Treachery: Betrayals, Blunders, and Cover-ups: Six Decades of Espionage Against America and Great Britain

Chapman Pincher

Random House Publishing Group, Jul 7, 2009 - Political Science - 704 pages

From noted intelligence authority and author Chapman Pincher comes an utterly riveting book that reveals in startling detail sixty years of Soviet spying against Great Britain and the United States. Using a huge cache of recently released documents and exclusive interviews, Pincher makes a compelling new case that–as he has long believed–the head of Britain’s own counterintelligence and security agency was himself a double agent, acting to undermine and imperil the U.K. and America. Written with the power of a heart-pounding thriller, Treachery pulls the mask from intelligence leader Roger Hollis. As a result, years of traitorous action and inaction on his watch come tumbling down.

Pincher reveals Hollis’s early years, when he was schooled at Oxford, which “educated” many agents, and worked in 1930s Shanghai, a hotbed of soon-to-be spies and Soviet recruiters. Hired by MI5–at a time when there was virtually no vetting of employees–he was a gray presence who rose in the ranks over twenty-seven years while, Pincher suspects, he was allowing the most notorious Soviet spies of the century to flourish.

Myriad fascinating case histories are portrayed here, including that of Lt. Igor Gouzenko, a Red Army cipher clerk who said cryptically in 1945 that there was a mole in MI5 with access to important files. Pincher also provides exciting new perspectives on the most infamous operatives of our time, including Kim Philby and Klaus Fuchs. Perhaps most explosively, Pincher posits that long after Hollis stepped down, a cover-up was perpetrated at the highest levels, and that Margaret Thatcher was induced to mislead Parliament to prevent the truth from coming out.

An essential volume for a world potentially facing a new cold war as Russia dangerously flexes its military and espionage muscles once again, Treachery warns us to protect our society and institutions from enemy infiltration in the future. This is a revelatory work that puts twentieth-century politics and war into stunning new relief.


From the Hardcover edition.

What people are saying

Review: Treachery: Betrayals, Blunders & Cover-ups: Six Decades of Espionage Against America & Great Britain

User Review  - Ryan Jones - Goodreads

The author may be 95 years old, but don't be fooled, he could get the jump on many writers in their 20s. He seems to be as passionate, as determined, and as agile as any writer one quarter of his age ...

Review: Treachery: Betrayals, Blunders & Cover-ups: Six Decades of Espionage Against America & Great Britain

User Review  - Dan Kearns - Goodreads

Ok, sure, the book is too long and detailed, but Mr. Pincher's personality and punchy Fleet Street writing made sure that I kept going even when I didnt want so much information! I think Mr. Pincher ...

About the author

Chapman Pincher is the most experienced and perhaps the best-known British espionage writer. Born in India in 1914, he was educated at King’s College London and the Royal Military College of Science. His book Their Trade Is Treachery, which first charged Sir Roger Hollis with being a Soviet agent, was a sensation. For decades he has been the most effective critic of the British security system, and over the years he has broken scores of stories that have created headlines.


From the Hardcover edition.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Treachery: Betrayals, Blunders, and Cover-ups: Six Decades of Espionage Against America and Great Britain
• Author: Chapman Pincher
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group, 2009
• ISBN: 1588368599, 9781588368591
• Length: 704 pages
• Subjects: Political Science / Intelligence & Espionage