‘At this point you’re in a secret underground lair in North Korea facilitating the signature of a weapons’ contract?’ ibid. Annie Machin, debriefing
So we agreed on building a factory outside North Korea that would make weapons and methamphetamine. And as is custom for them, they suggest it will definitely be underground. ibid.
When you’re talking about the business, never use again those words [Arms & Methamphetamine], OK? Storyville: The Mole I, BBC 2020, Alejandro to Ulrich
If this goes down, there are many millions going down. ibid.
So although the true purpose of the project was not revealed to the Africans, buying the island in Uganda and using it for a secret weapons and drugs factory seemed to be right up the alley of the North Koreans. ibid.
North Koreans needing to move armaments to Syria is actually a very interesting piece of information … friends for many years … During the civil war in Syria, The New York Times published a story about how North Korea was helping the Syrian regime with its chemical weapons programme. ibid.
Probably the most impressive private intelligence operation I’ve ever heard of. ibid.
Forbidden Stories, an international organisation of investigative journalists, and Amnesty International have accessed a leak of 50,000 phone numbers. They suspected the leaked list contained numbers selected for potential surveillance by a spyware known as Pegasus, developed by the NSO Group in Israel. Storyville: The Spy in Your Mobile, captions, BBC 2023
‘It’s clearly the biggest spyware scandal since Snowden.’ ibid. news
With 80 journalists from 17 different news outlets collaborating, this is one of the biggest international new investigations. ibid. caption
Amnesty International’s Security Lab has been tracking Pegasus since 2016. ibid.
At first, Pegasus gain access by sending anonymous texts messages to their targets. ibid.
The true story that follows is based on official papers, letters, diaries, newspaper reports, contemporary accounts and memoirs.
I was first alerted to the existence of the Englishman Eddie Chapman by his obituary in The Times. Among the lives of the great and good, here was a character who had achieved a certain greatness, but in ways that were far from conventionally good. The obituary was intriguing as much for what it did not say – and could not know – about Chapman’s exploits in the Second World War, since those details remained under the seal of MI5’s secret archives. At the time, it seemed the full story of Eddie Chapman would never be told. Ben MacIntyre, Agent Zigzag, author’s note
On a December night in 1942 a lone German aircraft approached the coast of England. Inside an enemy spy waited for the signal to jump. He carried a secret wireless, a gun, twelve detonators and a suicide pill. His mission on behalf of Nazi Germany had been authorised at the highest levels of the Third Reich. His codename was Agent Fritz. But Fritz was not German, he was British. His real name was Eddie Chapman ... He was perhaps the most extraordinary spy in British history. Within hours of landing he would defect to the British and become a double agent: Agent Zigzag. Timewatch: Double Agent: The Eddie Chapman Story, Ben MacIntyre, author Agent Zigzag, BBC 2011
He loved blowing things up, especially safes. His speciality was robbing Odeon cinemas. Chapman hit the Swiss Cottage Odeon in London in September 1938 having spent the night hiding in the Gents. ibid.
MI5 has since declassified the Zigzag files. ibid.
8His target was the Edinburgh Co-op, but things didn’t go to plan. Despite facing forty counts of burglary Chapman managed to get bail. Which he promptly jumped. ibid.
Chapman told Tin-Eye everything. A complete picture of the workings of a Nazi spy school. But he also made an offer. To spy for Britain against Germany as a double agent. ibid.
He was the only Briton ever to receive the Iron Cross. ibid.
In June 1944 Chapman landed back in Britain. ibid.
Chapman began sending messages back to Germany pinpointing where the rockets were falling. Every one was a lie. ibid.
Chapman resumed his life of crime by fixing dog races. ibid.
The Germans had given him a yacht, a medal and some money; the British gave him something more valuable – they wiped his criminal slate clean. ibid.
In 1966 his life was romanticised by Hollywood: Triple Cross. ibid.
Eddie Chapman died in 1997 at the age of 83. Chapman was a rascal and a romantic. He was selfish, seductive and staggeringly brave. ibid.
