COL. COTTELL, MASTER SPY?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000100890046-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 20, 2010
• Sequence Number: 46
• Publication Date: June 30, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

ARTICLN
ON PAGE
WASHINGTON POST
30 June 1985
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/20: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100890046-5
Cottelb "The more I defend myself the more vicious the opposition becomes."
Col. Cottell, Master Spy;
Even if He Wasn't, His Tales Are Big on the Lecture Circuit
By Mark Hosenball
Special to The Washington Post
As a self-proclaimed British master spy,
his real-life exploits may owe more to Wal-
ter Mitty than James Bond.
But, "Colonel" John Edward Cottell,
MVO, MC, MBE, was a hot attraction on
the chicken-salad circuit, enthralling lecture
audiences with tales of patriotism and valor
drawn from his career as a British agent in
the 1940s and 1950s.
For the past four years, the tall, dapper
Englishman with a carefully trimmed mil-
itary mustache across his stiff upper lip ap-
peared before more than 300 Rotary Club
luncheons, ladies' socials and literary league
soirees in parlors from Richmond to Hous-
ton, garnering rave reviews and fees of
$2,500 a lecture.
Cottell claims to have been an intimate of
former British prime minister Winston
Churchill and such illustrated British spies
as Greville Wynne (who was imprisoned by
the Soviet KGB) and Maurice Oldfield (late
director of MI-6 and alleged model for John
le Carre's Smiley).
Moreover, he says his own exploits have
inspired more than one noted spy novel,
including le Carre's "The Spy Who Came in
From the Cold" (Cottell purports to be the
model for Alec Leamas, the main character)
and the same author's later masterpiece,
"Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy," in which,
Cottell says. he is Jim Prideaux, the British
agent whose capture in Eastern Europe
touches off Smiley's epic mole hunt.
Cottell's stirring story, which ends with a
flourish of anti-communist and pro-Reagan
rhetoric, has received standing ovations
from paying customers across Rotary Club
America. But his performances have at-
tracted less than rave reviews from his for-
&Abi Ad
STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/20: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100890046-5