Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer

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Summary: Inside the British Secret Service
Review: Peter Wright was a former assistant director of MI5 (Britain's secret service or counter-intelligence). This is his story of his career, including his anecdotes about his American allies. He joined MI5 as a scientist who specialized in tools for espionage. He had been promised credit for his years as a civilian scientist. When this promise was broken at retirement, he wrote this book to even out things.

This is an interesting book that can't be summarized in a few paragraphs. It is definitely worth reading for the details on government activities in a "democracy". Watergate was a notable failure of such activities. Do these activities continue? Of course!

Pages 158-9 tell of his proposal for a "Bolshevik model" for former colonial countries: let a political party control the army and secret police so that neither the army or another political party could gain control of the government. He pointed out that only those newly created countries that adopted this principle have escaped military dictatorships and civil war.

Does the above advice seem to cynical and radical? But our Establishment DOES control the army and secret police so that neither the military or a populist political party (one not controlled by corporate interests) can gain control.

Yet the classic solution for democracies, from Aristotle to Machiavelli to our Founding Fathers was well-armed citizens and their militia. It has worked well for over over a century, and the idea still survives today.

Rating:
Summary: (not a review - please read carefully)
Review: this is not a review, but a note to amazon.com

for "spycatcher" by peter wright, you have on the same screen an interview with peter wright. unfortunately for you, Peter Wright-who=wrote-spycatcher DIED a few years ago. He is an ex-spycatcher (cue dead parrot sketch). So please REMOVE your "interview-with-DIFFERENT-PeterWright" link from the spycatcher book page.

I hope this note is sufficiently clear, if not, email me at [e-mail] thanks, bts

And by the way, I would very much like to write a review of "spycatcher", it is an excellent book, but please take the "interview" link out of the page for this book.... thanks, bts

Rating:
Summary: PETER WRIGHT IS DEAD!
Review: Well, the Peter Wright who wrote SPYCATCHER is a deceased person. Your side-bar link to, "...an interview with Peter Wright," leads to an interview with a live Peter Wright, not the dead Peter Wright. Right?

Rating:
Summary: PETER WRIGHT IS DEAD!
Review: Well, the Peter Wright who wrote SPYCATCHER is a deceased person. Your side-bar link to, "...an interview with Peter Wright," leads to an interview with a live Peter Wright, not the dead Peter Wright. Right?