Review: Rogue Agent by James Crossland

Synopsis: The thrilling biography of Robert Bruce Lockhart, Britain's 'Agent' in Moscow

Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart (1887–1970) was an impressive figure: a diplomat, intelligence agent, conspirator, journalist and propagandist who played a key role in both world wars. He was a man who charmed his way into the confidences of everyone from Leon Trotsky to Anthony Eden. A man whom the influential press baron Lord Beaverbook claimed ‘could well have been prime minister’. And yet Lockhart died almost forgotten and near destitute, a Scottish footnote in the pages of history.

Rogue Agent is the first biography of this gifted yet habitually flawed maverick. It chronicles his many exploits, from his time as Britain’s ‘Agent’ in Moscow, and his role in a plot to bring down the communist regime, to leading the Political Warfare Executive, a secret body responsible for disinformation and propaganda in the Second World War.

Exploring Lockhart’s unorthodox thinking and contributions to the development of psychological warfare as well as his hedonistic lifestyle, late nights and many affairs that left him in a state of perpetual debt, Rogue Agent tells the thrilling story of this unconventional war hero.

~ ~ ~

I was familiar with events in Russia both leading up to and following the removal of the Tsar and the installation of the Bolsheviks. However, not as much as I thought I did.

Crossland provides the reader with what seems to be akin to a "boys own adventure" but is - in reality - something far from fiction. Lockhart is an intriguing yet elusive character, a man at odds with himself, a man somewhat ahead of the political game, but one who contributed to his own downfall - a victim of his own story.

Here was a man, aged 31yo, who was given a brief by the British Foreign Office, and had it impressed upon him to undertake and ensure its success "by whatever means" - then he was unleashed into the storm. Left to his own devices, Lockhart cavorted, womanized, drank and plotted to the point that any crucial information forwarded from him was considered suspect. He ignored all the signs that would eventually lead to his own capture and imprisonment, but was lucky in that he left nothing behind to incriminate himself.

Returning to Britain upon his release, and after various jobs for the Foreign Office, he eventually found himself in the political warfare executive (WWII propaganda department).  When the war was over, so too Lockhart's career effectively came to a close. He chose writing as a means to dig his way out of his perpetual cycle of debt, producing a number of works, many of which touched upon his own life experiences.

Crossland has managed to strip back the myth and ambiguity, to reveal a little more of the real man - a man full of human foibles, whose adventures seem larger than life, but one with the sheer audacity to stand face to face with Bolshevik Russia and walk away to tell the tale. Excellent read.