Their Trade is Treachery

Their Trade is Treachery - Chapman Pincher [epub]

First, what the book, which is dedicated ‘to the loyal members’ of British Intelligence, actually says. The foreword claims that since 1945 ‘the Russians have penetrated and exerted control over both MI 5 and the Secret Service.’ About a third of the book deals with Sir Roger Hollis, Director-General of MI 5 from 1956 to 1965, who fell under suspicion in the 1960s and early 1970s because of ‘two hundred examples of Soviet bloc penetrations’ of British Intelligence. Two other very senior officers also came under suspicion around 1966-7, but were completely cleared after arduous investigation, a conclusion fully endorsed by Lord Trend’s inquiry in 1974.

Successive chapters then deal with Hollis’s life at Oxford and in China until he entered MI 5 in 1938, with his career there until 1950, and with his unexpected promotion to director-general following the Commander Crabb affair. Then Pincher turns to Russian spies of the early 1960s, claiming in particular that Vassall was a cover to some extent for a much more senior spy, ‘a naval officer who later became an admiral’ and whom Hollis ‘refused to allow ... to be approached’. A digression considers the question whether Gaitskell was murdered by the KGB, by means of coffee and biscuits at the Russian Consulate.

Paperback, 336 pages
Published March 1st 1982 by New English Library