84-612: Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer (1987) is a memoir written by Peter Wright , former MI5 officer and Assistant Director, and co-author Paul Greengrass . He drew on his own experiences and research into the history of the British intelligence community. Published first in Australia , the book was banned in England (but not Scotland) due to its allegations about government policy and incidents. These efforts ensured
168-633: A Navy Scientist attached to the Marconi Company. According to Spycatcher , during his stint there, Wright was instrumental in resolving a difficult technical problem. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) sought Marconi's assistance with a covert listening device (or "bug") that had been found in a replica of the Great Seal of the United States presented to the United States ambassador in Moscow in 1945 by
252-546: A Soviet double agent and was probably afraid that Gouzenko might recognize him from case photos that Gouzenko might have seen in KGB or GRU files, which would explain why Hollis was disguised. According to Wright, the FLUENCY Working Party, an inter-agency committee created to examine all the hitherto unsolved allegations about penetration of the British security apparatus, unanimously concluded, among other things, that Hollis
336-621: A court order banning publication in the UK, but the order applied only in the United Kingdom (and even then did not apply in Scotland with its separate legal system ), and the book continued to be available elsewhere. In September 1987, the UK government applied for similar orders to prevent publication in Australia, but future Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull , representing the publisher, successfully resisted
420-557: A decline shared by its direct tabloid rivals The Sun and the Daily Star . Morgan was fired from the Mirror on 14 May 2004 after authorising the newspaper's publication of photographs allegedly showing Iraqi prisoners being abused by British Army soldiers from the Queen's Lancashire Regiment . Within days the photographs were shown to be fakes. Under the headline "SORRY.. WE WERE HOAXED",
504-510: A global bestseller″. The affair influenced the enactment of the official secrets legislation of 1989 by hastening it and probably making its provisions more severe. In 1991, the European Court of Human Rights found that the attempts of the British government to ban the book had violated the right of the author to freedom of speech . The accuracy of various allegations made in Spycatcher
588-564: A joint MI5/ MI6 committee, codenamed FLUENCY Working Party, appointed to find Soviet agents and moles in Britain. For six years beginning in 1964 he regularly interviewed Anthony Blunt , a member of the Cambridge Five , trying to glean more information from him about other Soviet agents. While serving in MI5, Wright became aware that, since the 1930s, Soviet espionage agencies had been infiltrating
672-570: A letter he had written that was presented in Wright's book was ″economical with the truth″. The subsequent appeals against the decision were definitively dismissed in 1988, the High Court of Australia concluding in its decision on the case: ″[...] The appellant's claim for protection (whether injunctive or by way of accounts or damages) ought to have been refused simply on the ground that the Court would not, in
756-601: A low level suspected GRU agent, Israel Halperin , a mathematician who was later completely cleared of any suspicions of espionage. When the Royal Canadian Mounted Police searched Halperin's lodgings, they found the name of Fuchs in his address book. Fuchs immediately ceased contact with his handler, Harry Gold , and shortly afterwards took a long vacation in Mexico. Wright alleges in Spycatcher that Gouzenko himself deduced later that his interviewer might have been
840-603: A marketing exercise with Pepsi-Cola , who on the same day had decided to relaunch its cans with a blue design instead of the traditional red and white logo. Source: Tabloid Nation Notable former and current columnists of the Daily Mirror include: The Daily Mirror won "Newspaper of the Year" in 2002 at the British Press Awards . It won "Scoop of the Year" in 2003 ("3am", 'Sven and Ulrika'), 2004 (Ryan Parry, 'Intruder at
924-497: A restructuring of the media interests of the Harmsworth family led to the Mirror becoming a part of International Publishing Corporation . During the mid-1960s, daily sales exceeded 5 million copies, a feat never repeated by it or any other daily (non-Sunday) British newspaper since. The Mirror was owned by Robert Maxwell between 1984 and 1991. The paper went through a protracted period of crisis after his death before merging with
