.

Wilcox: "Popular paperback account of Soviet espionage around the world, particularly in England."

Deacon, Richard [Donald McCormick]. The British Connection: Russia's Manipulation of British Individuals and Institutions. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1979.

Constantinides: "There seem to be too great liberties taken in labeling people and not enough separation of wheat from chaff in his attempt to prove extensive and intensive Soviet influence in Great Britain."

Deacon, Richard [Donald McCormick]. Escape! London: BBC, 1980.

Wilcox: "How Soviet spies Kim Philby, Alfred Hines, Donald Woods escaped to the USSR."

Frolik, Josef. The Frolik Defection: The Memoirs of an Agent. London: Leo Cooper, 1975.

Clark comment: Frolik was a Czech intelligence officer who defected to the British in 1968.

Pforzheimer notes that book includes a discussion of "recruitment of members of the British Parliament[] and development of certain British labor leaders as sources."

According to Constantinides, these "memoirs are not exactly accurate on the actual details of [Frolik's] defection, partly for reasons of security, it seems."

Glees, Anthony. The Stasi Files: East Germany's Secret Operations against Britain. London: Free Press, 2003.

Maddrell, I&NS 19.3 (Autumn 2004), comments that "[p]oor judgement and relatively weak material make this an unsatisfactory book." The author "makes excessive use of speculation, presumption and unconvincing reasoning.... [H]e does not identify a single British informant with access" to classified information. In addition, "Glees' willingness to make claims about the [British] Security Service's operations, even though he had no access to its records, goes much too far."

In a response, Glees, I&NS 19.3 (Autumn 2004), argues that the reviewer "completely ignored the witness testimony" in the book. "The material ... may not be complete but that does not make it 'weak.' ... [By] ignoring the witness testimony, Meddrell fails to understand that in fact I rely as much on witness testimony as on the evidence in the files."

Peake, Studies 47.4 (2003), notes that the author "considers only HVA (East German foreign intelligence) operations involving British subjects.... This is not an easy book to read and understand. It is awkwardly organized and its analysis is steadfastly mediocre. There is doubt that the conclusions are supported by the evidence and [there is] no way to check" since Glees' "research is based on Stasi files that are no longer available to public examination."

Heaps, Leo. Thirty Years with the KGB: The Double Life of Hugh Hambleton. London: Methuen, 1983.

Milivojevic, I&NS 2.2, finds this to be a "convincing account of how Hambleton was recruited and controlled over a long period of time." Hambleton, a Canadian citizen, spent 10 years in a British prison after his trial in 1982 for espionage in NATO in the 1950s.

Kerr, Sheila. "British Cold War Defectors: The Versatile Durable Toys of Cold War Propagandists." In British Intelligence, Strategy and the Cold War, 1945-51, ed. R. J. Aldrich, 112-140. London: Routledge, 1992.

Lucas, Norman. The Great Spy Ring. London: Barker, 1966.

Wilcox: "Account of Soviet espionage against the West, particularly in England."

Moorehead, Alan. The Traitors: The Double Life of Fuchs, Pontecorvo and Nunn May. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1952.

According to West, I&NS 19.2/277, Moorehead was fed "sanitised versions of MI5's files on Allan Nunn May, Klaus Fuchs and Bruno Pontecorvo..., thus ensuring The Traitors provided a less than accurate version of the atomic spies."

Murphy, Brendan M. Turncoat: The Strange Case of British Traitor Sgt. Harold Cole. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1987.

Seaman, I&NS 4.1, finds this story of the life of a British petty criminal who managed to spend World War II working variously for British, German, French, and American intelligence "ultimately disappointing." The biography "is generally well researched ... [but] becomes badly unstuck" when it tries to contend that that SIS Assistant Chief Claude Dansey was Cole's ultimate controller.

Shipley, Peter. Hostile Action: The KGB and Secret Soviet Operations in Britain. London: St Martin's, 1989. New York: St Martin's, 1990.

Surveillant 1.1 says that the author "documents well the activities and the response of the British authorities to the perceived dangers."

For Kerr, I&NS 7.4, this "general yet lively historical survey" is "a useful contribution to scholarship" on Soviet active measures. The author's central thesis is that "from Lenin to Gorbachev, there has been more continuity than discontinuity in the strategic aims, tactics and methods of Soviet hostile action against Britain." However, Shipley's assessment of Soviet propaganda efforts "exaggerates the effect or success of the propaganda."

