The looking-glass world of spying

Press, 20 February 1988, Page 25

The looking-glass world of spying

Spycatcher. By Peter Wright. Heinemann, 1987. 392 pp. illustrations. $37.95. (Reviewed by Robert Edwards) News of the publication of a new book generally belongs in the literary pages of a newspaper. The same cannot be said of "Spycatcher,” as Peter Wright’s memoirs, or rather his attempts to have them published, have attracted headlines the world over. The best remembered other book to have done so within the recent past was “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” but there the similarity ends. Peter Wright is no D. H. Lawrence, although no doubt Wright’s former employers have uttered a few four-letter words over the last year or so. “Spycatcher” is an account of Wright’s career in the British Security Service, popularly known as MIS. Wright, the son of an eminent scientist, had a chequered childhood, with a promising academic career cut short by the Depression of the 19305, when he was forced to leave school for financial reasons. This time of hardship had a great effect on the young Wright, as he himself admits, and he acknowledges the irony of the fact that he, who had suffered at the hands of capitalism, should hunt those gilded youths who, in spite of benefiting from the system, chose to betray it. Wright joined the British Admiralty at the outbreak of the Second World War, where his scientific skills were put to great use, and he played a not insignificant part in the development of submarine warfare. After the war, he officially joined the Civil Service and stayed there until MIS entered his life.

In 1949, Wright was asked to join a committee which was charged with assessing the value of science to the intelligence community, especially in view of the failure to 'obtain information about Soviet intentions by more conventional means. He did his job well, assisting in analysing a bug found in the American Embassy in Moscow. Unable to understand how it worked themselves, the Americans had turned to the British for help, and it was Wright who succeeded in discovering how the thing worked. After four years of providing this kind of assistance, Wright was accepted on to the permanent staff of MIS as its first Scientific Officer, with a brief to

combat the ever-increasing soviet menace. Far from working against the U.S.S.R., Wright found himself almost immediately involved in the Suez crisis. He developed a method of tapping into cypher machines and thus enabled the British to read secret Egyptian messages for the length of the affair. From this, Wright almost immediately became involved in a type of investigation which was to occupy much of his 21 years in MIS: trying to discover the identity of a Russian mole within the organisation. While he was able to satisfy himself that the leak was due to a technical attack by the Russians on that occasion, the affair nevertheless planted a seed of doubt in Wright’s mind about the possibility of the existence of a traitor. Because of his technical expertise, Wright was involved in some of the most interesting cases to have arisen since the war. He is able to speak with authority on Mls’s involvement in the Suez crisis, Britain’s unsuccessful application to join the Common Market, the Cyprus troubles, as well as such espionage cases as Lonsdale, Gouzenko, and Penkovsky. He knew Kim Philby and Anthony Blunt, spending many hundreds of hours with the latter interrogating him after his treachery had been revealed. He was on friendly terms with senior members of the C.I.A. and other Western intelligence agencies. Wright is thus uniquely qualified to give the reader the inside story on these cases, and they all make fascinating reading. There were lighter moments in Wright’s career, and it should not be forgotten that life in London in the 1960 s was anything but dull. So it was

in MIS. The idea of an intelligence officer presenting himself at the Russian Embassy for afternoon tea and politely asking the Resident to kindly desist from trying to recruit his -men is astonishing. Similarly, the picture of Wright falling through a ceiling while installing a bug brings back memories of Inspector Clouseau at his best. However, the search for a traitor within MIS came to dominate Wright’s career, and he dwells at length on his or her possible indentity. Until the K.G.B. opens its files for inspection we shall probably never know whether the turmoil caused by the search for traitors within MIS and the C.I.A. was

justified, or just a highly successful piece of Soviet disinformation. At any rate, Wright slowly put his jigsaw together and arrived at what he regarded as the only possible conclusion: the mole was none other than the Director General of the British Security Service, Sir Roger Hollis. Wright’s arguments appear persuasive, but the reader should bear in mind that only the case for the prosecution has been put forward. “Spycatcher” was published in 1987, 11 years after Wright retired. Unless he took with him a host of notes, he has had to rely on his memory for much of his story. Memories are notoriously fickle devices, especially in the elderly, and although the British Government has wisely not deigned to point out any inaccuracies, the reader would do well to cast his or her mind back 11 plus years to see with what degree of accuracy events can be recalled.

The rights and wrongs of whether Wright should have written this book have been given a great deal of airing. It seems to me that Wright’s chief defence, that all the material had been published before, is entirely irrelevant. He signed an undertaking when he retired that he would not disclose any information about his work, and he is in clear breach of that undertaking.

On the other hand, Wright was badly let down over his pension, when he was told that his 16 years prior service with the Admiralty would not count, in spite of assurances to the contrary made when he joined MIS. The British are the authors of their own misfortune; if they had paid Wright his full pension, then in all probability Wright would not have had the financial need, or possible vindictiveness, to write “Spycatcher.”

When all said and done though, “Spycatcher” is an extremely interesting account of what must have been a fascinating career. The legal battles surrounding its publication have undoubtedly increased its potential readership, possibly more than the book deserves, and have reportedly made Wright a millionaire already. In spite of the sometimes confusing abbreviations and jargon, “Spycatcher” gives a clear and concise account of what it must have been like to work for MIS, and is well worth reading.