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Share UPDATED It is altogether fitting that a new biography about Sidney Reilly, one of the most elusive master spies in modern history, should be a slim volume less than 200 pages long. Reilly, a British agent in Russia in the early days of the Bolshevik revolution, was so elusive that, along with his significant failures and a few successes, he probably will remain a mystery man forever. Obscurity may have been his greatest triumph.
Brendan Bracken may have been founding father of History Today, in the launch of which I played a part, albeit a small one, but if history is the science of unravelling and recording the truth about the past, he did his best to ensure that as little as possible of his own life should he recorded. In his lifetime he revealed nothing of his origins and, at his behest, all his personal papers were destroyed on his death.
As a young student in Berlin in 1905 I had seen the Kaiser riding majestically down Unter den Linden at the head of his Guards. He was then a resplendent figure in white and black with his famous moustache pointing its waxed ends perpendicularly to the heavens. Nothing could then have been further from my mind than the thought that 23 years later I should meet him, visit him in exile and maintain with him until the outbreak of the second world war a more or less regular correspondence.
Robin Bruce Lockhart, ‘midwife's assistant’ at the birth of History Today, contributes some personal recollections of the magazine’s mercurial and larger-than-life founder. To continue reading this article you need to purchase a subscription, available from only £5. Start my trial subscription now If you have already purchased access, or are a print & archive subscriber, please ensure you are logged in. Please email digital@historytoday.com if you have any problems.
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
