SILVER: The Spy Who Fooled the Nazis

The award-winning journalist and cricket writer turns his journalism to focus on the most remarkable agent of the Second World War. In February 1941, a young Indian walked into the Italian Embassy in Kabul claiming to be a cook. He emerged as a spy, working for the Italians, Germans, Japanese, Soviets and the British, the only quintuple spy of the war. The Nazis awarded him the Iron Cross, Germany's highest military decoration, and paid him £2.5 million, never suspecting that he was actually working for the British and Russians, and controlled by Peter Fleming. The Englishman gave him the codename Silver, and working from the gardens of the Viceregal Palace in Delhi, the pair used the transmitters the Germans had provided to broadcast misleading military information directly to the Abwehr headquarters in Berlin. Silver made 12 trips from India to Kabul, always on foot over mountain passes and hostile tribal territory. A Hindu, he successfully passed himself off as a Muslim and dealt with Nazi intrigues to enlist Muslim Mullahs to revolt against the British. Mihir Bose, who corresponded with Silver and interviewed his associates, has carried out extensive research into previously secret documents from all countries to tell the story of this prince among spies. 'A document concerning the Punjab Police should not have been in that file. It might have got there by mistake, or maybe, because the events concerned the tribal areas. It was an amazing discovery revealing all the secrets which until then Silver had so successfully concealed.' 350pp, 16 pages of photos.