[Review] Peter Wright: 'Spycatcher

When 'Spycatcher' was released it caused a major uproar. Peter Wright (1916-1995) had clearly violated the Official Secrets Act, but how do you prevent a book from publication when the author is out of reach. Wright was living in Australia and the book became a runaway success in that country and the US.

[Buy the book here]

'Spycatcher' was the story (and revenge) of former intelligence officer Peter Wright. The reason for his book was simple: when he switched jobs to join MI5, Wright was promised that his pension would be taken care of. When it was time to retire, nothing was ever done to repair his pension. The book was his way of earning his well-deserved pension.

The story of 'Spycatcher' is engrossing, but badly written (by journalist Peter Greengrass) and has a garbled timeline. Stories sometimes appear twice and out of sync. However, we end up with a picture of a scientist-turned-spy and his quest for moles in the service.

Delving through reports of defectors, through sometimes only partially decoded secret intelligence and interviews with old colleagues, he would uncover spies and moles throughout his career. His hunt for the infamous 'Cambridge Five' was intense and could be called a personal vendetta. We all know about Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean and Anthony Blunt, but the fifth member always remained a mystery.

Strange incidents led Peter Wright to conclude that Sir Roger Hollis, director of MI5, must have been that fifth member and a spy for the Soviet Union. In the end, the evidence was inconclusive and the investigation was directed to the annals of history.

When 'Spycatcher' was released in 1987, MI5 started a campaign to discredit him. Stella Rimington, then director of MI5, let it slip that Wright took files home to write his book, that he was 'quite clearly a man with an obsession, and was regarded by many as quite mad and certainly dangerous' [Source]. Her lame efforts only showed to the intelligence community how good and thus how right Wright must have been about Roger Hollis.

It's therefore curious that the same Stella Rimington later wrote an autobiography and several spy thrillers that also gave information about 'the inside of MI5'.