Hamrick, S.J. (W.T. Tyler)

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Hamrick, S.J. (W.T. Tyler)

PERSONAL:

Male.

ADDRESSES:

Home—VA.

CAREER:

Writer, novelist, foreign service officer, and political advisor. U.S. Foreign Service officer; U.S. State Department, senior policy advisor, 1995-96. Military service: U.S. Army; served in Army Counterintelligence.

WRITINGS:

Deceiving the Deceivers: Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, and Guy Burgess, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 2004.

UNDER PSEUDONYM W.T. TYLER; NOVELS

The Man Who Lost the War, Dial Press (New York, NY), 1980.

The Ants of God, Dial Press (New York, NY), 1981.

Rogue's March, Harper & Row (New York, NY), 1982.

The Shadow Cabinet, Harper & Row (New York, NY), 1984.

The Lion and the Jackal, Linden Press (New York, NY), 1988.

Last Train from Berlin, Holt (New York, NY), 1994.

The Consul's Wife, Holt (New York, NY), 1998.

SIDELIGHTS:

S.J. Hamrick is a former U.S. Foreign Service officer whose career spanned more than twenty years. His military experience was in counterintelligence, a subject he addresses in Deceiving the Deceivers: Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, and Guy Burgess, a nonfiction analysis of a notorious Cold War-era spy case that occurred in England. Philby, Maclean, and Burgess were British embassy employees who worked in relatively high-level positions. Maclean was stationed in Britain's Cairo embassy, while Philby and Burgess worked in Washington, DC. In 1951, Maclean and Burgess abandoned their posts and fled to the U.S.S.R., while Philby disappeared from Beirut, Lebanon, some twelve years later. Among the reactions was the claim that no one in British intelligence or elsewhere knew that Maclean was a spy until he headed to Russia. "That Burgess and Maclean were able to flee just days before the latter was due to be interrogated by British counterintelligence provoked a scandal that refused to go away," observed Harvey Klehr in the New York Sun.

With Deceiving the Deceivers, Hamrick delves deep into the declassified archives of the Venona program, which contains a vast collection of intercepted and broken Soviet codes. With this material offering background that was previously unavailable, and with other information gleaned from memoirs and biographies of former intelligence agents, he "refutes the myth of MI5's identification of Maclean as a Soviet agent in the spring of 1951," commented a reviewer on the Eye Spy Magazine Web site. Hamrick believes that British intelligence had determined that Maclean was a Soviet spy well before 1951, perhaps as early as 1948. He asserts that the British suppressed that information in order to mount a counterespionage mission from 1949 to 1951 that was intended to involve Philby, without his knowledge, in an attempt to mislead Moscow about American and British military capacity, particularly American nuclear strength.

Hamrick's "case is built on finding anomalies, inconsistencies, and omissions, and then filling in the holes with his own answers. In doing so, Hamrick demonstrates a full command of his sources and an intimate knowledge of the relevant events," noted Donald P. Steury in History: Review of New Books. While Hamrick "admits he cannot prove his thesis beyond all doubt—by definition, so ingenious a scheme would never have left a paper trail—his circumstantial evidence explains much in the public domain that otherwise is a conundrum," observed R.J. Stove in National Observer—Australia and World Affairs. A Publishers Weekly reviewer called the book a "groundbreaking analysis" of what came to be known as the case of the Cambridge spies. The reviewer further remarked that Hamrick's "subversive recasting of the Philby-Maclean-Burgess case will fascinate and challenge all those interested in Cold War history."

Hamrick also writes thriller novels under the pseudonym W.T. Tyler. Last Train from Berlin capitalizes on Hamrick's knowledge of Cold War issues in the story of Kevin Corkery, a young CIA agent who draws the assignment to investigate the disappearance of Frank Dudley, a career agent who was on the verge of retirement. Corkery uncovers evidence showing that Dudley was investigating a Soviet defector, Alexei Andreyev, once thought dead but found very much alive in the Soviet Union. Corkery knows that there must be something quite important about Andreyev, but he can't get any answers from his superiors. It's up to him alone, he knows, to figure out what Dudley was after, and then to locate it without ending up dead or missing himself.

The Consul's Wife centers on protagonist Blakey Ogden, the unhappy and unsettled wife of a consul working in Congo. Soon, she meets foreign service officer Hugh Matthews. An affair between the two quickly evolves, which prompts Blakey to end her miserable marriage and leave Africa. Even though Hugh finds it easier to focus on his job than on love, he still feels a terrific sense of loss when Blakey eventually departs. They are not destined to be apart forever, as they meet and reunite later in Washington, still unsure of what they should do about each other. Within this novel, "complex themes are explored in prose both lean and rich," noted Mary Ellen Quinn in a Booklist review.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Atlantic, November, 1982, Phoebe-Lou Adams, review of Rogue's March, p. 170.

