Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan have created an Atlantic Axis in defence of the Free World; and it seems to Digby Valiant, just down from Oxford, that he could hardly serve his country's and his own interests better than by seeking employment as a keen young Cold Warrior.
He applies for and is appointed to a post in the Royal Central Research Council, a body of the highest academic reputation through which the security services of both Great Britain and the United States are able to funnel anti-communist propaganda with every appearance of being the most authentic historical documentation.
Once there, he quickly realises that only the existence of the Soviet Union threatening to overrun the world enables countries like Germany, Japan, the United States and, of course, Great Britain to live at peace with each other and to safeguard democracy in their own lands by being able to brand every critic of their respective regimes an agent of that malign power in the East.
Working on the edge of the arcane world of international espionage, he becomes aware of certain well-kept secrets like the identity of the 'Fifth Man' .. . who turns out to have been a woman! Does the collapse of the 'Evil Empire' at the end of the book mean that we will all live happily ever after?
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