The Greatest Traitor: The Secret Lives of Agent George Blake

by Roger Hermiston

At every turn the gripping writing reminds you of a world of spies and betrayal that was so much a part of life in post - war Europe...Superb from start to finish.' JEREMY VINE On 3 May 1961, after a trial conducted largely in secret, a man named George Blake was sentenced to an unprecedented forty - two years in jail. At the time few details of...

Genres: Biography, Espionage, History, Nonfiction, Historical

385 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 2013

About the author

Roger Hermiston was until recently Assistant Editor of BBC Radio 4's Today programme. He began his journalistic career on weekly papers in Kent and Yorkshire, before becoming Crime Reporter on the daily Sunderland Echo. He then spent three years as reporter and feature writer on the Yorkshire Post, before joining the BBC in the early 1990s. On Today – among other things – he covered general elections at home, American presidential campaigns, war in Kosovo and civil war in Algeria. He was a member of the team that won a number of Sony Radio Awards for Best Programme. He lives in Suffolk and is a season-ticket holder at Ipswich Town FC.

- excerpted from David Higham Literary, Film and TV Agents

Reviews

[Gerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Born George Behar in Rotterdam on 11 November 1922, George Blake had a peripatetic childhood and had already had a chequered career around the world before he fully became a double agent in the autumn of 1951.

Already having spent time with relatives in Cairo, as a 17-year-old he was whisked away from his family in the Netherlands and incarcerated in a detention centre by the dreaded Waffen SS. When he was released he was feted on his release and return home for everyone wanted to hear about his experiences. He definitely had a taste for adventure so it was perhaps no surprise when he asked about joining a Dutch resistance group. He was readily accepted and his undercover work began.

With his family having moved to England he continued his resistance work but he eventually decided that he wanted to make his way to join his family. This involved a dangerous 1,000 mile journey across Europe and he had a number of hair-raising escapes while seeking sanctuary along the way. He later commented, 'Scared? You had the pressure of the Germans all around you, but I'd been used to that for more than two years. You get used to being scared and you stop thinking about it. And when you're young you are far less scared than you are later in your life.'

When he reached England he attended Cambridge (as did many of the spies of the day) and then
doors opened for him and he joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve in order to qualify as an officer. But later, when questioned by a Naval officer, his background, his resistance work and his escape from Holland led to an appointment in the Secret Intelligence Service. Thus his career in intelligence work had begun [at 54 Broadway, St James's, in a building where my late wife was later to have an office].

That was when his secret service career began in earnest and after some time in the local office he was posted to Seoul in South Korea to open a new outpost there; it was quite an achievement at age 25 to be chosen to head up a new secret service station. His time in Seoul was very eventful and ended up with him being a captive in Korea under most awful circumstances. Some of the atrocities he describes rival those carried out by the Germans during World War II. He even took part in what was called the 'Death March'.

He was eventually freed and returned to England where his participation in various SIS and CIA meetings allowed him to keep his masters in the Kremlin informed about progress on various secret and top secret activities; his spying activities then became second nature as he continued to pass information across to the Russians on a regular basis.

He had plenty of agents who he worked with and he tells stories of how they arranged meetings so as to avoid detection but after a posting in Berlin, from where he passed on all the secret information about the Berlin listening tunnel, there were leaks about spies in the establishment. The unmasking process of George Blake had begun. After much interrogation when initially he argued against all the allegations that were being made, he eventually confessed after his interrogators had suggested that they understood perhaps why he had passed secrets across after the way he had been treated in Seoul.

This suggestion annoyed him so much that, in what he calls 'an upsurge of indignation', he put the interrogators right and informed them that he had acted purely out of conviction, out of a belief in Communism and not under duress or for any financial gain. He was immediately arrested and a lengthy trial followed.

The maximum penalty for treason was 14 years so he was resigned to being found guilty and sentenced thus. But he did not account for a judge who bent the rules somewhat and imposed three consecutive sentences of 14 years, making a massive 42 years in total. He was mortified and he immediately made up his mind to start making escape plans so as not to complete such an inhumane sentence.

And with the help of fellow prisoners and sympathisers he engineered a daring escape from Wormwood Scrubs, which is fully described in great detail, and set off on a high risk trip to get to the Soviet Union. After many hardships en route he duly did so and was set up in Moscow as a celebrity. He met with other former exiled spies, most notably Kim Philby and Donald Maclean, and lived a comfortable life, and presumably, coming up to his 95th birthday, still does to this day.

He was married twice; his first wife eventually divorced him and he married again in Russia and there is plenty of pathos in the story of those marriages even when one considers that Blake was a spy. And Roger Hermiston tells the whole story with plenty of feeling that helps to make this book one of the most readable on the subject of spying.

