Many thanks to the institutions which permitted me to rummage in their vaults and information silos: the National Archives (UK), the National Archives and Records Administration (US), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (US), the Bureau of Public Affairs at the Department of State (US), the National Security Archive at the George Washington University, the London Library, the Beverly Hills Public Library, Suffolk Public Libraries, Time, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Guardian, the Observer, The Times and the Sunday Times. I am indebted to the following friends for their encouragement and assistance: Ian Irvine, Bruce Page, Norma Percy, Adam Curtis, Ramachandra Guha, Peter Hennessy, Craig Brown, Frances Welch, Nicci Gerrard, Sean French, Christopher Silvester, Jean Seaton, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Ingrams, Ian Hislop, Sheila Molnar, Hilary Lowinger, Mary Aylmer, Sue Roccelli, Nick Cohen, Martin Bright. My publishers – especially Victoria Barnsley and Robin Harvie – stayed calm as deadlines whizzed by, for which I thank them. Robert Lacey, who edited the text, corrected my errors so charmingly that I wished I had inserted a few more, just for the pleasure of watching a master at work. The dear people with whom I share a house – Julia Jones, Bertie Wheen, Archie Wheen – never complained about my prolonged purdah in the shed at the bottom of the garden, for which I thank them, too. But the person I most want to thank isn’t here to accept her laurels. Pat Kavanagh, who was my literary agent for twenty-seven years and made this book possible, died in 2008. I feel like an orphan without her.