George Donald King McCormick (December 11, 1911 – January 2, 1998) was a 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

Journalism

Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...

 and popular historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

, who also wrote under the pseudonyms Richard Deacon and Lichade Digen.

After working for Naval Intelligence during the Second World War, McCormick was a journalist for the foreign desk of the Sunday Times, at one point working with Ian Fleming

Ian Fleming

Ian Lancaster Fleming was a British author, journalist and Naval Intelligence Officer.Fleming is best known for creating the fictional British spy James Bond and for a series of twelve novels and nine short stories about the character, one of the biggest-selling series of fictional books of...

. In his prolific output as a historian, McCormick was attracted to controversial topics on which verifiable evidence was scarce. He wrote on the Hellfire Club

Hellfire Club

The Hellfire Club was a name for several exclusive clubs for high society rakes established in Britain and Ireland in the 18th century, and was more formally or cautiously known as the "Order of the Friars of St. Francis of Wycombe"...

, Jack the Ripper

Jack the Ripper

"Jack the Ripper" is the best-known name given to an unidentified serial killer who was active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The name originated in a letter, written by someone claiming to be the murderer, that was disseminated in the...

, the Cambridge Apostles

Cambridge Apostles

The Cambridge Apostles, also known as the Cambridge Conversazione Society, is an intellectual secret society at the University of Cambridge founded in 1820 by George Tomlinson, a Cambridge student who went on to become the first Bishop of Gibraltar....

 and rather extensively about spies. He wrote histories of the Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n, Chinese

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

, Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese, British

Great Britain

Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...

, and Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

i secret services, and biographies of Sir Maurice Oldfield

Maurice Oldfield

Sir Maurice Oldfield GCMG, CBE , was a British intelligence officer and espionage administrator.-Early life:...

 and Ian Fleming

Ian Fleming

Ian Lancaster Fleming was a British author, journalist and Naval Intelligence Officer.Fleming is best known for creating the fictional British spy James Bond and for a series of twelve novels and nine short stories about the character, one of the biggest-selling series of fictional books of...

.

Controversial claims

McCormick's reliance on an informal network of oral informants, and his eye for a good story, means that it is often difficult to judge the reliability of his more controversial claims. In 1979 he claimed that Rudolf Peierls

Rudolf Peierls

Sir Rudolf Ernst Peierls, CBE was a German-born British physicist. Rudolf Peierls had a major role in Britain's nuclear program, but he also had a role in many modern sciences...

 had been under investigation as a Soviet agent, and was forced to make an out-of-court settlement when Peierls sued him. (The equally controversial Rupert Allason

Rupert Allason

Rupert William Simon Allason is a military historian and former Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom. He was the Member of Parliament for Torbay in Devon, from 1987 to 1997...

, who once worked for McCormick, has continued to press this particular claim after Peierls's death.) McCormick also claimed that the early-twentieth-century economist Arthur Pigou had been a Russian agent, and to be in possession of Pigou's journal: no such journal has surfaced since McCormick's death.

Works

• Temple of Love. New York: Citadel Press. 1965.
• John Dee: Scientist, Geographer, Astrologer and Secret Agent to Elizabeth I. London: Muller, 1968.
• A History of the British Secret Service. London: Muller, 1969. New York: Taplinger, 1970. Reprinted in paperback, London: Grafton, 1991.
• A History of the Russian Secret Service. New York: Taplinger, 1972. London: Muller, 1972.
• The Chinese Secret Service. New York: Taplinger, 1974. [pb] Revised and updated. London: Grafton Books, 1989.
• The Hell-Fire Club : the story of the amorous Knights of Wycombe. London: Sphere,1975.
• Matthew Hopkins: Witchfinder General. London: F. Mueller, 1976.
• The Israeli Secret Service. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1977.
• The Silent War: A History of Western Naval Intelligence. Newton Abbot, UK: David & Charles, 1978. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1978.
• The British Connection: Russia's Manipulation of British Individuals and Institutions, London: Hamish Hamilton. 1979. Later withdrawn.
• Escape! London: BBC, 1980.
• Love In Code, or, How to Keep Your Secrets. London: Eyre Methuen, 1980.
• Kempai Tai: A History of the Japanese Secret Service. London: Muller, 1982. New York: Beaufort Books, 1983. Revised and updated edition, Tokyo: Charles Tuttle Books, 1990.
• With My Little Eye: The Memoirs of a Spy-Hunter. London: Frederick Muller, 1982.
• "C": A Biography of Sir Maurice Oldfield. London: MacDonald, 1985.
• The Cambridge Apostles: A History of Cambridge University's Elite Intellectual Secret Society. New York: Farrar, Straus, 1986.
• Spyclopedia: The Comprehensive Handbook of Espionage. New York: Morrow, 1987.
• The Truth Twisters. London: Macdonald, 1987.
• The Greatest Treason: The Bizarre Story of Hollis, Liddell and Mountbatten. London: Century, 1990. (A 1989 printing had resulted in a libel suit and was withdrawn; this edition had the offending material withdrawn.)
• Super Spy: The Man Who Infiltrated the Kremlin and the Gestapo. UK: Futura, 1990.
• The French Secret Service. London: Grafton, 1990.
• The Life of Ian Fleming. Dufour Editions, 1994.

External links