When posted abroad, it was not to a centre of cold-war espionage, but to Dresden, in provincial East Germany.

ECONOMIST: Russia��s Putin puzzle

This First World War espionage thriller, which lurches between sobriety and suave levity, is one of the weirdest movies Alfred Hitchcock ever made.

NEWYORKER: Secret Agent

The advice that one Internet dating executive offers for the first face-to-face meeting sounds like a cold-war espionage manual: meet in public, drive yourself, let someone know where you will be.

ECONOMIST: Professional heartache