On His Majesty's Secret Service, Sydney Reilly Codename St1

Rating:
Summary: The Broker
Review: This is probably one of the best documented and solid accounts ever to appear about Sidney Reilly, a Russian Jew and a short time SIS agent, codenamed ST1, who became famous thanks to numerous books and articles that have been poping out for the past eighty years. The very last publication - three newspapers and six full pages long - appeared in Moscow in January 2003. Vladimir Abarinov, Washington correspondent of the KGB newspaper Sovershenno Sekretno, who now lives in Arlington, VA, where Rick Ames resided before his arrest in 1994, praised... Professor Spence for his work. Abarinov never mentioned Cook's book and tried to assure his readers that Spence's is the only TRUE account.
Andrew Cook, a former aide to Britain's Secretary of State for Defense George Robertson, has done a marvellous job. He examined passport and birth records, academic transcripts, military records, Russian intelligence files, British intelligence files and other primary source to determine the most likely truth in each case. His work would be almost flawless, if not for one little mistake: Mr Cook chose Gordon Brook-Shepherd and Edward Gazur as sources for Alexander Orlov's quotations. Orlov (Nikolsky/Feldbin), a former NKVD official (never a General, but once Senior Major of State Security) was a notorious lier, who NEVER said a word of truth. Brook-Shepherd, generally a very reliable author, who died this year, made a great mistake with Orlov. Gazur, a retired FBI Special Agent, clearly chose to follow Orlov's path: to lie non-stop without looking back. Therefore, allegations about Maria Zakharchenko and Georgy Radkevich are not correct. Andrew Cook also missed to name ALL participants of the drama, called operation TRUST. On the other hand, it was not his aim. As a result, we finally have a book (first time after 1925), which qualifies as the definitive version of the life of this famous person. Hayden Peake says that 'Cook's account is both scholarly and fascinating reading', and so it is.
N.B. The BROKER was a cryptonym given to Reilly by the Tsarist Okhrana, whose agents shadowed him in St.Petersburg. It may be interesting to note that Ukraine, seeking NATO membership, invited Mr Cook to present his book there. It was a clever move as Shlomo Rosenblum, as Reilly was known before the age of 18, came from Odessa.