0:00

This is the SpyCraft

0:03

101 podcast. Welcome

0:05

to your clandestine classroom. This

0:12

is episode number 193 of the

0:14

SpyCraft 101 podcast. I'm

0:16

joined today by Emmanuel Medolo. Emmanuel

0:19

is a journalist based in London

0:21

and writing for The Times and

0:23

The Sunday Times. His work has

0:25

appeared in Forbes, Wired UK, and

0:27

public creations across the United Kingdom,

0:29

France, and Italy. I invited

0:31

Manuel onto the podcast to discuss his

0:33

new book, which he co -authored with

0:35

Peter Gilman, titled Murder in Cairo, Solving

0:38

a Cold War Spy Mystery. It was

0:40

just published last month and is

0:42

the story of the previously unsolved

0:45

murder of British journalist David Holden,

0:47

who was killed just hours after

0:49

arriving in Cairo to pursue a

0:51

story in December 1977. Manuel

0:54

and Peter pursued this story relentlessly

0:56

and found not only several different

0:58

possible motives and murderers, but also

1:00

that David had been keeping many

1:02

secrets of his own. By

1:05

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1:59

Manuel, thank you for being here. Thank

2:01

you for having me. Of course, of

2:03

course, I have to tell you now that

2:05

I've actually read the book, I am

2:07

shocked that I had not heard much about

2:09

this story before because it really just

2:11

does have it all and I can see

2:13

why people, including yourself, pursued the truth

2:15

for so many years after this took place.

2:20

Yeah, I mean it's it's one of those

2:22

cases is probably stranger than fiction. Yeah Yeah,

2:24

I totally agree so many twists and turns

2:26

which I'm excited to talk about with you

2:28

today So as I mentioned in the introduction

2:30

you co -authored this with Peter Gilman and that's

2:32

that's pretty rare here on the podcast that

2:34

we talked to be a co -written book

2:36

like that So how did that come about

2:38

exactly that relationship? So

2:40

basically Peter is an investigative journalist

2:42

was a bit older than me

2:44

in isn't is 80s now and

2:46

many years ago he trained me

2:48

in investigative journalism when I first

2:50

came to London to become an

2:52

investigative journalist and during some of

2:54

his courses he would say stuff

2:56

like you know I told you

2:58

about my successes and now let

3:00

me tell you about the one

3:02

time that we failed and proceeded

3:04

to tell the story of the

3:06

assassination of one of his colleagues

3:08

this guy named David Holden who

3:10

was the Sunday Times chief foreign

3:12

correspondent who was killed in Cairo

3:15

in 1977. Now

3:17

Peter spent a year trying to find

3:19

out who killed his colleague and why,

3:21

but he couldn't get to the bottom

3:23

of it. And this

3:25

basically obsessed him for a

3:27

long time. It was the

3:29

one case that he couldn't

3:32

crack, couldn't solve. And

3:34

I was already intrigued when he

3:36

talked to me about this, but

3:38

the real moment where when I

3:40

was getting into this old story

3:42

was when a few years later,

3:45

in 2020, I joined

3:47

The Times and Sunday Times

3:49

at that point, the newspapers

3:51

for which Peter used to

3:53

work in the 1970s and

3:55

1980s. And the editor of

3:57

The Sunday Times back then

3:59

was a guy named Harold

4:01

Evans, Harry Evans. Tina

4:03

Brown's husband, I'm sure you're listeners

4:05

are familiar with Tina Brown, he

4:07

was considered, you know, the best.

4:10

newspaper editor in Britain,

4:12

because he sort

4:15

of revolutionized investigative journalism

4:17

in the country. So

4:20

when Harry died in 2020, it

4:22

was in the 90s, I emailed Peter,

4:24

expressed my condolences, and he said that

4:26

the last two times it seemed Harry.

4:28

Harry told him that he was still

4:30

troubled by the Holden case, and he

4:32

wanted to see it through. So

4:35

that was the moment where I was like, wow.

4:38

This guy at this amazing career, but

4:40

up to the very last days was

4:42

still obsessed about this one case So

4:44

I started doing a bit of digging

4:46

shared my findings with Peter and then

4:49

you know five years almost five years

4:51

later Here we are. We got we

4:53

got the book out finally Yeah,

4:56

it's amazing and congratulations to you guys

4:58

because I can see the amount of effort

5:00

that went into this and I have

5:02

to tell you the way that you to

5:04

Framed this story within the book was

5:06

was completely new to me and it was

5:08

really really interesting the way that you

5:10

kind of Paralleled investigations across the decades because

5:12

just for the the listeners to understand,

5:14

you know a big portion of the book

5:17

really is Peter Going through the original

5:19

investigation with his colleagues and then Years and

5:21

years later decades later you and Manuela

5:23

and in some ways Following in

5:25

his footsteps in other ways, you know, you're kind of making

5:27

a new trail and making a lot of headway in

5:29

the story and I have not seen it in any of

5:31

the other nonfiction that I've read over the past few

5:33

years. So I loved it. Honestly, it was a fantastic way

5:35

to tell this story. Thank you.

5:37

Yeah, we thought the sort of quest

5:39

to find out was part of the

5:41

story. The story was not just a

5:43

sort of biography of this chap. David

5:46

Holden was killed in these in mysterious

5:48

circumstances in cargo in 1977, but it

5:50

was a story. It was the story

5:52

of Peter as well. of

5:54

his colleagues. Pisa was not

5:56

alone in this when he started investigating

5:58

the case. Harry Evans sent a

6:00

team of six journalists to the Middle

6:02

East to try and find out

6:04

what happened. But Pisa was one of

6:06

two people who stayed on the

6:08

case for a year. Harry Evans

6:11

told him, you know, just

6:13

do this, do nothing else, no

6:15

expense spared. Those were the

6:17

days you never hear these kind

6:19

of... kind of words you're coming out

6:21

of an editor's mouth these days

6:23

and he did he spent a year

6:25

on the case and then he

6:27

wrote this hundred page 110 page report

6:29

that was aimed at you know

6:31

was supposed to be for the editor's

6:33

eyes only because he was speculative

6:35

he had a mass an incredible amount

6:37

of information about the death

6:40

of David Holden and also his life,

6:42

but it was inconclusive, he couldn't publish

6:44

it. By the way, they couldn't publish

6:46

it anyway, even if they wanted to,

6:48

because at that point the newspaper was

6:50

closed for a year. Something

6:52

people probably don't realise nowadays.

