Nick Hudson: Publisher of Spy Catcher

April 6, 2018 We are sad to learn Mr. Hudson has passed away.

http://tributes.theage.com.au/obituaries/theage-au/obituary.aspx?n=nick-hudson&pid=188340415

Blaming Russia for Ukraine is Lunacy

Download audio file 4 May, 23:59

The publication of the book Spy Catсher, an autobiography by a senior MI-6 intelligence officer named Peter Wright, at that time was scandalous for Military Intelligence 5 (or MI-5) and every attempt was made to prevent its publication. Now the publisher of Spy Catcher is about to release a book by a hitman for MI-6 called "Just Between Friends".

As someone involved in the world of espionage we were interested in hearing the opinion of Nick Hudson, the publisher, regarding the current situation in Ukraine as well as the activities of MI-6 and the CIA in that country.

Hello! This is John Robles, I'm speaking with Mr. Nick Hudson. He is the Managing Director of Hudson Publishing in Australia and the former Managing Director for Heinemann Publishing, Australia.

Robles: Hello sir, how are you this morning?

Hudson: I’m very well thank you.

Robles: Can you tell us a little bit about the history of your book Spy Catcher and the new book you are about to release?

Hudson: Spy Catcher was a lovely case. What happened was that my London colleagues had commissioned this book, from the Deputy Director of MI-5, and MI got very angry about it and required them to sign an injunction not to publish it. So, they said to me – will you publish it? – and I said – yes.

However, there was a small problem. And that was that my marketing director, who was a very-very live wire, a good bloke, said he could only sell 3,000 copies. And here we are paying a lot of money for a book which he couldn’t sell. So, I had to one way or another get it on the grapevine get it talked about and known about. I wondered how to do it.

Next moment we got a letter from a senior solicitor acting for Her Majesty’s Attorney General in and for the UK telling us not only would the author be in breach of the Official Secrets Act and in breach of duty of confidence owed to the Crown. And he said the publisher would also be in breach of duty of confidence owed to the Crown.

At that point I realized we’ve got them, because if the Australian Government was not interested in prosecuting, we were in the clear.

So, I decided to leak it to our local newspaper The Age the point being, if I had held a press conference, it would have got on page 6 and I wanted it on page 1. It worked like a charm.

The next day we had a huge half-page story at top of the front page. That was picked up by the international press and wire services and the next day it was on the front page of all the big daily newspapers in the US as well.

And suddenly from being something that we were worried about getting our money back, we got it back from selling the American rights. That was good. And when I went to Frankfurt to the world book fair there, we were one of the books of the year, which was the only time I’ve ever done that and it was terrific. We sold rights to everybody.

Robles: Can you tell us some of the ways that MI-6 tried to intimidate you or threaten you or threaten the publisher?

Hudson: Yes, what happened was after they had written this letter and I had simply not responded to it, they burgled our office and stole all our Word processing disks.

Anyway, they must have looked at them and discovered they didn’t have the book on them, because they burgled again the next night and brought them all back. Which was rather polite of them actually.

Robles: Are you serious? They put the material back?

Hudson: Yes, they broke in again. So, they are very nice people, you see.

When I went to Frankfurt my luggage went astray, the first and only time my luggage has ever gone astray. And when I eventually got to Frankfurt, they told me it had gone to Karachi by mistake. All I know is when I arrived in Frankfurt it was sitting in my hotel there, all beautifully packed, much more neatly packed than I had packed it

And then we had a fire in the office and it could have been them but I don’t know. The only thing was that I was told there a warrant out for my arrest at Heathrow airport, if I’d tried to go into the UK. So, after Frankfurt I overflew England and went straight to America and sold it to the Americans, as I said.

Robles: Can I ask your opinion regarding, for example the situation in Ukraine? The US, the CIA, USAID, I am sure MI-6 was involved. I mean, they organized this coup in Ukraine where they got nazis in power there now. What is your opinion on what is going on in Ukraine and the involvement of the CIA and MI-6 and the secret services?

Hudson: From where I sit, it is all very sad and all very puzzling. A tragedy was that a lot of Russia was given to Ukraine when the Soviet Union was broken up. Crimea and Eastern Ukraine had such large Russian populations, one wonders why they were ever made part of Ukraine.

Having said that, Ukraine has suffered from a series of appalling governments, of which, the one which was overthrown appears, not much better, from the standpoint of what we are told about the great luxury the old president lived in. On the other hand, his opposition was, if anything, worse.

So, one has sympathy with him, when he was overthrown in that coup. And one has sympathy with the Crimeans, when they wanted to join Russia. And one has sympathy with the other Ukrainian Russians, when they… And Russian speakers and Russian people who just want to get back to mother Russia, I can sympathize them enormously.

If you ask Russian people in the street whether they would like to have these lands returned to mother Russia, I think they would all say “yes”. Quite naturally the Russians are on the side of the Russians who happened to have the misfortune to be in Ukraine. And there is nothing sinister about that.

That is what I feel about this case. I just don’t know whether any Russians went in and stimulated it. I do know that there was a tremendous amount which was not in any way stimulated by Russia. To suggest that but for Russia, it wouldn’t have happened, is totally lunatic.

Robles: I think your Australian media is more balanced than most in the US. There was real footage and I’ve heard this from multiple sources of Russian tanks rolling into Crimea and rolling through Kiev. There were no tanks rolling into Crimea. There was no way for tanks to even get into Crimea unless they go through Ukrainian territories.

Hudson: There has been media footage of Russian maneuvers allegedly near the border. It isn’t said and is not proved what they are, what this footage is of or where it is taken. But it is said there have been Russian troops movements on the Russian side of the border and the military-type engagements that have happened within it, are always between the Ukrainian Army and the local militias.

