Report of 2026 Annual Lunch, with a talk on Spies in Lisbon by Angus Blair

There was a full house at the Riviera Hotel in Carcavelos on Saturday 31 January, with 75 members and guests enjoying an excellent talk by the novelist Angus Blair, entitled Spy Cities: is Lisbon the greatest of them all? This was followed by the usual high-quality buffet lunch provided by the hotel.

Angus Blair (a pseudonym) started by saying that he intended to compare Lisbon’s spy history (including that of Estoril and Cascais) with that of other cities associated with spying. He had personally got the spy bug in 1981 when he took a trip to Leningrad (St. Petersburg) and explored that city’s metro. At Cambridge University he was in the Officers’ Training Corps, assisted with military training by playing the role of a defecting Russian pilot and was approached about becoming a British spy. He chose, instead, to work in the City of London, but has always remained fascinated with spying. This was the subject of Shock Therapy, his first novel, which was chosen by The Times as “thriller of the month”.  He has already completed his next novel and, with a friend, is working on a forthcoming podcast, to be called Spy Cities, together with an accompanying book. The ten cities they will consider are: Berlin, Cairo, Istanbul, Lisbon, London, Paris, Rome, New York City, Vienna, and Washington DC.

Angus argued that Lisbon was a strong candidate to be greatest of them all, with spies having been found there as far back as the 15^th-century when they were used by King Joao II (above). At the end of the 16th-century, Queen Elizabeth I of England had spies inform her about preparations in Lisbon for the Spanish Armada. Spies were everywhere in Lisbon during World War II and again during the Cold War, when it was the biggest CIA station in Western Europe and had a very large KGB presence. Admittedly, Lisbon could not rival the history of Cairo, where the new Egyptian Museum has the world’s first known intelligence reports, dating from around 1350 BCE. So, spying is the world’s second oldest profession. 

Angus then discussed three notable spies with Lisbon connections. The first was Josephine Baker, the American singer and dancer who made a name for herself in Paris. She volunteered for secret service as WWII approached and received the support of the MI6 station chief in Paris, Wilfred “Biffy” Dunderdale. She proved highly effective, charming Italian and Japanese diplomats into giving away national secrets. Black, fearless, bisexual and hugely successful, she was everything the Nazis hated. She travelled to Lisbon in late 1940 to plan a tour. This is her at her favourite table at the Primavera do Jerónimo around corner from the Teatro da Trindade.  She carried vital secrets about her person and in luggage, hiding in plain sight. Border crossings were easy. She was well known and no one suspected she could be a spy.

Angus let us know that his next novel would be loosely based on the intertwined secret lives of Wallis Simpson and Baker. He then went on to discuss a second spy with Lisbon connections, Lt. Colonel Dudley Wrangle Clarke (below), who he described as his favourite spymaster of WWII, as the father of modern intelligence deception and architect of victory by deception, first in the Western Desert and then in Normandy. He also plied his trade in Lisbon and Estoril in 1941. Clarke was a Royal Artillery officer who operated across the Arab world, sometimes undercover. He was famous for being able to appear in a room unseen. Very popular amongst his fellow officers, he was also known for a devoted set of beautiful female friends, known as ‘Dudley’s Duchesses’. As a young officer he took mandatory dance lessons and would always volunteer to take the female role, and dress appropriately. Not unusual at the time. In the picture below he is in an Army Staff College play, playing Olga Volga, a Russian seductress bent on getting secrets out of a senior officer with her feminine wiles.

In Lisbon in August 1941, he hung out in bars and hotels as a journalist, planting false rumours about North Africa; left documents in the toilets at the Hotel Atlântico; spread gossip in the Deck Bar in Estoril; and developed 16 different routes to get false intelligence about the western desert to the Germans. However, disaster struck when he left Lisbon and ended up in Madrid, where he was arrested in the Parque de El Retiro by Spanish police. The exact reasons for his arrest are unclear, but he was too valuable to lose and the matter reached Churchill before he was released. Even though he was perhaps compromised, he returned to Cairo, where his impact on the North African war was incredible. Angus highly recommended a recent biography of Clarke, by Richard Hutton.

The final person discussed by Angus was William Knowles RN. Here he had a personal interest as Knowles was his grandfather. He is in the photo below. Just an ordinary man from Morecambe, who was conscripted and trained as a torpedo man. He was 31 when this photo was taken. Royal Navy service in the war would have been tough for anyone. But his experience was extraordinary. The question Angus raised was: how did his grandfather find himself serving in the Mediterranean on a Portuguese-flagged steamer called SS Setúbal?

The story started in French Indochina in the 1930s, when a French intelligence officer, Claude Peri, had recruited Madeleine Bayard after she had been raped. She received training in explosives and silent killing. In June 1940 the French merchant vessel, Le Rhin was seized by Peri at Marseilles and sailed to Gibraltar. The ship was converted into an auxiliary warship, and commissioned on 24 September 1940 as HMS Fidelity under the command of Lt. Peri, serving as Lieutenant Commander Jack Langlais (L’Anglais - The Englishman). Her officers included Lt-Cmdr. Albert Guérisse, serving as Patrick Albert O'Leary, and Madeleine Bayard, serving as Madeleine Barclay WRNS. As Peri's mistress she was one of few women to be a commissioned officer on a Royal Navy ship. The Fidelity served as the main vessel of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), carrying out covert operations and being capable of having its appearance quickly converted so that it looked like a neutral Portuguese vessel.

In 1942 the vessel was again refitted, as a commando carrier. It was north of the Azores and on its way to the Far East when, at the end of December 1942, it was torpedoed by a U-boat, killing all on board. Angus noted that the vessel was overarmed and that its mission was vague and suicidal.

At the end of his presentation, Angus concluded that no city clearly emerged as the greatest Spy City of all, but Lisbon gets his vote because there are still so many relevant places to visit, stories and characters, and it retains its spying atmosphere!

Angus’ excellent talk prompted numerous questions and comments, which continued throughout the lunch that followed.