6:54

I had no idea about this

6:56

stuff when I started researching

6:59

this, but the newspaper was engaging

7:01

this Titanic battle with the

7:03

print unions with this incredible power

7:05

and they just decided that

7:07

the newspaper was not going to

7:09

get distributed and so the

7:12

owners of the something of the

7:14

something times and the times

7:16

decided to just not have a

7:18

newspaper for a year. I

7:20

mean it's different different here. So

7:22

anyway so nothing was published

7:24

and Peter kept sort of investigating

7:27

in his spare time. He

7:29

never really stayed away from the

7:31

case. He was always looking

7:33

for Hence includes and new

7:35

leads and but When I when I

7:37

talked to him in 2020 he was

7:39

sort of semi -retired he thought you know

7:41

as I said this this was the

7:43

case that got away essentially Yeah, I

7:45

can I can see how that would

7:47

stay with him and as it stayed

7:49

with the editor as well over so

7:51

many years and thank goodness you know

7:53

like fresh blood like you so to

7:55

speak stepped up and had the energy

7:57

and the time and the motivation to

7:59

look into it. Can you tell me

8:01

what it was like for you to

8:03

actually go to Egypt and try to

8:06

look into this story yourself? I understand

8:08

that was a little bit harrowing. Yeah

8:10

I mean trip to Egypt was

8:13

an interesting experience. I've done some kind

8:15

of foreign reporting. I'm not a

8:17

foreign reporter. I tend

8:19

to work in an office, I tend

8:21

to, you know, investigate journalism these days

8:23

is quite different to what it used

8:25

to be. I'd love to get out

8:27

of the office more, but Peter was

8:29

a foreign correspondent as well, as well

8:31

as David Holden, and he kind of

8:33

knew some of these grounds better, because

8:35

he'd been to Jordan, for example, many,

8:38

many times that year, working on different

8:40

stories. So it was kind of, it

8:42

was more used to all of

8:44

this, but still he was completely

8:47

baffled by... know some of the

8:49

aspects of this of this case

8:51

and what I found is that

8:53

despite you know I was coming

8:55

in 45 years later people did

8:57

not want to talk about that

8:59

at all I was getting some

9:02

really strong push backs from official

9:04

sources and and a lot of

9:06

people actually just decided not to

9:08

not to meet me, not to

9:10

speak with me. For example, some

9:12

of the families of the people

9:15

that we think were involved in

9:17

this case just shut me down

9:19

completely. And I had a

9:21

couple of interesting encounters as well,

9:23

which if you read the book, you

9:25

know what I'm talking about. I

9:28

was under surveillance from

9:30

us at the time. I

9:33

mean, Egypt is obviously a police state,

9:35

so I did not expect anything. you

9:37

know, anything less than that.

9:39

I was kind of surprised though,

9:42

because I thought this was

9:44

so long ago that, you

9:47

know, it was a

9:49

cold case. So I was like,

9:51

well, you know, maybe they don't really

9:53

care about this stuff, you know,

9:55

even Forty Vegas later. But then again,

9:58

the kind of intelligence community, there's

10:00

a direct link to that era.

10:02

We're talking about 1977 to give you

10:04

a bit of context is when the

10:07

president egypt was this guy

10:09

called the anwar satat and you

10:11

know the the the sort

10:13

of three steps removed from the

10:15

president of egypt now but So

10:18

that was a man of

10:20

the military like CeCe, the

10:22

current president of Egypt, and

10:24

a successor Mubarak, who reigned

10:26

for 40 years or whatever.

10:29

So again, there's a kind of

10:31

direct link to that era, which

10:33

I probably didn't appreciate when I

10:35

went to Cairo. Okay,

10:38

yeah, I can see how that

10:40

would be shocking because just like

10:42

you said it's been 45 years

10:44

like who could still care that

10:46

much about those secrets I mean

10:48

quite frankly a lot has happened

10:50

in Egypt since 1977 that would

10:52

seem to be a little bit

10:54

more pressing more of a priority,

10:56

but Apparently not really not almost

10:58

surprised. So what about Peter and

11:00

his colleagues? Did they ever feel

11:02

like they were in danger at

11:04

the time when they were looking

11:06

into this like right after it

11:08

happened? Any threats or close calls

11:10

or anything like that? Well, yeah,

11:12

I mean absolutely the I think

11:14

that the main the main thing

11:16

here is that obviously This was

11:18

a strange case to begin with

11:20

so they were investigating the death

11:22

they were investigating the murder of

11:24

one of their colleagues and That

11:26

you know For starters, it's not

11:28

something that luckily happens very often

11:30

but the the most concerning aspect

11:32

is that during the second trip

11:34

that they did. Peter did multiple

11:36

trips to the Middle East during

11:38

the second trip when he went

11:40

to Egypt. At some

11:42

point they realized that someone was

11:44

stealing these messages that he and

11:46

his colleagues were sending back to

11:48

the Sunday time office in London.

11:50

Someone had been stealing these messages

11:52

and they realized that they were

11:54

actually stealing the messages that Holden

11:56

himself had been sending to the

11:59

office because Holden at that point

12:01

had been in

12:03

this sort of 10 day swing

12:05

across the Middle East traveling

12:07

across several countries. And so

12:09

that got them very concerned because

12:11

they, you know, A, the

12:14

killers get the information about

12:16

Holden from the hostess mouth,

12:18

essentially, did they get it

12:20

from us? That was

12:22

the first question that they asked themselves.

12:24

And then the second one was, you

12:26

know, are we walking into the same

12:28

trap as Holden? Are they following us

12:30

because they want to? the one to

12:32

kill us as well. So it was

12:35

peak paranoia time. And

12:37

the theft of these messages,

12:39

which at that point were

12:41

called telexes. So it

12:43

was like in between a

12:45

telegram and a fax, essentially. The

12:48

theft of these telexes was one

12:50

of the most troubling aspects of the

12:52

entire investigation. And it

12:54

remained a mystery until,

12:56

well, until very recently. Yeah,

12:59

that was that was shocking for me just

13:01

to read it on in the pages of

13:03

the book like my gosh this thing goes

13:05

a worldwide Essentially, this is not like a

13:07

local problem being hushed up by the local

13:09

police state as you mentioned This is something

13:12

that reaches all the way back into the

13:14

offices of the newspaper investigating it just incredible

13:16

incredible stuff honestly So we've we've mentioned David,

13:18

but we haven't actually talked about David really

13:20

Can you tell me who he was and

13:22

what it was that actually brought him to

13:24

Cairo at that time? Well that's

13:26

a million dollar question, who was this guy,

13:28

I mean who was Dave Holden. Yeah I'm

13:30

still not sure I know honestly. Me

13:33

neither, I can tell you five years,

13:36

what Pete has been doing for

13:38

almost 50 years and 48 years

13:40

and still we don't really know

13:43

exactly what this guy was, they

13:45

thought they knew him, they thought

13:47

they knew him as the sort

13:49

of respected well -liked figure of

13:51

a foreign correspondent. It was

13:53

like the quintessential foreign correspondent. If

13:55

you looked at the pictures

13:57

of him, he had this

14:00

kind of, you know, debonair attitude and

14:02

a sort of, you know, some

14:05

of these characters are mixed between

14:07

Roger Moore and like another. Hollywood actor

14:09

and indeed he wanted to become

14:11

an actor as a young man, which

14:13

is probably one of the reasons

14:15

why he did some of the things

14:17

that he did, but let's not

14:19

get out of this ourselves. Holden was

14:21

the chief foreign correspondent for The

14:23

Sunday Times. He'd been, he'd

14:25

written books, he'd been working

14:27

for the biggest newspapers in

14:29

England, The Times, The Guardian,

14:32

The Sunday Times, and he was very

14:34

much at the peak of his career.

