Abstract
The question at the heart of this volume is the reliability, indeed, the fundamental honesty, of Donald McCormick, best known under his nom de plume, Richard Deacon. As the chapters generally attest, ‘Deacon’ McCormick could be an unreliable, even misleading, source. This, of course, raises the ticklish question — why? Was it just carelessness, a cavalier disregard for proper citation, or maybe a reflexive journalistic penchant for sensationalism and exaggeration? Then again, was he a deliberate, puckish hoaxer: ‘a very clever man who enjoys his quiet fun’? (Harris 1997). Or, in ‘Deacon’ McCormick do we have something more sinister: a malicious pathological liar who did not shy from outright character assassination? Was he a conscious or unconscious tool of disinformation and propaganda? Was he, maybe, a little bit of each?
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Works by ‘Deacon’ McCormick
1979. The British Connection: Russia’s Manipulation of British Individuals and Institutions. London: Hamish Hamilton.
1969. A History of the British Secret Service. London: Frederick Muller.
1983. Kempei Tai: A History of the Japanese Secret Service. London: Beaufort Books.
1989. Super-Spy: The Man Who Infiltrated the Kremlin and the Gestapo. London: Macdonald & Co.
1986. Truth Twisters: How Disinformation Ruins Lives. London: Futura.
1982. With My Little Eye: The Memoirs of a Spy-hunter. London: Frederick Muller, Ltd.
1970. Murder by Perfection. London: John Long.
1965. Peddler of Death: The Life and Times of Sir Basil Zaharoff. New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1965.
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© 2014 Richard B. Spence
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Spence, R.B. (2014). Donald McCormick: 2 + 2 = 5. In: Hayek: A Collaborative Biography. Archival Insights into the Evolution of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137452429_12
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