Friday, October 17, 2025

Roger Hollis: The spy who never was?

My memory of the Eighties is that Peter Wright was seen as being obsessive about Soviet infiltration of British intelligence. But didn't Karla arrange things to make Control look like that?

And in this programme from 1984 Wright cuts an impressive figure. No Percy Alleline he.

Let's end with a couple of pieces of trivia. 

Malcolm Turnbull, the future Australian prime minister, who embarrassed the British government in court while fighting to allow Wright to publish his memoirs, is related to both Angela Lansbury and Oliver Postgate.

And Roger Hollis, whether he was a spy or not, was the father of Adrian Hollis, who was a correspondence chess grandmaster.

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