590 • X GROUP
mented them inTheir Trade Is Treachery, and then to television pro-
ducer Paul Greengrass inSpyCatcher. Both books were best-sellers,
but the British government’s fruitless, counterproductive attempts to
prevent the release ofSpyCatcher, on the grounds that Wright had
broken his lifelong duty of confidentiality, made his book a world-
wide sensation, although his subsequent publication,The SpyCatch-
er’s Encyclopedia of Espionage, did not enjoy the same notoriety or
financial success. Wright died in Australia in April 1995, aged 78.–X–X GROUP. GRUcode name for a high-level spy ring active in London
in 1940 and 1941, as disclosed by numerousvenonadecrypts.
Headed byintelligensia, the other members of the network were
baron,nobility, andreservist, and together they supplied large
quantities of valuable, mainly military information from good
sources to their contacts at therezidenturaat the Soviet embassy.
XX COMMITTEE.SeeTWENTY COMMITTEE.
XXX.SeeTRIPLEX.
XXXI COMMITTEE.SeeTHIRTY-ONE COMMITTEE.
–Y–YAK. Special Operations Executive(SOE) code name for an overam-
bitious scheme dreamed up to screen Italian prisoners of war and re-
cruit those anti-Fascists among them into SOE. The project was
developed byPeter Fleming, formerly ofMI(R), and Colonel Cud-
bert Thornhill, a veteran intelligence officer who had been military
attache ́in Petrograd during the Russian Revolution. A large number
of Jews of Italian origin were recruited inPalestinefor the vetting
process and a start was made at four Italian PoW camps: Mustafa
near Alexandria, Helwan, Ganfieh, and Ajami. In addition, a newspa-
per, theCorriere d’Italiawas printed locally and circulated in the
camps under SOE’s sponsorship.