SECTION 10
#17328550829211008-483: A review of 'Spycatcher,' a book by an ex-M.I.5-man, Peter Wright. The exception is Britain, where the book, and comment on it, have been banned. For our 420,000 readers there, this page is blank – and the law is an ass . Eventually, in 1988, the book was cleared for legitimate sale when the Law Lords acknowledged that overseas publication meant it contained no secrets. However, Wright was barred from receiving royalties from
1092-493: A technicality and emigrated to the town of Cygnet , Tasmania , Australia, where he bred Arabian horses. In a bid to quell rumours that he had been the "fifth man" of the Cambridge Five, Victor Rothschild, 3rd Baron Rothschild paid Wright's airfare from Australia to meet with Pincher in writing Their Trade Is Treachery (1982). Wright received royalties of £30,000 for this collaboration. After Heinemann announced
1176-539: A time when opinion polls showed the party on course for their worst election result since 1983. The newspaper was critical of the Liberal Democrats for forming the coalition which enabled the Conservatives to form a new government in 2010, and branded leader Nick Clegg as Pinickio (alluding to the lying fictional character Pinocchio ) for going back on numerous pre-election pledges. It has frequently referred to
1260-533: Is a British national daily tabloid newspaper . Founded in 1903, it is owned by parent company Reach plc . From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was simply The Mirror . It had an average daily print circulation of 716,923 in December 2016, dropping to 587,803 the following year. Its Sunday sister paper is the Sunday Mirror . Unlike other major British tabloids such as The Sun and
1344-662: The Daily Mail , the Mirror has no separate Scottish edition; this function is performed by the Daily Record and the Sunday Mail , which incorporate certain stories from the Mirror that are of Scottish significance. Originally pitched to the middle-class reader, it was converted into a working-class newspaper after 1934, in order to reach a larger audience. It was founded by Alfred Harmsworth , who sold it to his brother Harold Harmsworth (from 1914 Lord Rothermere) in 1913. In 1963
1428-454: The 2003 invasion of Iraq , and ran many front pages critical of the war. It also gave financial support to the 15 February 2003 anti-war protest , paying for a large screen and providing thousands of placards. Morgan re-hired John Pilger , who had been sacked during Robert Maxwell 's ownership of the Mirror titles. Despite such changes, Morgan was unable to halt the paper's decline in circulation,
1512-460: The 2010 UK general election two days later, confirming the Daily Mirror ' s Labour allegiance. The election ended in Britain's first hung parliament since 1974 but Cameron still became prime minister within days as the Conservatives formed a coalition with the Liberal Democrats . The Daily Mirror was the only leading national newspaper to remain loyal to Labour and Gordon Brown at
1596-454: The 2019 UK general election , the newspaper again endorsed Labour "to protect NHS, end poverty and for a kinder Britain." The Daily Mirror threw its support behind the Labour Party for the 2024 UK general election , stating that "a Labour government is more crucial than ever for the new generation." On 2 April 1996, the Daily Mirror was printed entirely on blue paper. This was done as
1680-472: The CIA . While admitting (on page 42) that the book included "factual data", the document stated that it was also "filled with [unspecified] errors, exaggerations, bogus ideas, and self-inflation". The book has sold more than two million copies. In 1995, Wright died a millionaire from proceeds of his book. Peter Wright (MI5 officer) Peter Maurice Wright CBE (9 August 1916 – 26 April 1995)
1764-498: The Daily and Sunday Mirror moved to Trinity Mirror's facilities in Watford and Oldham. Under the editorship of Piers Morgan (from October 1995 to May 2004) the paper saw a number of controversies. Morgan was widely criticised and forced to apologise for the headline "ACHTUNG! SURRENDER For you Fritz, ze Euro 96 Championship is over" a day before England met Germany in a semi-final of
SECTION 20
#17328550829211848-515: The Daily Mirror remained loyal to Labour and urged its readers to vote for the party, then led by Michael Foot , condemning the Thatcher-led Tory government for its "waste of our nation", as well as the rise in unemployment that Thatcher's Conservative government had seen in its first term in power largely due to monetarist economic policies to reduce inflation, although the government's previously low popularity had dramatically improved since
