Sunday, March 5, 2017

MEMOIRS OF A BRITISH AGENT - R.H. Bruce Lochart

























The story of a young British diplomat posted as a vice-counsel to Moscow in 1912 and where he stayed under various guises until his arrest and expulsion in 1918 after the Bolshevik Revolution.

His first posting was an official one where he met and mingled with the Tsarist Government and was present into the Fist World War. He was then sent home for an extra-marital dalliance.

He then returned in an official unofficial "neither confirm or deny" capacity to act as a liaison between the Bolsheviks and the allies.  He stayed in this role until he was arrested where he was accused of  plotting to have Lenin assassinated.

This was published in 1932 so has none of the intelligence work that Bruce Lockhart was involved in in Russia.  The details of this may never be known as his papers as of 2003 "disappeared". He worked in Russia with fellow agent, Sidney Reilly and it his son, Robin Bruce Lockhart wrote the book  Reilly :Ace of Spies and who supplies the Introduction to this edition.

But despite no detail of his spying this is fascinating.  The author met regularly with Trotsky and other members of the revolutionary government and gives great insight into the mentality of the committee.

The book contains a huge amount of information more than a casual reader like myself could understand without  real background knowledge but its still worth the effort as a time capsule.
Very interesting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._H._Bruce_Lockhart

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