14:36

It was 53, China Blue Eyes, Slick

14:38

Back Hair, always impeccably dressed,

14:40

but there was an aura

14:42

of mystery around him that

14:45

the more the reporters looked

14:47

into his life, the more

14:49

they found about him, the

14:51

sort of multiple lives that

14:53

he was living. Holden had

14:55

been sent to the Middle

14:58

East to report on these

15:00

crucial peace conferences between Egypt

15:02

and Israel. This

15:04

was after Israel and Egypt

15:06

fought into a war in 1973,

15:09

you know, the Yom Kippur or the

15:11

Ramadan war. And just a

15:13

few weeks before, the

15:15

president of Egypt, Anwar

15:17

Sadat, paid a historic

15:19

visit to Jerusalem. It

15:22

was unprecedented. It was the first

15:24

time that an Arab state leader

15:26

went to Jerusalem. He talked at

15:28

the Nesset, at the Israel parliament.

15:31

And it served essentially as

15:33

the, as the recognition,

15:35

you know, unofficial recognition of

15:38

Israel's right to exist, which

15:40

not, you know, no other Arab

15:42

states had done ever since the

15:45

founding of Israel in the 1940s.

15:47

It was a momentous shift in

15:49

global politics, and especially in the

15:51

Middle East. And

15:53

the Israelis were due to

15:55

reciprocate at a peace conference in

15:57

Cairo in December. And this

16:00

is the reason why Holden was

16:02

traveling across the region. He'd

16:04

been to Syria, to

16:06

Damascus, he'd been to Jordan, Israel,

16:09

Palestine, and then ultimately Cairo,

16:11

which was going to be

16:13

the final destination and the

16:15

kind of the most important

16:18

step of his journey. But

16:20

as soon as he landed in

16:22

Cairo, he disappeared. He

16:24

didn't check in with the

16:27

Sunday Times foreign desk and a

16:29

massive search was launched. And

16:31

then eventually, three days later, they

16:33

heard that the body of

16:35

an unknown Western man had been

16:37

taken to the local mortuary,

16:39

and he was identified as a

16:41

soldier. He'd been shot

16:44

with a single bullet from the

16:46

back to the heart, and

16:48

the mechanics of the

16:50

killing was very elaborate. It

16:53

was a professional hit

16:55

by all appearances. So

17:01

That's really shocked it sounds like he

17:03

basically walked out of the airport and

17:05

was never seen alive again, which is

17:07

You know not only very frightening, but

17:09

it indicates that they were ready and

17:11

waiting for him whoever it was that

17:13

that took him so was there an

17:15

immediate suspicion that it was a Professional

17:17

thing or was it concerned that it

17:19

was like you know his taxi was

17:21

robbed or something like that on the

17:23

way to the hotel Well,

17:26

just the way the guy

17:28

who went a little more

17:30

identified was a fellow journalist

17:32

working for the BBC, a

17:34

guy called Bob Jobbins. He

17:37

said to us, the guy is

17:39

still alive. He still remembers the shivers

17:41

down his spine when he actually

17:43

saw the body. He said, you know,

17:45

my experience was that you don't

17:47

get shot in the back for no

17:50

reason. And you know,

17:52

even in Cairo in the 70s,

17:54

the mother of foreigners was actually

17:56

very rare. And the fact that

17:58

he was, by all looks, it had

18:00

been shot once at a short

18:02

range with a sort of small caliber,

18:04

9mm. It kind of

18:06

bore all the marks of a

18:08

professional hit. But then what they found

18:10

afterwards confirmed that, as you were

18:12

saying, that his killers

18:15

were out to get him,

18:17

essentially. They'd stolen three cars, and

18:19

the timing of these thefts

18:21

of these cars was particularly

18:23

interesting because they coincided with Holden's

18:25

movements first car had been stolen 24

18:28

hours after he decided he was going

18:30

to go to the Middle East that

18:32

he confirmed with his editors that that

18:34

he was going and Then the last

18:36

car was stolen a day before he

18:38

actually flew to Cairo from from a

18:40

man So they knew exactly when he

18:43

was going when he was going to

18:45

be at the airport And they were

18:47

ready to to get him they were

18:49

they were waiting for him Hmm Yeah

18:51

very very professional no question about it

18:53

were the Cairo police were they genuinely

18:55

like helpful and interested in catching the

18:57

culprits do you think you know in

19:00

the early days at least or were

19:02

they trying to like do any sort

19:04

of like cover up or something like

19:06

that. You see this is

19:08

interesting peter is convinced that at

19:10

the beginning they were very helpful

19:12

and cooperative and then at some

19:14

point something something changed. E

19:17

records now with the benefit

19:19

of inside that. They've

19:22

probably been told to

19:24

stop cooperating with the

19:26

Brits. But to

19:28

me, the telling detail has always

19:30

been that they did not allow

19:32

two policemen, two investigators from Scotland

19:35

Yard, to visit Egypt from day

19:37

one. They said that they would,

19:39

and then they never did. So

19:41

the Sunday Times journalists were actually

19:43

the only British investigators on the

19:45

ground. And they did cover a

19:47

lot of ground in terms of

19:50

the investigation itself. They found out

19:52

much more than the Egyptian police,

19:54

in terms of what Holden was

19:56

up to. Also because, as I

19:58

said before, Harry Evans sent six

20:00

people to the Middle East across

20:03

three or four countries, so they

20:05

could effectively reconstruct his last trip. So

20:10

they knew where he went and

20:12

all that did they ever identify

20:14

whether the the journalists or the

20:16

Cairo police ever identify any actual

20:18

suspects Now the There were a

20:20

few people that met Holden during

20:22

the last days and some of

20:24

the some of the details of

20:26

the kind of version of events

20:28

didn't didn't really add up and

20:30

The journalists at first were asking

20:33

themselves. You know, did these people

20:35

just miss remembering? But

20:37

then sort of gaps and

20:39

inconsistencies emerged and it all

20:41

became a bit more sinister

20:43

than they initially thought. The

20:46

Egyptians didn't really indict anyone.