Finally, Blake himself takes some comfort in the words from the Bible. In Romans for instance there is, 'Nay but, O Man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one lump to honour, and another unto dishonour?' And having read that, he maintains that he has been formed in the way he is - whether by God, or someone or something else - and it is not for him to question why. He does concede, however, 'I would say that I have been an unusual vessel, in that I have been fashioned both to shame and to honour.' An interesting philosophy indeed ...

[Sebastian · Rating 2 out of 5]

subiectul e atat de bun, dar efectiv cartea trebuia sa fie cu vreo 200 de pagini mai scurta.
nu mi pasa ce marime purta soldatu lu stalin la pantof sau cand s a cacat winston churchill ultima oara.
nu mi place deloc cum scrie autorul asta

[Cold War Conversations Podcast · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good solid account of George Blake the MI6 agents who, in the course of nine years betrayed details of some 40 MI6 agents to the Soviets, destroying most of MI6's operations in Eastern Europe.

I'd read Sean Bourke's book The Springing of George Blake quite a few years back and have been fascinated by this case. Particularly how the small group of non-soviet sympathisers helped to organise his escape from Wormwood Scrubs prison and subsequent journey to East Germany.

The book covers in detail his early life, capture in the Korean war and particularly the solidifying of his political views as a result his experiences.

Worthy of anyone who has an interest in the Cold War.

Anyone know of anything similar on the Portland Spy Ring? That story is definitely worth a book.

[Stephen Goldenberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Blake’s life would have been fascinating enough even if he had never become a Russian spy. There’s his early cosmopolitan upbringing and education in numerous countries and his complex family history. There’s his struggle to survive and escape the Nazis in war torn Europe. His subsequent work for British intelligence and then his two years of imprisonment in Korea during the war there. In fact, the details of his spying activities in the 1950s are the least interesting part of this book. The story picks up at the end with the detailed description of Blake’s daring escape from Wormwood Scrubs and his subsequent flight to Russia.

[Vika Ryabova · Rating 5 out of 5]

Это лучшая книга про шпионов, что я читала! Я их не люблю, в целом, но эта прекрасна.

[Kriegslok · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best biography of George Blake I have read. Roger Hermiston gives the impression of having set out to tell the story of one of the great Soviet intelligence agents without trying to wield any particular political axe. The book takes us from Blakes early years growing up in pre war Netherlands, his role in the anti-Nazi resistence, recruitment into the British intelligence services, and the war in Korea. His thought processes are considered based on both Blakes own words and that of friends and colleagues. While his working life as a hidden agent was relatively short it was highly productive. Perhaps due to his more proletarian up bringing he did not suffer the same self destructiveness which marked some of the Cambridge ring. The latter part of the book details well for the first time George Blakes imprisonment and trial and his spectacular escape following the draconian sentence imposed on him by the British establishment. It would be interesting to have a clearer idea of the thoughts of SIS concerning the prosecution of Blake especially in the wake of the lack of urgency shown in throwing the book at Philby. Together with Blakes autobiography "No Other Choice" and Randal and Pottles "The Blake Escape" these are essential for anyone with an interest in the subject.

[Dvora Treisman · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the blurbs when you open the book says that Hermiston "... writes in a way so objective and unslanted that the reader is challenged to decide what to make of his subject." I didn't find it so. I found Hermiston to be subjective (and thereby slanted). I don't use Kindle, but I challenge anyone who does to put in the words treacherous and treachery and see how many times they appear in the text. In the parts where he talks about Blake's work with SIS, the British Secret Service, they appear at least once per page, and there are a couple hundred pages of that.

But he does lay out all the facts (I hope) and those facts, in spite of Hermiston's favored treachery, leave a reader with that challenge to decide what to make of Blake. I'm all for those who helped him escape. His trial was a sham and he was given an unjustly heavy sentence because he was "Not one of us."

[Rick Burin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Servicable biog of double-agent George Blake, the Dutch-born British spy flipped by the Russians in a Korean prisoner-of-war camp. A little light overall, especially compared to Andrew Lownie’s recent book on Guy Burgess, though it improves as it progresses and the author’s sources become more varied and detailed: the passages on Blake’s escape from Wormwood Scrubs are excellent. In the intro, Hermiston – a former Today programme producer – attempts to incinerate our goodwill by praising Rod Liddle.

[Dennis · Rating 4 out of 5]

My mum would have loved this one. She loved books on espionage and this is right up there among the best you'll find. It is exciting and rarely lags and keeps it up to the end. I chose to seek it out and read it after the recent death of George Blake at 96 and the book didn't disappoint. Maybe I have inherited my Mum's taste?

[Bobby24 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book, to the highest standards of British non fiction authorship*, the writer himself has no presence and allows the story to tell itself and what a story, superb.

unlike american authors who often seem to write books with one mind on a film script and the riches that follow.

[Bogdan Bohus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesanta, bine structurata, nu are timpi morți, totuși scrisă într-un mod oarecum subiectiv. Se încearcă o justificare, nu știu cât de valabila este pentru o persoana din est care cunoaște cortina de fier a războiului rece.

