Desmond Bristow with Bill Bristow
Little, Brown and co., London, 1993
Shoot the marketing department. There is almost nothing about ‘moles’ in this book. The reality is a mildly interesting account of Bristow’s MI6 career from 1940-1956, most of it spent in Spain. A few names are named — but 40 years on, who gives a toss? Well, rumour has it, the British state for one. They tried to suppress this (or was that also marketing bullshit?) — presumably for the handful of pages in which Bristow expresses his support for Peter Wright and (inconclusively) discusses Burgess, Philby, Blunt, Thomas Harris etc etc. For Bristow knew them all and harbours suspicions about Guy Liddell, Roger Hollis and David Footman. But that’s about all there is.
Finally, this book’s dust jacket must be a contender for the prize for most inaccurate jacket ever written. It begins by stating that this is the first MI6 memoir (it isn’t), calls MI6 officer Bristow an ‘agent’, (the one thing which drives intelligence officers nuts), and then makes claims not to be found in the text. Of interest only to serious MI6 buffs.