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Robert Hockney series #1
The Spike
The Spike? A newspaper term that means a story is killed because an editor doesn't like its politics. It means slanting the news, by omission. It means politics governs news. And it is politics that are at issue here.
Robert Hockney, young liberal journalist, scourge of the Nixon White House and the CIA, and lover of a radical sex symbol, is forced from his job when he insists on investigating an unfashionable theme: the way that media bias, fostered by the KGB's sinister Directorate A, has anesthetized public awareness to the thrust of Russia's bid for global supremacy.
Following a trail that leads him from the jungles of Vietnam to the terrorist lairs of Hamburg and Rome, from high society orgies in Paris to the discovery of the Soviet "mole" who burrowed his way to the heart of the National Security Council in Washington, Hockney's dangerous journey lays bare to the reader what could very well be the secret history of our times. Spies, agents, double agents, moles, bribes, seduced high officials, trained sex experts, and special investigators crowd the scene with blackmail, assassinations, suicides, and mysterious disappearances,
More convincing than and previous bestseller, this is a work of fiction that exposes what may be going on behind closed doors in the White House, Western newsrooms, and at 2 Dzherzhinsky Square, the headquarters of the KGB.
Robert Hockney, young liberal journalist, scourge of the Nixon White House and the CIA, and lover of a radical sex symbol, is forced from his job when he insists on investigating an unfashionable theme: the way that media bias, fostered by the KGB's sinister Directorate A, has anesthetized public awareness to the thrust of Russia's bid for global supremacy.
Following a trail that leads him from the jungles of Vietnam to the terrorist lairs of Hamburg and Rome, from high society orgies in Paris to the discovery of the Soviet "mole" who burrowed his way to the heart of the National Security Council in Washington, Hockney's dangerous journey lays bare to the reader what could very well be the secret history of our times. Spies, agents, double agents, moles, bribes, seduced high officials, trained sex experts, and special investigators crowd the scene with blackmail, assassinations, suicides, and mysterious disappearances,
More convincing than and previous bestseller, this is a work of fiction that exposes what may be going on behind closed doors in the White House, Western newsrooms, and at 2 Dzherzhinsky Square, the headquarters of the KGB.
480 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1980
5 people are currently reading
210 people want to read
About the author
Arnaud de Borchgrave
12 books5 followersArnaud Charles Paul Marie Philippe de Borchgrave was a Belgian-American journalist who specialized in international politics. Following a long career with the magazine Newsweek, he held key editorial and executive positions with The Washington Times and United Press International. De Borchgrave was also a founding member of Newsmax Media.
Borchgrave was educated in Belgium, King's Canterbury, and the United States. As Belgium fell to the German invasion, he and his family escaped on a freighter, being rescued by a British destroyer after the freighter's captain had attempted to divert to Hamburg. He served in the British Royal Navy (1942–1946), from the age of 15, after running away from home, convincing his grandmother to assist in falsifying his age so he could enlist. He gave up his Belgian title of nobility in 1951.
He was awarded the Médaille Maritime by Belgium. In July 2014, Borchgrave was awarded the Legion of Honor, France's highest civilian distinction.
Borchgrave was educated in Belgium, King's Canterbury, and the United States. As Belgium fell to the German invasion, he and his family escaped on a freighter, being rescued by a British destroyer after the freighter's captain had attempted to divert to Hamburg. He served in the British Royal Navy (1942–1946), from the age of 15, after running away from home, convincing his grandmother to assist in falsifying his age so he could enlist. He gave up his Belgian title of nobility in 1951.
He was awarded the Médaille Maritime by Belgium. In July 2014, Borchgrave was awarded the Legion of Honor, France's highest civilian distinction.
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
March 11, 2020
This book is clearly aimed at undermining the credibility of Vietnam era war correspondents like Seymour Hersh by portraying them as agents of the KGB. Narratives like this are in effect, propaganda , and offensive.
Robert Moss was a CIA operative and represented insidious extreme right wing fascism. Nowadays we can find this author has morphed himself into a self styled shaman, giving dream workshops based on highly appropriated ideas from native cultures of which he had no real experience of. His followers of his dream work courses and novels should approach what he has on offer with serious skepticism and caution. He is not open about his past history. This particular novel, as propaganda to justify US warmongering and the Vietnam war, is just the tip of the iceberg.
