Spymaster: The Life of Britain's Most Decorated Cold War Spy and Head of MI6, Sir Maurice Oldfield

8/10 (very good): An interesting biography of an unusual man. On the plus side, it's both sympathetic and personal, and gives helpful summaries of the major world events that affected Oldfield's tenure as head of MI6. On the negative side, there's very little information about specific missions, and very little that would be regarded as the revealing of a secret. But what does come across is Oldfield's humanity and ordinariness, which is no bad thing.

Martin Pearce has a distinct memory of asking his uncle what he did and hearing the reply ‘Oh it’s quite boring really, dear boy. I’m a kind of security guard at embassies’. It was an unusual choice of career for the son of a Derbyshire farmer, who normally would have followed his father on the farm. But the truth was much stranger than that, because Maurice Oldfield was Head of MI6.

He was educated at Lady Manners School and then went to Victoria University of Manchester after gaining a scholarship. He gained a First Class degree in Medieval history and was elected a fellow. Then World War 2 started and he went from a quiet university life to signing up; his potential was realised, and he was seconded into the Intelligence show more Corps. His war service meant that he was awarded an MBE, and promptly joined MI6, starting in Counter-Intelligence. So began his career in the shadowy world of the spies.

He spent a lot of time overseas, working from the embassies in Singapore and Washington and cultivated a vast network of informants, both friends and acquaintances who would provide snippets of information and reports to him. His great strength was his analytical mind and the way that he could draw all these pieces of information to give him the bigger picture. His other strength was playing the waiting game, letting a target have some free reign with the hope that he would then make the mistake so they could bring him in. He was in Washington during the Bay of Pigs events and it is thought that his counsel with Kennedy played a small part in averting a larger catastrophe. Returning to the UK he was promoted to director of counter-intelligence, and second in line to the head. He missed getting the top job when Sir John Rennie was appointed, but his time had not come. That happened in 1973 and he became the first head not to come from an establishment upper-class background nor attended Eton or Oxbridge. He held the position until he retired.

Peering into the smoke and mirrors that is the intelligence services in the UK, Pearce has uncovered and told us the true story of his uncle. It was a pretty blemish free career apart though it was tarnished at the end after an alleged event when he was the co-ordinator for security and intelligence in Northern Ireland. It was a minor blot on an exemplary career, but it was thought to have been a rogue element in MI5 that caused questions to be raised. It is a fairly balanced account as Pearce has sought to uncover the evidence and report accordingly. With all of these books on spies, it would be equally fascinating to find out the gaps in the account that Pearce was not able to discover. Would be right up your street if you like real life spies. show less

Boring. Sometimes confusing. Read about three-quarters and decided I had had enough.