Customer Reviews

Molehunt: Searching for Spies in Mi5

Nigel West is one of the more prolific authors on espionage history, particularly the history of Soviet espionage in Britain, but do not mistake quantity for quality or accuracy. West is no more accurate of an historian than most other sensationalistic British journalists-turned-authors who write on this topic.

The cover of this book would lead one to believe that West did a substantial amount of research, interviewing, digging in still- secret British records, etc..., about the possible high level Soviet spy in Britain's domestic intelligence agency, MI-5, but that would be an erroneous conclusion. I do not believe that West obtained any information regarding the alleged mole that does not appear in Peter Wright's much better autobiography, Spycatcher.

Essentially, Wright determined, after years of working as one of MI-5's chief counterintelligence officers, that MI-5 had so many gaffs and foiled operations against the Soviets that the only explanation was a high level Soviet spy within the organization. Wright narrowed his choices down to two men, Sir Roger Hollis, the Director General of MI-5 during the 1950's and 1960's, and his deputy, Graham Mitchell. Both men were guilty of substantial incompetence in their positions, both had access to all information contained in Wright's list of proofs of Soviet penetration into the service and both had connections to the Soviet Union in their past. Wright suspected Hollis in particular and was able to show somewhat more circumstantial evidence that he was the Soviet spy. West arbitrarily decided that Mitchell was the spy, but fails to explain why or substantiate that opinion. However, perhaps only half or so of this book is devoted to the topic of the mole - the remainder is essentially a history of the attempts for British authors, including Wright and journalist Chapman Pincher, to publish a history on the issue of Soviet penetration of MI-5 in light of British government attempts to suppress such information under the Official Secrets Act. Unless the reader is interested in the legal battle concerning this governmental censorship (which is rather dull), one can skip the entire second half of this book.

So was there a mole, and if yes, who was it? Christopher Andrews and his two KGB defector collaborators in KGB: The Inside Story, and The Sword and the Shield, deny that there was ever a mole in MI-5. We will simply have to wait and hope that in due time, the KGB's successor will release further information before its files on espionage in Britain are destroyed and the secret is lost forever. One certainly won't find the answer in Molehunt and I cannot recommend it for any purpose.