Colonel Z; The Secret Life of a Master of Spies

361 pages. Includes Prologue; Part One--Apprenticeship; Part Two--The Great War; Part Three--The Twenty-Year Truce 1919-39; Part Four--The World at War Again; and Part Five--The Allies. Also includes Bibliography, Acknowledgments, and Index. Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Claude Marjoribanks Dansey (1876-147) was England's most influential spymaster during the first half of the twentieth century. One mark of his success is how little is publicly known of his career and achievements. In this book, Anthony Read and David Fisher reveal a life as colorful as it was clandestine, filled with all the devious intrigue and fateful ironies of a John le Carre' novel. Anthony Read (21 April 1935 - 21 November 2015) was a British television producer, screenwriter, script editor and author. He was principally active in British television from the 1960s to the mid-1980s, although he occasionally contributed to televised productions until 1999. Beginning in the 1980s, he launched a second career as a print author, concentrating largely on World War II histories. In his second career as an author he continued his relationship with David Fisher into the world of nonfiction writing. While the majority of Read's books were solo works, he and Fisher collaborated a number of times, usually to explore some aspect of WWII. Together they wrote The Fall of Berlin, The Deadly Embrace: Hitler, Stalin and the Nazi-Soviet Pact, 1939-1941, Operation Lucy: The Most Secret Spy Ring of the Second World War, Berlin Rising: Biography of a City, Colonel Z: The Secret Life of a Master of Spies, and Kristallnacht: The Nazi Night of Terror. Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Claude Edward Marjoribanks Dansey, KCMG (10 September 1876 - 11 June 1947), also known as Colonel Z, Haywood, Uncle Claude, and codenamed Z, was the assistant chief of the Secret Intelligence Service known as ACSS, of the British intelligence agency commonly known as MI6, and a member of the London Controlling Section. He began his career in intelligence in 1900, and remained active until his death. In 1895 he joined the Matabeleland Regiment of the British South African Police. On 13 June 1898 he joined the militia as second lieutenant in the 5th and 6th battalion Lancashire Fusiliers, being promoted to lieutenant on 9 November. On 16 August 1899 he was seconded for service with the British North Borneo Company. He transferred to the regular army when he was appointed a second lieutenant of the 2nd battalion on 24 February 1900, followed by promotion to lieutenant on 15 August 1900. On 1 March 1902 he was again seconded, as a Staff Lieutenant for Intelligence in South Africa, then on 24 June he was appointed aide-de-camp to the Brigadier-General commanding the Harrismith District, Charles James Blomfield. He was transferred from a supernumerary lieutenancy onto the establishment of his regiment on 17 September 1902. On 4 November 1904 he was seconded for "special extra-regimental employment" as a Political Advisor in the British Somaliland Protectorate and on 24 October 1906 he resigned his commission. On 10 April 1907 he was promoted to captain on the Reserve of Officers. He was recruited by MI5 and put in charge of "port intelligence" and the surveillance of civilian passengers during World War I. He was "inadvertently" responsible for allowing Leon Trotsky to return to Russia in 1917. He helped set up the first American military intelligence service in 1917. He became deputy to Stewart Menzies, chief of MI6 (SIS) in November 1939 and retired in 1945. First American Edition [stated]. DJ does not have a price--book club edition.…