In early 1961 the “Portland spy ring” was uncovered in Britain. Its agents included a middle-aged American couple living in a bungalow in suburban Ruislip, who posed as antiquarian booksellers while sending submarine secrets to Russia.
That April, double agent George Blake was given 42 years in jail, the longest sentence in British history at the time. By 1963 his fellow traitor Kim Philby was on a boat to Moscow, and Brits were obsessing over the Profumo affair (a sex scandal masquerading as a security scandal). Prime minister Harold Macmillan, who hated each of these embarrassments, and referred disparagingly to the “so-called security service”, eventually resigned.
I’m writing a book on cold war spying. I spend hours living mentally in the 1960s, and when I come up for air and check the internet, I feel as if I’m reading the sequel. There’s French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who has been largely funded from Russia, dropping in on Vladimir Putin. “Moscow will help Le Pen win the election,” boasted the Kremlin-friendly broadcaster Life News, before deleting the tweet minutes later.