1932-801: The Euro 96 football championships. In 2000, Morgan was the subject of an investigation after Suzy Jagger wrote a story in The Daily Telegraph revealing that he had bought £20,000 worth of shares in the computer company Viglen soon before the Mirror ' s 'City Slickers' column tipped Viglen as a good buy. Morgan was found by the Press Complaints Commission to have breached the Code of Conduct on financial journalism, but kept his job. The 'City Slickers' columnists, Anil Bhoyrul and James Hipwell , were both found to have committed further breaches of
2016-638: The Herald competing with the Mirror for readers, and in 1964, relaunched it as a mid-market paper, now named The Sun . When it failed to win readers, The Sun was sold to Rupert Murdoch – who immediately relaunched it as a more populist and sensationalist tabloid and a direct competitor to the Mirror . In an attempt to cater to a different kind of reader, the Mirror launched the "Mirrorscope" pull-out section on 30 January 1968. The Press Gazette commented: "The Daily Mirror launched its revolutionary four-page supplement "Mirrorscope". The ambitious brief for
2100-504: The Labour Party since the 1945 UK general election . On the day of the 1979 UK general election , the Daily Mirror urged its readers to vote for the governing Labour Party led by James Callaghan . As widely predicted by the opinion polls, Labour lost this election and Conservative Margaret Thatcher became prime minister. The Mirror ' s continued support of the Labour government
2184-702: The MI6 plot to assassinate President Nasser during the Suez Crisis ; of joint MI5- CIA plotting against Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson (who had been secretly accused by Soviet defector Anatoliy Golitsyn of being a KGB agent); and of MI5's eavesdropping on high-level Commonwealth conferences. Wright examines the techniques of intelligence services, exposes their ethics, notably their "eleventh commandment ", "Thou shalt not get caught." He described many MI5 electronic technologies (some of which he developed), for instance, allowing clever spying into rooms, and identifying
2268-534: The Ministry of Power , was at the very least, by Proctor's own account, an unwitting source of secret information to the Soviets via his close friend and Soviet spy Guy Burgess , from whom he had kept no secrets. Wright's investigation was also focused on Labour prime minister Harold Wilson , suspicions about whom were initially triggered amongst the MI5 leadership by James Jesus Angleton , chief of counterintelligence for
2352-422: The Mirror attempted to move mid-market, claiming to eschew the more trivial stories of show-business and gossip. The paper changed its masthead logo from red to black (and occasionally blue), in an attempt to dissociate itself from the term " red top ", a term for a sensationalist mass-market tabloid. (On 6 April 2005, the red top came back.) Under then-editor Piers Morgan , the newspaper's editorial stance opposed
2436-457: The Mirror in circulation, and in 1984 the Mirror was sold to Robert Maxwell . The first Mirror using colour appeared on the 1st August 1988 edition. Following Maxwell's death in 1991, David Montgomery became Mirror Group's CEO, and a period of cost-cutting and production changes ensued. The Mirror went through a protracted period of crisis before merging with the regional newspaper group Trinity to form Trinity Mirror in 1999. Printing of
2520-576: The Mirror responded that it had fallen victim to a "calculated and malicious hoax" and apologised for the publication of the photographs. The Mirror 's front page on 4 November 2004, after the re-election of George W. Bush as U.S. president, read "How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?". It provided a list of states and their alleged average IQ, showing the Bush states all below average intelligence (except for Virginia ), and all John Kerry states at or above average intelligence. The source for this table
2604-593: The Second World War and soon followed in his father’s footsteps, taking a job at the Admiralty 's Research Laboratory. He remained there throughout the war and in 1946 began work as a Principal Scientific Officer at the Services Electronics Research Laboratory. According to his own account, Wright’s work for MI5 , initially part-time, started in the spring of 1949 when he was given a job as
Spycatcher - Misplaced Pages Continue
