Agent Jack - Robert Hutton

I’m always fascinated by what British fascists got up to during the war. Mostly, of course, they did what everybody else did and either fought or supported the fighters. It’s that exceptional few that fascinate. Agent Jack is the story of Eric Roberts, the ultimate Mr Ordinary, who worked for MI5 before, during and after the war, initially as a fascist himself, spying on communists, then as agent provocateur, gathering together those who wished to help Hitler conquer Britain.

That’s the problem – he was an agent provocateur. Despite Hutton’s best efforts, there’s no way round the fact that the people Roberts recruited would almost certainly have got up to no real mischief had he not brought them together. Dutton’s problem is, they didn’t do any harm and were just a bunch of repellent but otherwise ordinary nutters. There’s no denying Roberts’ courage and care; equally we can’t pretend he prevented any outrages against the national interest.

His is a story worth telling, but only as a part of other stories. For example, MI5 were reluctant to push Roberts’ recruits too far because of the fiasco surrounding the failed attempt to intern the well-connected and very foolish Ben Greene. Greene had been set up by an agent provocateur and was promptly released. He did no harm whatever thereafter. The real damage was to Max Knight, who worked with Roberts for the wonderfully named British Fascisti and then brought him to MI5.

The best thing about the book for me was the vivid portrait of Victor Rothschild, whose role had never before been clear to me. It is now, and I owe that entirely to Robert Hutton and this book.

The Man Who Was George Smiley - Michael Jago

The title says it all. John le Carre admits basing his most famous character on John Bingham, his mentor during his brief time at MI5. Le Carre had to quit when his books became famous, Bingham didn't because the books he had been writing for over a decade had not been so successful. He was a noted author, nevertheless, and lots of people looked forward to the new Bingham novel in the Fifties. Unlike le Carre, Bingham didn't hide behind a pseudonym. Indeed, in his heyday, most people knew he was also Baron Clanmorris in the Irish peerage.

Bingham's ancestors are one of the fascinating elements of the book, especially his useless father Maurice and snobbish mother Leila, who spent much of their married life in seaside boarding houses. Bingham's own children were more successful - his daughter Charlotte was one of the scandalous young female authors of the Swinging Sixties, a big bestseller whilst still in her teens.

Bingham was something of an accidental intelligence officer. He was a newspaper columnist when war broke out and Maxwell Knight took him on. He quickly became Knight's deputy in the war against rightwing Nazi sympathisers in the UK. Knight left the service soon after the war but Bingham kept coming back, serving through the Cold War, the Blunt affair and the Troubles in Northern Ireland. He kept on writing but could not replicate his initial success or get anywhere near le Carre's fame. In truth, he will go down in history as the model for Smiley.

This is an unusual tack for a biographer to take and I must say Michael Jago pulls it off remarkably well. He is particularly good on the umbrage taken by Mrs Bingham/Lady Clanmorris, herself a published writer and performed playwright, who felt it was unfair that her husband's character should be hijacked with no recompense.

An excellent book, thoroughly researched and full of insights into the 'Circus' of the Sixties and Seventies.

The Man Who Was M - Anthony Masters

The subtitle of this minor classic from 1986 is "The Life real-life spymaster who inspired Ian Fleming". Well, we all need a hook, but the connection is wafer thin.  For one thing Maxwell Knight was never a field agent and never travelled the world in the hunt for foreign agents.  Max was strictly London-based and spent his MI5 career bringing down the enemy within, be it Percy Glading, communist co-ordinator of the Woolwich Arsenal spy ring of 1938 or the highly-connected Fascists of the Right Club two years later. In both instances Knight infiltrated glamorous young women agents (Olga Gray and Joan Miller respectively) whilst he stayed secluded in his flat in Dolphin Square.with his menagerie of snakes and aye-ayes and bugs.

It's not just the wildlife that distinguishes Knight from James Bond, it's also the sex life. Not only did Knight never have sex with Gray or Miller, albeit both were in love with him and the latter even lived with him, he was married three times and never consummated any of the unions. Knight was frankly weird. Masters ponders his subject's sexuality but of course cannot come up with a conclusion.

After the war Knight became, of all things, a freelance broadcaster on natural history with the BBC. Indeed it was as the much-loved Uncle Max, author of books for children such as The Young Naturalist's Field Guide (1952) that he was memorialised when he died in 1968.

Masters' account of the Right Club is a good as any.  His rendering of the Woolwich Arsenal case is better than most and I had never before across the case of Ben Greene, cousin of Graham and (Sir) Hugh, which ultimately ruined Knight's standing in spy-circles, although I suppose there are worse things than being ostracised by an MI5 run by the likes of Burgess, Maclean, Blunt and Hollis. Masters spoke to people who knew Knight, including his two surviving wives, who can of course never be asked again.  The only trouble is, he says that Knight was 68 when he died.  No he wasn't; he was born in September 1900 and died in January 1968. He was therefore 67. A minor slip, perhaps, but it undermines confidence.  That's why I called it a minor classic. A bit more care and The Man Who Was M might just be a classic.