20:48

They arrested some Palestinians and

20:50

said that they thought that these

20:53

guys were actually behind the

20:55

killing, but then they released

20:57

them and you know it

20:59

was clear that it was just something

21:01

to give something to the press in terms

21:03

of you know we're doing our job

21:05

we're actually investigating this thoroughly so that's himself

21:07

mentioning this in his speeches and and

21:09

meetings but you know nothing came of it

21:11

and eventually what they did it was

21:14

starting spreading this information about the you know

21:16

the the the motives for the killing

21:18

so they started saying oh you know it

21:20

was a robbery gone wrong or this

21:22

guy might have been gay and he was

21:24

actually hitting on a taxi driver. taxi

21:28

driver decided to shoot him in the

21:30

back as you do. That

21:33

homophobic, I guess. Now,

21:35

I mean, as I said,

21:37

first they were kind of

21:39

helpful and cooperative in a

21:41

way and then they started

21:43

shutting down the Sunday Times

21:46

supporters and eventually they ruled

21:48

that the killing was a

21:50

robbery gone wrong. Which

21:52

clearly wasn't, I mean, as I

21:54

said. Just the mechanics

21:56

of it was so elaborate the

21:58

killers that picked him up in

22:00

in one car which had been

22:03

resprayed it been transferred to a

22:05

second car in which it was

22:07

shot and then the killers had

22:09

done their getaway in the third

22:11

car and That's you know, that's

22:14

not a robbery. Right. You're getting

22:16

to that to that length So

22:19

if I recall correctly, I think that

22:21

due to like the bullet placement, they

22:23

thought that he had been like in

22:25

the front passenger seat and someone in

22:27

the back seat reached over the seat

22:29

and shot him in the back. Is

22:31

that correct? Like it went on a

22:33

downward? Yeah, correct. Yeah. They had removed

22:35

the sort of header from the front

22:37

seat so that they could actually shoot

22:39

him from the back. So it was

22:41

kind of... That that's what you know,

22:43

that's the detail that they're told of

22:45

the Sunday time students that they did

22:47

is basically once in a day They

22:49

already arranged out to to happen Okay,

22:51

did I mean I know that obviously

22:53

their investigation was kind of inconclusive But

22:55

did Peter and his colleagues initially have

22:57

like a most likely scenario or like

22:59

a working theory of who had done

23:01

it or were they just totally stumped

23:03

The first week was completely inconclusive. They

23:05

publish a long story which turned out

23:07

to be the only story that the

23:09

Sunday Times published for 48

23:12

years until last month until we

23:14

did you know the silver book again

23:16

you know describing the mechanics and

23:18

the cars and all the rest of

23:20

the stuff that's when and after

23:22

the theft of the telex is that

23:24

these messages that team was sending

23:26

to the to the Sunday Times that's

23:28

when Harry Evans the editor instructed

23:30

Peter and another one of his colleagues

23:32

to sort of enlarge the scope

23:34

of the investigation to to try and

23:36

find out as much as they

23:39

could about Holden's life

23:41

and not just his death because

23:43

the first assumption was that

23:45

he must have You know during

23:47

his social journalistic activity must

23:49

have done something that had led

23:51

him to his death but

23:53

then because of this sort of

23:55

you know elaborate killing professional

23:57

hit they starts wondering you know

23:59

this sounds like something else

24:01

it's it's not a journalist you

24:03

know foreign correspondent blown up

24:05

by landmine or You know

24:08

killed what reports in war

24:10

this guy was there to report

24:12

peace and he was a

24:14

first You know is unheard of

24:16

for someone to be to

24:18

be assassinated that way So what

24:20

they did was they they

24:22

they went back and Talked to

24:24

pretty much everyone who known

24:26

Holden and and that's interesting is

24:28

that a lot of people

24:30

actually didn't really know me was

24:32

this sort of mysterious opaque

24:34

character was was never really Getting

24:37

close to anyone even even the people that

24:39

were described as his best friends playing that

24:41

they didn't really know him that well and

24:43

so this sort of secrecy became The details

24:45

of the multiple lives that he was leading

24:47

because some of the things that they They

24:50

found was about his personal life not just

24:52

his professional one Do you want me to

24:54

talk about this? Yeah, please at least a

24:56

little bit. There's there's a lot of course

24:58

I'll leave that to the readers for the

25:00

most part But I mean some things were

25:02

shocking and they were really questioning if they'd

25:04

ever know the guy at all I guess,

25:07

right? Yeah, yeah,

25:09

absolutely. I mean, the

25:11

biggest kind of reveal was

25:13

that despite the fact that

25:15

Holden was married to a

25:17

woman of a journalist called

25:19

Ruth Holden, he'd actually been

25:21

secretly gay or bisexual. And

25:24

he had this very long

25:26

affair with an older man,

25:28

an academic called Leo Silberman.

25:31

And, you know, obviously this being 1907,

25:33

this was kind of Kind

25:35

of a shock to them because the

25:37

marriage seemed to be a marriage of convenience. Many

25:40

years later. I found out that

25:42

Ruth was probably gay as well. Oh,

25:44

wow. And the relationship with

25:46

this man was interesting because they

25:48

seem to be following each other

25:50

around the world. This guy was

25:52

a very mysterious figure. He was

25:54

sort of a con man, kind

25:56

of a bit of an imposter

25:58

who was bragging about stuff he'd

26:01

done and Connections he had

26:03

which you didn't really have and

26:05

like he claimed that he had a

26:07

PhD at Oxford which he didn't.

