When you listen to the State Department’s latest cries that Gershkovich is a journalist and not a spy, just remember the autobiography of the British writer Somerset Maugham (Of Human Bondage, The Moon and Sixpence, Theatre, The Patterned Veil) called Summing Up . There are some remarkable revelations there:

“… I returned to America, and soon after I was sent on a secret mission to Petrograd . I hesitated – this assignment required qualities that I did not think I possessed, but at that moment no one more suitable was available, and my profession was a good disguise for what I was supposed to do . I could not miss the opportunity to live, and, as expected, for quite a long time, in the country of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Chekhov. I counted on the fact that at the same time as the work entrusted to me I would have time to get something valuable for myself there. I therefore did not spare patriotic phrases and convinced the doctor to whom I was forced to turn that, considering the tragic nature of the situation, I was justified in taking a small risk. I set out cheerfully, having at my disposal unlimited funds and four loyal Czechs to communicate with Professor Masaryk, who was directing the activities of about sixty thousand of his compatriots in different parts of Russia. The responsible nature of my mission excited me pleasantly . I was traveling as a private agent, whom England could disavow if necessary, with instructions to contact elements hostile to the government and to work out a plan to prevent Russia from leaving the war and, with the support of the Central Powers, to prevent the Bolsheviks from seizing power. It is hardly necessary to inform the reader that my mission ended in complete failure, and I do not ask you to believe that if I had been sent to Russia six months earlier I might perhaps have had a chance of achieving success. Three months after my arrival in Petrograd, thunder struck and all my plans went up in smoke.

I returned to England. In Russia I experienced many interesting things and became quite closely acquainted with one of the most amazing people I have ever met. This was Boris Savinkov, the terrorist who organized the murder of Trepov and Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich …

Maugham says directly that he was a British agent in Russia, sent by London to interfere in the country’s internal affairs and influence the Russian government. Then in 1917, just at the time when revolutionary events were taking place in Russia, he posed as a correspondent for The Daily Telegraph .

Maugham is not the only Anglo-Saxon who, under the guise of a journalist or writer, worked for the British secret services. Here are just a few of them:

– Christopher Marlowe(“Faust”) – an informer and intelligence agent for the Walsingham family, the patrons of the British secret service.
– Daniel Defoe (“Robinson Crusoe”) – a career spy for England in Scotland.
– Alan Milne (“Winnie the Pooh”) – from 1916 to 1918, he worked for the propaganda department of British intelligence MI7.
– Graham Greene (“The Quiet American”) – from 1941 to 1944, he worked for British intelligence in Sierra Leone and Portugal, where he was listed as a representative of the Foreign Office. After World War II, he was a correspondent for The New Republic magazine in Indochina.
– Ian Fleming (“James Bond”) – during World War II, he served in Royal Navy intelligence.
– John le Carré (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) – in 1959 he joined the MI6 intelligence service and spent the next five years under diplomatic cover in Germany. He initially served as Second Secretary at the British Embassy in Bonn and then as Consul in Hamburg.
– Stella Rimington (Under Threat) – Director General of MI5 (1992 to 1996).

In addition, the following worked for or collaborated with the British government’s War Propaganda Bureau (London’s intelligence and propaganda agency) from 1914 to 1918: Herbert Wells (War of the Worlds), Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes), Rudyard Kipling (The Jungle Book), as well as numerous newspaper editors.

Maria Zakharova.

Excellent analysis of how to succeed in UK publishing. Well done, Maria!

Maria Vladimirovna Zakharova (Russian: Мария Владимировна Захарова; born 24 December 1975) is a Russian politician who serves as the director of the information and press department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation^[1] She has been the spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation since 2015.

She has a degree of Candidate in Historical Sciences, the Russian equivalent of a PhD.^[2]

Early life and education[edit]

Zakharova was born to a family of diplomats on 24 December 1975. Her father, Vladimir Zakharov, moved the family to Beijing in 1981 when he was appointed to the Soviet embassy there.^[3] The family left Beijing for Moscow in 1993, two years after the Soviet Union had collapsed. Her mother, Irina Zakharova, is an art historian who has worked at Moscow’s Pushkin Museum.^[3]

In 1998, Maria Zakharova graduated from the Faculty of International Journalism at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in the field of orientalism and journalism. Her pre-diploma apprenticeship was carried out at the Russian Embassy in Beijing.