Calder Walton on Espionage, History & Inspiration

The historian of the intelligence world discusses the subject.

Calder Walton

Calder Walton, what first attracted you to the study of espionage?

When I was an undergraduate, I read Christopher Andrew’s ground-breaking book, The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB and the West (1999). At the time, I was actually studying medieval history— learning about the papacy and the crusades. Reading the Mitrokhin Archive had a tremendous impact on me. It revealed how a secret archive could reveal a new dimension to world affairs. (Vasili Mitrokhin was the chief archivist of the KGB’s foreign intelligence directorate, who defected to the West, bringing his tranche of Soviet secrets with him). After a few meetings with Professor Andrew in Cambridge, I knew that intelligence records offered exciting opportunities to make original contributions to history. I was sold. Although like most people, I barely knew anything about MI5 or MI6, or what they did, for graduate work, I switched from medieval history to modern, and specialised in intelligence history. Thinking about it, I guess studying the medieval papacy did, on some level, equip me with understanding the world of intelligence and subterfuge.