Robert Moss was a CIA operative and represented insidious extreme right wing fascism. Nowadays we can find this author has morphed himself into a self styled shaman, giving dream workshops based on highly appropriated ideas from native cultures of which he had no real experience of. His followers of his dream work courses and novels should approach what he has on offer with serious skepticism and caution. He is not open about his past history. This particular novel, as propaganda to justify US warmongering and the Vietnam war, is just the tip of the iceberg.
October 1, 2025
Slop in its truest form, a devolution of a Bond story, where raunchiness and horniness is front loaded, to the point of the novel being practically pornographic. Now I have no issue with overt displays of sexuality in media, as a matter of fact I use it quite often as a crutch in my own writing, I do, however, take issue with conservative, cishet drek, I.e. overemphatic breast descriptions without real substance and always a strange emphasis on undergarments. Anyway, as I said most of the sexual stuff is front loaded, pure conservative sexuality on full display. In terms of the actual plot, it’s the post civil rights bircherite crap of a supposed realist racial harmony, the stuff neoconservatives always prattle on about, that is threatened by the forces of the USSR, world communism, and the burgeoning forces of Islamism. Very dull, entertaining in the way any sort of lowest common denominator pulp is, with some vague geopolitical understanding and framework tacked on top to elevate it above pure raunchy spy thriller.
June 28, 2018
What a delightful discovery! This spy thriller, a #1 best seller when it was published in 1980, has since largely faded into obscurity.
The Spike is a “Roman à clef”, a novel with a key. This is an honored literary tradition with roots going back at least as far back as Dante’s Inferno.
The Spike was written at the dawn of the internet age, when the authors could not imagine readers being able to research the “keys” so conveniently. It was a bestseller when it was published, and reportedly sparked extensive speculation at the time about “who was who”. To my surprise, I could not find any comprehensive listing of the fictional characters and their real life counterparts on the internet in 2018.
So I decided to create one. This gave me the added pleasure of reading the novel as a detective story, in addition to a spy thriller. My extensive first draft is located in the goodreads book discussion thread here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
The Spike was billed as “A story so explosive it can only be told as fiction”. Richard Helms (CIA Director 1966-73) provided this book jacket review, “The Spike is a well-written, fast-paced novel dealing with what the Russians call disinformation. It deals with a challenge posed to America and the Free World: Can the Soviets destroy the West without firing a shot?”. Ronald Reagan read the novel while on the campaign trail in his successful effort to oust Jimmy Carter from the White House after his disastrous first term.
About the authors:
Arnaud de Borchgrave was a distinguished career journalist (US/UK/ Belgium) who came up with the idea for the novel after he and his wife were forced to flee and hide in the English countryside after anonymous threats were made in response to a Newsweek article he wrote that named some of the terrorists behind the 1972 Munich massacre.
There he discussed the idea for the novel with another distinguished journalist, Robert Moss (Australia/UK). They realized that, between the two of them, they knew most of the players in the intelligence, press and political world and had access to an extraordinary number of them.
Arnaud de Borchgrave was eventually awarded the Legion of Honor, France's highest civilian distinction, in July 2014. Robert Moss is credited with giving Margaret Thatcher the nickname “The Iron Lady”.
De Borchgrave and Moss reasoned that they could write a non-fiction book on the subject that would sell, at best, 10,000 copies, or they could fictionalize it as a spy thriller and try to reach a much larger audience. They wisely opted for the latter.
De Borchgrave and Moss in this book accuse (and effectively name) many on the left, in the Carter administration and in the media of being witting or unwitting tools of the Soviet Union, some of them deliberate traitors. De Borchgrave and Moss were in response accused of being tools of and propagandists for the CIA.
There was no love lost between the two sides and they both viewed the stakes as being all or nothing. De Borchgrave and Moss opened this literary front with a devastating first strike with The Spike and their opponents were faced with having to either respond through the media or with a libel suit. Although multiple libel suits were threatened and trivial changes were made in a later paperback edition, no successful suits were ever brought, even though many of the characters are ridiculously obvious.
Those facts are pretty damning as to the truth of the matter. So one can consider The Spike as easily as non-fiction as fiction. In literary terms, with respect to “world building”, this is a 10 on a scale of 1 to 5. This is an overwhelmingly fully-built world. You couldn’t have made it up and De Borchgrave and Moss quite rightly figured: “Why bother?” Truth is indeed stranger than fiction.
The Spike is a “Roman à clef”, a novel with a key. This is an honored literary tradition with roots going back at least as far back as Dante’s Inferno.
