British MI5 Officer Who Inspired George Smiley Character Dispised John Le Carre's Portrayal Of Spies

Kieran Corcoran at the British newspaper the Daily Mail offers a piece on the MI5 officer who reportedly inspired John le Carre's character George Smiley.

A Second World War intelligence agent who inspired fictional spy George Smiley 'hated everything' about how John le Carre portrayed the secret services, it has been claimed. 

John Bingham, an MI5 agent, exposed nazi sympathisers in Britain by convincing them he was a German double agent. After gaining the trust of undercover fascists, he convinced them to reveal secrets which were fed back to the intelligence services. Mr. le Carre, whose works include The Spy Who Came In From The Cold and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, revealed in 1999 that Smiley was inspired by Bingham, who had been his boss at MI5.

 ... But the spy, who went on to become a celebrated author himself, turned on his former colleague and friend Mr le Carre and grew to detest what he wrote about the British intelligence services, it was claimed today.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2572768/British-spy-duped-Nazi-sympathisers-revealing-secrets-WWII-inspired-John-Le-Carr-s-character-George-Smiley-despised-authors-portrayal-spies.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490

You can also read my column on John le Carre and Ian Fleming, Spy Writer Vs. Spy Writer, via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2010/08/spy-writer-vs-spy-writer-john-le-carre.html 

Note: John Bingham is the subject of Michael Jago's book, The Man Who Was Smiley: The Life of John Bingham (Biteback). 

Letter To The Editor: John Bingham, The Wartime Spy Who Never Wanted To Be John Le Carre's Character George Smiley

In response to a piece in the British newspaper the Telegraph about MI5 officer John Bingahm, a reader sent the below letter to the editor:

SIR – John Bingham was one of our most remarkable Second World War spies. The M15 documents that have just been released (“Spy who turned Hitler’s British supporters into unwitting double agents”, report, February 28) show the scale of his achievement in neutralising the espionage of British fascists, who were more widespread than is supposed.
 

This modest hero, who was also the 7th Baron Clanmorris – an Ulster title without property – was not treated as respectfully as he deserved by his protégé, John le Carré, who immortalised him as George Smiley. He was hurt by the portrayal of his secret world in the novels.
 

The author, Bingham once said, “was my friend, but I deplore and hate everything he has done and said against the intelligence services”. No one cared more about his country and its institutions than John Bingham, to whom we owe so much.
 

Lord Lexden
London SW1

You can read the Telegraph piece on John Bingham via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2014/02/john-bingham-spy-who-turned-hitlers.html

Note: John Binham is also the subject of Michael Jago's book, The Man Who Was Smiley: The Life of John Bingham (Biteback) .

Kim Philby: The Man I Knew, By The Master Spy's Oldest Friend

Neil Tweedie and Michael Smith at the British newspaper the Telegraph offer a piece on the Kim Philby story, as told in a book by Tim Milne.

Harold Adrian Russell ''Kim’’ Philby was an adequate rather than spectacular cricketer as a pupil at Westminster School. When fielding, he was content to stand apart from the rest, observing events at a distance. His preferred position? Deep cover. So it would be for much of his adult life. 
 

The label often attaching to Philby, the most prominent member of the Cambridge Ring, is that of “master spy”, a description conveying ruthlessness, guile and charm. Britain’s most infamous Cold War traitor, whose betrayal resulted in the deaths of untold numbers of agents operating on the dark side of the Iron Curtain, possessed those qualities, certainly. But his charm was not simply of the synthetic kind and he commanded the affection and loyalty of friends, even as the awful truth of his clandestine career – a Soviet asset operating at the heart of British intelligence – became clear. 
 

Tim Milne was Philby’s closest associate in the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6. A fellow pupil at Westminster, he was recruited into the secret world during the Second World War on the recommendation of his friend. In retirement, he wrote a memoir of his friendship with Philby, which was promptly banned from publication by MI6. Now, four years after Milne’s death at the age of 97, his story can be told. 
 

Kim Philby: The Unknown Story of the KGB’s Master Spy is an often-intimate portrait of the Third Man, candid in its assessments. Written without rancour – despite Philby’s attempt to blacken Milne’s name during interrogation – it charts the 37 years from first meeting at Westminster in 1925 to Philby’s escape from Lebanon to Russia. 

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/features/10669294/Kim-Philby-The-man-I-knew-by-the-master-spys-oldest-friend.html 

John Bingham: The Spy Who Turned Hitler’s British Supporters Into Unwitting Double Agents

Hayley Dixon at the British newspaper the Telegraph offers a piece on John Bingham.

A “genius” spy who pretended to be a German agent duped British Nazi sympathisers into revealing their secrets during the Second World War, newly released documents show.

The deception by John Bingham, the MI5 agent who partly inspired John le Carré’s character George Smiley, is disclosed in National Archive files released 25 years after his death. He fed the sympathisers’ secrets back to MI5 so it could prepare for acts of sabotage.
 

The documents also show that MI5 drew up plans to issue the sympathisers with badges of the Union flag to be worn in the event of an invasion; supposedly to identify them as friends to the Germans, but, in fact, to enable them to be swiftly rounded up by the police.
 

Prof Christopher Andrew, the former official historian of the Security Service, said: “This is a revelation that, alongside the extremely well known double cross system in which we actively sent false information to the Germans, there was a small but interesting way of preventing accurate information getting to them.”

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/10665482/The-spy-who-turned-Hitlers-British-supporters-into-unwitting-double-agents.html

You can also read an earlier post on the late John Bingham and Michael Jago's book on him via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2013/03/journalist-novelist-patriot-spy-john.html 

But He's One Of Us: British MI6 Chiefs Tried To Protect Notorious Cambridge Spy Ring Double Agent Kim Philby As They Thought He 'Couldn't Possibly Be A Traitor'

I enjoyed watching a clever and funny British TV comedy series years ago called Yes, Minister. The show was about a bumbling political hack turned government minister who was aided (and foiled) by his assistant, a professional bureaucrat.

The show was later called Yes, Prime Minister, as the hack was voted in as the British Prime Minister.

I recall in one episode of Yes, Prime Minister where the head of the Secret Intelligence Service, or SIS (commonly called MI6), told the Prime Minister that despite claims by the press and other politicians, he didn't believe that an accused SIS officer could possibly be a Soviet spy.

"Why not?" asked the Prime Minister.

"Why, he's one of us!" replied the SIS chief as he stuffed his pipe.

"One of us?"

"Yes, Prime Minister. He is one of us."

Hugo Gye at the British newspaper the Daily Mail offers a piece on a new book on British traitor and spy Kim Philby that claims MI6 chiefs tried to protect the double agent because he was "one of us" - a member of the British establishment.

British spy bosses repeatedly tried to protect Soviet double agent Kim Philby because they believed he 'couldn't possibly be a traitor', according to a new book which was banned by MI6.  

Tim Milne, an MI6 spy who was Philby's oldest friend, has revealed the extraordinary lengths to which intelligence officials went in order to protect the notorious figure.

Philby came under suspicion when two other members of the Cambridge spy ring fled to Moscow - but despite a 12-year investigation, he was never brought to justice and was eventually allowed to defect to the USSR.

MI6 chiefs refused to believe that he could be guilty because of his apparently distinguished service and Establishment background, and shielded him from an MI5 probe.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2567359/Mysteries-Cambridge-spy-ring-unravel-BANNED-book-MI6-insider-close-notorious-double-agent-Kim-Philby-finally-published.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490