A Web of Deception

by Chapman Pincher

The British Government's long legal battle to prevent the former Ml 5 officer, Peter Wright, from publishing his memoirs has caused an international furore. There are those who see the Government as a repressive machine trying to prevent a poor old patriot from exposing dreadful scandals. Others see Wright as a vindictive and treacherous old man taking revenge on Ml 5 by selling secrets he had sworn to keep.The one person who knows where the real truth lies is Chapman Pincher. It was his meeting with Wright in 1980 which started what has become known as the Spycatcher affair. He was the first person to whom Wright leaked secrets and Chapman Pincher's book, Their Trade Is Treachery, has been central to the court cases in Australia.The super-secret reason behind the Government's decision to permit the publication of Their Trade Is Treachery is a political bombshell. Chapman Pincher reveals it, along with the reasons why the Government took such extreme steps to preserve it. It is an astonishing tale of deception and self-deception, of real conspiracy and fake conspiracy and shows, with insider authority, how ministers and mandarins behave when issues of extreme secrecy are being decided.Chapman Pincher also discloses the truth about the parts played by Lord Rothschild and an array of political and legal figures, as well as secret service chiefs. He knows al I of them -some in close friendship-and reveals first-hand details of their involvement in the Wright affair.A Web of Deception contains more secretsthan Spycatcher (which is largely a re-run ofTheir Trade Is Treachery) . it shows how thehighest in the land can become entrapped, withI heir reputations sullied, by the dangerous cult ofofficial secrecy.

Genres: History

224 pages, Hardcover

First published November 19, 1987

About the author

Harry Chapman Pincher was an Indian-born British journalist, historian, and novelist whose writing mainly focused on espionage and related matters, after some early books on scientific subjects.

Harry Chapman Pincher was born in India in 1914 while his father was serving in the British Army. After moving to Great Britain, Chapman Pincher studied first at Darlington Grammar School and then King's College London before entering the teaching profession. He served in the Ministry of Supply during the Second World War and then embarked upon a lengthy and successful career in journalism, joining the Daily Express as a science and defence correspondent. Famed for his exposés, he was regarded as one of the finest investigative reporters of the twentieth century. Chapman Pincher penned a number of books both non-fiction and fiction and was the author of the notorious Their Trade is Treachery. Prior to his death he lived in West Berkshire with his wife, Billee.

Reviews

[Allan · Rating 2 out of 5]

A dated book of dubious motives. Pincher rightly points out that he (with the cooperation of Peter Wright) had already published most of the information contained in Wright's Spycatcher and the Government at the time had approved of the book. So you might think the premise would be "Why did the Government try to suppress Spycatcher?" However, this book is more about name dropping, protecting the establishment, knocking anyone left of the political right and what a clever journalist Pincher was.
If you want to know how many pages it takes a once respected political journalist to say "I told them so", it's over 200.