As for the book's content I can't offer a lot more beyond the excellent review by Catherine Pope, but an inevitable question that arises is whether the colorful Mrs. Weldon is really enough material for an entire book. Well, probably not, truth be told, but the milieu and atmosphere of Victorian London certainly is, from health food restaurants to the women’s suffrage movement to all the quirky supporting characters, chief among them being the imperious French composer Charles Gounod, a good friend, and more, of our heroine.
Then there’s an unlikely appearance by Oscar Wilde, who penned a most gracious letter to Mrs. Weldon which probably ranks as the the best commendation she ever received. It’s also refreshing to come across a book on late 19th and early 20th century England in which the dominant artistic persona is not Richard Wagner.
In an era filled with eccentrics, Georgina Weldon stands out as one of the great undiscovered characters - in all senses of the word - of the of the later nineteenth century.
“At many points while reading this book I actually found it quite hard to believe that it was true. The book read to me more like a Fredrick Forsyth novel than an autobiography of a senior intelligence officer. It is a much better read than fiction as it is written by a man who has been there and done that.”
I’ve aways liked spy stories both fiction and nonfiction, but my favorites are the tales of real life spies in all their prosaic day-to-day glory. One of the best is Peter Wright’s Spycatcher [1], in which Wright and co-author Paul Greengrass tell a spanking good yarn complete with all sorts of heroes & villains, adventures, tragedy, and sadness.“At many points while reading this book I actually found it quite hard to believe that it was true. The book read to me more like a Fredrick Forsyth novel than an autobiography of a senior intelligence officer. It is a much better read than fiction as it is written by a man who has been there and done that.”
-- Peter Hutchinson, Blog About Books, March 29, 2006
But there’s humor too, like the Gilbert & Sullivan-esque episode when the über-gay Guy Burgess was ordered by his Soviet masters to woo Churchill’s daughter Clarissa with the eventual goal of marrying her as the perfect cover for his espionage activities. The attempted romance was, comically, and - perhaps for all concerned - mercifully, unsuccessful, and Clarissa eventually married Anthony Eden and became lady Avon. Then there was the Soviet agent ‘Grogovin,’ who was caught literally with his pants down but still refused to come over to the West. He was eventually sent back to Russia and never heard from again. And of course there are lively accounts of Wright’s encounters with CIA legends William Harvey and James Angleton.But the crux of the story is Wright’s longtime and ultimately unsuccessful search for a Soviet mole at the highest levels of MI5, the principal candidate being Roger Hollis, Director General from 1956 to 1965. Myself I find Wright’s interpretation of the clues, the connecting of the dots, if you will, convincing. But who knows? And, one might ask, a half century on, who cares? These ruminations aside, Spycatcher can be recommended as a fascinating slice of Cold War nostalgia and sensibilities, organized and told very well. A fun read.
[1] Since its initial publication Wright’s opus maximus has been much discussed, both pro and con. The unsuccessful attempts in the 1980s by the British government to censor its contents have gained renewed attention in light of the current WikiLeaks phemonenon. For an analysis see Katy Barnett’s Spycatcher and Wikileaks: History Repeats.
Ideas and theories put forward in Spycatcher have been covered by Chapman Pincher in Treachery : Betrayals, Blunders, and Cover-ups : Six Decades of Espionage against America and Great Britain (Random House, 2009), which constitutes a kind of revised and expanded version of Spycatcher. In addition, Wright has been supported by the comments of former MI5 official Stephen de Mobray. Conversely, Wright’s theories have been just as vigorously refuted, a principal example being Christopher Andrew, Defence of the Realm : the Authorised History of MI5 (Alan Lane, 2009). Finally, Paul Monk’s Christopher Andrew and the Strange Case of Roger Hollis, while sympathetic to Wright’s point of view, nevertheless brings a welcome nuance and balance to the debate. See also : Debating the Case of Roger Hollis.
[1] Since its initial publication Wright’s opus maximus has been much discussed, both pro and con. The unsuccessful attempts in the 1980s by the British government to censor its contents have gained renewed attention in light of the current WikiLeaks phemonenon. For an analysis see Katy Barnett’s Spycatcher and Wikileaks: History Repeats.
Ideas and theories put forward in Spycatcher have been covered by Chapman Pincher in Treachery : Betrayals, Blunders, and Cover-ups : Six Decades of Espionage against America and Great Britain (Random House, 2009), which constitutes a kind of revised and expanded version of Spycatcher. In addition, Wright has been supported by the comments of former MI5 official Stephen de Mobray. Conversely, Wright’s theories have been just as vigorously refuted, a principal example being Christopher Andrew, Defence of the Realm : the Authorised History of MI5 (Alan Lane, 2009). Finally, Paul Monk’s Christopher Andrew and the Strange Case of Roger Hollis, while sympathetic to Wright’s point of view, nevertheless brings a welcome nuance and balance to the debate. See also : Debating the Case of Roger Hollis.
[Thompson, Brian. The Disastrous Mrs. Weldon : the Life, Loves, and Lawsuits of a Legendary Victorian. N.Y, Doubleday, 2001.]
[Wright, Peter. Spycatcher : the Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer. N. Y., Viking, 1987. With Paul Greengrass.]
[Wright, Peter. Spycatcher : the Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer. N. Y., Viking, 1987. With Paul Greengrass.]