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Couldn’t put this down! Brilliant!

[Graham Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quit frankly wonderfully written and informative. Hermiston doesn't glorify Blake, nor does he lambasts Blake. Enough said. If you haven't read it, do so.

[Samuel Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not enough Traitor studies are giving serious thought. A glass that reflects the obvious shows the oblivious.

[Tom Collins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great story. Recommend

[Eoghan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good account based on previous books by Blake and Bourke and a good deal of research. Seems to want to chalk Blake’s so called treachery down to him being ‘turned’ during his time in the Korean POW camp or hatred of the British due to his rejection by his ‘intended’ Iris Peake’s family because he wasn’t British enough. Seems to me from everything I’ve read that Blake probably wanted to leave his mark, he believed Communism was the most Christian system, and as he said himself, he didn’t betray because in order to betray, first you have to belong.

[A W · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quarter century on from its end the Cold War seems at first very remote, Roger Hermiston's definitive biography of one of its most enigmatic figures brings the period brilliantly back to life.

George Blake was the MI6 agent who scandalised the nation when he was arrested in 1961 and charged with treason, then thrilled it a few years later by escaping from Wormwood Scrubs and making a home run to the Soviet Union. As a subject he is a biographer's dream, a mass of complexities and contradictions embroiled in event of huge significance.

`He was a man of huge intellect and not inconsiderable personal courage, yet he was also a convinced to the point of foolishness believer in the communist system who betrayed dozens of his fellow agents, many of whom were tortured or killed as a result.

Hermiston presents him as an archetypal outsider, born of Anglo-Dutch parentage he showed tremendous bravery as a member of the resistance during the war and then later as a prisoner of war in Korea. In his youth he flirted with joining the priesthood and retained an interest in theology and philosophy throughout his life, handy perhaps when it came to convincing himself that anything awful that happened to the people he betrayed would have been done by the East German authorities, not his paymasters in the KGB. A circle that can only be squared by the naivety that often goes hand in hand with a first rate mind.

In the end it was politics rather than the church that claimed him, although in its austerity Blake's communism seems to have shown all the attributes of a faith. He, Hermiston suggests, was motivated by idealism rather than greed, making him something of an outsider amongst his fellow traitors.

Hermiston also writes well about the detail of the period, from the paranoia of the Cold War, through the faded Britain of the early sixties to the equally grim atmosphere of the Soviet Union that provided Blake with a heroes welcome and a gilded cage.

There was certainly an attempt to make an example of Blake at his trial, which was held in secret with evidence that could have, partially mitigated in his favour ruled inadmissible. Behind the verdict can be heard the death rattle of an establishment struggling to find a role as the sixties started to swing. His subsequent escape had about it in equal measure sub-Ealing comedy amateurishness, white knuckle bravery and a good dollop of entirely British institutional bungling.

This is a concise, deeply researched biography of a remarkable if flawed man living in fascinating times. If its subject remains somewhat distant that is due to the character of a man who seems to have deceived himself as much as anyone else.

It is certainly a book that is worth reading now, because however remote it may at first seem the Cold War has a new relevance. Isolated from the rest of the world by sanctions following its military adventures in the Ukraine the Kremlin under Vladimir Putin is revisiting the Soviet play-book with its incursions into NATO airspace and revitalised espionage activities.

It is, perhaps, no surprise then that one of the people who visited George Blake in his dotage and gave his backing to a Russian television series celebrating his 'heroism', was the latest strong man in the Kremlin.

[Wayne Richardson · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

[Gonzaga Escauriaza · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very entertaining and very well written.

I love spies stories and this one is one of the best

[Bill McFadyen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of one of the best known spies of the Cold War . George Blake lived through WW2 , the Korean War and the Cold War being at the sharp end of many of the horrors thrown up during such times.
His treachery to his adopted homeland still impacts today but his sentence of 42 years unsettled many people outside of the establishment. His escape from prison is a tale in itself .
If you have an interest in the Cold War this is a good place to get a feel for the people involved and the conflict underway across the Iron Curtain.

[Pauly · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic story, well written by Mr Hermiston. The story has an unusual family background, wartime resistance, spying, war, treachery, a major trial, imprisonment, escape and eventual exile retirement in it. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, as did my mother, after borrowing it on my recommendation.

I cannot praise this book too highly.

[Derek Nudd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hermiston seems to have found some genuinely untapped sources trying to hack his way through the web of lies and obfuscation surrounding this man's life. Is it all true? Who knows? This is as good an attempt as any, and he brings out Blake's ideological commitment to a system that can only work with the moral perfection of humankind - but offers no mechanism for bringing this about.

[Carofish · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really good read. Roger Hermiston has written this biography with flair that makes one forget that it's a true story and not fiction.

[Eric Grounds · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book transformed my perception of Blake. He was a much more interesting man than I realised. Well written, this is an excellent book

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Book was better than I was expecting, great to read a follow how 1 man was turned against his adoptive country