Dimensions
128 x 198 x 19mm
The fascinating story of the Cold War Joint Services School for Linguists - JSSL.
Lambasted by the Soviets as "a spy school", JSSL was an extraordinary initiative to push 5,000 of the best and brightest of Britain's National Servicemen through intensive training as Russian translators and interpreters, to meet the needs of its intelligence operations.
Its pupils included a remarkable cross-section of talented young men who went on to a diversity of glittering careers: Alan Bennett, Dennis Potter and Michael Frayn; governor of the Bank of England Sir Edward George; artists, actors, diplomats and spies; academics and clerics.
The authors, both former JSSL students, have drawn on personal recollections and interviews with contemporaries, as well as once highly classified documents in the Public Record Office, to produce the enthralling and previously untold story of this one-of-a-king British accomplishment, a heady mix of a high-powered college and a Chekhov play.