2688-543: The Young Pioneer organization of the Soviet Union . Wright determined that the bugging device, dubbed The Thing , was actually a tiny capacitive membrane (a condenser microphone ) that became active only when 330 MHz microwaves were beamed to it from a remote transmitter. A remote receiver could then have been used to decode the modulated microwave signal and permit sounds picked up by the microphone to be heard. The device
2772-640: The Andy Capp cartoon, created by Reg Smythe from Hartlepool, in the northern editions. The Mirror 's mass working-class readership had made it the United Kingdom's best-selling daily tabloid newspaper. In 1960, it acquired the Daily Herald (the popular daily of the labour movement) when it bought Odhams , in one of a series of takeovers which created the International Publishing Corporation (IPC). The Mirror management did not want
2856-591: The British daily newspaper market, selling more than 5 million copies a day at its peak in the mid-1960s. The Mirror was an influential model for German tabloid Bild , which was founded in 1952 and became Europe's biggest-selling newspaper. In 1955, the Mirror and its stablemate the Sunday Pictorial (later to become the Sunday Mirror ) began printing a northern edition in Manchester . In 1957 it introduced
2940-498: The British government’s military and education establishments with the help of close-knit left-wing homosexual circles at Oxford and Cambridge , especially the Cambridge Apostles . With like-minded MI5 officers, Wright became alert to the fact that some senior figures in the intelligence services, in politics, and in the trade unions had been recruited long ago as Soviet agents. After Soviet spy Kim Philby 's defection to
3024-551: The CIA. The MI5 investigation into Wilson's background, however, failed to produce any conclusive evidence. When Wright retired in 1976, Wilson was again prime minister. Dame Stella Rimington , MI5 Director-General from 1992 to 1996, later wrote in 2001 that she believed that in a Panorama programme in 1988, Wright had retracted an allegation made in his book about the MI5 group of thirty officers who plotted to overthrow Wilson's government. She also criticised Wright who, according to her,
3108-531: The Code, and were sacked before the inquiry. In 2004, further enquiry by the Department of Trade and Industry cleared Morgan from any charges. On 7 December 2005 Bhoyrul and Hipwell were convicted of conspiracy to breach the Financial Services Act. During the trial it emerged that Morgan had bought £67,000 worth of Viglen shares, emptying his bank account and investing under his wife's name too. In 2002,
3192-467: The Conservative policy of privatisation, but its decision to be up-front about tax increases was seen as a key factor in its failure to win. By the time of the 1997 UK general election , support for the Labour Party, by then led by Tony Blair , in the opinion polls had exceeded that of support for the Conservative government led by John Major since late 1992, whose reduced popularity largely blamed on
3276-643: The KGB but did not include a discussion of the possibility that Hollis might have worked with the GRU. Wright went on to publish The Encyclopaedia of Espionage in 1991 and reportedly was writing a fictional spy thriller at the time of his death on 26 April 1995, aged 78. The obituary in The Independent opined: ″No British intelligence officer other than Kim Philby caused more mayhem within Britain's secret services and more trouble for British politicians than Peter Wright.″ The Daily Mirror The Daily Mirror
3360-496: The Tory government was now led by John Major . The election was won by the Conservatives, although Labour managed to significantly cut the Tory majority to 21 seats compared to the triple-digit figure of the previous two elections, which led to a difficult term for Major. The outcome of this election had been far less predictable than any of the previous three elections, as opinion polls over the previous three years had shown both parties in
3444-759: The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 1954 to 1975. Peter Wright was born at 26 Cromwell Road, Chesterfield , Derbyshire , the son of (George) Maurice Wright CBE , director of research for the Marconi Company , who was one of the founders of signals intelligence during the First World War . Wright was educated at Bishop's Stortford College , an independent boarding school for boys in Bishop's Stortford , Hertfordshire , and St Peter's College , Oxford . Wright graduated shortly before
Spycatcher - Misplaced Pages Continue
3528-500: The USSR in 1963, following what Wright refers to as a warning by "a fifth man , still inside", he became convinced that the KGB had penetrated the highest levels of MI5, claiming in Spycatcher that Roger Hollis was the highest-placed Soviet mole within the service. Wright went so far as to begin to make, as he himself put it, "his own 'freelance' inquiries into Hollis's background" shortly before
