Ainsworth, John. "Sidney Reilly’s Reports from South Russia, December 1918-March 1919." Europe-Asia Studies 50, no. 8 (1998): 1447-1470.
1. Sidney Reilly
2. Robert Bruce Lockhart
Ainsworth, John. "Sidney Reilly’s Reports from South Russia, December 1918-March 1919." Europe-Asia Studies 50, no. 8 (1998): 1447-1470.
Cook, Andrew. On His Majesty's Secret Service: Sidney Reilly ST1. Stroud, UK, and Charleston, SC: Tempus, 2002.
From advertisement (http://www.sidneyreilly.com): "The definitive biography of one of the most complex and remarkable characters in the 20th century history of espionage and the creator of a personal myth which still exerts a powerful grip on the imagination of today.... This book fills a huge gap in the literature on Reilly, providing a significant amount of new primary evidence which focuses on his personal life as the key to cutting through the mystery and misinformation which still surrounds him."
Peake, Studies 46.4, says that "Cook's account is both scholarly and fascinating reading. It qualifies as the definitive version of the life of this famous agent who was executed by the Soviets and buried in the courtyard of Lubyanka prison."
For Swain, I&NS 18.3, "[t]his is almost the definitive account" of Reilly's career, "almost, but not quite. It tells the reader everything that Britain's master spy was not, but not everything that he was."
Troy, IJI&C 17.3, notes that the author has "striven to correct Reilly's record," by researching and documenting "much primary material." The book "reads persuasively and smoothly." Nonetheless, it does not answer the question of whether Reilly's life (or death) really mattered.
Kettle,
Michael. Sidney Reilly: The True Story. London: Corgi, 1983. New York: St. Martin's, 1983.
Rocca and Dziak believe that it is "impossible to square" this version of Reilly's origins with "the version popularized by Robin Bruce Lockhart." Reilly's story remains a "tangle of fact, hearsay, fancy and disinformation."
Lockhart,
Robin Bruce.
1. Ace of Spies. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1967. New York: Stein & Day, 1968. Reilly: Ace of Spies. London: Quartet Books, 1992.
Surveillant 2.6 calls Ace of Spies a "highly embellished account." According to Constantinides, the biography "adds very little to what was already known.... It is a popular account that lacks documentation.... [H]e included stories about Reilly that can only be described as tall."
2. Reilly: The First Man. New York: Penguin Paperbacks, 1987.
Torrey, IJI&C 1.4: "Ace of Spies ... became the benchmark work on Reilly's life ... [but] Robin Lockhart was misled by some of his original sources.... [W]hen he wrote Ace of Spies he lacked vital information.... The portrait of Reilly that emerged ... was incomplete.... [The] latest book ... presents strong evidence that Reilly ... defected to the Soviets."
Reilly,
Pepita. The Adventures of Sidney Reilly, Britain's Master Spy. London: Mathews & Marrot, 1931. Britain's Master Spy: The Adventures of Sidney Reilly. New York: Harper, 1933.
Constantinides notes that two thirds of the book is mainly concerned with Pepita Reilly's efforts to discover what had happened to her husband. The first third "is presented as Sidney's narrative of his role in the so-called Lockhart Conspiracy," the effort to overthrow the Bolsheviks soon after they took power.
Spence,
Richard B. "Sidney Reilly in America, 1914-1917." Intelligence
and National Security 10, no. 1 (Jan. 1995): 92-121.
This is a highly speculative -- as much about Reilly remains -- article that links Reilly with a mixed bag of skullduggery, including the explosions at Black Tom Island, NJ, and Kingsland, NJ. The author suggests that these acts of sabotage may have even been encouraged by more official British agents, to help push the United States into the war. I am sure Spence enjoyed putting this piece together, and it certainly seems to add to the already considerable reputation of Reilly. Nevertheless, it is so highly circumstantial that it must be read with extreme caution.
Spence, Richard B.
"Sidney Reilly's Lubianka 'Diary' 30 October
to 4 November 1925." Revolutionary Russia 8, no. 2 (1995): 179-194. [Calder]
Spence, Richard B. "The Terrorist and the Master Spy: The Political Partnership of Boris Savinkov and Sidney Reilly, 1918-1925." Revolutionary Russia 4, no. 1 (Jun. 1991): 111-131.
