Bookbuyer's
Bookend
Life must be a trifle trying for certain sections of the Diplomatic Corps. At a time when Britain and the Soviet Union are supposedly seeking a detente, the Foreign Office has had to watch the mighty firm of Collins assemble its marketing machine to launch Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago in June (four months after the Germans published their edition, but then we did have a crisis); it has seen the Sunday Times's 'world exclusive' in which Mr Solzhenitsyn took Russian policies to task; and it has heard Mr Heath join other culture-vulture premiers in offering Mr Solzhenitsyn sanctuary (a precedent for other talented foreign writers perhaps?)..
The Foreign Office has viewed through unamused eyes the BBC's much publicised documentary on the KGB (tactfully timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of AngloSoviet relations) knowing that the Russians will assume that Sir Alec was behind it all. It has mad Aims of Industry's recent pamphlet Mr Shelepin Smiles which reiterates the Reds-in-British-Industry theme arid condemns the TUC's flirtation with the former KGB chief. And it will shortly be forced to grin and bear the publicatiowin Britain (probably by Hodder, turned down by Deutsch and Macmillan) of a book called KGB — a remarkably industrious piece of investigative work by David Ban-on on the capers of Soviet secret agents.
There have been books about the KGB before, and there will no doubt be better ones in the future, but Barron's research, backed by the world-wide resources of Reader's Digest who have just published KGB in the States, has unearthed a considerable amount of new material; this includes an extraordinary list of 2,500 personnel either actively or previbusly working in the West for the KGB and its military counterpart the GRU. Whilst the detailed information may not be news to the larger Western intelligence networks, it should make fascinating reading for a host of smaller countries who may find that they have more Reds in the embassy bed than they bargained for. As for the Russian authorities, they cannot be overpleased. Perhaps they will try to get their own back. Perhaps they will circulate embarrassing lists of Western agents.
Following the news in last week's column that Mr Christopher Shaw has his eye on dear Barrie and Jenkins, Bookbuyer is able to wel. come another whizz-kid of the 'sixties back to the English fold. He is Mr Richard Holme, former chairman of British Printing Corporation's Publishing Division, which declared losses of E4 million in 1970 and El million in 1971. Mr Holme left BPC in 1971 and went to America. He has now come back. He will work for Mitchell Beazley, a company which was only just starting when Holme was in his hey-day.
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