3612-570: The absence of statutory direction, protect the intelligence secrets and confidential political information of the United Kingdom Government.″ By then, the US edition of Spycatcher was already an international best-seller. The book sold nearly two million copies and made Wright a millionaire. According to the documents released in 2015, the Australian government, then led by Bob Hawke , heeded
3696-571: The address to which to send membership applications. By the mid-1930s, the Mirror was struggling – it and the Mail were the main casualties of the early 1930s circulation war that saw the Daily Herald and the Daily Express establish circulations of more than two million, and Rothermere decided to sell his shares in it. In 1935 Rothermere sold the paper to Harry Guy Bartholomew and Hugh Cudlipp . With Cecil King (Rothermere's nephew) in charge of
3780-530: The advice from British counterparts and lent support to the UK government's bid to suppress publication, despite being aware that Australia's national security was not ″directly threatened″ by Wright's manuscript. A memorandum prepared by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet said among other things: ″The British are seeking to avoid discussion of any of Wright's specific allegations, arguing that, for
3864-425: The affair. Quantities of the book easily reached English purchasers from Scotland, while other copies were smuggled into England from Australia and elsewhere. A notable television report at the time featured a reporter flying to Australia, and returning to England with ten copies of the book, which he declared to Heathrow airport's customs officers. After some discussion, he was allowed to take the books into England, as
3948-480: The application, as he did on appeal in June 1988. English newspapers attempting proper reporting about Spycatcher ' s principal allegations were served gag orders ; on persisting, they were tried for contempt of court . These charges were eventually dropped. Throughout all this, the book continued to be sold in Scotland; moreover, Scottish newspapers were not subject to any English gag order, and continued to report on
4032-554: The book's notoriety, and it earned considerable profit for Wright. In 2021 and 2023, the Cabinet Office was still blocking or redacting freedom of information requests for files on the Spycatcher affair despite the rule that documents should be released after 30 years . Information belonging to the security services is absolutely exempted from the Freedom of Information Act. In Spycatcher , Wright says that one of his assignments
4116-656: The combined title with immediate effect. In 2018, Reach plc acquired the Northern & Shell titles, including the Daily Express, which led to a number of editor moves across the stable. Lloyd Embley was then promoted to editor-in-chief across the entire group, and Alison Phillips (previously deputy editor-in-chief for the Trinity Mirror titles) was appointed editor of the Daily Mirror. The Mirror has consistently supported
4200-526: The customs service had not been told to confiscate them. In mid-1987, Mr Justice Scott lifted the ban on English newspaper reportage on the book. In late July, the Law Lords again barred reporting Wright's allegations. The Daily Mirror published upside-down photographs of the three Law Lords, with the caption 'You Fools'. British editions of The Economist ran a blank page with a boxed explanation that In all but one country, our readers have on this page
4284-472: The earlier separate and competitive British intelligence organizations finally began to combine their efforts, thus allowing the methods used in ENGULF and RAFTER to be expanded into domestic and foreign intelligence operations that would last into the late 1960s. According to Wright, MI5, MI6 and GCHQ had not functioned together or shared information as effectively since the war. In 1964, Wright became chairman of
SECTION 50
#17328550829214368-461: The failings of Black Wednesday in September of that year and it had failed to recover popularity in spite of a strong economic recovery and fall in unemployment. A reinvented New Labour had further improved its credibility under Blair by promising traditional Labour essentials including more funding for healthcare and education but also promising not to increase income tax and ending its commitment to
