Deceiving the Deceivers

October 25, 2004
In a groundbreaking analysis of one of the most famous Cold War espionage cases, Hamrick, a former U.S. Foreign Service officer, asserts that British intelligence had identified Donald Maclean as a Soviet agent earlier than the accepted date of spring 1951. He begins his reappraisal of the events of 1947–1951 by dismantling existing journalism on the subject. He goes on to explain his doubts about both Kim Philby's prowess as spy and the veracity of Philby's book, My Silent War.
Writing with a highly specialized knowledge of the intelligence institutions and their history, Hamrick painstakingly identifies anomalies in the NSA's Venona archive of decoded Soviet intelligence and examines complementary London and Moscow sources. Convinced that London still has much to hide about its past, Hamrick maintains that MI5 not only knew far earlier than 1952 about Maclean but argues forcefully that during 1949–1950 it ran a disinformation initiative in which Philby was used as an unwitting foil to hoodwink Moscow about Anglo-American military capability. Hamrick (author of The Consul's Wife
and other novels under the pseudonym W.T. Tyler) redeems the reputation of British intelligence with his assertions and casts aspersions on the past proficiency of the CIA. His subversive recasting of the Philby-Maclean-Burgess case will fascinate and challenge all those interested in Cold War history.

November 15, 2004
The opening of the Venona files in the early 1990s ignited a flurry of books exploring the intricacies of Soviet espionage in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s. Now Hamrick, a former Foreign Service officer and novelist, has looked closely at the Venona and other related archival records relating to famous British spies Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, and Guy Burgess and provides new information on their careers and how they coordinated efforts with other Soviet spies. Hamrick also sheds new light on the efforts by the British government during the last years of the 1940s to maintain a cordial working relationship with American atomic scientific research, a relationship that would be strained by the revelations of such spies as Klaus Fuchs. This is a remarkably well-crafted and thoroughly documented book, but it must be read with care because the details are at times daunting. For most collections.-Ed Goedeken, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames

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