Occasionally, during the searches of Mitchell’s office, Hollis talked about his early years. He told me about his travels in China during the 1930s, where he worked for British American Tobacco ... The roots of his dislike of the Americans lay prewar. ibid. p199
Penkovsky was, at the time, the jewel in MI6’s crown. He was a senior GRU officer who spied in place for MI6 and the CIA during 1961 and 1962, providing massive quantities of intelligence about Soviet military capabilities and intentions ... But in late 1962, Penkovsky and a British businessman, Greville Wynne, who was his cutout to MI6, were both arrested by the KGB, and put on trial. Wynne was given a long prison term (although he was eventually exchanged for Gordon Lonsdale and the Krogers) and Penkovsky, apparently, was shot. ibid. p204
As I read the files, a number of reasons made me believe that Penkovsky had to be the deception operation of which Golitsin had learned in 1959 ... MI6 needed a success, and they needed to believe in a success. In Petrovsky they got it. ibid. p207
Blunt swiftly named as fellow spies Leo Long, a former officer in British Military Intelligence, and John Cairncross, who had served the Treasury in 1940. ibid. pp218-219
Long was in the Apostles Society at Cambridge, a self-regarding elite club of intellectuals, many of whom were left-wing and homosexual. ibid. p221
We needed to go back to the period, and in effect positively vet every single acquaintance of Philby, Burgess, Maclean, Blunt, Long, and Cairncross. It is difficult today to realize how little was actually known, even as late as 1964, about the milieu in which the spies moved, despite the defections of 1951 ... Throughout the late 1950s tension between the two sides grew, as Hollis resisted any attempts by those like Arthur and me to grapple with the problem. ibid. p235
At heart it was a failure of will. Politicians and successive managements in MI5 were terrified that intensive inquiries might trigger further defections or uncover unsavoury Establishment scandal, and that was considered an unacceptable risk during the 1950s. ibid. p236
No one who listened to the interrogation or studied the transcripts was in any doubt that Watson had been a spy, probably since 1938. Given his access to antisubmarine-detection research, he was, in my view, probably the most damaging of all the Cambridge spies. ibid. p256
But once Blunt opened up, it was obvious that Burgess and James Klugman had targeted Oxford in the same way. ibid. p264
Martelli got his secrets from a girlfriend who did have access ... He [Bossard] was caught in the act of photographing Top Secret documents ... Bossard was sentenced to twenty-one years in jail ... ibid. p270-272
I first heard about the [US] Gray and Coyne review when I visited Washington in 1965. Angleton briefed me on the contents of the finished report. I was thunderstruck. Gray and Coyne had produced a devastating critique of MI5. ibid. p274
Now for the KGB to concoct the story they did, they would need access to Hanley’s record of service. With his position, the only person who could acquire this would be Roger Hollis. ibid. p304
But Lyalin’s defection removed all the objections. He confirmed the Movements Analysis figure of around 450 intelligence officers based in London, and maintained that a large percentage were active agent runners. ibid. p345
Lyalin’s defection and the expulsion of the 105 Russian diplomats were not the only signs of a new dawn which seemed to be breaking for British Intelligence in the 1970s. ibid. p347
The Irish situation was only one part of a decisive shift inside MI5 toward domestic concerns. The growth of student militancy in the 1960s gave way to industrial militancy in the early 1970s ... But the wholesale surveillance of a large proportion of the population raised more than a question mark. ibid. p359
Since the 1960s a wealth of material about the penetration of the latter two bodies [trade unions and the Labour Party] had been flowing into MI5 files, principally from two Czechoslovakian defectors named Frolik and August. They named a series of Labour Party politicians and trade union leaders as Eastern Bloc agents. ibid. p361
John Stonehouse was another MP who the Czech defectors claimed was working for them. ibid. p362
The story started with the premature death of Hugh Gaitskell in 1963. Gaitskell was Wilson’s predecessor as Leader of the Labour Party ... After he died his doctor got in touch with MI5 and asked to see somebody from the Service ... The doctor explained that he was disturbed by the manner of Gaitskell’s death. He said that Gaitskell had died of a disease called lupus disseminata, which attacks the body’s organs. He said that it was rare in temperate climates and that there was no evidence that Gaitskell had been anywhere recently where he could have contracted the disease. ibid. p362
Harold Wilson meanwhile had become Prime Minister. It was inevitable that Wilson would come to the attention of MI5. Before he became Prime Minister he worked for an East-West trading organization and paid many visits to Russia. ibid. p363
When I saw Hanley the next morning, he went as white as a sheet. He might have suspected that feelings against Wilson ran high in the office, but now he was learning that half of his staff were up to their necks in a plot to get rid of the Prime Minister. ibid. p371
This operation took place in Cold War Berlin ... After sixty years the CIA has finally declassified its files ... The secret construction of a five-hundred-metre spy tunnel. Spies Beneath Berlin, Quest 2015
The British were also partners in this tunnel ... The year is 1952: West Berlin is an island in a communist sea. East and West are squaring up over the barbed wire. Berlin had become a city of spies. ibid.
