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Spycatcher was banned in the UK on publication by Margaret Thatcher which a) immediately validated there was truth in its page and b) made it a huge best seller

Spycatcher was banned in the UK on publication by Margaret Thatcher which a) immediately validated there was truth in its page and b) made it a huge best seller. It's actually a pretty dull book, I think, apart from a few fun stories like breaking into the building sites of embassies and pouring thousands of bugs into the wet concrete walls meaning the entire walls would test as "live" making the whole complex unusable for classified work. Interesting side-note about Spycatcher for geeks: In the book, Peter Wright talks about he "and Tony bugging and burgling their way across London in the 1960s". "Tony" was his engineer who installed bugs. His name was Tony Sale. You best know him, perhaps, as the founder of the Bletchley Park Trust. After his time with MI5 he decided to restore Bletchley Park and rebuild the machines there like Colossus, etc. I met him on a visit there in 1999, and I think I was the first person in many, many years who had asked him about his connections, because he seemed slightly taken aback that I knew he was an ex-colleague of Peter Wright's. Nice bloke. Liked Peter as a man, thought what he'd done with the book was potentially very, very dangerous.

satori99 11y ago
Another interesting factoid... The British government tried to stop publication of Spycatcher in Australia also, but was defeated in court by the man who is now our Prime Minister.
Angostura 11y ago
> a) immediately validated there was truth in its page Alternatively, it was simply a question of the fact that he had broken the agreement he had signed that prevents ex-intelligence officers from publishing memoirs without them going through official screening first.
- PaulRobinson 11y ago
  In the UK, no such agreement exists. Source: I know people who would have been required to sign it. They confirm that they would have it screened both out of a sense of duty, and a desire to avoid accidental breach of the Official Secrets Act if they ever produced such memoirs (release it to your agent with something you thought had been declassified? 30 years in prison for you!), but they were not explicitly asked to sign such an agreement.
  - Angostura 11y ago
    I would argue that signing the official secrets act constituted just such an agreement
- HillRat 11y ago
  Prior review is a tool that's a lot less critical when you have an Official Secrets Act; in the US, it's illegal to divulge classified information, and you are contractually-bound to seek review of anything you publish, but it's damned hard to unpublish anything that gets out.

satori99 11y ago

Another interesting factoid... The British government tried to stop publication of Spycatcher in Australia also, but was defeated in court by the man who is now our Prime Minister.

Angostura 11y ago

> a) immediately validated there was truth in its page Alternatively, it was simply a question of the fact that he had broken the agreement he had signed that prevents ex-intelligence officers from publishing memoirs without them going through official screening first.

PaulRobinson 11y ago
In the UK, no such agreement exists. Source: I know people who would have been required to sign it. They confirm that they would have it screened both out of a sense of duty, and a desire to avoid accidental breach of the Official Secrets Act if they ever produced such memoirs (release it to your agent with something you thought had been declassified? 30 years in prison for you!), but they were not explicitly asked to sign such an agreement.
- Angostura 11y ago
  I would argue that signing the official secrets act constituted just such an agreement
HillRat 11y ago
Prior review is a tool that's a lot less critical when you have an Official Secrets Act; in the US, it's illegal to divulge classified information, and you are contractually-bound to seek review of anything you publish, but it's damned hard to unpublish anything that gets out.