Queen of Spies: Daphne Park, Britain's Cold War Spy Master

Queen of Spies: Daphne Park, Britain's Cold War Spy Master

by Paddy Hayes
Queen of Spies: Daphne Park, Britain's Cold War Spy Master

Queen of Spies: Daphne Park, Britain's Cold War Spy Master

by Paddy Hayes

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Overview

This “fascinating and long overdue” biography reveals the remarkable life of a Baroness who was one of Britain’s most celebrated spies (Washington Post).

From living in a shack in Tanzania to becoming Baroness Park of Monmouth, Daphne Park led a most unusual life—one that consisted of a lifelong love affair with the world of Britain’s secret services. In the 1970s, she was appointed to Secret Intelligence Service’s most senior operational rank as one of its seven Area Controllers.

In Queen of Spies, Paddy Hayes recounts the evolution of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) from World War II to the Cold War through the eyes of Daphne Park, one of its outstanding and most unusual operatives. It is a fascinating and intimate narrative of how the modern SIS went about its business whether in Moscow, Hanoi, or the Congo, and shows how Park was able to rise through the ranks of a field that had been comprised almost entirely of men.

Queen of Spies captures all the paranoia, isolation, and deception of Cold War intelligence work, and combines it with the personal story of one extraordinary woman trying to navigate this secretive world. It is “as exciting as any good spy thriller—but it’s all true” (Kirkus, starred review).

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781468313253
Publisher: ABRAMS, Inc.
Publication date: 09/01/2022
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 618
Sales rank: 917,570
File size: 4 MB

About the Author

Paddy Hayes was born in Cork and educated at Harvard University. He has spent five decades researching the world of intelligence. His interest in politics extends to acting as a constituency director of elections in the last two general elections in Ireland.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations vii

Introduction 1

Author's Note 4

Prologue - Moscow, April 1956 9

1 From Kayuki to Clapham, 1921-32 11

2 Born now bred, 1932-43 17

3 SOE 1 - Bingham's unit, 1943-44 23

4 SOE 2 - Coup defoudre, 1944 34

5 SOE 3 - Darters goes to war, 1944 41

6 Vienna role, 1946-48 52

7 A world changing, 1947-48 61

8 Into the lion's den. 1948-51 69

9 Moscow bound, 1951-54 79

10 Moscow 1 - Either silence or prison, 1954 88

11 Moscow 2 - The squirrel and his nuts, 1955 97

12 Moscow 3 - The strange affair of Yevgeni Brik, 1956 108

13 Moscow 4 - Annus horribilis, 1956 116

14 From SovBloc to sun-block, 1957-59 130

15 Congo 1 - Into the cauldron, 1959 138

16 Congo 2 - On the eve of destruction, 1959-60 144

17 Congo 3 - Seven months to murder, 1960-61 159

18 Congo 4 - Who killed Cock Robin? Not I, said the spy 1961 174

19 Bewitched, bothered, bewildered… and betrayed, 1962-64 182

20 Back in the held, 1964-67 196

21 Reform at last, 1967-69 204

22 Hanoi 1 - Spy station Hanoi, 1969-70 213

23 Hanoi 2 - 'Though never quite enough to ask for another year', 1969-70 223

24 What Daphne did next, 1970-74 239

25 C/WH 1 - Spymaster, 1975-77 245

26 C/WH 2 - Finale: Rhodesia and the ending of UDI, 1978-79 261

27 Return to Somerville, 1980-89 270

28 Daphne Park: a life extraordinary 276

Acknowledgements 286

Appendix: timeline of Daphne Park's life 288

Notes on Sources 290

Select Bibliography 315

Index 320

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