26:09

He was using the sort of Oxford

26:11

college must head for years and

26:13

years and even if that you dropped

26:15

out from from the college source

26:17

it was an interesting character and and

26:19

and peter started to think that

26:21

this guy was sort of. Probably the

26:24

most important relationship in Holden's life

26:26

but. Obviously it was so secret. I

26:28

mean the old things back when

26:30

when they had this affair almost as

26:32

homosexuality was illegal in England, you

26:34

know, they were being incredibly careful not

26:36

to disclose any any information about

26:38

about their affair. Mm -hmm. It seemed

26:40

like reading through the book. It seemed

26:42

like David kind of structured his

26:44

life and certainly his travels all around

26:47

spending time with Leo like all

26:49

over the world, right? Like Leo goes

26:51

off to a new job in

26:53

a new area and David finds a

26:55

way to make it there somehow

26:57

some way. right absolutely and it wasn't

26:59

you know nice places like you

27:01

know the Amalfi coast or california or

27:03

whatever it is this guy was

27:05

going to sudan yeah in the 1950s

27:08

which i mean not exactly like

27:10

a tourist destination and but david was

27:12

so desperate to actually go and

27:14

join him at this point he was

27:16

working for the times so the

27:18

daily newspaper the times of london and

27:20

he was the carer correspondent at

27:22

that point to talk about the 1950s

27:24

It was pestering his editors to

27:26

be sent to Sudan. You

27:29

know, the editors were baffled. It was like,

27:31

why would you go to Sudan? And

27:34

he was making excuses. He was saying, oh, you know,

27:36

there's going to be like a regional election and stuff

27:39

like that. And then like after three or four times

27:41

asking them, he said, oh, if you don't send me,

27:43

I'm going to go on my own. Like I'm going

27:45

to take annual leave and actually go to Sudan on

27:47

my own. And now obviously

27:49

what they, you know, what Peter found out

27:51

was that the reason he was So

27:53

that's particular to them was because silverman was

27:55

there. He'd

27:57

been to Mexico together, which

27:59

is an interesting place. I mean,

28:01

you guys done stuff about

28:03

these JFK files that we're at

28:05

least a few weeks. Mexico

28:07

City is popping up, right? Yeah,

28:11

it's an interesting place. And David

28:13

lied about what he was doing. He'd

28:15

been telling people that he spent sometimes

28:18

working for a charity like a

28:20

Quaker organization, building schools

28:22

or whatever. And

28:25

then when Peter checked, the Quaker organization

28:27

said actually, yeah, it was here, but

28:29

it was only here for like two

28:31

weeks or whatever. And then, you

28:33

know, we didn't know what he

28:35

did after that. So it's been spending

28:37

months in Mexico with this guy. And

28:40

Peter had no idea what they were

28:42

up to. So he talked to someone and

28:44

someone said, well, Mexico is

28:46

an interesting place for people

28:48

close to the Soviet Union, the

28:51

KGB. It was a training

28:53

ground. And so that

28:55

sort of idea of the fact

28:57

that Holden might have been, how

29:00

should put it? Peter

29:02

had no idea whether Holden

29:05

was kind of close to

29:07

the Soviet Union, because by

29:09

all appearances, Holden was a

29:11

sort of conservative, anti

29:13

-communist. person was

29:16

writing this kind of v -triolic

29:18

attacks on people like Castro,

29:20

Cuba or Salvador Allende or

29:22

Chile. He'd been writing for

29:24

this magazine called Encounter magazine,

29:26

which I think your listeners

29:28

would be familiar with, which

29:30

was bankrolled by the CIA.

29:33

And he was writing this sort of

29:35

disinformation, you know, this kind of American

29:37

propaganda essentially against these leaders. So

29:40

the fact that Silverman

29:43

seemed to be quite left -wing and

29:45

that they've been traveling across places

29:47

that were interesting to the Soviets was

29:49

was kind of baffling because you

29:51

know by all appearances Holden was completely

29:53

the opposite he was if anything

29:55

They thought they'd been recruited or that

29:57

they've been at least an attempt

30:00

to recruit him while he was at

30:02

Cambridge to join MI6 the British

30:04

intelligence services and Then he went on

30:06

to to write for this magazine.

30:08

There was bankroll better CAA the CAA

30:10

actually admitted to to

30:12

the Sunday Times that Holden was

30:14

a sort of like a

30:16

low level informant to the to

30:18

the CAA and so This

30:20

secret life with silverman didn't really

30:23

fit with the rest of

30:25

the information that they had Yes,

30:27

just mysteries within mysteries there

30:29

and I mean really left me,

30:31

you know Twisted around no

30:33

question about it. Probably you as

30:35

well during the whole investigation I'm

30:38

sure. And if I remember

30:40

correctly, since you mentioned MI6, I

30:42

probably have the details wrong, but didn't he go

30:44

overseas for a year like you put his

30:46

studies on hold for a year as a young

30:48

man? And it kind of his travels kind

30:50

of fit the profile of like a MI6, like

30:52

initial training or something like that. Do I

30:54

recall that correctly? Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

30:56

I mean, it was there was this

30:58

strange moment he was a student at

31:00

Cambridge and Cambridge is an notorious recruiting

31:02

ground or at least was. for

31:04

MI6, and not just MI6 as

31:06

we know now, he arranged to

31:09

go to Czechoslovakia for a year

31:11

to teach English, which was a

31:13

standard thing that, you know, when,

31:15

when MI6 was recruiting people at

31:17

these colleges, then they would send

31:19

them out to countries in, you

31:21

know, in Eastern Europe or whatever,

31:23

and then debrief them about what

31:25

was going, what was going on.

31:27

Then they would spend another year or

31:30

two teaching in England or

31:32

in this case in Scotland

31:34

to sort of fit with

31:36

the with this profile of

31:38

of them being teachers and

31:40

then they would either join

31:42

the foreign office or in

31:44

Holden's case became a journalist.

31:47

That's what was really funny

31:49

was that that's literally

31:51

like a subplot of Chandrakara's

31:53

novel Tinker Taylor Soldier

31:55

Spy. It wasn't Czechoslovakia, I

31:57

think it was Bulgaria, but

31:59

it was pretty much the same kind

32:02

of structure. And Peter was reading the book

32:04

back in 1977 as he was, as

32:06

he was writing the Holden Report. And, you

32:08

know, the similarities were just striking. Of

32:10

course, now we know that, you know, John

32:12

the Carrot, David Cornwall was, had

32:14

been working for MI6. And

32:16

the book had been based on

32:18

the Kim Philby scandal, effectively. So

32:21

it was a sort of fictionalized

32:23

version of. of what happened with

32:25

the Cambridge spy, Kim Filby, 10

32:27

years earlier. So, yeah,

32:30

I mean, we couldn't

32:32

really get to the bottom of his

32:34

relationship with MI6. If anything,

32:37

the British intelligence services are even

32:39

more secretive than the Americans

32:41

when it comes to this stuff.