The Spike was written at the dawn of the internet age, when the authors could not imagine readers being able to research the “keys” so conveniently. It was a bestseller when it was published, and reportedly sparked extensive speculation at the time about “who was who”. To my surprise, I could not find any comprehensive listing of the fictional characters and their real life counterparts on the internet in 2018.
So I decided to create one. This gave me the added pleasure of reading the novel as a detective story, in addition to a spy thriller. My extensive first draft is located in the goodreads book discussion thread here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
The Spike was billed as “A story so explosive it can only be told as fiction”. Richard Helms (CIA Director 1966-73) provided this book jacket review, “The Spike is a well-written, fast-paced novel dealing with what the Russians call disinformation. It deals with a challenge posed to America and the Free World: Can the Soviets destroy the West without firing a shot?”. Ronald Reagan read the novel while on the campaign trail in his successful effort to oust Jimmy Carter from the White House after his disastrous first term.
About the authors:
Arnaud de Borchgrave was a distinguished career journalist (US/UK/ Belgium) who came up with the idea for the novel after he and his wife were forced to flee and hide in the English countryside after anonymous threats were made in response to a Newsweek article he wrote that named some of the terrorists behind the 1972 Munich massacre.
There he discussed the idea for the novel with another distinguished journalist, Robert Moss (Australia/UK). They realized that, between the two of them, they knew most of the players in the intelligence, press and political world and had access to an extraordinary number of them.
Arnaud de Borchgrave was eventually awarded the Legion of Honor, France's highest civilian distinction, in July 2014. Robert Moss is credited with giving Margaret Thatcher the nickname “The Iron Lady”.
De Borchgrave and Moss reasoned that they could write a non-fiction book on the subject that would sell, at best, 10,000 copies, or they could fictionalize it as a spy thriller and try to reach a much larger audience. They wisely opted for the latter.
De Borchgrave and Moss in this book accuse (and effectively name) many on the left, in the Carter administration and in the media of being witting or unwitting tools of the Soviet Union, some of them deliberate traitors. De Borchgrave and Moss were in response accused of being tools of and propagandists for the CIA.
There was no love lost between the two sides and they both viewed the stakes as being all or nothing. De Borchgrave and Moss opened this literary front with a devastating first strike with The Spike and their opponents were faced with having to either respond through the media or with a libel suit. Although multiple libel suits were threatened and trivial changes were made in a later paperback edition, no successful suits were ever brought, even though many of the characters are ridiculously obvious.
Those facts are pretty damning as to the truth of the matter. So one can consider The Spike as easily as non-fiction as fiction. In literary terms, with respect to “world building”, this is a 10 on a scale of 1 to 5. This is an overwhelmingly fully-built world. You couldn’t have made it up and De Borchgrave and Moss quite rightly figured: “Why bother?” Truth is indeed stranger than fiction.
August 7, 2022
I was interested in this book after seeing a 1980 interview on Johnny Carson with the author. Arnaud de Borchgrave clearly had an interesting life of great privilege, this was his second novel which seems to operate in equal parts as a vanity project & a work of right wing propaganda.
The story is semi biographical leaning heavily in the early portion of the book on his early career as a war correspondent. The story follows the career of an idealistic anti-war lefty in his transformation to a suspicious pro CIA hawk who views his early idealism as having been the product of KGB disinformation.
The book uses a fictional presidential administration to pillory the real administration of Jimmy Carter. Portraying the Democratic party of the era as the "Mississippi Mafia" & describing members of the administration as traitors & southern nit wits.
The book is pretty trashy, it has it's moments of being entertaining but all in all it is a work of propaganda to justify the cold war & continued spying by the CIA/FBI/NSA. The crescendo of the book is pretty laughable & ends up w/the Democratic administration being humiliated by a conservative senator.
It has peaked my interest in geo politics of the era which no doubt are better explored in non fiction books.
The story is semi biographical leaning heavily in the early portion of the book on his early career as a war correspondent. The story follows the career of an idealistic anti-war lefty in his transformation to a suspicious pro CIA hawk who views his early idealism as having been the product of KGB disinformation.
The book uses a fictional presidential administration to pillory the real administration of Jimmy Carter. Portraying the Democratic party of the era as the "Mississippi Mafia" & describing members of the administration as traitors & southern nit wits.
The book is pretty trashy, it has it's moments of being entertaining but all in all it is a work of propaganda to justify the cold war & continued spying by the CIA/FBI/NSA. The crescendo of the book is pretty laughable & ends up w/the Democratic administration being humiliated by a conservative senator.
It has peaked my interest in geo politics of the era which no doubt are better explored in non fiction books.