4452-450: The frequency to which a superhet receiver is tuned . In the afterword, he said that he wrote the book chiefly to work to regain compensation for losses of significant pension income when the British government ruled his pension for earlier work in GCHQ was not transferable. Wright wrote Spycatcher in Tasmania , after his retirement from MI5. He first attempted publication of his memoirs in 1985. The British government immediately obtained
4536-404: The illustrations more abundant. By 1939, the publication was selling 1.4 million copies a day. In 1937, Hugh McClelland introduced his wild Western comic strip Beelzebub Jones in the Daily Mirror . After taking over as cartoon chief at the Mirror in 1945, he dropped Beelzebub Jones and moved on to a variety of new strips. During the Second World War the Mirror positioned itself as
4620-475: The largest daily picture paper. In 1924 the newspaper sponsored the 1924 Women's Olympiad held at Stamford Bridge in London. Lord Rothermere was a friend of Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler , and directed the Mirror ' s editorial stance towards them in the early 1930s. On Monday, 22 January 1934 the Daily Mirror ran the headline "Give the Blackshirts a helping hand" urging readers to join Sir Oswald Mosley 's British Union of Fascists , and giving
4704-520: The latter's retirement. According to Wright, his initial, unspecified suspicion was aroused by his analysis of the KGB's reaction to the arrest of Soviet operative Gordon Lonsdale in January 1961. The KGB appeared to have had foreknowledge of the arrest, and Wright deduced that Lonsdale may have been sacrificed to protect a more important Soviet spy in Britain. His suspicions were further strengthened by Hollis's apparent obstruction of any attempt to investigate information from several defectors that there
4788-460: The lead, although any Labour lead in the polls had been relatively narrow since the Conservative government's change of leader from Thatcher to Major in November 1990, in spite of the onset of the early 1990s recession which had pushed unemployment up again after several years of decline. Labour's credibility was helped by plans including extra National Health Service (NHS) funding and moving away from firm commitments on re-nationalisation to reverse
4872-401: The name had reverted and the front page was mainly photographs. Circulation grew to 466,000 making it the second-largest morning newspaper. Alfred Harmsworth sold the newspaper to his brother Harold Harmsworth (from 1914 Lord Rothermere) in 1913. In 1917, the price was increased to one penny. Circulation continued to grow: in 1919, some issues sold more than a million copies a day, making it
4956-486: The nationalisation of leading industries. The Daily Mirror urged its readers that their country needed Blair, and to vote Labour. The 1997 election produced a Labour landslide that ended the party's 18-year exile from power, followed by two further wins in the 2001 and 2005 UK general elections . On 4 May 2010, the newspaper printed a picture of Conservative leader David Cameron with a giant red cross through his face. The headline read "How to stop him" in reference to
5040-464: The paper of the ordinary soldier and civilian, and was critical of the political leadership and the established parties. At one stage, the paper was threatened with closure following the publication of a Philip Zec cartoon (captioned by William Connor ), which was misinterpreted by Winston Churchill and Herbert Morrison . In the 1945 UK general election , the paper strongly supported the Labour Party in its eventual landslide victory. In doing so,
5124-438: The paper supported Herbert Morrison, who co-ordinated Labour's campaign, and recruited his former antagonist Philip Zec to reproduce, on the front page, a popular VE Day cartoon on the morning of the election, suggesting that Labour were the only party who could maintain peace in post-war Britain. By the late 1940s, it was selling 4.5 million copies a day, outstripping the Express ; for some 30 years afterwards, it dominated
SECTION 60
#17328550829215208-418: The paper's finances and Guy Bartholomew as editor, during the late 1930s the Mirror was transformed from a conservative, middle class newspaper into a left-wing paper for the working class. Partly on the advice of the American advertising agency J. Walter Thompson, the Mirror became the first British paper to adopt the appearance of the New York tabloids. The headlines became bigger, the stories shorter and
5292-406: The party as the "Fib Dems" or "Lib Dumbs". The Daily Mirror endorsed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the run-up for the 2016 U.S. presidential election . Also in 2016, the newspaper asked for Jeremy Corbyn 's resignation "for the good of the party and of the country." Despite this critical position, the Daily Mirror endorsed the Labour Party in the 2017 UK general election . For
