Perry, Roland 1946–

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Perry, Roland 1946–

PERSONAL:

Born 1946, in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—Andrew Lownie Literary Agency, Ltd., 36 Great Smith St., London SW1P 3BU, England. E-mail—rolandjp@bigpond.net.au.

CAREER:

Age newspaper, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, journalist, 1969-73. Freelance writer and documentary filmmaker.

WRITINGS:

BIOGRAPHY

The Exile: Burchett, Reporter of Conflict, W. Heinemann Australia (Richmond, Australia), 1988.

Shane Warne, Master Spinner, Wilkinson Books (Melbourne, Australia), 1993.

Lethal Hero: The Mel Gibson Biography, Oliver Books (London, England), 1993.

The Fifth Man, Sidgwick & Jackson (London, England), 1994.

The Don, Macmillan (Sydney, Australia), 1995.

Mel Gibson: Actor, Director, Producer, Pan Macmillan Australia (Sydney, Australia), 1996.

Bold Warnie: Shane Warne and Australia's Rise to Cricket Dominance, Random House Australia (Milsons Point, Australia), 1999.

Waugh's Way: The Steve Waugh Story—Learner, Legend, Leader, Random House (New York, NY), 2000, revised and expanded edition, 2002.

Monash: The Outsider Who Won a War, Random House (New York, NY), 2004.

Last of the Cold War Spies: The Life of Michael Straight, the Only American in Britain's Cambridge Spy Ring, Da Capo Press (Cambridge, MA), 2005.

Miller's Luck: The Life and Loves of Keith Miller, Australia's Greatest All-Rounder, Random House Australia (Milsons Point, Australia), 2005.

NOVELS

Programme for a Puppet, W.H. Allen (London, England), 1979, published as Program for a Puppet, Crown Publishers (New York, NY), 1980.

Blood Is a Stranger, W. Heinemann Australia (Richmond, Australia), 1988.

Faces in the Rain, Mandarin Australia (Port Melbourne, Australia), 1990.

NONFICTION

Hidden Power: The Programming of the President, Beaufort Books (New York, NY), 1984, published as The Programming of the President: The Hidden Power of the Computer in World Politics Today, Aurum Press (London, England), 1984.

Captain Australia: A History of the Celebrated Captains of Australian Test Cricket, Random House (New York, NY), 2000, revised and expanded edition, Random House Australia (Milsons Point, Australia), 2001.

Bradman's Best: Sir Donald Bradman's Selection of the Best Team in Cricket History, Random House Australia (Milsons Point, Australia), 2001.

Bradman's Best Ashes Teams: Sir Donald Bradman's Selection of the Best Ashes Teams in Cricket History, Random House (New York, NY), 2003.

The Ashes: A Celebration, Random House Australia (Milsons Point, Australia), 2006.

Author of the Roland Perry blog. Writer and producer of documentary films, including The Tracking of a Galleon's Ghost and Master Spy, and television series, including Week-End Warriors.

SIDELIGHTS:

Roland Perry worked as a journalist for Australia's Age newspaper and as a documentary filmmaker in England before publishing his first book, the novel Programme for a Puppet, in 1979. It sold well, and Perry turned to writing books full time. He has written two other novels, Blood Is a Stranger and Faces in the Rain, but his body of work consists primarily of nonfiction, on a broad range of topics. He has written biographies of cricket figures Shane Warne and Steve Waugh, among numerous other books on cricket. He dealt with American politics in Hidden Power: The Programming of the President, about the election of U.S. President Ronald Reagan. He has produced biographies of film star Mel Gibson and Australian military hero John Monash.

Perry also has written several biographies of espionage agents. The Exile: Burchett, Reporter of Conflict profiles Wilfred Burchett, a spy for the Soviet Union's KGB, while The Fifth Man tells the story of British agent Victor Rothschild. In 2005 Perry published Last of the Cold War Spies: The Life of Michael Straight, the Only American in Britain's Cambridge Spy Ring, the first full biography of Straight.

