A retired British counterintelligence agent’s book about how he helped unmask a Soviet mole inside MI5 looks like an instant bestseller.

Well, it was in the United States at least. Spycatcher, published in 1987, was banned from sale in the United Kingdom after legal action by the British government.

The courts even blocked newspapers from covering the memoir, arguing that its author, Peter Wright, had violated the Official Secrets Act.

Magaret Thatcher, then Prime Minister, had been particularly desperate to stop people reading Spycatcher.

“I am completely shocked by the revelations in the book. The consequences of publication would be enormous,” Thatcher wrote in a briefing note, unclassified files would later reveal.

But 36 years ago, the British government lost a major legal battle that allowed Wright’s book to finally be read by millions of Britons.

Spycatcher was, it can be said, controversial.

Wright had served in MI5, the British spy agency, for more than two decades before retiring in 1978 and moving to Australia.

His memoirs accused MI5 officials of all sorts of shenanigans; plotting against other spies, defaming former Prime Minister Harold Wilson and leading communist agents.

All these claims were widely discredited by the government but, at the time, fueled speculation and criticism about the activities of MI5. After all, the government had long denied the existence of the M15, despite the agency’s creation in 1909.

The government did not want the book to be read during the summer holidays. Ministers successfully blocked the publication of Spycatcher in the UK (but technically not Scotland, as the country has a separate legal system) in 1985.

Newspapers were given silence orders – violating them would hold journalists in contempt of court. Libraries were told that storing Spycatcher would also land them in legal hot water.

War powers were used to stop people smuggling the book into the UK. The Trade and Industry Secretary, Lord Young of Graffham, warned the government that: “The use of these powers in the Spycatcher case may well be challenged.

“I was also informed that, even if the book were banned, it would not be practically possible to recover all copies of the book imported from the United States, whether by mail or by individual travelers.”

Indeed, there was no difficulty in getting the book across the pond given the First Amendment right to free speech; Spycatcher had sold 400,000 copies by the end of 1987.

And the government’s woes are not yet over. Authorities took Wright to court in an attempt to prevent his book from being sold in Australia, but it was later invalidated. Downing Street then appealed to Australia’s highest court.

As Spycatcher was sold in Scotland and Scottish newspapers were able to provide “substantial” coverage of the UK’s legal proceedings in Australia, Thatcher’s private secretary, Nigel Wicks, became concerned about the appearance of this situation in the eyes of outsiders.

“So there is a lot of talk in the press about one law for the English, another for the Scots, etc.,” Wicks said in a published document.

The Speaker of the House of Commons, Bernard Weatherill, came under pressure from Solicitor General Sir Nicholas Lyell to ban MPs from discussing the contents of the Spycatcher.

“The speaker expressed concern about the “credibility” of his position given that “virtually everyone he met” had already read the book,” Sir Nicholas said.

“I responded that most people in the country had not read the book and that all newspapers, bookstores and libraries risked being sued for contempt if they published extracts from, quoted from, sold or stored the book .”

Ultimately, however, in 1987 the government lost its desperate fight to prevent the Spycatcher from being sold in Australia.

On 13 October 1988, the Law Lords, who exercised the judicial functions of the House of Lords, first apparently handed the government a victory when they ruled on the question of whether or not ministers could ban the press to report on Spycatcher.

The judges ruled that Wright’s text constituted a serious breach of confidentiality, given that he wrote about the comings and goings of the country’s secret services.

They condemned the author as a traitor, but ruled that the government had violated freedom of expression due to the gag orders against the Observer and the Guardian.

They said the press could publish extracts from Spycatcher – the damage to MI5’s reputation had already been done as Spycatcher was available for free abroad.

“Our democratic system has finally come to the obvious conclusion that these are genuine matters of public importance about which the public must be informed,” Donald Trelford, editor of The Observer, said in court.

A secret memo was slipped to Tory MPs just a month after the decision, saying the Security Service Act, which for the first time saw the government’s MI15 exist, had been introduced to “build public confidence and support » in the secret intelligence agency.

Part of the ruling, however, prohibited Wright from collecting royalties from sales of the book in the United Kingdom.

However, the writer died a millionaire at the age of 78 on April 26, 1995, thanks to the international sales of Spycatcher.

“No British intelligence officer other than Kim Philby has caused more chaos within British intelligence and more problems for British politicians,” wrote an obituary in The Independent newspaper, “than Peter Wright.”

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