5376-465: The purposes of the trial, they can all be assumed to be true and even then Wright's breach of confidentiality would be a breach of contract and inequitable.″ In the opinion of the official historian of MI5, Christopher Andrew , Turnbull's ″brilliant″ conduct of the Spycatcher case humiliated the British establishment and triggered much-needed reform in the intelligence services. In 2011, Turnbull said that ″Margaret Thatcher's iron will made Spycatcher
5460-475: The regional newspaper group Trinity in 1999 to form Trinity Mirror . The Daily Mirror was launched on 2 November 1903 by Alfred Harmsworth (later Lord Northcliffe) as a newspaper for women, run by women. About the name, he said: "I intend it to be really a mirror of feminine life as well on its grave as on its lighter sides ... to be entertaining without being frivolous, and serious without being dull." It cost one penny (equivalent to 57p in 2023). It
5544-465: The relaunched paper did not have advertisements on the front page as previously, but instead news text and engraved pictures (of a traitor and an actress), with the promise of photographs inside. Two days later, the price was dropped to one halfpenny and to the masthead was added: "A paper for men and women". This combination was more successful: by issue 92, the guaranteed circulation was 120,000 copies and by issue 269, it had grown to 200,000: by then
5628-415: The release of Spycatcher in 1985, the British government in 1985 attempted to ban its publication in Australia. In 1987, the Supreme Court of New South Wales ruled against the British government, Wright being represented in court by Malcolm Turnbull , later prime minister of Australia . Turnbull's tough questioning of Robert Armstrong , Thatcher's cabinet secretary, led Armstrong to admit in court that
5712-492: The revelations of that debriefing were neither reported nor recorded. After a lengthy check, he discovered that it had been Hollis who was sent to Canada to interview Gouzenko. Gouzenko had provided Hollis with clear information about Alan Nunn May 's meetings with his Soviet handlers and noted that the man who met him seemed to be in disguise, not interested in his revelations, and discouraged him from further disclosures. Gouzenko had not known about Klaus Fuchs , but he had named
5796-409: The sale of the book in the United Kingdom. In November 1991, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the British government had breached the European Convention of Human Rights in gagging its newspapers. The accuracy of various allegations made in the book by Wright was questioned in a 1993 review of Spycatcher published by the Center for the Study of Intelligence , an in-house think tank for
5880-420: The slogan "You know he's right, chuck her out." By this stage, unemployment was falling and inflation had remained low for several years. As a result, the Tories were re-elected for a third successive term, although Labour did cut the Tory majority slightly. For the 1992 UK general election , the Daily Mirror continued to support Labour, still led by Neil Kinnock . By this stage, Thatcher had stepped down and
5964-402: The success of the Falklands conflict a year earlier. However, the Conservatives were re-elected and Labour suffered its worst postwar general election result, only narrowly bettering the SDP–Liberal Alliance in terms of votes whilst winning considerably more seats. At the 1987 UK general election , the Daily Mirror remained loyal to Labour, led by Neil Kinnock , and urged its readers with
6048-474: The supplement, which ran on Wednesdays and Fridays, was to deal with international affairs, politics, industry, science, the arts and business". The British Journalism Review said in 2002 that "Mirrorscope" was "a game attempt to provide serious analysis in the rough and tumble of the tabloids". It failed to attract significant numbers of new readers, and the pull-out section was abandoned, its final issue appearing on 27 August 1974. In 1978, The Sun overtook
6132-420: Was The Economist , although it was a hoax. Richard Wallace became editor in 2004. On 30 May 2012, Trinity Mirror announced the merger of the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror into a single seven-day-a-week title. Richard Wallace and Tina Weaver, the respective editors of the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror , were simultaneously dismissed and Lloyd Embley , editor of The People , appointed as editor of