32:44

They will never, they will never

32:46

confirm or deny that someone is

32:48

an agent. And to be fair, we

32:50

didn't even try to get anything

32:52

out of them because it was

32:54

just, you know, but

32:56

Ben McIntyre was this guy who's been writing

32:58

this very successful. uh

33:00

spy nonfiction books including a great

33:02

book about philby just told me that

33:04

you know just there's really no

33:06

point like people think i've got access

33:09

with them but i really don't

33:11

what i do is try to interview

33:13

for my spies so that you

33:15

know they can tell me about what

33:17

they've done but mi6 just doesn't

33:19

deal with with authors and well for

33:21

that matter not even a journalist The

33:25

bane of every intelligence to story and that's for

33:27

sure it's constant roadblock it's come up many times here

33:29

on the podcast i can assure you. Unfortunately

33:32

yeah at least the cia like at least they

33:34

have like a declassification schedule and they kind of stick

33:36

to it you know to a certain extent. Yeah

33:38

it's interesting you mentioned this because

33:41

obviously in this case they didn't

33:43

and back in. in

33:45

the late 70s, early 80s. The

33:47

Sunday Times filed a four -year

33:49

freedom of information request with

33:51

the CIA, and the CIA

33:53

initially said that they didn't have

33:55

any files on Holden, which... There's

33:57

something that just said that but we

34:00

just don't believe you I mean

34:02

it's just impossible that you know this

34:04

guy was a foreign correspondent in

34:06

Washington for a few years in

34:08

in the 1950s So there's simply no

34:10

way that you don't have at

34:12

least you know a few files about

34:15

him and they said oh

34:17

yeah actually we do have some files

34:19

but you know some of this stuff is

34:21

redacted so some of this stuff is

34:23

sensitive so you're not going to see it

34:25

so the sunday's answer decided to sue

34:27

the CIA it's i think at that point

34:29

was unprecedented they took them to court

34:31

to to release these files and a judge

34:34

was eventually appointed to look at the

34:36

files in camera so you know in private

34:38

and this judge was supposed to be

34:40

like a liberal judge it ruled in favor

34:42

of the press before And

34:44

he went in, looked at the

34:46

files, came out and

34:48

said that nothing would be released because

34:51

it would endanger the security of

34:53

the United States of America. My

34:55

gosh, my gosh. So there was something

34:57

in those files, but you

34:59

know, fast forward

35:01

45 years later, I tried

35:03

to get those files myself.

35:05

And again, I thought. You

35:08

know, maybe after almost 50 years,

35:10

they're just gonna release them. You

35:12

know, maybe, you know, all the

35:14

people mentioned are dead or whatever.

35:16

You know, they can finally at

35:18

least give us something. And

35:20

that's when I got

35:23

a spooky phone call from

35:25

someone who introduced themselves

35:27

with then first name only

35:29

saying I'm so -and -so

35:31

from the agency. And

35:33

I do get a lot of phone

35:35

calls. So I was a bit baffled

35:37

by that. So I did ask, you

35:39

know, sorry, which, which agency, the

35:42

central intelligence agency. All

35:44

right. Okay. Yeah. Not the

35:46

kind of call I would expect

35:48

on a Tuesday afternoon. Right. Anyway,

35:50

this person just wants to chat

35:52

off the record and then said, I

35:55

would really want to steer you

35:57

off the idea that the CIA

35:59

anything to do with David Holden.

36:02

And I was flubbergasted because that's the

36:04

question I didn't ask. I just

36:06

asked for the files. I

36:08

don't know why you're telling

36:10

me this because I literally

36:12

just asked for these files.

36:14

This person replied saying there's

36:17

nothing in our holdings about

36:19

doing holdings. There's nothing in

36:21

our files. And

36:23

I just said that I'm sorry

36:25

but that's simply impossible. because

36:27

of the history of this case.

36:29

I told this person what

36:31

the history was and how the

36:33

Sunday Times had actually sued

36:35

the CIA for this files. And

36:38

his professor said, I'm sorry, I want to

36:40

steer you off and I can't offer you

36:42

no guidance on this matter. And

36:44

then hung up. And

36:46

the only reason I'm talking about

36:48

this, because obviously the call was supposed

36:50

to be off the record, but... It

36:54

was just a lie.

36:56

There was no way

36:58

that they don't have

37:01

anything in their files.

37:03

It's just impossible. And

37:06

even if the files have been destroyed or whatever.

37:09

Anyway, after the story broke, serialized

37:11

it in the Sunday Times,

37:13

the CIA actually went on the

37:15

record, which I thought was

37:17

quite funny, saying that they categorically

37:19

deny having anything to do

37:21

with David Holden's murder. And

37:23

even knowing anything about it, it just

37:25

kind of comes into that phone call.

37:27

It was so comical to read that

37:29

like they could whoever that person was,

37:31

they could not have done a worse

37:33

job of steering you away from CIA

37:35

interest. I was really baffled by that

37:37

because if that was the thing, you

37:39

know, if that was the idea, I

37:42

mean, surely you got a phone call

37:44

from someone from the CIA tells you, you

37:46

know, you do not look into this.

37:48

You very much want to look into that,

37:51

right? Or, you know, trust trust me. You

37:53

know, I'm this anonymous person

37:55

introduces themselves the first name only

37:58

and gonna tell you we

38:00

have nothing to do with David

38:02

Holden's mother. All right. Okay.

38:04

Thank you very much. That's very

38:07

a big relief. Yeah, I have no

38:09

further questions. Thank you No further question

38:11

you're on. Okay. Yeah, that

38:14

was so bizarre such a You

38:16

know just unexpected twist there as there were

38:18

many in this story So obviously, you know

38:20

Peter's team and then you as well years

38:22

later you uncovered a lot of interesting things

38:24

about David's life But did any of that

38:26

kind of help hone the the suspect list?

38:28

I mean do you felt like you were

38:30

closer to why he was murdered or who

38:32

might have done it? So so

38:34

back in 1978 after a year

38:36

on the case Peter had come

38:38

up with a list of theories

38:40

of you know who might have

38:42

killed Holden and why the list

38:44

It was fairly long at that

38:46

point, you know, it had the

38:48

Mossad, the Israeli Secret Service, because

38:50

of a number of reasons, mainly

38:53

because there's something in terms of

38:55

publishing a very damaging expose of

38:57

Israeli torture of Palestinian prisoners in

38:59

Israeli jail six months before, and

39:01

Holden had been wrongly named as

39:03

the author of that report. Then

39:05

they actually said, they actually issued

39:07

a statement saying, Holden had nothing

39:09

to do with this report. It

39:11

was actually Peter Gilman who wrote

39:13

it. And Peter was like, oh, thank

39:15

you very much. Thanks

39:17

guys. And this is

39:19

why actually, it's just a funny anecdote.

39:21

When Peter was sent by Harry

39:23

Evans to the Middle East, you know,

39:25

back then there was no kind

39:27

of security debrief and, you know, the

39:30

kind of stuff that I had

39:32

to do when I went to Egypt.

