A Game of Moles: The Deception of an MI6 Officer

by Desmond Bristow

An insider's account of life within the intelligence services, written by a former MI6 officer. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0316903353
• ISBN13: 9780316903356
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: Little Brown Uk
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.9" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

A Noteworthy Chapter in the History of the British Secret Intelligence Service!

I enjoyed this book, even though Desmond Bristow, a Cambridge graduate (who learned his tradecraft of deception from his mentor and, he informs us, friend Kim Philby in Section V of SIS [MI6]), is not a professional writer (He collaborated on the book with his son.). The narrative tends to be anecdotal and spotty, often neglecting smooth transitions in such a way that the reader sometimes is forced to pause before realizing that the author has moved on from one topic to another. At other times, he drops a subject, just at the point in which the reader would like to know much more. Despite such essentially organizational flaws, the book is worth reading for the author's inside story of running agents and deception operations from the British enclave at Gibraltar during World War II. Mr. Bristow is at his best when he describes the atmosphere of intrigue in neutral Spain and Portugal, which were nests of agents from the intelligence services not only of the Nazis but also of the British, Americans, and Russians. Among his more memorable adventures on the Iberian peninsula was one in which he spent several days with Klop Ustinov (father of Peter), eluding the Portuguese secret police, and another in which on a holiday in Cadiz he and his fellow agents had a close and friendly encounter with Admiral Canaris, head of the Abwehr, in an elegant hotel bar. After the war, the story loses some of its momentum (perhaps as Mr. Bristow loses his enthusiasm for the secret service, as the molehunts commence), becoming overly anecdotal (And then I met so-and-so, and we talked about such-and-such.). The final chapter, however, on Tomas Harris, artist, dealer in fine arts, good friend not only of the author, but also of Kim Philby, Anthony Blunt, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Guy Liddell et al, is fascinating, asking as many questions as it does not begin to answer. The author, who only alludes to the umbrella of suspicion that cast its shadow on SIS after the defection of Burgess and Maclean, seems to be at special pains to alert the reader that even though he was a frequent guest at Harris's famous parties (attended regularly by all of the above), he nevertheless had next-to-nothing to do with the other participants. At this point perhaps the reader should recall the subtitle of "A Game of Moles"--written in 1993 after all the protagonists were dead: "The Deceptions of an MI6 Officer."