What are you reading now?

[Richard Tarleton]

The British in India by David Gilmour.

Only just started this, but it seems excellent. Three generations of my family spent significant chunks of their lives in India, and I have one living relative who remembers the Adyar Club in Madras (page 397).

I'm half way through Ben Macintyre's The Spy and the Traitor, about Oleg Gordievsky - riveting stuff about a brave man who did much to help bring about an end to the Cold War, for example when NATO's "Able Archer" exercise so nearly (and quite unwittingly on their part) brought about a conflict with the profoundly paranoid Soviet Union under Andropov in 1983-4. The general public was unaware of this at the time, but material proved by Gordievsky helped to guide the thinking of Thatcher and Reagan towards the detente which eventually (under Gorbachev) led to the end of the Cold War - for a while at any rate

Private Eye have been dissing the book, Macintyre and Gordievsky in defence of Michael Foot, who is outed as one of the KGB's - not agents exactly, he wasn't one, but "confidential contacts" - at best, "stunningly naive". Inevitable, I suppose, given Paul Foot's place in the history of the Eye, but it's been going downhill for a while and I've decided to stop reading it, after over 50 years.

[gradus]

Wasn't Jack Jones (TUC leader) also accused of being in the pay of the Russians - other names are available.

[Pulcinella]

The Radleys by Matt Haig

One of many copies given away free as part of the Big City Read 2018

https://www.exploreyork.org.uk/bigcityread/

[vinteuil]

Only just started this, but it seems excellent. Three generations of my family spent significant chunks of their lives in India, and I have one living relative who remembers the Adyar Club in Madras (page 397).
.

... I was a member, once



.

[Richard Tarleton]

... I was a member, once



.

As Gilmour says,

There were two grand social clubs in Madras, the Madras Club and the Adyar Club. The Madras Club was ‘one of the most beautiful, porticoed and Palladianised, and so large, a Civilian joked, that ‘you can lose yourself in it three or four times running…parts of it are believed to be still unexplored’. It was reputed to have the hottest of curries, the most elegant of servants and the longest bar in Asia.… However jolly the club was, it was also intensely hierarchical. Junior members were expected to congregate at one end of the bar and not to move up unless invited to drink with a senior. Women were not allowed in the bar at all – they had to remain in the ladies’ annexe known as the moorghikhana (‘hen run’) except on Armistice Day in 1918 when they were kidnapped from the annexe and made to serve celebratory drinks....

The Madras Club’s refusal to admit women had led in 1890 to the founding of an almost equally beautiful club, the Adyar, with an octagonal cupola and riverine gardens, which people were encouraged to join ‘to escape the austerities of the Madras Club’. (The two clubs were forced to merge long after Independence in 1947, and base themselves in the Adyar Club buildings. The Adyar did not admit Indian members until 1960, which meant the stalwarts of the Madras too had to do the same.)’

You may enjoy these than, vints - (I'm the family historian, and found these rummaging through drawerfuls of memorabilia....) - my great aunt's dance card from a "Bachelor's Ball" at the Adyar in 1921 (she was 16) and an invite to a ball with the Prince of Wales in 1922:-







My aunt danced with Mr Walmsley four times, which does seem a bit fast of her....No 13, Basil, is my future grandfather, just married to her older sister.... The family were not typical empire builders - American for one thing - and were there because my great grandfather was Superintendent of the Government School of Arts in Madras.

[Joseph K]

Only just started this, but it seems excellent. Three generations of my family spent significant chunks of their lives in India, and I have one living relative who remembers the Adyar Club in Madras (page 397).

