Spy Master: The Betrayal of MI5

Lobster Issue 31 (June 1996) £££

William J. West Berkeley Books, USA, 1990 From the UK reviews: ‘Unassailably accurate … beautifully written … the definitive book on the Hollis story’ – The Times ‘Lively, well-written a completely engrossing book. West has unearthed completely new material’ – Financial Times ‘West is a thorough and meticulous researcher. His book is one of […]

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Way out West: a conspiracy theory

Lobster Issue 19 (1990) £££

A current example of a conspiracy theory is the continuing attempt to paint Roger Hollis as a member of the so-called ‘Ring of Five’. There is, it should be said, not a shred of evidence that Hollis ever passed a single piece of information to the Soviets, nor that he had any contacts with […]

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Rothschild, the right, the far-right and the Fifth Man

Lobster Issue 16 (1988) £££

[…] similarities to the later plots against Ministers in the Wilson governments.) According to de Courcy, on 14th September 1951, two MI5 officers under the orders of Roger Hollis were sent to Paris to interview French officials looking for dirt to discredit the Paris branch of de Courcy’s Intelligence Digest. This, so de Courcy says, […]

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Spooks. Hollis. Tomlinson

Lobster Issue 37 (Summer 1999) £££

Hollis again What with the opening of the KGB archives and the testimony of Oleg Gordievsky, you might be forgiven for thinking that the question, Was MI5 Director-General Roger Hollis a Soviet spy? had been answered conclusively and resoundingly ‘No’. You would be wrong – or so says the doyen of British espionage […]

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Feedback

Lobster Issue 39 (Summer 2000) £££

[…] unscholarly work but to nasty witch hunts. What first drew my attention to this trend was when Peter Wright came out with his accusation about Sir Roger Hollis. Chapman Pincher was wheeled out to back up the claim that Hollis had been recruited to Soviet intelligence by Arthur Ewert when in China. Ewert was […]

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Five at Eye

Lobster Issue 17 (1988) £££

[…] explain that I tried to join the Foreign Service soon after coming down from Oxford in 1960 and was firmly rebuffed, despite a recommendation from Sir Roger Hollis, of the rival Security Service, MI5.” (2) Waugh was close to the Hollis family. Roger’s brother Christopher was a godfather to Waugh and the two lunched […]

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Moscow Gold: ‘the Communist threat’ in post-war Britain

Lobster Issue 25 (1993) £££

[…] the Cold War that I am aware of has mostly been confirmation of what we knew already: the Soviets were apparently not running Alger Hiss or Roger Hollis; but they were funding the World Peace Council and the rest of the well known fronts. The only important news so far has been the confirmation […]

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There’s no smear like an old smear

Lobster Issue 23 (1992) £££

[…] Steve Dorril adds: There is one little gem in Wright’s book which is worth noting. On p. 93 Wright reveals that the Director-General of MI5, Sir Roger Hollis, deliberately destroyed a document before the Denning Inquiry into the Profumo Affair. This showed that Hollis had tried, via the Cabinet Secretary, to enlist John Profumo’s […]

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In a Common Cause: the Anti-Communist Crusade in Britain 1945-60

Lobster Issue 19 (1990) £££

[…] general crusade against communism. It also supported the British League for European Freedom and Common Cause. There were many Catholics involved – notably the British Catholic publisher, Hollis and Carter. MRA Moral Re-Armament was another influence on the work of Common Cause. In the words of its founder Frank Buchman, ‘Labour led by God […]

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One Boggis-Rolfe or two?: Philby: The Hidden Years

Book cover
Lobster Issue 38 (Winter 1999) £££

[…] sought to focus public attention on Philby. MI5 had long harboured suspicions that a Labour government might legally clip their wings. Both Furnival-Jones, MI5’s new D-G after Hollis, and Simpkins, his deputy, were lawyers. MacDermot’s impending promotion was read as a potential threat. From MI5’s point of view, knowledge of Blunt’s activities by either […]

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