Her German spymaster was delighted with her reports, congratulating her on her sterling work for the Third Reich. In fact, this German spy was not what she seemed; every word she sent was false. Her lies were part of a web of espionage that drove the biggest deception in military history, and helped ensure Allied victory on the beaches of Normandy. Ben MacIntyre, Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies, BBC 2012
A web of espionage spun from a thousand little lies. ibid.
Throughout the war Hitler believed he had a fully functioning highly efficient network of spies reporting on the British war effort. In fact, every one of those spies was acting as a double agent under British control. ibid.
1963 January 11th: Two MI6 agents met in Beirut. Their names were Nicholas Elliott and Kim Philby. Elliott secretly recorded the conversation. Ben MacIntyre, Kim Philby – His Most Intimate Betrayal 1/2, BBC 2014
Kim Philby is the most famous double agent in history. But a quarter century after his death he has become a caricature, the gentleman master spy ... and a ruthless killer. He deceived everyone around him. ibid.
Philby had lived a double life for decades ... An extraordinary story of espionage, murder and intimate betrayal. ibid.
Philby like Elliott was now a member of the most exclusive club in the country. ibid.
The German Secret Service was dismantled and its leaders ousted. ibid.
A penetration agent in the Soviet interest. ibid.
Guy Burgess: a flamboyant homosexual with a streak of devilry who had also wormed his way into British Intelligence. And Donald Maclean ... at the Foreign Office. ibid.
The Cambridge Spy Film: Otto instructed Philby in the art of spy-craft. ibid.
MI6 set up a new section - Section 9 ... [Konstantin] Volkov also offered to identify a key Soviet spy inside British Intelligence. ibid.
Philby found the work fascinating, and so did Moscow. ibid.
Philby served his two masters with brutal efficiency. ibid.
Maclean was Homer ... The net was closing. ibid.
Burgess was also a friend of Donald Maclean. ibid.
If Philby was going to make his escape and join Burgess and Maclean in Soviet exile, now was his moment. ibid.
For more than fifteen years he had been feeding British and American secrets to Moscow causing the deaths of hundreds of people. Ben MacIntyre, Kim Philby – His Most Intimate Betrayal 2/2
White was a veteran spy hunter – polite, relentless and completely ruthless. ibid.
Philby had often considered making a run for Moscow. ibid.
Why did Macmillan exonerate a man that MI5 believed was guilty? bid.
That night Elliott sent a cable to London saying that his friend had finally broken. Philby’s career as a Soviet Spy was over. ibid.
The defections of Burgess and Maclean came as a terrible shock. Dominic Sandbrook, Strange Days – Cold War Britain I: Red Dawn, BBC 2013
The Russians used the explicit images to blackmail John Vassall ... Vassall went down for eighteen years. Dominic Sandbrook, Strange Days – Cold War Britain II
Thanks to Blunt helpfully concealing evidence of Royal treason, Blunt’s own brand of treason was granted immunity. Royal Babylon *****
I chose conscience. Anthony Blunt
Spies can’t have friends. Not proper friends. Because they tell too many lies. Blunt: The Fourth Man 1986 starring Ian Richardson & Michael Williams & Anthony Hopkins & Albert Welling & Rosie Kerslake & Emma Cottrell et al, director John Glenister, wife to husband
One of the spies ... stole letters, broke into the office to take photographs, followed people home; we were infiltrated for about eighteen months by seven different spies. McLibel (Two People Who Wouldn’t Say Sorry) 1997 ***** starring Helen Steel & David Morris & Eric Schlosser & Morgan Spurlock & Oliver Ford Davies, directors Franny Armstrong & Ken Loach, Dave Morris
At some meetings there were as many spies as campaigners. ibid. Dave Morris
Since 9/11 more than 60 Israelis have been arrested or detained ... Even prior to September 11th as many as 140 other Israelis have been detained or arrested in a secretive and sprawling investigation into suspected espionage by Israelis in the United States. Fox News