Overview

Baghdad's Spy is the story of Britain's Secret Intelligence Services (SIS) - often referred to as MI6 - as told from the unique perspective of a senior SIS spy's daughter. Souza breaks the last taboo of British esponiage - namely, the impact that Crown Service can have on a spy's family - and describes the thrill and spills of espionage as a way of life.Beginning with the murder of the 'Boy King' of Iraq in 1958, the year her father was recruited, and following through to her personal experience of an SIS fiasco prior to the Gulf War after her father's death, Souza depicts how the SIS attempted to silence her father for a number of years. Recalling the extravagant arrangements the Crown made for her father upon returning to London from Iraq, Souza tells in chilling detail how things turned sour as he struggled to balance loyalty to the Crown with the increasingly amoral demands of what had become a renegade service. The murky world of lobbying in Thatcher's Britain is re-visited as Souza explains how she became a lobbyist and was expected to inherit her father's career by spying on Labour MPs (an inheritance she rejected). We learn of the Labour MP who came to her aid, the former

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9781840187038

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Corinne Souza grew up knowing her father was a secret agent but realizing that certain words must never be mentioned. As a child, the knowledge didn't shake or stir her. Those shattering reactions came much later. In girlhood she realized only that her family's life was unorthodox to say the least, with furtive comings and goings at night and picnics with people whose names must never be spoken. At first it seemed exciting, even romantic, but as she grew older Corinne saw the destructive side of the spy life. Normal relationships with her parents became impossible, the constant secrecy breeding inhibitions as constrictive as a strait-jacket. But despite this, Corinne was immensely proud of her father, Lawrence - and now she is equally furious at what happened to him when MI6 decided he was no longer 'one of us'. The murky world of MI6 (which Corinne describes by its own preferred title, SIS) is not so much revealed as blown apart. Corruption, callousness, cowardice and treachery are all exposed by a woman who believes that SIS chiefs systematically destroyed her father's reputation. When Corinne herself received an invitation to join SIS as a spy her response was blunt. While the story tells of the activities of Lawrence de Souza as Britain's top spy in the Middle East, and particularly in Iraq, it takes on an extra dimension in showing what influence Lawrence's secret life had on his family and especially on an impressionable child. Corinne became unwittingly involved in her father's work by being used as a messenger to deliver clandestine letters. Strangely, she does not appear to be outraged at this. She becomes incandescent, however, at the 'vicious spite machine' that turned on her father when he dared to point out shortcomings within SIS. Not only did it break the heart of an honourable man but also undermined his family. Corinne became a lobbyist and it was then that she saw for the first time that what her father had claimed about the corruption within SIS was, if anything, an understatement. Whether her father ever was the saintly figure she portrays is open to question, but much more important are the questions posed about the SIS upper echelons. (Kirkus UK)

Author Information

Corrine Souza is an acknowledged expert on Britain's commercial lobbying industry. She regularly contributes to the espionage journal LOBESTER and is the author of SO YOU WANT TO BE A LOBBYIST? and the DIRECTORY OF POLITICAL LOBBYING, 1999-2000.

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