Booklist, November 15, 1997, Mary Ellen Quinn, review of The Consul's Wife, p. 546.

Choice, July 1, 2005, C.C. Lovett, review of Deceiving the Deceivers: Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, and Guy Burgess, p. 2040.

History: Review of New Books, fall, 2005, Donald P. Steury, review of Deceiving the Deceivers, p. 16.

Journal of Military History, July, 2005, John R. Schindler, review of Deceiving the Deceivers, p. 882.

Library Journal, February 15, 1980, Barbara Conaty, review of The Man Who Lost the War, p. 532; February 15, 1981, review of The Ants of God, p. 473; October 1, 1982, review of Rogue's March, p. 1897; February 1, 1984, review of The Shadow Cabinet, p. 193; April 1, 1988, review of The Lion and the Jackal, p. 100; December, 1993, review of Last Train from Berlin, p. 178; October 1, 1997, Lawrence Rungren, review of The Consul's Wife, p. 127; November 15, 2004, Ed Goedeken, review of Deceiving the Deceivers, p. 70.

Los Angeles Times, November 15, 1982, Carolyn See, review of Rogue's March, p. 10; February 5, 1984, Nick B. Williams, review of The Shadow Cabinet, p. 9.

Nation, April 26, 1980, Robert Lekachman, review of The Man Who Lost the War, p. 505.

National Observer—Australia and World Affairs, spring, 2005, R.J. Stove, review of Deceiving the Deceivers, p. 64.

Newsweek, March 3, 1980, Peter S. Prescott, review of The Man Who Lost the War, p. 76.

New York Review of Books, April 26, 2007, Phillip Knightley, "Turning the Philby Case on Its Head," review of Deceiving the Deceivers, p. 51.

New York Sun, October 21, 2004, Harvey Klehr, review of Deceiving the Deceivers.

New York Times, February 21, 1980, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, review of The Man Who Lost the War, p. 18; March 14, 1981, Anatole Broyard, review of The Ants of God, p. 14; April 5, 1981, David Quammen, review of The Ants of God, p. 15; January 18, 1984, "When a Foreign Service Aide Turns Spy Novelist," p. 20; February 9, 1994, Herbert Mitgang, review of Last Train from Berlin, p. 19; February 22, 1998, William Ferguson, review of The Consul's Wife.

New York Times Book Review, March 2, 1980, Stanley Ellin, review of The Man Who Lost the War, p. 8; March 15, 1981, review of The Man Who Lost the War, p. 35; April 5, 1981, David Quammen, review of The Ants of God, p. 15; March 11, 1984, Michael Malone, review of The Shadow Cabinet, p. 18; July 3, 1988, Maria Thomas, review of The Lion and the Jackal, p. 9.

Publishers Weekly, January 11, 1980, review of The Man Who Lost the War, p. 77; January 9, 1981, Barbara A. Bannon, review of The Ants of God, p. 62; August 20, 1982, review of Rogue's March, p. 56; November 25, 1983, review of The Shadow Cabinet, p. 57; January 22, 1988, Sybil Steinberg, review of The Lion and the Jackal, p. 104; November 22, 1993, review of Last Train from Berlin, p. 49; December 8, 1997, review of The Consul's Wife, p. 56; October 25, 2004, review of Deceiving the Deceivers, p. 39.

Saturday Review, January, 1984, review of The Shadow Cabinet, p. 57; February, 1984, Speer Morgan, review of The Shadow Cabinet, p. 57.

Slavonic and East European Review, January, 2006, Philip Boobbyer, review of Deceiving the Deceivers, p. 174.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), January 30, 1994, review of Last Train from Berlin, p. 5; December 4, 1994, review of Last Train from Berlin, p. 1.

Virginia Quarterly Review, summer, 1988, review of The Lion and the Jackal, p. 92; summer, 1994, review of Last Train from Berlin, p. 94.

Washington Monthly, April, 1984, Fred Kaplan, review of The Shadow Cabinet, p. 60.

Washington Post, October 6, 1982, Jonathan Yardley, review of Rogue's March, p. 1; November 27, 1982, Michele Slung, "Inside Intrigue; Author Samuel Hamrick Comes in from the Cold," p. 1.

Washington Post Book World, January 29, 1984, Michael Kernan, review of The Shadow Cabinet, p. 9; January 16, 2006, Ernest R. May, "The Enemies Within," review of Deceiving the Deceivers, p. 8.