‘Spycatcher’ Author, British Operative Dies

Peter Wright, a British intelligence operative whose bestselling spy-and-tell memoir, “Spycatcher,” embarrassed and angered the government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, died Thursday at a hospital in Australia. He was 78 and had retired to Tasmania in 1976.

He died in his sleep after many years of ill health, his friend and executor, Peter Murray, told reporters in Sydney.

The overarching theme of “Spycatcher” was a concern - some critics said obsession - about Soviet penetration of the Western intelligence apparatus. He detailed instances of it he encountered in more then 20 years as a senior official of MI5, Britain’s counter-intelligence service.

Perhaps his most contentious assertion was that Sir Roger Hollis, who headed MI5 from 1956 to 1963, spied for the KGB.