6216-469: Was "a man with an obsession, and was regarded by many as quite mad and certainly dangerous." Rimington alleged that Wright was a disruptive and lazy officer, who as special advisor to the Director-General had a habit of taking case files that interested him from other officers, failing to return them to their proper place, and failing to write up any interviews he conducted. Wright's case against Hollis
6300-477: Was a mole in MI5; and his discovery that Hollis had concealed relationships with a number of suspicious persons, including Claud Cockburn , a communist journalist who was at the time suspected of connections to Soviet intelligence; and Agnes Smedley , at a time when Smedley was in a relationship with Soviet spymaster Richard Sorge . Later during his investigations, Wright examined the debriefings of Soviet defector Igor Gouzenko and found to his surprise that
6384-487: Was a principal scientific officer for MI5 , the British counter-intelligence agency. His book Spycatcher , written with Paul Greengrass , became an international bestseller with sales of over two million copies. Spycatcher was part memoir, part exposé detailing what Wright claimed were serious institutional failures he investigated within MI5. Wright is said to have been influenced in his counterespionage activity by James Jesus Angleton , counter-intelligence chief of
6468-485: Was eventually attributed to the Soviet inventor Léon Theremin . In 1954, Wright was recruited as principal scientific officer for MI5. According to his memoirs, he then was either responsible for, or intimately involved with, the development of some of the basic methods of ELINT , for example: Wright worked as the first chairman of the new Radio Operations Committee (ROC) when it was formed in 1960. The technical staffs from
6552-473: Was in spite of its falling popularity over the previous few months which had been partly as a result of what was labelled by the Daily Mail the " Winter of Discontent ", where the country was crippled by numerous public sector strikes. By the time of the 1983 UK general election , Labour support was at a postwar low, partly due to the strong challenge by the recently formed SDP–Liberal Alliance . Despite this,
6636-403: Was not an immediate success and in 1904 Harmsworth decided to turn it into a pictorial newspaper with a broader focus. Harmsworth appointed Hamilton Fyfe as editor and all of the paper's female journalists were fired. The masthead was changed to The Daily Illustrated Mirror , which ran from 26 January to 27 April 1904 (issues 72 to 150), when it reverted to The Daily Mirror . The first issue of
6720-550: Was questioned in a review published by the Center for the Study of Intelligence, an in-house think tank for the CIA. While admitting (on page 42) that the book included "factual data", the document stated that it was also "filled with [unspecified] errors, exaggerations, bogus ideas, and self-inflation". The review added (on page 45) that "Gen. Oleg Kalugin, former Chief of Counterintelligence" had confirmed to Wright that Hollis had not worked for
6804-405: Was re-stated by Chapman Pincher in his book, Treachery: Betrayals, Blunders, and Cover-ups: Six Decades of Espionage Against America and Great Britain (2009). But in its obituary of Pincher in 2014, The Times discredited the journalist's theory ("Paranoia Hollisiensis") and asserted that Hollis had not been a Soviet spy. Upon his retirement in 1976, Wright was denied a full pension on
6888-514: Was summoned during the early 1970s to review the Hollis case. After studying the case for a year, Trend concluded that the evidence was inconclusive for either convicting or clearing Hollis; this was announced in March 1981 by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher . On the basis of his interviews with Sir Dennis Proctor and friends, Wright also alleged in Spycatcher that Proctor, former Permanent Secretary at
6972-551: Was the likely individual for allegations levelled by Gouzenko and fellow defector Konstantin Volkov . The committee submitted its final report shortly after Hollis retired in late 1965 as MI5 Director-General , but an investigation of Hollis was not authorized by his successor, Martin Furnival Jones , who nevertheless authorized the investigation of his deputy, Michael Hanley . A retired civil servant, Burke Trend , later Lord Trend,
7056-411: Was to unmask a Soviet mole in MI5, who he says was Roger Hollis , a former MI5 Director General. His book also discusses other candidates who may have or may not have been the mole. He explores the history of MI5 by chronicling its principal officers, from the 1930s to his time in service. He makes serious allegations against MI6 intelligence officer Dick Ellis , who died in 1975. Wright also tells of
#920079