November 20, 2018
Back in the late 80's when I started my first job out of the Air Force my civilian boss told me that if I didn't read any other book that year this was the one I should read. He wouldn't confirm or deny the story but I'm guessing he knew a lot more about it then he was willing to share with me.
This was an amazing story of how the press was controlled during the Vietnam war. It couldn't be more appropriate today. Worth a read ... if you can stand to go back a few years in time.
This was an amazing story of how the press was controlled during the Vietnam war. It couldn't be more appropriate today. Worth a read ... if you can stand to go back a few years in time.
December 4, 2018
I have had this book on my shelves since it was published in the early 80s. I am glad I only read it now, because its even more relevant today than before. Its a political thriller, with resonance for all of us concerned with fake news and the manipulation of politicians, officials and voters by foreign powers through deceitful use of the media.
October 24, 2009
This book was published in 1980 and is still amazingly timely.
May 26, 2022
(Cold War thriller re-read and reviewed for Amazon in 2010.)
Most international thrillers focus on men of action. Man to man, one on one in combat, we win. Our special ops guys and Marines are the class of the world. But what about our idealistic young journalists? Isn't the information war also worth winning?
At the time The Spike was written, mainstream Washington journalists didn't have to compete with the internet or cable news. Editors filtered the truth. Of course Soviet agents worked them hard.
The hero, as in many stories of this period, is an idealistic journalist. He is also a fundamentally loyal American.
Thrown in a sexy movie star with left wing leanings and a President not unlike Carter or Obama to up the stakes, and you get a first class thriller that should appeal to readers of authors from Brad Thor, Tom Clancy and Vince Flynn to Bernard Goldberg, Glenn Beck, and Bill O'Reilly
Most international thrillers focus on men of action. Man to man, one on one in combat, we win. Our special ops guys and Marines are the class of the world. But what about our idealistic young journalists? Isn't the information war also worth winning?
At the time The Spike was written, mainstream Washington journalists didn't have to compete with the internet or cable news. Editors filtered the truth. Of course Soviet agents worked them hard.
The hero, as in many stories of this period, is an idealistic journalist. He is also a fundamentally loyal American.
Thrown in a sexy movie star with left wing leanings and a President not unlike Carter or Obama to up the stakes, and you get a first class thriller that should appeal to readers of authors from Brad Thor, Tom Clancy and Vince Flynn to Bernard Goldberg, Glenn Beck, and Bill O'Reilly
November 10, 2019
Very much written like a ready for TV or movies, but still (or is that because of) a good read.
It is a little alarming to read in this day and age and know that it was written in the 1980s.
A lot of the KGB activities could obviously be suspected of happening now with events in the world as they are, so sobering.
Not a book that delves deep into the characters, but a fast moving constantly shifting plot to keep one entertained and engrossed.
It is a little alarming to read in this day and age and know that it was written in the 1980s.
A lot of the KGB activities could obviously be suspected of happening now with events in the world as they are, so sobering.
Not a book that delves deep into the characters, but a fast moving constantly shifting plot to keep one entertained and engrossed.
October 29, 2025
One of my all-time favorite books! The story weaves itself into a tapestry we know from history with a very believable central theme of media manipulation by state actors. Though written many years ago it's warnings and message are relevant today.
June 11, 2018
It seemed over contrived to sell the author's point that good stories are withheld from the public for nefarious purposes.
May 15, 2020
I would recommend it for anyone.
May 19, 2020
Wow I read this years ago. A thriller with a right wing slant on things but I enjoyed nonetheless.
July 29, 2020
Read in 1980. Wartime intrigue.
June 1, 2021
Pretty good. Sure, why not? Pretty entertaining!
October 3, 2023
Enjoyable read.
July 11, 2014
Was glad to discover this title --one I hadn't heard about before. Seems to be the first of a series which ran to two installments featuring an ambitious young 1960s reporter following his ideals.
It is presumably the first collaborative project between two journalists of that era and naturally contains some conventional genre-writing. There are some obvious-devices-being-used-to-propel-the-story-along. It starts off fairly slow as the two writers clumsily build exposition. And you can see from the first chapter that the young hero has a childhood-love-interest and close-family-ties. So you can see what's coming from a mile off: he will probably have-to-choose when it comes-right-down-to-it and he must face-the-implications of some secret he is bound to discover.
All that being said, succeeding chapters are rather fun as the journalist finds himself in Saigon during the Tet Offensive in '68; descriptions of street-to-street fighting and bar-girls are lively and get the book moving. Really, any glimpse into the world of Vietnam war correspondence is worth a look; and let's remember that these guys were probably there.
