2
rugby prop-forward, with a loud, booming voice—towered over the
diminutive Stark. Openly homosexual but celibate, and very masculine, he
delighted in sharing with Stark his daily breviary readings in the beautiful
gardens of the Baghdad embassy, while she was doubtless temporarily
forced to suppress her naturally coquettish ways. In reality, however, the
two had far more in common than met the eye, as both were gifted lin-
guists and literate conversationalists, both were well-travelled and wise to
the world, and both had a deep knowledge of and interest in Arab and
Persian affairs, including the contemporary issues around Zionism, pan-
Arabism, and of course fascism. When in England and Europe before the
war, both had moved in glittering literary circles, and between them they
had known many celebrities, including Isaiah Berlin, John Betjeman,
Osbert Lancaster, Harold Nicolson, Virginia Woolf, and Rose Macaulay
among others, not to mention many distinguished academics. For years
before—and even after Bishop’s religious epiphany in 1935—his partner
had been the eminent classics don and Master of Wadham College,
Maurice Bowra (1898–1971).^3 Few doors at Oxford and Cambridge were
closed to the couple. Apart from insignificant snippets mentioned by Stark
in her memoirs and correspondence, we cannot know precisely what she
and Bishop discussed during their daily conversations or on other social
occasions in Baghdad. An entry in the Special Operations Executive (SOE)
War Diary in late April 1941 certainly suggests that they may have been
discussing profound secrets. It says that the entire British community were
being interviewed at the embassy and were being enrolled into a whisper-
ing organization, while other more secret organizations were being cre-
ated under Bishop, who was coordinating all propaganda.^4 Certainly there
must have been much to discuss, for both Stark and Bishop shared one
great secret that was at the very core of their friendship: they were both
spies, and they had both been spying for Britain during most of the inter-
war years—in one way or another.^5
To spy is merely to watch, and a spy is therefore merely an observer,
usually of some enemy or other, or even of an ally or a friend. In the secret
world of clandestine or ‘special’ operations, however, there is really no
such thing as a spy, for operatives who inhabit this twilight zone are spe-
cifically tasked with complex activities that go far beyond mere gazing.
Each of these players bears the unique label of his or her own nuanced
occupational role: intelligence agent, security officer, propagandist, sabo-
teur, codebreaker, and so forth. Unfortunately, some labels are widely mis-
understood and conflated. Intelligence ‘agents,’ for instance, are not