‘Spycatcher’ street sales

Press, 23 July 1987, Page 8

‘Spycatcher’ street sales

NZPA-Reuter London Inspite of court battles and traffic, a 28-year-old computer company manager stood on a busy London street yesterday and sold to passing motorists copies of “Spycatcher,” a secret agent’s memoirs banned for publication in Britain. Straddling a lane marker, Michael Mavin told reporters he sold 30 books for £l5OO (SNZ--4032) after purchasing

140 copies during a visit last week to New York. Six British newspapers and the Government are involved in court action over whether the memoirs of retired British counter-intelligence agent Peter Wright can be published in Britain.

The Government says it banned the book as a matter of principle, to express indignation over whaAit views as a secret ageirt’s violation of a life-

long pledge of confidentiality. The “Guardian” newspaper reported that Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s own RAF VC--10 jet was used to bring banned copies of “Spycatcher” from Washington to London at the weekend. Many journalists who travelled with Mrs Thatcher for her visit with President Reagan took the opportunity to

buy American editions of the memoirs. During the return trip, Mrs Thatcher came to the back of the plane to brief the journalists, most of whom hurriedly “hid their copies like guilty schoolboys,” the newspaper noted in its “People” column. One reporter who had dozed off had his picture taken with a copy of the book propped in his hands.