Straight came from a wealthy, liberal family; his parents founded the New Republic, a left-leaning public affairs magazine, of which he would one day be editor. While attending England's Cambridge University in the 1930s, Straight embraced Communism and met a group of Englishmen who were secretly working for the KGB. He joined the so-called Cambridge ring, which included Guy Burgess, Don Maclean, Anthony Blunt, and Kim Philby. Straight acknowledged that he provided information to the Soviets while he worked for the U.S. State Department in the 1930s, but claimed that he severed ties with Soviet intelligence in 1942. Perry, however, believes that Straight's involvement went on for much of his life. Basing his case on interviews and archival research, he concludes that Straight was working for the KGB while editing the New Republic in the 1950s, serving in John F. Kennedy's and Richard Nixon's administrations in the 1960s, and helping to run the National Endowment for the Arts, where he was deputy chair from 1969 to 1977. Straight also had a flirtatious, if platonic, relationship with first lady Jacqueline Kennedy and eventually married her half sister, Nina Auchincloss Steers. Straight published a memoir in 1983; he died in 2004.

Several critics found Last of the Cold War Spies well written and appealing, although some were not convinced by the evidence Perry presented. Christopher E. Bailey, writing in the Military Review, called the book "immensely readable," full of "intriguing insights and anecdotes," and "an accessible, well-researched portrait." Ed Goedeken, a contributor to Library Journal, observed that the author "nicely conveys how Straight functioned" while maintaining his double life.

Booklist reviewer Jay Freeman thought Perry sometimes portrayed "tidbits of information" as "conclusive evidence" of Straight's espionage activities, but he nevertheless deemed the book "an engaging tale." Benjamin Levisohn, writing for the Web site PopMatters, also was unconvinced. "Like a prosecutor desperate to make a case, Perry works backwards from a presumption of guilt," Levisohn remarked, further maintaining that "Perry lacks hard evidence and what proof does exist usually favors Straight's claim."

Washington Post critic Patrick Anderson, on the other hand, found Perry's work solid. "Perry argues persuasively that this polished son of American capitalism was indeed the last of the Cold War spies," Anderson reported. In his opinion, "one of the strongest points made by Perry and other critics of Straight concerns the Korean War," as the Cambridge ring had informed Chinese leader Mao Zedong that the United States would not use nuclear weapons if China became involved in the conflict. "If Straight had by then been a loyal American, free of communist control, he could have revealed his old colleagues as spies and saved many American lives, but of course he did not," noted Anderson. He further praised Perry's research and summed up the work as a "damning biography."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 15, 2005, Jay Freeman, review of Last of the Cold War Spies: The Life of Michael Straight, the Only American in Britain's Cambridge Spy Ring, p. 10.

Creative Computing, February 1, 1982, David Ahl, review of Program for a Puppet, p. 220.

Economist, September 1, 1984, review of The Programming of the President: The Hidden Power of the Computer in World Politics Today, p. 74.

Food Technology, September 22, 1991, review of The Exile: Burchett, Reporter of Conflict, p. 559.

Law Society Journal, December 1, 2004, John Gava, review of Monash: The Outsider Who Won a War, p. 93.

Library Journal, October 1, 1984, review of Hidden Power: The Programming of the President, p. 1839; September 15, 2005, Ed Goedeken, review of Last of the Cold War Spies, p. 73.

Military Review, May 1, 2006, Christopher E. Bailey, review of Last of the Cold War Spies, p. 116.

Newsweek, September 3, 1984, Gene Lyons, review of Hidden Power, p. 66.

New York Times Book Review, March 30, 1980, Newgate Callendar, review of Program for a Puppet, p. 17.

Publishers Weekly, January 18, 1980, review of Program for a Puppet, p. 134; June 22, 1984, review of Hidden Power, p. 94.

Reference & Research Book News, May 1, 2006, review of Last of the Cold War Spies.

Times Literary Supplement, December 30, 1994, Nigel Clive, review of The Fifth Man, p. 9.

Washington Post, August 8, 2005, Patrick Anderson, "Thinker, Traitor, Editor, Spy," p. C1.