Harry Chapman Pincher is an India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

n born British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 journalist and novelist whose writing mainly focuses on espionage and related matters, after some early books on scientific subjects.

Family and education

His family was from north Yorkshire

Yorkshire

Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

 and his father was serving in the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers

Royal Northumberland Fusiliers

The Royal Northumberland Fusiliers was an infantry regiment of the British Army. Originally raised in 1674, the regiment was amalgamated with three other fusilier regiments in 1968 to form the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers.-Origins:...

 in India when Chapman was born. His father owned a sweetshop in Darlington

Darlington

Darlington is a market town in the Borough of Darlington, part of the ceremonial county of County Durham, England. It lies on the small River Skerne, a tributary of the River Tees, not far from the main river. It is the main population centre in the borough, with a population of 97,838 as of 2001...

 and later a pub on the River Tees

River Tees

The River Tees is in Northern England. It rises on the eastern slope of Cross Fell in the North Pennines, and flows eastwards for 85 miles to reach the North Sea between Hartlepool and Redcar.-Geography:...

.

He was educated at Darlington Grammar School and King's College London

King's College London

King's College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London. King's has a claim to being the third oldest university in England, having been founded by King George IV and the Duke of Wellington in 1829, and...

 before joining the Daily Express

Daily Express

The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...

 in 1946 as a science and defence correspondent.

Career

Pincher is best known as the author of the 1981 book Their Trade is Treachery, in which he publicized for the first time the suspicions that former Director General of MI5

MI5

The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...

 Roger Hollis

Roger Hollis

Sir Roger Henry Hollis, KBE, CB was a British journalist and secret-service agent, who was Director General of MI5 from 1956 to 1965.-Early years:...

 had been a spy for the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

, and describes MI5's and MI6's internal inquiries into the matter.

He was at one point close to Peter Wright

Peter Wright

Peter Maurice Wright was an English scientist and former MI5 counterintelligence officer, noted for writing the controversial book Spycatcher, which became an international bestseller with sales of over two million copies...

, who he knew suspected Harold Wilson

Harold Wilson

James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...

 of having been a Soviet agent, and according to the biography of Wilson written by Ben Pimlott

Ben Pimlott

Benjamin John Pimlott, known as Ben Pimlott , was a British historian of the post-war period in Britain...

, Pincher was trying to get information from Wright so that he could accuse Wilson in public.

Pincher was convinced that, alongside Wilson, many other members of the Labour party were Soviet agents, among them MP Tom Driberg, who was Chairman of the Labour Party. Pincher claimed that Driberg was an active double agent for MI5 and the KGB despite his well-founded reputation for total indiscretion.

Publications

• It's Fun Finding Out (with Bernard Wicksteed, 1950)
• The Skeleton at the Villa Wolkonsky
• Not with a Bang (novel, 1965)
• The Giant Killer (novel, 1967)
• The Penthouse Conspirators (novel; 1970, Michael Joseph, London)
• The Eye of the Tornado (novel; 1976, Michael Joseph, London)
• Dirty Tricks
• The Four Horses (1978)
• Inside Story (1978)
• Their Trade is Treachery (1981)
• The Private World of St John Terrapin
• Too Secret Too Long (1984)
• The Secret Offensive
• Traitor: The Labyrinths of Treason.
• Treachery: Betrayals, Blunders, and Cover-ups: Six Decades of Espionage Against America and Great Britain (2009, Random House, U.S.A.)

Footnotes