Please note: In order to keep Hive up to date and provide users with the best features, we are no longer able to fully support Internet Explorer. The site is still available to you, however some sections of the site may appear broken. We would encourage you to move to a more modern browser like Firefox, Edge or Chrome in order to experience the site fully.

Supporting your high street Find out how »
SEX, SPIES AND SCANDAL : The John Vassall Affair, Hardback Book

SEX, SPIES AND SCANDAL : The John Vassall Affair Hardback

Hardback

In Stock - usually despatched within 24 hours

Description

In September 1962, John Vassall, a clerk at the Admiralty in London, was unmasked as a Soviet spy.

After being photographed in compromising positions while working at the British embassy in Moscow, Vassall was blackmailed into handing British defence secrets over to his Soviet handlers for seven years. While there have been several successful books and film adaptations about the Profumo, Jeremy Thorpe and Duchess of Argyll affairs, the story of John Vassall, who was responsible for a more serious intelligence breach, is ripe for retelling.

It has everything: a honey trap, industrial-scale espionage, journalists jailed for not revealing their sources and the first modern tabloid witch-hunt, which resulted in a ministerial resignation and almost brought down Harold Macmillan’s government.

With access to newly released MI5 files and interviews with people who knew Vassall from the 1950s until his death in 1996, this book sheds new light on a neglected spy scandal.

Despite having been drugged and sexually assaulted by the KGB in Moscow, as a gay man John Vassall was shown no mercy by the British press or the courts.

Sentenced to eighteen years in jail, he served ten years, despite telling MI5 everything.

Once released, he found that many of his old friends and lovers had been persecuted or dismissed from the civil service in Britain, America and Australia.

Unlike the Cambridge Five, who courted attention, after leaving prison Vassall changed his name to avoid the media and lived quietly in London.

Including atmospheric detail about Dolphin Square – a hotbed of political intrigue but also a safe haven for members of the LGBT community – in the 1950s and ’60s, this is an explosive tale of sexual violence, betrayal, conspiracy, snobbery, homophobia and hypocrisy that blows apart some of the British establishment’s darkest secrets.

Information

Save 12%

£20.00

£17.59

In Stock - usually despatched within 24 hours
Add to Basket
Sign in to add to wishlist
 
Free Home Delivery

on all orders

 
Pick up orders

from local bookshops

Information