The Cicero Spy Affair: German Access to British Secrets in World War II (Perspectives on Intelligence History) Book

The episode of the opportunistic valet of Britain's ambassador to neutral Turkey during World War II--dubbed "Cicero" for the eloquence of the top-secret material he appropriated from his employer Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen and sold to the Nazis--is a staple of intelligence lore. Yet this remarkable and sometimes comical story has often been recounted with little regard for the actual facts, most prominently in the popular film Five Fingers. Now, historian and former intelligence officer Richard Wires presents the first full and objective account of the Cicero spy episode, offering closure to past discrepancies and credible solutions to remaining mysteries. Copiously documented, The Cicero Spy Affair provides readers with the true chronology of events and places them in an international context. It is a story set in the hotbed of intrigue that was wartime Turkey, replete with a dramatic car chase, a series of colorful mistresses ever loyal to their lover the spy, and an old-school British ambassador whose documents are photographed at night as he plays the piano in the drawing room and/or slips into a sleeping pill-induced slumber.