Spence, Richard B. Trust No One: The Secret World of Sidney Reilly. Los Angeles, CA: Feral House, 2003.
Mandelbaum, AFIO WIN 14-03, 9 Apr. 2003, refers to the author's "exhaustive research" which provides "a density of detail that one seldom encounters in an espionage biography." However, readers "seeking more drama and less detail may find" this work "a rather slow-going read."
For Troy, IJI&C 17.3, this is a "comprehensive and perhaps overly detailed biography." Although "rich in many ways," it "is not easy to get through" and "contains many factual errors."
Peake, Studies 47.3, finds "several instances where Prof. Spence adds details to the Reilly history not mentioned by others.... But overall, the 500 pages of this book do more to show how little is reliably known about Reilly than how much.... [D]espite an impressive display of names, dates, and events involving Reilly, the outcome is such a bewildering mix of lies and half truths that even Prof. Spence is forced to conclude with an admission that Reilly’s 'entrance and exit from this world are equally shrouded in mystery.' The same can be said of the time in between."
van
der Rhoer, Edward. Master Spy: A True Story of Allied Espionage in Bolshevik Russia. New York: Scribner's, 1981.
According to Rocca and Dziak, this work recounts "Sidney Reilly's ... extraordinary performance and his ultimate sacrifice ... together with the questionable theory that he was actually a Soviet double agent." Foglesong, I&NS 6.1/180/fn. 2, calls van der Rhoer's account "fanciful" and "novelistic."
Trapped in a provocation operation by the Cheka in 1918, Lockhart was soon exchanged for Maxim Litvinov, who had been arrested by the British.
Brook-Shepard,
Gordon. Iron Maze: The Western Secret Services and the Bolsheviks.
London: Macmillan; 1998.
A retelling, with new material, of the Lockhart plot and associated events.
Debo,
Richard K. "Lockhart Plot or Dzerzhinski Plot." Journal of
Modern History 43, no. 3 (1971): 413-439.
Lockhart,
Robert Bruce. Memoirs of a British Agent. 2d ed. London: 1934. British Agent. New York: Putnam's, 1933. 2d ed. Garden City, NY: Garden City Publishing, 1936.
Long,
John W. "Plot and Counter-plot in Revolutionary Russia: Chronicling
the Bruce Lockhart Conspiracy, 1918." Intelligence and National
Security 10, no. 1 (Jan. 1995): 122-143.
The author's conclusion: "Thus, with the evidence now at hand, the famous 'Lockhart Plot' can at last be seen for what it was: on the one hand, a real, if pitiful, anti-Soviet conspiracy concocted (or perhaps deliberately provoked) by the megalomaniacal Sidney Reilly in likely collusion with the eager but inexperienced Bruce Lockhart, and, on the other, a superb example of police provocation brilliantly conceived and expertly executed by the crafty agents of the Cheka."
Siegel, Jennifer. "British Intelligence on the Russian Revolution and Civil War--A Breach at the Source." Intelligence and National Security 10, no. 3 (Jul. 1995): 468-485.
Siegel reviews the disputes between and around Robert Bruce Lockhart, Britain's representative in Russia after January 1918, and General Alfred Knox, the former British military attaché in Petrograd. After Lockhart's expulsion in October 1918, the British became even "more dependent upon less reliable sources." In the final analysis, however, "[e]vents and conditions in Russia were not the determining factors in the formation of British policy; on the contrary, it was domestic political and economic concerns which dominated the thoughts of policy-makers as they grappled with questions of intervention." Thus, the failures of British intelligence to provide an accurate picture of Civil War Russia may not have mattered.
Swain, Geoffrey. "'An
Interesting and Plausible Proposal': Bruce Lockhart, Sidney Reilly and the
Latvian Riflemen, Russia 1918." Intelligence and National Security
14, no. 3 (Autumn 1999): 81-102.
Swain finds that, within the context of the time, "the British approach to the Latvians in August 1918 made perfect sense.... [A]nd, if Reilly had concentrated on his initial brief,... things might still have turned out differently."
Young,
Kenneth, ed. The Diaries of Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart. London: Macmillan,
1973. [Chambers]
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