Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #126089 in Books
• Published on: 1988-01-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 496 pages

Synopsis
The former assistant director of MI5 offers an account of British Intelligence, including his work on the Ring of Five and exposing Soviet espionage and the conspiracy to oust Harold Wilson from the office of Prime Minister in the 1970s.

Customer Reviews

Spy Catcher
Senior members of government and their friends linked to the old soviat union.

A must buy for anyone who likes seeing into to murky world of espionage, through the eyes of one who was there.

Entertaining - yes, history -no
As a scholar of intelligence studies, I would like to point out that it is now generally accepted by all but a minority of conspiracy theorists that Peter Wright's book is not accurate. Although at one point an accomplished counter-espionage officer, by the end of his career paranoia had set in in a major way. It as actually Hollis himself who directed the investigation to examine himself, nothing was found at all. In an interview shortly after publication Wright admits, that his co-workers did not agree with his assertions, and that he was on his own. Although it is unlikely to ever be known for certain, it is extremely unlikley that Hollis was a spy for the Soviet Union. The tragedy of the whole saga, is that Hollis had his reputation damaged permanently, and wright and his fellow 'young turks' did serious damage to the internal morale and workings of the security service, by spreading paranoia, and using up valuable resources, during the height of the Cold War. Had the govt. not tried to block publication at the time, which was standard practice rather than this book being particularly revealing, it would have been read by a very small number of people. Read it? Certainly, but read more contemporary literature to understand the whole mole hunt issue. It is interesting that people will believe anything bad about the intelligence services, but nothing good.

Catcher in the Spy.
Was this the least read best-seller after the Holy Bible? loads of people got it in the 80's just because Thatcher (see SpyThatcher) banned it. After reading Wrights story, you can see why. It wasn't really to protect any secrets, just to save the face of the British secret service; which from this description has been in the most compromised position imaginable, since the 1930's. Were the Soviets running it afterall?
Wrights story is never-the-less fascinating, at least to begin with. What developed after the second world war in the secret service was nothing really new. Apparently it was poised to defeat Stalins Russia. It turns out that Commies were alkready well inside the service, and that direction continued in open and undisclosed ways (Best known in Blunt and Philby, all detailed where). this book is written from the inside, and Wright tries to exhonerate himself from the terrible smears that such communist infiltration leaves. he charts his own early successes in radio spying technology in the 50's, then gets bogged down in less interesting code breaking systems that were leaked (possibly on purpose!) to the British in the 60's. It sounded like boring work, all that maths, but in the spy business they were over the moon about it. the only other triumph was the conplete success against the UK communist Party. And just look at where they are now. I personally thoink their demise was due to conversions within the party away from communist atheism rather than the expensive MI5 work against them.
MI6 come off as a bunch of clowns in this account, although the hints that the General Secretary of MI5(Hollis) was also working for the Soviets from beginning to end also destroys the reputation of MI5. the account of Hollis's "interrogation" (all very polite and British) asking him as he sits in the comfy chair to confess, sounds inspired by Monty Python. So maybe the British Secret Service was a Flying Circus, and clearly nothing more than a game to those inside, playing competitively against both the Soviets and J.Edgar Hoovers FBI. God knows what the truth is.