At the dawn of the Cold War, the worldâs most important intelligence agenciesâthe Soviet KGB, the American CIA, and the British MI6âappeared to have clear-cut roles and a sense of rising importance in their respective countries. But when Kim Philby, head of MI6âs Russian division and arguably the twenty-first centuryâs greatest spy, was revealed to be a Russian mole along with British government heavyweights Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess, everything in the Western intelligence world turned upside down.
Here is the true story of how the American James Bondâthe colorful, foulmouthed, pistol-packing, alcoholic ex-FBI agent William âKingâ Harveyâput the finger on Philby; how James Jesus Angleton, the chain-smoking poet of Yale University and the CIAâs supposed âmaster spyâ in charge of counterintelligence, began his descent into a paranoid wilderness of mirrors upon learning of family friend Kim Philbyâs ultimate betrayal; and the devastating consequences of the loss of MI6 prestige and the CIAâs subsequent self-defeating witch hunts.
Every revelation, every stranger-than-fiction twist and turn is all the more intriguing as truths become lies and unlikely scenarios are revealed as reality. With impeccable sourcing and the use of thousands of pages of declassified research, David C. Martinâs Wilderness of Mirrors is widely recognized as a masterpiece of intelligence literature.