I'm half way through Ben Macintyre's The Spy and the Traitor, about Oleg Gordievsky - riveting stuff about a brave man who did much to help bring about an end to the Cold War, for example when NATO's "Able Archer" exercise so nearly (and quite unwittingly on their part) brought about a conflict with the profoundly paranoid Soviet Union under Andropov in 1983-4. The general public was unaware of this at the time, but material proved by Gordievsky helped to guide the thinking of Thatcher and Reagan towards the detente which eventually (under Gorbachev) led to the end of the Cold War - for a while at any rate

Private Eye have been dissing the book, Macintyre and Gordievsky in defence of Michael Foot, who is outed as one of the KGB's - not agents exactly, he wasn't one, but "confidential contacts" - at best, "stunningly naive". Inevitable, I suppose, given Paul Foot's place in the history of the Eye, but it's been going downhill for a while and I've decided to stop reading it, after over 50 years.

Michael Foot successfully sued the Times for this scurrilous accusation 20-odd years ago. Utterly despicable to resurrect it when the man isn't even alive to defend himself!

[Stanfordian]

'Anton Von Webern: A Chronicle of His Life and Work' by Hans Moldenhauer

[Richard Tarleton]

Michael Foot successfully sued the Times for this scurrilous accusation 20-odd years ago. Utterly despicable to resurrect it when the man isn't even alive to defend himself!

Just two points - more is known now than was known then (read the book). There have been other libel cases lost - by The Times and others - on accusations which have nevertheless later turned out to be true.

And are you saying that just because someone is dead, historians should not repeat unhelpful things about them? I find that a very strange proposition. It's only scurrilous if not true.

[Joseph K]

Just two points - more is known now than was known then (read the book). There have been other libel cases lost - by The Times and others - on accusations which have nevertheless later turned out to be true.

And are you saying that just because someone is dead, historians should not repeat unhelpful things about them? I find that a very strange proposition. It's only scurrilous if not true.

I actually have the Private Eye articles in front of me right now. Seems the Sunday Times editor had already twice admitted the story was twaddle. It's basically the same story except this time it comes from a new biography of the spy rather than his memoirs. There is no new evidence, MI6 thought Foot was an agent of influence because Gordievsky told them that.

The Times also smears Foot as a USSR sympathiser, but, since you have read the Private Eye article, you know that that too is twaddle. I remember watching an interview with Foot where he describes himself as a libertarian-socialist, see 3:30 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYgXS1GqKfs

[Beef Oven!]

The Times also smears Foot as a USSR sympathiser/QUOTE]

I thought most of us were USSR sympathisers back then ...........

[Richard Tarleton]

Joseph, there's no point in discussing it until you've read the book - the Private Eye articles are highly selective. The newest quote in them is 23 years old (from memory - long since gone to the recycling bin). Foot's monthly meetings in the Gay Hussar were with Mikhail Lyubimov, who left two books of memoirs. The name Boot was chosen for Foot by Major Ivan Petrov, KGB ‘senior operational officer’. Lyubimov himself referred in his memoirs to the pub in which he did his recruiting as “The Lyubimov and Boot”.

[LHC]

Joseph, there's no point in discussing it until you've read the book - the Private Eye articles are highly selective. The newest quote in them is 23 years old (from memory - long since gone to the recycling bin). Foot's monthly meetings in the Gay Hussar were with Mikhail Lyubimov, who left two books of memoirs. The name Boot was chosen for Foot by Major Ivan Petrov, KGB ‘senior operational officer’. Lyubimov himself referred in his memoirs to the pub in which he did his recruiting as “The Lyubimov and Boot”.

Just to butt in, I haven't read the book yet, but I think it is possible that MacIntyre is reporting accurately Gordievsky's and MI6's beliefs at the time, and also for Foot not to have been an actual spy.

It seems pretty clear that the KGB files in London before Gordievsky was Station Chief listed Foot as an 'agent of influence', that Gordievsky reported this to MI6 when he took over, and that MI6 took the claims seriously, because Gordievsky generally provided them with very high quality and accurate information.

However, it also seems pretty clear that KGB officers would often inflate their contacts with high profile figures and MPs when making reports back to Moscow to make themselves look better. Hence a few meetings with Foot could result in a claim he was an agent of influence in the KGB files.

