A web of deception : the Spycatcher affair

A web of deception : the Spycatcher affair by Chapman Pincher. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780283996542.

The British Governments long legal battle to prevent the former Ml 5 officer, Peter Wright, from publishing his memoirs has caused an international furore. There are those who see the Government as a repressive machine trying to prevent a poor old patriot from exposing dreadful scandals. Others see Wright as a vindictive and treacherous old man taking revenge on Ml 5 by selling secrets he had sworn to keep.The one person who knows where the real truth lies is Chapman Pincher. It was his meeting with Wright in 1980 which started what has become known as the Spycatcher affair. He was the first person to whom Wright leaked secrets and Chapman Pinchers book, Their Trade Is Treachery, has been central to the court cases in Australia.The super-secret reason behind the Governments decision to permit the publication of Their Trade Is Treachery is a political bombshell. Chapman Pincher reveals it, along with the reasons why the Government took such extreme steps to preserve it. It is an astonishing tale of deception and self-deception, of real conspiracy and fake conspiracy and shows, with insider authority, how ministers and mandarins behave when issues of extreme secrecy are being decided.Chapman Pincher also discloses the truth about the parts played by Lord Rothschild and an array of political and legal figures, as well as secret service chiefs. He knows al I of them -some in close friendship-and reveals first-hand details of their involvement in the Wright affair.A Web of Deception contains more secretsthan Spycatcher (which is largely a re-run ofTheir Trade Is Treachery) . it shows how thehighest in the land can become entrapped, withI heir reputations sullied, by the dangerous cult ofofficial secrecy.