The Soviets already know what they are up to. ibid.
You are charged with espionage, with trespassing in a military zone, with taking photographs calculated to endanger the safety of the French Republic and being in possession of such photographs. Hotel Reserve 1944 starring James Mason & Lucie Mannheim & Raymond Lovell & Julien Mitchell & Herbert Lom & Martin Miller & Clare Hamilton & Frederick Valk & Patricia Medina & Anthony Shaw & Lawrence Hanray & David Ward & Patricia Hayes et al, directors Victory Hanbury & Lance Comfort & Max Greene
The problem with the spy business, though, is that while you can resign you can never leave … people you’ve hurt don’t forget. Terry Hayes, I Am Pilgrim
An outrage that will summon this country from its slumber. The Secret Agent, BBC 2016, spy to spy in carriage
A capitalist is a cannibal! ibid. anarchists’ chinwag
It’s a building, that’s all. Not people. The Secret Agent II, anarchist to anarchist
I take payments from the Russian embassy. I suppose I’m a spy. They wanted an explosion. And if I didn’t give it to them … The Secret Agent III, him to her, opening scene
Fuchs was a German émigré scientist who fled to Britain during the war and eventually wound up working with Von Neumann and Edward Teller at Los Alamos. A clandestine member of the British Communist Party, Fuchs subsequently confessed in January 1950 to passing atomic secrets to the Russians and was tried and convicted in London that February. Sylvia Nasar
Spies … are civil servants … a lot of them do a lot of boring crap. They’re just bureaucrats. Mark Thomas Comedy Product s4e6, Channel 4 2000
In an age of mass surveillance spies may be easier to spot. But how about a spy novelist, and in one of their traditional clubby haunts? … A British invention, and has mirrored much of our recent history: the espionage novel. Andrew Marr, Sleuths, Spies and Sorcerers III: Spies, BBC 2016
Espionage novels also have a strange allure. Because at their heart are rich dark ideas about betrayal, deception, identity and courage. Who among us has not lied or felt betrayed? ibid.
Le Carré already had two novels under his belt in which he had introduced his enigmatic little Buddha, George Smiley. ibid.
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold – which would in effect redefine spy fiction. ibid.
We are overwhelmed by a sense of a creeping paranoia. ibid.
The 39 Steps: ‘This cold-blooded indoor business was different’. ibid.
Rule 4: The Hero Doesn’t Have to be a Spy. ibid.
For many writers Eric Ambler remains the spy novelist of choice. ibid.
Bond’s global appeal sold thirty million books during his lifetime, and doubled since his death. ibid.
Rule 6: Send in a Double Agent. ibid.
Rule 7: Don’t Trust the Old Boy Network. ibid.
Len Deighton’s unnnamed spy – he only becomes Harry Palmer in the films – was a different class altogether. ibid.
The same weary cynicism that permeates the books. ibid.
Rule 9: The Spy’s Loyalties are Open to Question. ibid.
Graham Greene: The Human Factor is the spy novel at its very finest. ibid.
Spy: George, you won.
George: Did I? Yes, yes I suppose I did. ibid. Smiley’s people