39:34

My newspaper was very Good

39:36

and very thorough they gave me a

39:38

burner phone they gave me a bit

39:40

of a kind of security debrief in

39:42

terms of people think that I should

39:44

do it shouldn't I shouldn't do. How

39:47

do you have a. Pass it

39:49

on the shoulder and said be

39:51

aware of my son they're the best

39:53

intelligence agency in the world. And

39:56

he looked at it was like. Okay

39:58

how do you want me

40:00

to do that like. yeah

40:04

okay great be careful fine

40:06

anyway so the list was

40:08

really long as I was

40:10

saying there was Mossad the

40:12

Egyptians themselves the Saudi secret

40:14

services Palestinian terrorists all sorts

40:17

of people but they sort

40:19

of eventually what Peter thought

40:21

was that the killing was

40:23

such an elaborate operation that

40:25

for any other You know

40:27

kind of foreign intelligence agency

40:29

to do it would have

40:31

been incredibly difficult because the

40:33

guy was picked up at

40:35

the airport right I mean

40:37

it's even in 1977. Because

40:40

of this peace conference that there

40:42

was a lot of security in

40:44

place and so so Peter decided

40:46

that the most likely suspect where

40:48

the Egyptians themselves. What

40:50

was escaping was the

40:53

motive. He had enough information

40:55

about Holden to suspect that

40:57

Holden had been working or at

40:59

least moonlighting as an intelligence

41:01

agent. And it wasn't because of

41:03

journalists that he was actually

41:05

killed, but probably because he had

41:08

been doing other things. Now,

41:10

what these other things were and who he

41:12

was working for, those were

41:14

the big questions that Peter

41:16

just simply couldn't answer them.

41:20

So there was this great

41:22

moment when Peter invited me

41:25

to his house and he

41:27

actually handed me these, you

41:29

know, 110 pages of typewritten

41:31

research material. And there were

41:33

so many names in there, all the people

41:35

that Holden had met during the last

41:37

show, there was the passengers manifest for the

41:40

flight they'd taken from a man to

41:42

Cairo with all the names of the people

41:44

on board. I mean, it was just

41:46

incredible material that I could just, I

41:48

used that to start the new

41:50

investigation to check every single name to

41:53

see if people were alive, if

41:55

they, you know, written memos, if they

41:57

donated their papers to a library

41:59

or anything like that. And, you know,

42:01

slowly I managed to confirm a

42:03

lot of suspicions that Peter had about

42:05

some of the people that, you

42:07

know, that hold an event during the

42:09

last trip. And a lot of

42:11

them turned out to be somehow linked

42:13

to the CIA. Hmm.

42:17

Since you mentioned the Egyptians

42:21

were a suspect. As

42:23

I recall, there was this

42:26

incredibly chilling like encounter that happened

42:28

before Peter's death. Can

42:30

you talk about that a little before David's

42:32

death? Excuse me. I think it was

42:34

another journalist named David Halder or something like

42:36

that who travels to Cairo. David Halton. Yes.

42:39

So that was that was

42:41

one of that was one

42:43

of the big reveal. I

42:45

talked to this guy called

42:47

David Halton. was he's a

42:49

Canadian journalist, you know, he's

42:51

kind of an esteemed foreign

42:53

correspondent and He told me

42:56

that three years before David

42:58

Holden was assassinated in 1974

43:00

he landed in Cairo late

43:02

at night and as he

43:04

was coming out of the

43:06

airport he was approached by

43:08

As he was coming out

43:10

of security actually after after

43:12

having his passport stopped to

43:15

Egyptian officials approached him, introduced themselves

43:17

and said that they were

43:19

going to give him a lift,

43:22

you know, take him to his destination. Holton

43:25

was a bit bemused because he

43:27

didn't inform, he hadn't informed anyone

43:29

of his visit, but you know,

43:31

it was late at night, he

43:33

was tired, he could have used

43:35

the lift and so he got

43:37

into this battered car with these

43:39

two officials. Driver was already there,

43:41

it's at the front, And

43:45

as the car sped up, these

43:47

two people started asking him questions.

43:50

And mentioning names, he didn't

43:52

know, and details of stuff

43:54

that he had no knowledge

43:56

of. So he turned around

43:58

and asked, I'm

44:00

sorry, but how did you know that

44:03

I was coming? And one of

44:05

the guys said, well, you're David Halton of The

44:07

Sunday Times, aren't you? Oh,

44:09

no, sorry. I'm David Halton of

44:11

CBC. And the two Egyptians

44:13

looked at each other in disbelief

44:15

and then, you know, after a few

44:17

minutes decided, oh, well, you know,

44:19

we're just going to drive you to

44:22

your destination. You

44:24

know, left him at his

44:26

hotel and Holton didn't think

44:28

about the incident until three

44:30

years later. He heard that,

44:32

you know, David Holden had been

44:34

picked up at the airport by someone

44:36

driven around in a battered car

44:38

and shot and dumped on the side

44:41

of a road. my gosh so

44:43

that was the moment when we we

44:45

discovered that we think that was

44:47

the the sort of the first time

44:49

that the egyptian the egyptian secret

44:51

service was trying to kill holden and

44:53

he was back in 1974 and

44:56

so that was the that was the

44:58

moment where we we kind of

45:00

switch with the the sort of the

45:02

way we were looking at this

45:04

changed we were looking at this from

45:06

the perspective of the the

45:09

1977 shift and the the peace

45:11

conference and all the rest of

45:13

that but if you look at

45:15

it from 1974 Now things change,

45:17

you know that we eventually figured

45:19

out that the motive, you know

45:21

the reason why he was killed

45:23

had to do with with something

45:25

else entirely He wasn't it wasn't

45:27

because of Sadat's visit to Israel

45:29

My gosh incredible just thinking that

45:31

the plan was at least three

45:33

years in the making then if

45:35

you know Halton was totally correct

45:37

and your assessments were correct. So

45:39

amazingly he had that target on

45:41

his back all that time and he

45:43

just like unknowingly walked right into

45:45

that trap that day in Cairo.

45:49

Yeah absolutely, I mean Holton was kind

45:51

of, it also

45:53

came home rather graphically because

45:56

when David Holden was

45:58

assassinated in 1977, a

46:00

Canadian radio station mistaken

46:02

Holden for Holton and said

46:04

David Holton for a correspondent of

46:06

the CBC was assassinated. So

46:08

he could call his wife and

46:10

said, darling, you know, the news

46:12

of my death has been greatly exaggerated. You

46:15

could use the Mark Twain line. But

46:17

yeah, I mean, it was just this is

46:19

these kind of details are just stranger than

46:21

fiction to me. You know, if I was

46:23

reading this in a novel, I was like,

46:25

I just let dismiss it as a bit

46:27

far fetched tricks. Bit far fetched. Exactly. My

46:29

gosh, yeah, I can imagine David Halton must

46:31

have had some sleepless nights after 1978 in

46:34

that case because he escaped the by the

46:36

thinnest of margins it sounds like Yeah, he

46:38

says he says he was the you know,

46:40

even if he'd been reporting about wars for

46:42

for many many years He said that was

46:44

the most pricing moment of his life and

46:46

he had no idea what was happening. He

46:48

could have he could have taken a bullet

46:50

Yeah, yeah, cuz he didn't have his his

46:52

defenses up I guess you could say was

46:54

not sure what to expect meant just so

46:56

chilling honestly So, Emmanuel,

46:58

did you ultimately reach any major

47:01

conclusions, any findings after this

47:03

45 -year break in between his

47:05

death and the original investigation and

47:07

your own investigation? Well,

47:10

the biggest reveal, and

47:12

Peter was right, his

47:14

punch was correct.

