The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War

by Ben Macintyre

The decision to spy on one’s own country, in the interests of another, usually emerges from the collision of an outer world, often rationally conceived, and an inner world, of which the spy may be unaware. Philby defined himself as a pure ideological agent, a devoted secret soldier in the Communist cause; what he did not admit was that he was also motivated by narcissism, inadequacy, his father’s influence, and a compulsion to deceive those around him. Eddie Chapman, the wartime crook and double agent known as Agent ZIGZAG, considered himself a patriotic hero (which he was), but he was also greedy, opportunistic, and fickle, hence his code name. Oleg Penkovsky, the Russian spy who furnished the West with crucial intelligence during the Cuban Missile Crisis, hoped to prevent nuclear war, but he also wanted prostitutes and chocolates