Insights from one of ‘Deacon’ McCormick’s Research Assistants

Abstract

I was employed as a researcher by Donald McCormick in the 1970s after I had contacted him to query something he had written about the Venlo affair (I was still at university, reading English Literature). My principal area of interest was the British Security Service (MI5), and some of the research I undertook ended up in The British Connection (1979). Unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to check his galley proofs or manuscript, and some of the material, such as the name of an MI5 officer named ‘Saunders McCulloch’, was garbled. Somehow, the surnames of Bunty Saunders and Miss McCulloch had been combined.