A Spy Named Orphan: The Soviet Agent Who Stole the West's Greatest Secrets
"[A] lively and beautifully engineered biography." —John Banville, New York Review of Books

Donald Maclean was one of the most treacherous spies of the Cold War era, a member of the infamous "Cambridge Five" spy ring, yet the extent of this shrewd, secretive man’s betrayal has never fully been explored. Drawing on formerly classified files, A Spy Named Orphan documents the extraordinary story of a model diplomat leading a chilling double-life until his exposure and defection to the USSR.

Philipps describes a man prone to alcoholic rages, who rose through the ranks of the British Foreign Office while secretly transmitting through his Soviet handlers reams of diplomatic and military intelligence on the atom bomb and the shape of the postwar world. A mesmerizing tale of blind faith and fierce loyalty alongside dangerous duplicity and human vulnerability, Philipps’s narrative will stand as the definitive account of the man codenamed "Orphan."

"1130315247"
A Spy Named Orphan: The Soviet Agent Who Stole the West's Greatest Secrets
"[A] lively and beautifully engineered biography." —John Banville, New York Review of Books

Donald Maclean was one of the most treacherous spies of the Cold War era, a member of the infamous "Cambridge Five" spy ring, yet the extent of this shrewd, secretive man’s betrayal has never fully been explored. Drawing on formerly classified files, A Spy Named Orphan documents the extraordinary story of a model diplomat leading a chilling double-life until his exposure and defection to the USSR.

Philipps describes a man prone to alcoholic rages, who rose through the ranks of the British Foreign Office while secretly transmitting through his Soviet handlers reams of diplomatic and military intelligence on the atom bomb and the shape of the postwar world. A mesmerizing tale of blind faith and fierce loyalty alongside dangerous duplicity and human vulnerability, Philipps’s narrative will stand as the definitive account of the man codenamed "Orphan."

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A Spy Named Orphan: The Soviet Agent Who Stole the West's Greatest Secrets

A Spy Named Orphan: The Soviet Agent Who Stole the West's Greatest Secrets

by Roland Philipps
A Spy Named Orphan: The Soviet Agent Who Stole the West's Greatest Secrets

A Spy Named Orphan: The Soviet Agent Who Stole the West's Greatest Secrets

by Roland Philipps

Paperback(Reprint)

$18.95 
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Overview

"[A] lively and beautifully engineered biography." —John Banville, New York Review of Books

Donald Maclean was one of the most treacherous spies of the Cold War era, a member of the infamous "Cambridge Five" spy ring, yet the extent of this shrewd, secretive man’s betrayal has never fully been explored. Drawing on formerly classified files, A Spy Named Orphan documents the extraordinary story of a model diplomat leading a chilling double-life until his exposure and defection to the USSR.

Philipps describes a man prone to alcoholic rages, who rose through the ranks of the British Foreign Office while secretly transmitting through his Soviet handlers reams of diplomatic and military intelligence on the atom bomb and the shape of the postwar world. A mesmerizing tale of blind faith and fierce loyalty alongside dangerous duplicity and human vulnerability, Philipps’s narrative will stand as the definitive account of the man codenamed "Orphan."


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780393356960
Publisher: Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date: 06/11/2019
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 448
Sales rank: 641,301
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Roland Philipps is the grandson of Roger Makins, the last man from the Foreign Office to see Donald Maclean before his escape to the Soviet Union. He was publishing director of Hodder & Stoughton and Macmillan, London, and managing director of John Murray Publishers. He lives in London.

Table of Contents

Prologue 1

1 Purity in Thought 7

2 Dared to Question 24

3 Orphan 47

4 Lyric 66

5 City of Light 89

6 Left Bank 109

7 Blitz and Barbarossa 122

8 Homer 140

9 Iron Curtain 155

10 Distant Thunder 166

11 Access All Areas 185

12 Chaos on the Nile 205

13 Collapse 231

14 Reconciliation 251

15 Curzon 275

16 Endgame 300

17 Establishment 324

18 Into the Wilderness 340

19 Comrade Frazer 356

Afterword 381

Acknowledgements 383

Bibliography 386

Notes 393

Illustration Credits 426

Index 427

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