Macintyre - Agent Zigzag: the True Wartime Story of Eddie Chapman: Lover, Traitor, Hero, Spy (reissued)

Praise forAgent Zigzag

It is unlikely that a more engaging study of espionage and deception will be published this year The Times

Macintyre tells Chapmans tale in a perfect pitch: with the Boys Own thrills of Rider Haggard, the verve of George MacDonald Fraser and Carl Hiassens mordant humour Macintyre never misses a delightful, haunting or terrifying detail Buy it for dads everywhere but read it too Ruaridh Nicoll, Observer

Speaking as a former MI6 officer, take it from me: there are very few books which give you a genuine picture of what it feels like to be a spy. This is one Harry Ferguson, Daily Express

Bursts with wonderful detail, all of it true, and is jam-packed with the most eccentric and curious characters This is the most amazing book, full of fascinating and hair-raising true life adventures, meticulously researched and beautifully told Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday

[A] rollicking, thriller-paced account of double cross a Boys Own adventure par excellence and a gripping story Time Out

Chapman has had to wait for Ben Macintyre to do his life full justice, but such a summary as this barely touches on the intricacies and astonishments of the incredible story that Macintyre tells with great fluency and narrative brio William Boyd, Sunday Telegraph

If Macintyre had presented this story as a novel, it would have been denounced as far too unlikely; yet every word of it is true. Moreover he has that enviable gift, the inability to write a dull sentence... an enthralling book Spectator

The bizarre story of Agent Zigzag retains a poignant fascination Macintyre is a crisp, quick and well-organised writer Daily Telegraph

A vivid, well-researched portrait of the remarkable wartime double agent Sunday Times

A thrilling read Times Literary Supplement

An entertaining account of a double agent whose exploits surpassed those of a Boys Own adventure story Macintyre tells his story with relish Financial Times

The true story that follows is based on official papers, letters, diaries, newspaper reports, contemporary accounts and memoirs.

I was first alerted to the existence of the Englishman Eddie Chapman by his obituary in The Times. Among the lives of the great and good, here was a character who had achieved a certain greatness, but in ways that were far from conventionally good. The obituary was intriguing as much for what it did not say and could not know about Chapmans exploits in the Second World War, since those details remained under seal in MI5s secret archives. At that time, it seemed the full story of Eddie Chapman would never be told.

But then, under a new policy of openness, MI5 began the selective release of hitherto classified information that could not embarrass the living or damage national security. The first Zigzag files were released to the National Archives in 2001. These declassified archives contain more than 1,700 pages of documents relating to Chapmans case: transcripts of interrogations, detailed wireless intercepts, reports, descriptions, diagrams, internal memos, minutes, letters and photographs. The files are extraordinarily detailed, describing not only events and people but also the minutiae of a spys life, his changing moods and feelings, his hopes, fears and contradictions. Chapmans diligent case officers set out to paint a complete picture of the man, with a meticulous (sometimes hour-by-hour) account of his actions. I am particularly grateful to MI5 for agreeing to my request to declassify additional files relating to the case, and to Howard Davies of the National Archives for helping to facilitate those supplementary releases.

Eddie Chapmans memoirs were published after the war, but the Official Secrets Act prevented him from describing his exploits as a double agent, and his own version of events was often more entertaining than reliable. As his handlers noted, he had no sense of chronology whatsoever. All quotations are cited in the endnotes, but for clarity I have standardised spelling and have selectively used reported speech as direct speech. Chapmans story has also emerged from the memories of the living, people touched, directly or indirectly, by the individuals and events described, and I am grateful to the dozens of interviewees in Britain, France, Germany and Norway including Betty Chapman who were willing to talk to me for so many hours, recalling a past now more than half a century old. For obvious reasons, some of those involved in the more clandestine areas of Chapmans life have requested anonymity.

Just weeks before this book was due to go to press, MI5 discovered an entire secret file, overlooked in previous transfers to the public archives, and generously provided me with full access to its contents. That file (which will now become available at the National Archives) gives extraordinary psychological insights into Chapmans character, as seen by his case officers. It is, perhaps, the last missing piece in the zigzag_puzzle.

Zigzag.n, adj, adv and vb:... a pattern made up of many small corners at an acute angle, tracing a path between two parallel lines; it can be described as both jagged and fairly regular.

It is essential to seek out enemy agents who have come to conduct espionage against you and to bribe them to serve you. Give them instructions and care for them. Thus double agents are recruited and used.

Sun Tzu, The Art of War

War makes thieves and peace hangs them.

George Herbert

2.13 a.m., 16 December 1942

A German spy drops from a black Focke-Wulf reconnaissance plane over Cambridgeshire. His silk parachute opens with a rustle, and for twelve minutes he floats silently down. The stars are out, but the land beneath his feet, swaddled in wartime blackout, is utterly dark. His nose bleeds copiously.