Robles: And the US even claimed last week that there were fighter jets that went into the Ukrainian air space. But of course, this was from the Pentagon. They could not cite what kind of aircraft, how many of them, what the coordinates were, nothing, they gave no details. It was like the thing with Syria, where they said – well, we know, we know, yes, Assad used gas, we know, we know. But no facts.

Hudson: All I can say is the Australian broadcasting commission, their services have been balanced They obviously got news feeds from both sides. And it seems to me they’ve done it quite well. But, let’s face it, people believe what they want to believe. And the fact that the news says this, it doesn’t necessarily mean that everybody believes it.

Robles: Can I ask you a question then? In your opinion, don’t you think it is kind of ridiculous for them to say – oh, there was this Russian troop movement inside of Russia? Why does it matter to Washington if troops are moving inside of Russia? If the US move a bunch of troops inside the US, should Russia then be panicking and everything or what?

Hudson: It’s stupid! That is the point. When military movements start, people say – why is this occurring? And if it happens to be that it is towards some country, they say it is designed to frighten the people on the far side of that border. That is an ordinary logical conclusion.

I mean, to my mind Russia had every reason to object to the Americans putting missiles in Poland. And I don’t regard it as odd that Russia should be having troop movements on the border. It is a quite legitimate activity. But as it so happens (if it is happening) and I’m would think it probably is happening (I would be surprised if it wasn’t), I don’t regard it as sinister.

But I do regard this as something which is significant, that Russia is concerned about this. The Russians are not just leaving it entirely to the local people to settle their dispute with their government. It is fair enough, nothing wrong with that.

Robles: How do you feel about the fact that nazis are in power in Europe again?

Hudson: It is utterly horrific. I don’t know if they are in power, they certainly have influence and they threaten to be in power.

Robles: Well, it depends on who you talk to. I mean, we know the Right Sector is a Nazi group. We know they are being supported by those in power directly. Anything they do is not being investigated the way it should be. They assisted to put a US triumvirate of figures into power. I’m talking about Turchinov. And we know, Yarosh, he is the Nazi leader, he is running for president. It is all one little group almost.

Hudson: You are specifically talking about the Ukrainian Government?

Robles: I’m talking about the Ukrainian junta Government, yes.

Hudson: Yes, indeed. When you said – the return of Nazis into Europe – I was thinking of the rise of the Nazi-type parties in Britain and France, and up to a point in Germany – where they are still influential, but in minority, they do not form the government. I think that Ukraine has the only government where people who could be called Nazis are actually in power. I mean, it is horrific.

The only thing that I would say is that the previous government didn’t get a very good press write-up either. And it is sad, and it is to my mind the real tragedy of all this is that people used to be able to feel, I believe, that governments were in it for us, not for them. And now too many governments manage to spend all their time feathering their own and it appears from the pictures of the palace that the former president built himself, unless that is all a lie, it appears he followed his own interests in a big way. And it is alleged that he put a lot of money into overseas bank accounts and god knows what.

In other words, he has got a very-very bad write-up, but the present government has got a very bad write-up too. And the balance – what one wants to see – is a government which is not corrupt. And that seems to be a very-very long way off.

Robles: Yes, but that’s what the people wanted and that’s how these guys got into power. They manipulated that small unrest and made into a big issue, multiplied it, magnified it, warped it.

You just mentioned these groups were in the minority, like the UKIP and these other groups, I don’t know who do you have in Australia, but in Ukraine they were also in minority. They represent maybe 1.5% of the population, which is a huge problem, because the rest of the population, there is no way they are going to support them. And now we are seeing military maneuvers being carried out on Ukrainian citizens. And of course, they are being demonized as pro-Russian this or pro-Russian that and this Turchinov call it antiterrorist operation. A really dangerous situation.

Hudson: I wish I could see a simple answer to the problem. Quite obviously, what I would like to see would be those areas with the majority of Russian-speaking and Russian-loving population return to Russia. Exactly where the border would come and how you determine this, it is terribly-terribly difficult.

Robles: Can you tell us about your new book that is coming out soon?

Hudson: Well, Spy Catcher was about MI-5. This book is about MI-6 and it is about a retired hitman. It answers all our questions. It says how on earth do you ever get recruited to join a hit squad for MI-6. Then he tells us about all sorts of jobs that he did, some of them quite nasty. Then he tells us what happened to him afterwards, which is totally absurd and bizarre.

Technically it is a breach of the Official Secrets Act. I hope we don’t get shot. And that’s what they usually do, they just shoot people obviously. At MI-6, they are nasty people, they shoot people. But I think this book is of value.

Robles: Anything in there about Russia or any clashes with KGB agents, or anything like that?

Hudson: One of his jobs, rather more harmless jobs, was to visit Russia. He suddenly got a phone call saying: can you please go to Russia and take a parcel there. And here is your 1,000 pounds. He’s gets on an Aeroflot flight and next moment he landed in Moscow and sat down in the transit lounge there. And the next moment a lovely-lovely young girl in a red scarf, a Komsomol scarf, came up and gave the password, and took away the briefcase with a parcel in it. And then he got on a plane and flew back.

The question that arises is what was in that briefcase, because there is a diplomatic bag that travels between London and Moscow.

So, quite clearly there was something which the MI-6 didn’t want the British delegation in Moscow to know about. They were keeping things secret from their own people, as well as keeping things secret from the Russians. Anyway, it is a bizarre episode.

This is John Robles, you were listening to an interview with Nick Hudson. He is the Managing Director of Hudson Publishing in Australia and the former Managing Director for Heinemann Publishing, Australia.