Sinclair, Andrew. The Red and the Blue: Intelligence, Treason and the Universities. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986. The Red and the Blue: Cambridge, Treason and Intelligence. Boston: Little, Brown, 1987.

According to Jeffreys-Jones, I&NS 3.2, Sinclair offers an "explanation of why a small group at Cambridge University entered the British Secret Service and betrayed their secrets to the Soviet Union. He examines, in particular, the Apostles, the secret society that spawned some of these traitors."

West, Nigel. [Rupert Allason] MASK: MI5's Penetration of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Oxford: Routledge, 2005.

Thurlow, I&NS 21.1 (Feb. 2006), says that "[t]his book is hybrid; a cross between an account of some of the counter-intelligence and counter-espionage operations against the CPGB, the Comintern and Soviet Russia between 1920 and 1945, and the editing of important documents from recently declassified MI5 files." However, it is "neither a coherent narrative nor a satisfactory presentation of edited documents."

West, Nigel [Rupert Allason], and Oleg Tsarev. The Crown Jewels: The British Secrets at the Heart of the KGB Archives. London: HarperCollins, 1998. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999.

Clark comment: The genesis of this work is similar to a number of others produced in recent years: Writers, often a Westerner and a Russian working in tandem, are provided access to KGB documents about Soviet espionage activities in the West.

Murphy, AFIO WIN 25-99 (25 Jun. 1999) and Intelligencer 10.2, notes that Crown Jewels is "a series of essays covering Soviet foreign intelligence activity in the United Kingdom from the early 20s up through the Cold War. The authors have sought to present cases that are either new or could be looked at in a new light."

For Andrew, Electronic Telegraph, 11 Apr. 1998, "[t]he most important documents cited by Nigel West and Oleg Tsarev concern the least known of the [Cambridge] Five, John Cairncross. The Crown Jewels exposes Cairncross's memoirs, published posthumously late last year, as something of a hoax on their unfortunate publisher.... The Crown Jewels also publishes the text of documents and reports passed to the KGB by two other members of the Magnificent Five, Kim Philby and Anthony Blunt.... The main weakness of The Crown Jewels, by comparison with other recent volumes based on documents from the KGB archives, is that it subjects them to less rigorous analysis and takes less account of previous research." In addition, West and Tsarev leave "a number of unanswered questions about the confused beginnings of Soviet espionage in Britain."

Watt, Electronic Telegraph, 28 Mar. 1998, believes that historians "will treat this not as a narrative but as a source book. Had Mr West chosen to edit Colonel Tsarev's manuscript properly and reconcile it to what has been published in the West, this would truly have been a major contribution to our general understanding of the black game in the 1930s and after. As it is, it is to be greatly welcomed. But be warned: because the KGB thought something to be true does not make it so."

In a substantial essay, Sheila Kerr, "Oleg Tsarev's Synthetic KGB Gems," International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 14, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 89-116, acknowledges the importance of this work but also sounds a strong cautionary note about accepting it at face value. In her view, "Tsarev has skillfully choreographed his version of history to dance around the facts of some very well known intelligence and espionage cases." She also reminds us that while Tsarev is a former KGB lieutenant colonel, he continues to "serve[] as a consultant to the [Russian Foreign Intelligence] Service's press department." She concludes that The Crown Jewels is "about money, not historical truth" and that Tsarev remains a friend to KGB history.

Kerr's treatment in this review of Tsarev gives West, IJI&C 14.4, major heartburn. The reviewer's implication that "Tsarev has been dishonest, untruthful, and mendacious" is "unfounded and she would be hard-pressed to find many scholars in the West who share her perspective.... The animosity shown to Tsarev by Dr. Kerr requires an explanation, but I cannot offer a plauible one."

Responding, Kerr, IJI&C 15.2, comments that "I have no personal prejudice against Tsarev; I am simply evaluating his work.... In particular, claims of colossal damage to British and American interests cannot be believed without substantial and credible evidence." West, IJI&C 15.4, offers a further riposte to Kerr's comments.

Gordievsky, Spectator, 18 Apr. 1998, finds that the book contains "no real revelations to speak of." This is the result of the KGB's rules that "forbid them from mentioning anything that has not been published in the West already." However, it "is a perfectly readable book, especially where it concerns the first 30 years of Soviet espionage ... against Britain."

To Powers, NYRB (11 May 2000) and Intelligence Wars (2004), 101, the authors provide a "rich account ... of the recruiting of the Cambridge Five."

Return to UK Spy Cases Table of Contents