550 • TRICYCL
was inhibited from doing so because his ‘‘knowledge came from una-
vowable experience.’’ However, he did contribute an article about
Canaris to theCornhill Magazine, which was published in 1950.
Trevor Roper remained discreet on the subject of his wartime service
until April 1968 when he wrote ‘‘The Philby Affair’’ forEncounter,
and this led to the release of two monographs, on Kim Philby and
Canaris, respectively. The publication ofThe Philby Affairwas a
milestone, not least because of the author’s candor about his own
work for SIS, but also for his indiscreet reference to ‘‘the breaking of
the ‘Enigma’ machine.’’ Although there had been an oblique com-
ment in another book about Philby toGCHQ’s success at reading
the German Kriegsmarine’s wireless signals, this was the first author-
itative admission of SIS’s ‘‘accidental property in ‘Most Secret
Sources.’’’ In his book Trevor Roper denouncedGraham Greenefor
being Philby’s apologist, attacked John le Carre ́for his distorted
view of SIS, and remindedMalcolm Muggeridgethat ‘‘no man was
a more zealous and persistent defender of Philby against the ‘‘Mc-
Carthyite’’ suspicions of his critics. ‘‘Whether the British Secret Ser-
vice was incompetent in wartime is a question, as Sir Thomas
Browne would say, too sad to insist upon,’’ asserted Trevor Roper,
taking to the role of SIS’s defender. His remarks, however, were not
appreciated universally.TRICYCL.SeePOPOV, DUSKO.
TRIPLE AGENT.Agents who are dispatched on a mission with the
objective of having them be recruited by an adversary and played
back by them as adouble agentis a strategy known as a triple agent,
a rare phenomenon. During World War II, British Intelligence en-
joyed the advantage of the signals intelligence sourcesiskandisos
to check on the bona fides of their agents, and just such a review
ofteapot’s traffic revealed him to be working under the enemy’s
control.
TRIPLEX.The source codenamedtriplexor XXX was intelligence
derived from the interception and opening of diplomatic bags so the
contents could be copied and distributed toMI5and theSecret Intel-
ligence Service(SIS). The unit responsible for undertaking this work