47:17

He thought that this guy, Leo Silberman,

47:19

was the most important relationship he

47:21

holds in his life, and indeed he

47:23

was. And what I found was

47:25

that Silberman had been a communist, actually

47:27

a kind of fanatic really. I

47:29

found these letters, you know,

47:32

in the 1930s, he'd been

47:34

working for the Comintern, which is

47:36

the international communist party from

47:38

the Soviet Union, and he'd been

47:40

recruiting young men to the

47:43

Soviet cause, to the communist cause,

47:45

using a sort of mix of sex

47:47

and politics. And Holden

47:49

was one of them, we're pretty

47:52

sure about that. And so the kind

47:54

of... Holden's

47:56

life had to be

47:58

re -read and under that

48:00

kind of perspective now that

48:02

of someone would been

48:04

possibly recruited by the KGB

48:06

through this lover as

48:08

early as 1950, before he

48:10

even became a journalist.

48:12

So that was the kind

48:14

of big reveal in

48:17

the new investigation. but

48:19

there's something else that i've kept from

48:21

i mean i've written this very long

48:23

story for the sunday dance magazine and

48:25

it's about the the sort of the

48:27

the c a a angle for your

48:29

interest your your your listeners a bit

48:31

oh yeah is that soon to come

48:33

or is that in the book as

48:35

well it's in the book it's in

48:37

the book there's okay there's a guy

48:39

it's basically our main suspect i mean

48:41

i can say that and he was

48:43

the c a a station chief in

48:45

cairo in 1977 And

48:48

interestingly enough, he set

48:50

up this important CIA station

48:52

in Cairo in 1974,

48:54

which is the year of

48:56

the near -miss with David

48:58

Holton. And what

49:00

happened in 1974, essentially, it

49:03

was the conclusion of a

49:05

shift that had been a few

49:07

years in the making in

49:09

which So that the president

49:11

of Egypt have been a change sides

49:13

and switch sides from the Soviet

49:15

from the Soviet Union's fear of influence

49:17

to to the Americans and it

49:19

become a partner of the American especially

49:21

of the of the of the

49:24

USA especially when it came to covert

49:26

operations and and and you know

49:28

and plan to sign operations in the

49:30

Middle East and Africa Egypt became

49:32

an important ally of the states and

49:34

so again that allowed us to.

49:36

to answer the main question she was

49:38

why he was sold and killed

49:41

and we think he was it's because

49:43

he was exposed as being a

49:45

KGV agent and the ground that shifted

49:47

in Egypt at that point and

49:49

and that's that's why he was killed

49:51

you know that's that's why he

49:53

had to die incredible incredible stuff Well,

49:57

well fantastic job manual bringing all of this

49:59

to light I mean it I know that they're

50:01

always gonna be more questions You know with

50:03

a case like this and probably there will never

50:05

be answers to many of those questions especially

50:07

after this much time But just some incredible work

50:09

digging up this this 45 year old story

50:11

there and shedding so much new light on it

50:13

and David is still kind of a enduring

50:15

mystery to me and to you it was well

50:18

it sounds like but Thank you. Yes, things

50:20

are a little more clear now certainly and he

50:22

was he was at the the nexus of

50:24

all these different organizations and all these different places

50:26

and times you know they're very volatile periods

50:28

so. Well

50:32

so i know that the book is been published

50:34

out now and for the. listeners

50:36

out there who want to read a lot more

50:38

about this story. Of course, we could never

50:40

go over all the details of the story, and

50:42

there are quite a few more twists and

50:44

turns that we haven't gotten into as well. The

50:46

book is Murder in Cairo, Solving a Cold

50:48

War Spy Mystery by Emmanuel Medolo and Peter Gilman.

50:51

It's available now. I love this book. I

50:53

read through it in just a few days. Manuel,

50:55

I know that it took you a lot longer than a few days

50:57

to write it, of course. You and Peter,

50:59

but I... That's the greatest compliment. Yeah,

51:02

I really enjoyed it a lot and I think everybody's

51:04

going to enjoy it as well. So now that

51:06

the book is out, are you working on another book or do

51:08

you have another project in the works at the moment? Well,

51:11

you know, this has been in

51:13

the back of my mind for so

51:15

long, obviously not as long as Peter.

51:17

I mean, he's finally,

51:19

he could finally retire now and sort

51:21

his garage because his wife has been

51:23

pestering him. But

51:26

I've been doing this in my spare time, you

51:28

know, other than my day job at the times

51:30

and Sunday times, and I kind of, I kind

51:33

of miss it now. So I've been, yeah, I've

51:35

actually, this is a scoop. I've

51:37

been doing a bit of research over

51:39

the last couple of months, doing

51:41

something about a mafia, because I'm, you

51:43

know, I'm originally Italian, I'm from

51:45

Sicily. And it's something that

51:47

I've always been trying to

51:50

avoid, you know, kind of being

51:52

sort of entangled

51:54

in the kind of mafia thing,

51:56

but it's obviously a fascinating

51:58

subject and it might be again

52:00

an American angle, so It's

52:02

still early days, but it's it's

52:04

about unsolved. It's about another

52:06

unsolved murder mystery Becoming well an

52:08

expert in that. Yeah, you're

52:10

right back into the lion's den

52:12

for you as well. It

52:14

sounds like The time in Egypt

52:16

didn't scare you off from

52:18

this kind of reporting No,

52:22

I mean, it's the best, it's the

52:24

best kind of feeling, like doing this kind

52:26

of reporting and doing something original and

52:28

new that, you know, other people have not,

52:30

have not looked into as much. It's

52:32

the best feeling, really. I believe it. I

52:34

believe it. Well, fantastic work. I mean,

52:36

this is a great achievement on your part

52:39

and on Peter's part. I really enjoyed

52:41

the work and hopefully a lot more people

52:43

will read the book and after they've

52:45

learned the story. from you here so thank

52:47

you so much for your time do

52:49

you have a like social media pages or

52:51

website or anything that you'd like to

52:53

share if people want to follow along especially

52:56

with your your next book in development

52:58

yeah i'm on twitter x whatever we want

53:00

to call this the haste manu midolo

53:02

so that's m a n u m i

53:04

d o l o and blue sky

53:06

as well and yeah i mean do reach

53:08

out my my dms are open Okay. Fantastic.

53:11

Yeah, we'll link those up in the show notes for the

53:13

listeners if you want to follow along with Manuel after

53:15

this. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time and

53:17

I look forward to what you're working on again after this.

53:20

Thank you, Justin. Take care.

53:24

If you're interested in more of Spycraft

53:26

101, look for my page on Instagram

53:28

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53:30

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53:32

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53:34

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