Conhecimento Comum

Nome padrão: Cookridge, E. H.
Nome de batismo: Spiro, Edward
Data de nascimento: 1908-05-08
Data de falecimento: 1979
Sexo: male
Nacionalidade: Großbritannien
Local de nascimento: Vienna, Austria
Educação: University of Vienna
University of Lausanne
University of London
Ocupação: foreign correspondent
editor
broadcaster
Organizações: British Army (WWII)
Pequena biografia: E. H. Cookridge was born Edward Spiro on 8 May 1908 in Vienna, the son of Paul and Rosa Cookridge Spiro. He was educated at the Universities of Vienna, Lausanne, and London. He worked as a foreign correspondent and editor for various British and American newspapers and later became a broadcaster both on the British Broadcasting Corporation and the American Broadcasting Company. As a correspondent he wrote under a number of pseudonyms including: Peter Leighton, Peter Morland, Ronald Reckitt, and Edward H. Spire. From 1939 to 1945 he served in Intelligence for the British Army. His first book was Secrets of the British Secret Service (1948). He was a prolific author, one of his most popular books being The Third Man: The Truth about Kim Philby (1968). Cookridge died in 1979.

Membros

Resenhas

The Orient Express de E. H. Cookridge

A most enjoyable read! Loaded with the history of the famous train line along with tales of international intrigue, famous personalities, popularizations, snow storms, etc. It reads more like a travel log with adventures around each corner. Recommended for anyone who enjoys trains, travel, history or just looking or a good adventure.

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stevetempo | 1 outra resenha | Sep 8, 2022 |

Gehlen : spy of the century de Edward Henry Cookridge

Lots of detail about post-war intellegence operations in (West) Germany in the 20 years post-World War II. As the title suggests it's about the head of this, who rose alongside Canaris during World War II, and then with the backing of Allen Dulles and the Americans to lead an organisation with an anti-communist focus. Surprised to learn that so many ex-nazis and SS personnel remained part of the intellegence regime.
Quite dry in places; the most interesting parts are in the second half of the book.
The book is now quite old, written before Gehlen died. I imagine that there is now much more information available.… (mais)

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robeik | Mar 13, 2016 |

THE THIRD MAN - THE FULL STORY OF KIM PHILBY de E. H. Cookridge

This book is very dated in some aspects. Anthony Blunt, one of the Magnificent Five as the KGB called the Cambridge Spy Ring, gets a one sentence mention as someone who occasionally hung out in fellowspy Guy Burgess' apartment. There is a far too kind portrayal of Donald Maclean as a conflicted man -- he loved his commendations from the King and hated Britain's captialist society . But, instead of a tragic figure blackmailed by Burgess into spying during the latter years of World War Two, Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin's The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KG shows him voluntarily starting his espionage work in 1934. And, of course, its date of composition means the full life of its main subject, Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby, is not covered. Nor is there much on the specific clues, like the Venona intercepts, that led American intelligence officials to suspect Philby.

The only books on Philby I've read are Anthony Cave Brown's Treason in the Blood; H. St. John Philby, Kim Philby, and the Spy Cast of the Century and Andrew Boyle's The Fourth Man: The First Full Account of the Cause and Origins, the Control and Running, of the Three Most Notorious Traitors in Modern History, so I'm not a Philby scholar, but I did find this book valueable for two reasons: Cookridge's personal acquaintance with Philby and his providing the political context for Philby's spying.

Cookridge first met Philby in Vienna in 1933 when both were in the Social Democratic underground being crushed by the government. Cookridge found Philby kind and courageous, but claims to have eventually come to suspect Philby was in the employ of the communists who wanted to take over the liberal socialist movement.

Cookridge covers some of the background to Philby's life in more detail than the above books: why Turkey was an important posting for him in 1947, what the CIA was trying to accomplish by supporting an Albanian insurgency Philby betrayed, what Philby did between the time he resigned from the foreign service in 1951 and 1955 when he was again put on the SIS payroll, the exact details of his near brush with death in the Spanish Civil War, the interdepartmental struggles of British intelligence, and Philby's last days in Beirut when British Intelligence tried to get him to surrender himself.

This book lacks a feature all works of espionage history should have: an index.… (mais)

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RandyStafford | Dec 20, 2011 |

Orient Express, the life and times of the world's… de E. H Cookridge

A very good book, a straightforward historical account of this most famous train, written in a clear prose and well researched. In structuring his chapter headings author Cookridge encapsulates the ’life and times’ of this fabulous train, leading us through the original concept, a biography of its creator, the “maiden voyage” in 1893 and the glorious adventures, misadventures of both the train and some of the notorious, celebrated passengers to the sad demise and final auctioning-off of its remains in Monte Carlo in 1977.
Whilst the author explores the invented outlines, plots and sub-plots of the famous fictional accounts – James Bond, Agatha Christie and Hollywood – these pale in comparison to the true-life adventures of robbery, banditti, kidnapping, near-starvation and frost-bite in the “ice-age” winter of 1929 and derailments into snow and German station restaurants. Wonderfully illustrated with over 50 period photographs and impressions, this work brings the entire, wonderful story sharply into focus, causing his many of his readers to probably regret the loss of this marvelous service and life-style.

One amusing misstep by Cookridge brought forth a rueful grin – in just the second paragraph of his opening chapter the author expresses his intent to ”to record for a more mundane generation” the glamour and drama of this famous train. Well, after all, in comparison to those travelling generations, perhaps our modern world is a little more mundane and without the original Orient Express around it is certainly less glamorous.… (mais)

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John_Vaughan | 1 outra resenha | Oct 20, 2011 |

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