A Spy Named Orphan: The Enigma of Donald Maclean

by Roland Philipps Narrated by Jonathan Cowley

Overview

Donald Maclean was one of the most treacherous spies of the Cold War era, a member of the infamous "Cambridge Five" spy ring. Yet little is known of this shrewd, secretive man. The full extent of his betrayal has never been documented-until now. Drawing on the recent release of previously classified files, A Spy Named Orphan meticulously documents the extraordinary story of a man leading a chilling double life until his exposure and defection to the USSR. Roland Philipps describes someone prone to alcoholic rages, who rose through the ranks of the British Foreign Office while secretly transmitting through his Soviet handlers reams of diplomatic and military secrets detailing intelligence on the making of the atom bomb and the division of power in postwar Europe. His story has inspired an entire genre of spy movies and novels, but no one so far has written the definitive story of the man code-named "Orphan."

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

02/26/2018
In this often exciting narrative, Philipps uses a trove of recently declassified files to trace the arc of Russian spy Donald Maclean’s life. While studying at Cambridge, Maclean became a supporter of communism and fatefully met Kim Philby, a fellow member of the Cambridge Five spy ring. Philby went on to become a high-ranking British intelligence officer, and he recruited Maclean as a Soviet agent before Maclean landed a job with the Foreign Office in 1935. The valuable information Maclean was to share included the truth about America’s nuclear capacity in 1948, as tensions flared over the division of Berlin, and secrets relating to America’s development of uranium for use in nuclear weapons. Maclean and his co-conspirators were eventually discovered, leading to his flight to Russia in 1951, where he lived until his death in 1983. Maclean’s motivations for betraying his country remain murky, despite Philipps’s speculation that its seeds lay in the oppressive private school he attended—Gresham’s School, in an isolated pocket of eastern England. Philipps believes that the required loyalty oaths to the school’s masters encouraged betrayals of one’s classmates and contributed to making Gresham’s “the perfect psychological training-ground for a nascent spy.” Even though Maclean remains a mysterious figure, this is likely to be considered the definitive biography. (May)

Brad Thor

"From his riveting recreation of the Cold War atmosphere to his in-depth exploration of such a brilliant, troubled and duplicitous character, Roland Philipps has created a masterpiece. The rich renderings of secret assignations, smuggled documents, damning intelligence and brilliant code-breaking will delight lovers of fiction and non-fiction alike. Picture Erik Larson meets John le Carré and you have only begun to scratch the surface of this absolutely gripping book."

The Guardian - Rachel Cooke

"Brilliantly fluent....This biography first grips and then lingers long in the mind. It is a page-turner of the most empathetic kind."

Washington Post

"Scrupulous....gripping, enlightening."

Dominic Sandbrook

"Excellent….What fascinates Philipps is not what Maclean did but why he did it….Philipps’ real achievement is to show the toll this took on Maclean’s conflicted psyche."

The Guardian - Richard Davenport-Hines

"Philipps sets a great example by being punchy and hard-nosed in his handling of facts, but pliant, imaginative and humane in his understanding of motives and emotions."

New Statesman - William Boyd

"Roland Philipps relates the complex narrative of Maclean's treason—and those of his colleagues—with tremendous aplomb, limpidity and acuity....Philipps is very astute on the nuances of psychological interpretation."

Joseph Kanon

"Donald Maclean was arguably the most valuable, and certainly the most troubled, of the Cambridge spies. Roland Philipps knows the world that formed him and has given us the fullest account we've yet had not only of his treason but of the conflicted man who committed it."

Sebastian Faulks

"With A Spy Named Orphan, the last piece of this bizarre jigsaw falls into place. The outline story is familiar, but the amount of new detail here—on Maclean's personal, professional, and secret lives—exceeds all expectations. Roland Philipps has managed to make the new material come alive by relating it intimately to its historical context, of which he has a deep and sympathetic understanding."

Philippe Sands

"Fascinating and page-turning. An exceptional story of espionage and betrayal, thrillingly told. I devoured it."

Daily Express

"The definitive account of the life of a 'gifted’ traitor....By drawing on a wealth of previously classified material, Philipps weaves a gripping tale of misplaced loyalty, intrigue and betrayal that is unlikely to be bettered."

JULY 2018 - AudioFile

The story of the Cambridge spies of the 1940s and ‘50s is already well represented in audiobooks—in several incisive histories and biographies, and in two classic espionage novels, John le Carré’s TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY, available narrated and dramatized, and John Banville’s THE UNTOUCHABLE, wonderfully narrated by Bill Wallis. This new biography of Donald Maclean, the least colorful and, until now, less interesting spy in the group, brings new clarity, detail, and perspective to the larger story, qualities enhanced by Jonathan Cowley’s effective narration. Cowley’s voice embodies any number of familiar British qualities—steadiness, decorum, prudence, restraint, loyalty to one’s own—the same qualities these privileged young men betrayed as they turned their faces east. D.A.W. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2018-03-05
A tale of the tangled web spun by a Briton who spied for the Soviet Union and ended his days in Moscow exile.Less cynical, and perhaps less effective, than his contemporaries Kim Philby and Guy Burgess, fellow members of the spy ring that came to be called the Cambridge Five, Donald Maclean (1913-1983) was a true believer in the communist cause. After defecting to the Soviet Union, he wrote to his mother that he had "done nothing of which I am ashamed and of which you need be ashamed for me." The British government felt differently, of course. Philipps, whose grandfather worked alongside Maclean in the Foreign Office, turns in a careful though fairly bland study of Maclean and his motivations, which, though apparently pure, were given a desperate edge by a long dependence on alcohol. As the author writes, if the Cambridge University of the 1920s was a broadly conservative place, by the 1930s, in the words of the poet Julian Bell, "a very large majority of the more intelligent undergraduates are Communists, or almost Communists." That was certainly true of Maclean, who otherwise had few of the psychological markers that Soviet spy recruiters sought—e.g., low self-esteem and distance among family members. Maclean was a solid performer as a spy, heeding instructions not to socialize with his fellow spooks inasmuch as it was "against Soviet tradecraft to allow social contacts between agents," even as Philby and Burgess broke that rule by living together. Maclean performed his government job well, too, leading to a posting in Washington, D.C., where he enjoyed "unparalleled access…[in] the hub of the Western allies in the rapidly burgeoning Cold War." Even so, writes Philipps, the Soviets were careful to shield him from the likes of Alger Hiss, the Venona project, and other spy operations.A solid if sometimes plodding account, of much interest to students of espionage and counterintelligence.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170186495
Publisher:	HighBridge Company
Publication date:	06/12/2018
Edition description:	Unabridged

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