Spycatcher

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"Mr. Wright's testimony can only be described as convincing. His first-hand description of illegality and incompetence within the Security Service is deeply shocking."
—from The \ndependent, a British newspaper, after having read a stolen copy of the manuscript of this book.
Peter Wright was a key figure in British intelligence for nearly a quarter of a century This book, which the British government has gone to great lengths to keep from being published, is a memoir that recounts his extraordinary career in that wilderness of mirrors, the world of espionage. It is uncensored, remarkably candid, and enormously revealing about the real spy business that most of us know principally from fiction.
Peter Wright initially joined Britain's Secret Service, known as MI5, in 1955 in the capacity of the organization's principal scientist, and devoted himself in the early years to the invention of various gadgets for use in the espionage trade. Along the way he demonstrated a brilliant... Tovább

Fülszöveg

"Mr. Wright's testimony can only be described as convincing. His first-hand description of illegality and incompetence within the Security Service is deeply shocking."
—from The \ndependent, a British newspaper, after having read a stolen copy of the manuscript of this book.
Peter Wright was a key figure in British intelligence for nearly a quarter of a century This book, which the British government has gone to great lengths to keep from being published, is a memoir that recounts his extraordinary career in that wilderness of mirrors, the world of espionage. It is uncensored, remarkably candid, and enormously revealing about the real spy business that most of us know principally from fiction.
Peter Wright initially joined Britain's Secret Service, known as MI5, in 1955 in the capacity of the organization's principal scientist, and devoted himself in the early years to the invention of various gadgets for use in the espionage trade. Along the way he demonstrated a brilliant flair for the art of counterintelligence. He went on to become, for nearly two decades, the central figure in Britain's relentless and sometimes humiliating efforts to detect and expose Soviet espionage. From that vantage point, the reader is treated to a unique perspective on the likes of Philby Maclean, Burgess, Blunt, and a host of other exposed spies and alleged defectors.
The identity of the so-called Fifth Man Soviet spy has puzzled and fascinated many for decades. In Spycatcfier, Peter Wright shares his conviction that the Fifth Man was none other than Sir Roger Hollis, long the head of MI5 itself! The story of how he and many of his MI5 colleagues came to this conclusion makes for some of the best reading found anywhere in the vast literature on espionage.
[Continued on back flap]
(Continued from front flap]
As a result of a great many trips Peter Wright made to the United States in his capacity as Britain's principal liaison with American intelligence officials, his book is replete with sharply etched and sometimes humorous anecdotes about such notables as I. Edgar Hoover, Richard Helms, Bill Sullivan, William Harvey, and, above all, lames jesus Angleton. Wright's insights about the CIA and the FBI, their relationships with each other, with the rest of the U.S. government, and with America's allies is riveting stuff.
American interest ought to be especially aroused by Peter Wright's charge that there was a conspiracy within M15 to overthrow then Prime Minister Harold Wilson in the mid-1970s, and that it was instigated from within the CIA.
Wright's memoir is also of interest because it is a firsthand account of the bugging of embassies (of friend and foe alike), as well as other aspects of electronic eavesdropping, codebreaking, and "wet" affairs (assassinations). But the most important aspect of this book is that it offers a rare inside glimpse of the real day-by-day goings-on within the intelligence world over a long period of time from a very high-level, authoritative voice.
PETER WRIGHT ON HIS EARLY YEARS IN MI5:
"For five years vye bugged and burgled our way across LondiSn ^^^e ^State's behest, while pompous bowler-hatted civil servants in Whitehall pretended to look the other way."
PETER WRIGHT ON MI6 IN THE SUEZ CRISIS:
"Their entire network was rounded up and arrested on Nasser's instructions, and their only other contribution was a bungled attempt to assassinate iJ^asser"
c
PETER WRIGHT ON THE HEAD OF \
MR WITH j. EDGAR HOOVER: . V \
Hollis had an essential weakness of ^!H^ai^^^
^racter which enabled him to play the ----_
o^mest supplicant to Hoover'sWustering bully. Hoover, like many self-made Ameri-- cans, had a strong streak of snobbery, and his gargantuan conceit was stroked by the sight of an English upper<lass spymaster with his cap outstretched."
THE CIA ASKING PETER WRIGHT FOR HELP ON HOW TO ASSASSINATE THIRD WORLD LEADERS:
"We're developing a new capability in the Company to handle these kinds of problems, and we're in the market for the requisite expertise."
PETER WRIGHT'S RESPONSE TO THE CIA'S ASSASSINATION REQUEST: "Yhe French! Have you tried them? It's mOre their type of thing, you know .We're out of that game. We're the junior partner in the alliance, remember'?fit's your ; .responsibility now."
THE HEAD OF MIS ON PETER WRIGHT'S ^ i
ALLEGATION THAT HE WAS A SPY: i
"Well, Peter, you have got the manacles on me, haven't you?" f |
' - ¦
PETER WRIGHT ON HOOVER'S FBI HEADQUARTERS: ;
"Antiseptic white tiles shone everywhere. Workmen were always busy constantly repainting, cleaning, and polishing. The obsession with hygiene reeked of an unclean mind." -
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