The Perfect English Spy: Sir Dick White and the Secret War 1935-90 - Hardcover

Bower, Tom

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 031213584X ISBN 13: 9780312135843

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 1995

Synopsis

A profile of Dick White, a former schoolmaster who rose to become the respected chief of Britain's counter-intelligence bureau, exposes a dramatic career stretching from the dawn of World War II to the "Spycatcher Affair."

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Reviews

The only person to serve successively as chief of MI5 and SIS, Sir Dick White (1909-1993) dominated British intelligence for 35 years. With the cooperation of former U.S. and Soviet intelligence officers and interviews with White himself, Bower has written an authoritative account of the crises and scandals that plagued Britain's secret service throughout the Cold War, with emphasis on the defections of Kim Philby, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean. Bower reveals White's central role in the major "mole-hunt" inspired by the CIA's counterintelligence chief, James Jesus Angleton. To White's dismay, the hunt threw suspicion on Sir Roger Hollis, White's successor as director-general of the British security service, a suspicion that lingers still. The book covers White's expert handling of Oleg Penkovsky, perhaps the most important of all Soviet defectors, as well as White's long struggle to expose Kim Philby as a traitor. Readers will find an abundance of new material here on the rivalry between MI5 and SIS (roughly analogous to our CIA and FBI) and the compromise of their security procedures. Bower, who lives in England, wrote Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyons. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

As "C" from 1956 to 1968, White controlled British espionage. Efficient, colorless, and self-effacing, White lacks the panache to fill out a vivifying biography, so Bower devotes space to the internal politics of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) and narrates the facts of operations compromised and traitors exposed as White investigated them over a career that began in MI5, Britain's domestic counterintelligence bureau. Naturally looming large is the Philby fiasco and the defection in 1951 of his confederates Burgess and Maclean. The scandals indicated an ineffectual SIS, dominated by an old-boy network that rarely supplied Whitehall--except for the Penkovsky coup--with timely intelligence. So Bower's subtext concerns White's management of a sclerotic service that was often paralyzed by molehunts. Elsewhere, Bower ranges across regions of SIS activity during White's tenure, namely Suez in 1956, Yemen and Kuwait in the early 1960s, and Rhodesia in 1964. To cloak-and-dagger aficionados, this book's aura of forbidden fruit will be tempting, but with White a cipher, libraries might find general interest elusive. Gilbert Taylor

Dick White's career in British Intelligence spanned nine prime ministers. As chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) from 1956 to the early 1990s, he was bedeviled by crises from Philby to Port Said to Profumo and by stunning defections. He remained at the helm, the consummate bureaucrat, as the SIS grew from a tradition-bound gentleman's club to a modern intelligence operation. English writer Bower (The Paperclip Conspiracy, LJ 12/87) bases this lively biography on interviews with White and with retired British and Soviet agents, as well as on archival research. His primary audience will be specialists and true espionage fans; those not already familiar with M15, SIS, Ultra, Burgess, and McLean may find this work harder to follow. A good choice for any library with an interested clientele.?Nancy C. Cridland, Indiana Univ. Libs., Bloomington
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: St Martins Pr
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 031213584X
• ISBN 13: 9780312135843
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 426