As an aside, I suspect something similar was at work with the Czech files on Jeremy Corbyn, which claimed him similarly to be an influential contact. The claims that he was a spy are risible, not least because at the time he wouldn't have been given access to any classified information at all.

[Richard Tarleton]

Just to butt in, I haven't read the book yet, but I think it is possible that MacIntyre is reporting accurately Gordievsky's and MI6's beliefs at the time, and also for Foot not to have been an actual spy.

It seems pretty clear that the KGB files in London before Gordievsky was Station Chief listed Foot as an 'agent of influence', that Gordievsky reported this to MI6 when he took over, and that MI6 took the claims seriously, because Gordievsky generally provided them with very high quality and accurate information.

Like I said, it's important to read exactly what Macintyre is saying. Nobody, certainly not Gordievsky or Macintyre, has claimed Foot was a spy. The KGB files in question were the files in KGB HQ in Moscow. These were the files Gordievsky was swotting up on prior to moving to London, in December 1981, and on which he reported to his MI6 handlers. The Foot case was familiar to him because his colleague Mikhail Lyubimov (who claimed to have recruited Foot) had talked about it when they were both in Denmark.

However, it also seems pretty clear that KGB officers would often inflate their contacts with high profile figures and MPs when making reports back to Moscow to make themselves look better. Hence a few meetings with Foot could result in a claim he was an agent of influence in the KGB files.

Again, read the book . Macintyre carefully makes this very point.

As an aside, I suspect something similar was at work with the Czech files on Jeremy Corbyn, which claimed him similarly to be an influential contact. The claims that he was a spy are risible, not least because at the time he wouldn't have been given access to any classified information at all.

That's as maybe, but is not relevant to the credibility or otherwise of Gordievsky in the 1980s, nor to the Foot case. Corbyn is not mentioned in the book. So no, not similar.

It's unlikely that KGB archives will be thrown open to researchers any time soon - you really need to decide on Gordievsky's credibility on the strength the intelligence he was able to give the West, its significance in the de-escalation of the cold war, the reason for the head of the CIA flying over to meet and debrief him shortly after his exfiltration, and so on. It's understandable why Private Eye has seized on the Foot case, but it is really one of the least important pieces of intelligence Gordievsky brought with him. As Michael Foot disappeared without trace after the 1983 election it really didn't matter. Cabinet Secretary Sir Robert Armstrong took the decision not to mention it to Margaret Thatcher, but it would have been mentioned to the Queen in the event of Foot winning the 1983 election, and doubtless caused a constitutional crisis. But he didn't, so it wasn't.

It has moved from the realm of libel cases (which could not be verified, as the KGB sources could not be called upon) to that of history, so it is entirely proper to mention it now.

[aeolium]

Recently finished: Gustav Meyrínk's mysterious, expressionistic early C20 novel set in Prague, The Golem, powerful but elusive ( a review of it here)

Currently reading: William Mann's The Operas of Mozart, fascinating especially on Don Giovanni. Apparently da Ponte reminisced much later that Mozart had wanted to make this a serious opera, but that da Ponte prevailed upon him to make it a comedy.

I am also rereading Dickens' Bleak House which strikes me as one of his finest achievements, together with Our Mutual Friend: so many memorable characters, so many wonderfully crafted passages of writing, the whole unfolding at a pace commensurate with its legal theme.

[Petrushka]

Following on from reading Paddy Ashdown's A Brilliant Little Operation I'm now more than halfway through his Game of Spies the true and absolutely extraordinary story of SOE, French Resistance, collaboration and a most unusual Gestapo officer in wartime Bordeaux. Ashdown is a superb teller of this mind-boggling tale and I thoroughly recommend it. One for Richard Tarleton, among others.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Game-Spies-Traitor-Bordeaux-1942-1944/dp/0008140847/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1540062766&sr=1-1&keywords=game+of+spies