Agent M: The Lives and Spies of MI5's Maxwell Knight

by Henry Hemming

Overview

The fascinating, improbable true story of Maxwell Knight — the great MI5 spymaster and inspiration for the James Bond character M.

Maxwell Knight was perhaps the greatest spymaster in history. He did more than anyone in his era to combat the rising threat of fascism in Britain during World War II, in spite of his own history inside this movement. He was also truly eccentric — a thrice-married jazz aficionado who kept a menagerie of exotic pets — and almost totally unqualified for espionage.

Yet he had a gift for turning practically anyone into a fearless secret agent. Knight's work revolutionized British intelligence, pioneering the use of female agents, among other accomplishments. In telling Knight's remarkable story, Agent M also reveals for the first time in print the names and stories of some of the men and women recruited by Knight, on behalf of MI5, who were asked to infiltrate the country's most dangerous political organizations.

Drawing on a vast array of original sources, Agent M reveals not only the story of one of the world's greatest intelligence operators, but the sacrifices and courage required to confront fascism during a nation's darkest time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781610396844
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	05/09/2017
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.80(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Henry Hemming is the author of five works of nonfiction including Agent M and The Ingenious Mr Pyke, which landed on the New York Times monthly espionage bestseller list. He has written for the Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, the Times, the Economist, FT Magazine, and the Washington Post, and has given interviews on Radio 4's Today Programme and NBC's Today Show and spoken at schools, festivals and companies including RDF Media, The RSA, Science Museum, Frontline Club, and The School of Life. Henry lives in London with his wife, daughter and son.

Table of Contents

Author's Note xi

Prologue 1

Part 1 Becoming M

1 A Man Adrift 7

2 The Makgill Organisation 17

3 Bloody Fools 20

4 The Razor's Edge 26

5 Revenge 34

6 The Freelance Spymaster 43

7 The Day 48

8 Exile 54

9 Morton's Plan 58

10 "I Can Make Things Bloody Unpleasant for You" 63

Part 2 The Red Menace

11 Olga 71

12 The M Organisation 75

13 Watchers 81

14 Cuckoo Eggs 85

15 Trailing One's Coat 93

16 An Author with Unpredictable Hours 100

17 Heart and Soul 105

18 Blackshirts 116

19 Courier 124

20 The Honeymooning Spy 132

21 Olga Pulloffski 143

22 Mussolini's Man 149

23 A Mysterious Affair 153

24 Percy's Proposal 157

25 Mr. Peters 161

26 Moscow Moves 165

27 Old Friends, New Agents 170

28 Reprieve 178

29 Miss X 181

30 Mona 187

31 "What a Very Beautiful View" 193

32 Crisis 200

Part 3 The Enemy Within

33 Mrs. Mackie Investigates 209

34 The Fashion Designer 217

35 The Mystic 221

36 A Smokescreen 228

37 A Letter to an Old Friend 232

38 Carlyle 239

39 Victory at All Costs 243

40 The Raid 248

41 The Meeting 254

42 The Trial 260

43 Knight's Black Agents 267

44 The Comintern Is Not Dead 276

45 Rebirth 286

Epilogue 296

Acknowledgments 305

Notes 308

Select Bibliography 333

Index 337

Editorial Reviews

03/20/2017
British popular historian and biographer Hemming (The Ingenious Mr. Pike) revisits the life of Maxwell Knight in the first biography of the 20th century’s leading MI5 spymaster. Knight was an eccentric figure who “possessed an unparalleled ability to turn unqualified men and women—bankers, secretaries, lawyers, booksellers—into reliable and consistently productive agents.” During the 1920s and ’30s, Knight used this ability to infiltrate and render innocuous the British Fascist movement, under the leadership of first William Joyce (later Lord Haw-Haw) and then Oswald Mosley. Knight had for some years been attracted to fascism himself and might have tipped off his old friend Joyce that he was about to be apprehended before Joyce fled to Germany in August 1939. Hemming writes far more briefly about Knight’s less successful postwar effort, including his recruitment of John le Carré to identify communist infiltrations of British institutions. The book is clearly written and well researched, though Hemming occasionally stumbles, as when he gets distracted by the work of some of Knight’s less effective agents in the early 1930s. Still, this in-depth introduction illuminates a largely forgotten man of antidemocratic tendencies who played a key role in keeping Britain secure and democratic for much of the interwar and early postwar periods. (May)

Publishers Weekly

★ 05/01/2017
Spymaster and broadcaster Maxwell Knight (1900–68) was reputedly a model for the James Bond character "M." In his latest work, Hemming (The Ingenious Mr. Pyke) unveils Knight's eccentricities in a clear narrative, detailing how a quirky individual rose through the British intelligence service, MI5, to become one of its top spymasters. Readers are transported to early 20th-century Britain, where the political spectrum faced threats from communists and fascists. Knight infiltrated these movements, successfully defeating British fascism before it took root on the Isles. With regards to communism, Knight was able to stop the Soviet theft of military plans. His reliance on women as undercover agents set a historic precedent. This worthwhile biography demonstrates Knight's remarkable contributions to history, and should be read alongside Ben Macintyre's Double Cross and Paul McMahon's British Spies and Irish Rebels. VERDICT Highly recommended for Anglophiles who want to learn more about the interwar period and those looking for a provocative read.—Jacob Sherman, John Peace Lib., Univ. of Texas at San Antonio

Library Journal

2017-03-07
The dramatic story of the remarkable British spymaster who may have been the model for the James Bond character M.Maxwell Knight (1900-1968) recruited men and women who were quiet but intense, naturalists like him—though he was unlikely to find anyone as devoted to a wide variety of exotic animals. He looked for those who could work unnoticed, efficiently listening, remembering, and reporting what went on in communist and fascist organizations. Searching for a livelihood after World War I, Knight joined Sir George Makgill's private intelligence agency. Makgill worked for industrialists worried about labor unions and the rise of communism. Knight's first assignment was to join the British Fascists—which, in the 1920s, was not yet politically abhorrent—and to find potential recruits, an easy task given his mystical magnetism. At this time, he was friends with William Joyce, who would become, during World War II, the treasonous Lord Haw-Haw. They joined the paramilitary wing of the BF, where Knight learned the spy trades of kidnapping and his specialty, breaking and entering. In 1929, Knight was recruited by MI5 to fight communism, eventually leading the M Section. His "grey people" learned to become small and insignificant, remembering everything and hoping no one remembered them. Knight directed his people like he once ran his jazz band: moderating tempo, watching overall direction, and improvising when necessary. Hiring Anna Wolkoff to work as a secretary for the Communist Party was a stroke of genius, helping to break up a spy ring. Knight's M section was more right-wing, daring, more maverick than others. It was also the most independent, economical, and unconventional. Many spy stories are page-turners, but the author proves that the story of one man can be equally thrilling. Hemming has uncovered a man determined not to be known and in so doing, has provided us with delightful reading.

Kirkus Reviews

"The dramatic story of the remarkable British spymaster...Many spy stories are page-turners, but [Henry Hemming] proves that the story of one man can be equally thrilling. Hemming has uncovered a man determined not to be known and in so doing, has provided us with delightful reading."

-Kirkus Reviews

"Espionage writing at its best."

-Charles Cumming, author of A Divided Spy

"Crammed with cracking stories and founded on sound research, Henry Hemming's biography of Maxwell Knight-'M'-stands comparison with the bestselling books of Ben Macintyre."

-Adam Sisman, author of John Le Carré

"I raced through Henry Hemming's book, constantly having to remind myself that it wasn't a work of fiction. It really has everything you'd want from a great espionage story: incredible agents risking their lives; the highest possible stakes, with the safety of the world hanging in the balance; and at its heart a complicated, mercurial spy master in Maxwell Knight spinning an ever more intricate web."

-Matt Charman, Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Bridge of Spies

"Absolute proof that assiduous digging in the archives can produce scoops. This is intelligence research at its best, especially in the identification of hitherto anonymous agents. Definitely a great contribution to the literature."

- Nigel West, author of MI5

"This in-depth introduction illuminates a largely forgotten man of antidemocratic tendencies who played a key role in keeping Britain secure and democratic for much of the interwar and early postwar periods."—Publishers Weekly

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