A Faithful Spy’ by Jimmy Burns is published by Chiselbury and is available wordlwide on Amazon and good English language bookshops.
A remarkable insight into the working of British Intelligence
Chiselbury, the independent publisher, is pleased to announce that ‘A Faithful Spy’ by prize-winning author Jimmy Burns was published on 1 October 2023.
Drawing on previously undisclosed personal papers, this biography of Walter Bell gives a remarkable insight into the working of British Intelligence.
Bell inhabited the shadowlands of secret intelligence straddling the Atlantic during World War Two before serving in the UK embassy, Washington, during a critical period in the post-war Anglo-American relationship. There were subsequent postings in Kenya, India and the Caribbean, where he keenly observed the challenging politics of the twilight of the British Empire. Since these were largely covert assignments, his high-level contacts with key historic figures such as FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, UK wartime MI6 chief in the US, Bill Stephenson, the Russian spies Donald Maclean and Kim Philby, British spy chiefs Dick White and Roger Hollis, and post-colonial independence leaders Jomo Kenyatta, Jawaharlal Nehru and Norman Manley have remained both undiscovered and undisclosed. Until now.
Back home he was intimately involved in operations to limit the reputation damage provoked by the media outcry over the Cambridge Five affair and suspected KGB misinformation about further alleged Soviet agents at the highest level of the British state.
He was rewarded for his service with a CMG and the US Medal of Freedom.
‘A Faithful Spy’ also charts Bell’s fascinating personal life. The brother-in-law of Lord Beauchamp, he developed close friendships with people diverse as Harold Laski, Herbert Morrison and Julian Amery, right through to Karen Blixen and actress Constance Cummings while serving in New York. He went on to marry Katherine, the eldest daughter of General Carl Spaatz, the first Chief of Staff of the newly formed US Air Force and former head of US Strategic Air Forces in Europe during WW2.
Part of Bell’s story was belief vs ideology and dogma, and a life-long commitment to finding his true faith in a Christian God . The son of an Anglican vicar, he went through periods of agnosticism before converting to Roman Catholicism during his first posting in Kenya in the 1950’s where he was impressed by the self-less work of Irish missionaries among the African poor.
Published in hardback (ISBN 978-1-916556-09-6) and Kindle/ePub on 1 October 2023
Available from Amazon and all good bookshops.
