2 Helen Fry in Conversation with Tim Tate

on his book To Catch a Spy (on Peter Wright the spycatcher)

Between 1985 and 1991, the British Government fought a succession of vastly expensive battles in courts across the world to prevent retired MI5 officer Peter Wright from publishing his memoirs. His book, Spycatcher, exposed Soviet penetration of British spy agencies and Wright’s obsessive and relentless hunt for ‘moles’, including former MI5 Director General Sir Roger Hollis.

However, it also revealed that MI5 indulged in wholesale law-breaking, while Wright and a cabal of rogue intelligence officers also mounted an extraordinary plot to blackmail Prime Minister Harold Wilson into resignation.

In the series:
Sept. 8: with Thomas Harding on The Maverick: George Weidenfeld and the Golden Age of Publishing
Sept. 15: with Tim Tate – To Catch a Spy
**Oct. 20: with Ellin Bessner on her book Double Threat – Canadian Jews who fought in World War II**Changed to Dec. 8
Oct. 27: Rory Cormac: lecture on the Cold War
Nov. 3: with Rory Cormac on his book How to Stage a Coup