What these two authors also provide which is of value (and the main reason to read the novel) is a behind-the-scenes look at the making of international news. We all know how pathetic and feeble national news is in America; how byzantine and slanted. So it is certainly of merit to hear the opinions--and insight to the mechanical workings of that profession--by two foreign news professionals about how world news is shared, merged, mingled, and stroked. Turns out it is a commodity just like anything else. No more noble or reliable than we ought to expect from any modern global industry.
On a lighter note, there is an outrageous nymphomaniac who appears in the first pages and that's always fun.
It is presumably the first collaborative project between two journalists of that era and naturally contains some conventional genre-writing. There are some obvious-devices-being-used-to-propel-the-story-along. It starts off fairly slow as the two writers clumsily build exposition. And you can see from the first chapter that the young hero has a childhood-love-interest and close-family-ties. So you can see what's coming from a mile off: he will probably have-to-choose when it comes-right-down-to-it and he must face-the-implications of some secret he is bound to discover.
All that being said, succeeding chapters are rather fun as the journalist finds himself in Saigon during the Tet Offensive in '68; descriptions of street-to-street fighting and bar-girls are lively and get the book moving. Really, any glimpse into the world of Vietnam war correspondence is worth a look; and let's remember that these guys were probably there.
What these two authors also provide which is of value (and the main reason to read the novel) is a behind-the-scenes look at the making of international news. We all know how pathetic and feeble national news is in America; how byzantine and slanted. So it is certainly of merit to hear the opinions--and insight to the mechanical workings of that profession--by two foreign news professionals about how world news is shared, merged, mingled, and stroked. Turns out it is a commodity just like anything else. No more noble or reliable than we ought to expect from any modern global industry.
On a lighter note, there is an outrageous nymphomaniac who appears in the first pages and that's always fun.
September 25, 2009
This book intertwines the paths of journalists, politicians, spies, and activitists through the 60's into the early 80's. I chose it because I needed a book, there was limited selection, and I met the author at a conference on Pakistan a few months ago.
It was fairly entertaining and easy to read, although probably not worth your time if you can find something different. Some of the characters were interesting enough to keep my interest, but for the most part it was fairly predictable and it's setting was a little out of date.
It was fairly entertaining and easy to read, although probably not worth your time if you can find something different. Some of the characters were interesting enough to keep my interest, but for the most part it was fairly predictable and it's setting was a little out of date.
August 14, 2011
Silliness runs rampant in this dated Cold War thriller. There's something going on with the Commies trying to undermine God's chosen (America), but I couldn't see it for all the lame sex going on. The female characters in this story are just there for decoration. Oh, and sex. The wunderkind who is the main characters simply shoots to the top of the journalistic world with very little effort. Similarly, it takes him very little effort to get women to have sex with him every few pages. There's not one likeable characters anywhere in this book.
July 8, 2010
Not a bad spy/thriller book, but not great, and with an obvious point of view -- that a softening of the U.S. governent's view of the intentions of other countries (here the former Soviet Union) is very bad news for the well-being of the U.S. Interestingly, when the book was published, there was Congressional testimony indicating that Soviet tactics described in the book were fairly accurate. Also, many of the characters in the book reportedly were based on real-life figures.
July 13, 2011
Well, I took real long to read this book. I didn't like this book for its dirtiness. I cannot apreciate the way they throw sad dirty facts about the aftermath of a war without humanity.I hated the way they showed every single woman in the face of this earth as a whore. But yea, it had suspense, thriller, fast scenes etc. that is the only reason that I gave this book 2 stars!!
December 8, 2020
When I read this in high school in the early 1980s I thought it was one of the greatest books of all time. When I reread it a few years ago I realized it was not. It is a fine artifact of the time, and it may still be a fun read for some. I am averaging the ratings of my teenaged 5-star and contemporary 3-star reviews and giving it a 4.
May 30, 2009
Excellent.
June 26, 2009
I'm not really the market for spy fiction but this wasn't bad.
July 9, 2010
Apparently `the Spike` referres to when the editor drops your story (i.e. your story got spiked). Interesting spy novel, kept my attention but not up there with the greatest.
Currently reading
October 23, 2010xcellent investigative, nonfictional story told in a fictional way; more info on world's secret intelligence and how they influence the journalist to twist the 'daily-read'.
March 29, 2014
Remarkably resistible.
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews