Andrew Cook - Ace of Spies: The True Story of Sidney Reilly

A CE OF S PIES

The True Story of

S IDNEY R EILLY

A CE OF S PIES

The True Story of

S IDNEY R EILLY

T O MY P ARENTS

First published 2002
This edition first published 2004

The History Press
The Mill, Brimscombe Port
Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL 5 2 QG
www.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2011

All rights reserved
Andrew Cook, 2002, 2004

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EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 6953 9
MOBI ISBN 978 0 7524 6954 6

Original typesetting by The History Press

A BOUT THE A UTHOR

A ndrew Cook worked for many years as a foreign affairs and defence specialist, and was aide to George Robertson (former Secretary of State for Defence, now Lord Robertson of Port Ellen and Secretary General of NATO) and John Spellar (former Minister of State for the Armed Forces). The contacts he made enabled the author to navigate and gain access to classified intel-ligence services archives. During his ten years researching this book, he was only the fifth historian to be given special permission, under the 1992 Waldegrave Initiative by the Cabinet Office, to examine closed MI6 documents that will never be released, documents not seen by any previous biographer of Reilly. Since working directly as a foreign affairs and defence specialist, Andrew Cook has worked as a professional historian in colleges and universities. He is a regular contributor on espionage history to The Guardian, The Times and BBC History Magazine and has appeared on national radio and television. His next book, M: MI5s First Spymaster, will be published by Tempus. The authors Sidney Reilly website is www.sidneyreilly.com. He lives in Bedfordshire.

A CKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I owe a debt of gratitude to all those involved in the development of this book. It took many years to research and a large number of people were involved in the project from inception to completion.

My particular thanks go to the principal researchers who assisted me: Jordan Auslander (USA); Dmitry Belanovsky (Russia); Vladislav Kiriya (Ukraine); Dr Sylvia Moehle (Germany); and Stephen Parker and Graham Salt (UK). I would also like to thank Michel Ameuw (France), Dr Michael Attias (UK), Marc Bernstein (USA), Norman Crowder (Canada), Alex Denisenko (Poland), Lynda Fagan (UK), Dr Tatiana Filimonova (Russia), Sigita Gasparaviciene (Lithuania), Maria Herman (Brazil), Geoffrey Hewlett (UK), Reinhard Hofer (Austria), Sinan Kuneralp (Turkey), Sean Malloy (USA), Mary Morrigan (Eire), Irina Mulina (Russia), Danna Paz Prins (Israel), Mikhail Sachek (Belarus), Ishizu Tomoyuki (Japan) and Mark Windover (USA) for additional assistance with research.

In the pursuit of source material, I am much indebted to ministers and former ministers for whom I have previously worked, for their advice concerning access to UK records. As a result of an approach to the Cabinet Office, the government agreed to provide me with a briefing based on the records of Sidney Reillys service with the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), for the purpose of this book. This has helped enormously, as indeed has the opportunity to compare UK records with those of the Federal Security Service (FSB) in Russia and the US Bureau of Investigation (the forerunner of the FBI) in Washington DC.

The help and co-operation of the families of those who played a role in Reillys story has been greatly appreciated, as has the assistance of Francis & Francis (private investigators), who helped in tracing them. Special gratitude is owed to Diane Briscoe, George Burton, Carmel Callaghan-Sinnott, Teodor Gladkov, Boris Gudz, Edward Harding-Newman, Charles Lewis, Gustav Nobel, Trevor Melville, Anne Thomas, Viscount Thurso and Brigid Utley.

I have been most grateful to those who have previously written on this and related subjects for speaking or corresponding with me Gill Bennett, Gordon Brook-Shepherd, Alan Judd, the late Michael Kettle, Margot King, Robin Bruce Lockhart, Professor Ian Nish, Gail Owen, Professor Richard Spence, Carol Spero and Oleg Tsarev.

A special thank you to Lisa Adamson, Laura Ager, Caroline Beach, Daksha Chauhan, Alison Cook, Julia Edwards, Elaine Enstone, Janet Jacobs, Bob Sheth, Selina Short and Chris Williamson for their hard work at various stages of this project. Also to Eurotech Ltd for their sterling work in translating the masses of source material from Russian, German and French into English.

There are equally a number of individuals I would like to thank for their help, but cannot name for reasons of protocol. However, they are already aware of my gratitude and have been thanked in person. Last, but certainly not least, my thanks go to my editor Joanna Lincoln and to my publisher Jonathan Reeve for his support, enthusiasm and advice throughout.

I NTRODUCTION TO THE
S ECOND E DITION

W hen the first edition of this book was published in October 2002, it received a great deal of media coverage, not only in Britain but around the world. Since then, the first edition has been reprinted in this country and translated into several foreign editions. When the idea of writing a revised and updated second edition was suggested by my publisher Jonathan Reeve, I saw it as an ideal opportunity to follow up several further lines of enquiry that were still outstanding at the time of submitting the manuscript for the first edition. As a result, a wealth of new evidence has been uncovered that sheds new light on significant episodes in Reillys life.

For example, photo-forensic work by Ken Linge, which was still being undertaken at the time the first edition was being printed, is now concluded and has made a major contribution to establishing Reillys parentage and family lineage. Another mystery concerning his involvement in a crime that forced him to flee from France to England in 1895 is also solved thanks to new research in France by Michel Ameuw. Other new discoveries include German files on Reillys shady commercial dealings in the Ottoman Empire before the First World War, letters he wrote in 1917 which clear up the mystery of his whereabouts in the autumn of that year, and the discovery of a repository of papers belonging to Major J.D. Scale, the intelligence officer who recruited Reilly to the Secret Intelligence Service (better known today as MI6) in 1918.

In Moscow, new finds include the personal testimonies of Reillys mistresses Olga Starzhevskaya and Elizaveta Otten, written during their captivity in Butyrka Prison. These previously unpublished accounts not only provide a glimpse of their personal relationships with Reilly but give a unique insight into the secret life he was living in Russia during the spring and summer of 1918. Perhaps the most astonishing new account, however, is that of Boris Gudz, a former OGPU officer who took part in the 1925 Trust operation that resulted in Reillys arrest and execution. Gudz, who celebrated his 100th birthday shortly before I met him in Moscow in August 2003, was able to provide first-hand recollections that were invaluable in piecing together the last few weeks of Reillys life.