The Forgotten Spy: The Untold Story of Stalin's First British Mole

The Forgotten Spy: The Untold Story of Stalin's First British Mole

Language: English

Pages: 288

ISBN: 1910536067

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


In this gripping book, Nick Barratt delves into the murky waters of the British and Russian secret service. Tracing the story of his great uncle Ernest Holloway Oldham—known as ARNO to his "friends" in the Russian secret service—we are taken on a journey through the dark secrets of agents, special agents and double agents, during a period of history when everyone had something to hide. After serving in the British army during World War I, Ernest was drafted into the Communications Department of the UK Foreign Office, where he was charged with delivering encrypted messages to embassies and consulates around the world. Over the course of the next decade or so, Ernest was drawn deeper and deeper into the paranoid underworld of pre-Cold War espionage and into a double-life that became the darkest of secrets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

crisis meetings with the Prime Minister and his Cabinet while messages flowed thick and fast via the King’s Messengers, all ciphered or deciphered with the help of the clerks before the urgent correspondence was typed up and despatched. Sir John Tilley recalled the unfolding drama from the perspective of one of the senior – and therefore calmer – heads in the department, and naturally emphasised how well the Foreign Office coped with the sudden increase in business: The first difficulty in any

room known as the Distribution Room, another small room for the administrative and clerical work of the department, and a slightly larger room for the chief. They were very conveniently placed, close to the entrance, and all but one faced northward over the Horse Guards Parade. A north aspect, as artists know, is by far the best to work so long as the windows are ample, as it avoids the direct sunshine but gives a good light.95 Given Antrobus’s criticism of the ‘dark’ and ‘cramped’ Foreign

The story of the acquisition by the Soviet Embassy in Paris of a British cipher ‘used by the Colonial Office for communicating with India’ is regarded here with derision. M Bessedovsky, the former Counsellor of the Soviet Embassy, who tells the story, has a great flair for the topical… An Italian cipher is stolen in Berlin; and promptly Mr Bessedovsky tells how a British cipher was stolen in London and taken to Paris.172 However, given the Herald’s role as the ‘official’ newspaper of the

property. Oldham was still showing faint signs of life so the sergeant called for medical assistance. An ambulance was summoned and Oldham was bundled into the back. He expired before he reached hospital, pronounced dead ‘on the way’ outside 28 Marloes Road, a few streets from his former home. No good spy story is complete without a conspiracy theory and in Oldham’s case it is provided by a cryptic comment from Bystrolyotov’s memoirs. Referring to Oldham’s death, he states that ‘our wonderful

internal investigation into Oldham’s activities was launched, though the entire episode is now shrouded in secrecy since no files from the Communications Department were selected for permanent retention during the period 1927 to 1935. The day books of the Foreign Office, where a range of activities were recorded, are equally silent on both the original break-in, as already discussed, but equally there is no hint of any extraordinary activity throughout the summer and autumn of 1933. The clearest

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