Briefing #003

ISTANBUL: SPIES AT THE CROSSROADS OF THE WORLD

Key Locations

SOME SUGGESTED SPOTS TO DUCK INTO TO CHECK PLANS OR LOSE A TAIL

Orient Express Café, Sirkeci Railway Station (Sirkeci Garı), Ankara Caddesi, Sirkeci, Fatih

Set right by platform 1 of Istanbul’s Sirkeci station, this unpretentious and unreconstructed railway station buffet is a great spot to order a Turkish coffee and plan your spy tour. A perfect vantage point to imagine all the characters in fact and fiction collecting their luggage and stepping off into Istanbul. Also a notable film location. It features in From Russia with Love, where Bond and Tatiana depart on the Orient Express as Soviet agents watch them from here.

Pera Palace Hotel, Meşrutiyet Caddesi No. 52, Tepebaşı, Beyoğlu

The grande dame hotel of Istanbul, covert history permeates its very fabric. Try a 'Midnight at the Pera Palace' cocktail in the Orient Bar of the hotel. You'll be in the company of Mata Hari, Ernest Hemingway, AGENT CICERO, Agatha Christie, Ian Fleming, Kemal Ataturk and Kim Philby. Solve the mystery of the explosion in March 1941. Investigate the story of Christie’s key hidden under the floorboards of her favourite room, 411.

Galata Bridge, connecting Eminönü (Fatih side) to Karaköy (Beyoğlu side)

This double decker bridge straddles the Golden Horn and would have connected passengers arriving from Europe to accommodation in Galata, then onwards to the East. A great place to work out the geography of this complex city and drop down to one of the many restaurants on the lower deck grilling fresh fish and delicious lamb kebabs.

Soho House, Evliya Çelebi Mahallesi, Meşrutiyet Caddesi No.56, Beyoğlu

Formerly a Genoese merchant’s house, then home to the US consulate and a busy CIA station, now a private members club of the Soho House stable. Redolent of neutral wartime and then Cold War intrigue, non-members can visit the exclusive clubhouse if they book a stay in one of the bedrooms.

1924 Istanbul, İstiklal Caddesi, Olivya Geçidi No.7/A, Asmalımescit, Beyoğlu

Istanbul’s famous White Russian restaurant, formerly known as Rajan’s, as famous for its celebrity diners as its spies. Photos of the usual suspects line the walls: Agatha Christie, Greta Garbo, Mata Hari, Ernest Hemingway. Atatürk’s table (No. 2) is marked with a 'Reserved Forever' sign, a bottle of rakı, and a plate of white chickpeas - his favourite ritual. Try the borscht, pirozhki, pelmeni, beef stroganoff or chicken Kyiv. Wash these down with house-infused vodkas such as the lemon 'yellow vodka', horseradish or cherry. Request your national tune from the elderly accordionist - great fun.

Pre-Mission Briefing

Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities - Bettany Hughes

We recommend this ambitious single-volume 'biography' as your initial background briefing on this fascinating city. It takes you from prehistory through Byzantium and the Ottomans to today. Shortlisted for the Runciman Award, and a Sunday Times bestseller.

Midnight at the Pera Palace: The Birth of Modern Istanbul - Charles King

The transition from imperial capital to Turkish republic told through the hotel and its guests: White Russian émigrés, jazz singers, Trotsky, and plenty of secret agents. King notes the Pera Palace lobby had so many spies the manager posted a sign asking them to give up their seats to paying guests. Adapted into a Netflix series of the same name.

Spies for the Sultan: Espionage and Statecraft in the Sixteenth-Century Mediterranean - Emrah Safa Gürkan (Trans. Jonathan M. Ross, İdil Karacadağ)

This history turns the clock back to a fascinating era of intense imperial rivalry, when the Ottomans faced their great 16th-century rivals, the Spanish Habsburgs and the Venetians. It covers the institutional structure of Ottoman intelligence and counter-espionage, the sources of intelligence used by Ottoman pashas and ambassadors, and how intelligence fed into Ottoman decision-making.

A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal - Ben Macintyre

Macintyre covers Philby's 1947-49 posting as head of British intelligence in Turkey, ostensibly First Secretary at the British Consulate in Istanbul, in reality running agent infiltrations into Soviet Armenia and Georgia, nearly all of whom were betrayed by Philby before they arrived. The book also covers Philby’s earlier deadly treachery in Istanbul in both the Vermehren defection and Volkov affair. Philby left an appalling body count.

A selection of recommended reading to prepare you for your mission...

Once safely in place, you could spend years in the safe house library working through some of the greatest spy fiction set in Istanbul…

Safe House Suggestions

Greenmantle - John Buchan

Richard Hannay is sent on a covert mission through wartime Europe to Constantinople, tasked with uncovering a German-Turkish plot to ignite a Muslim uprising against British interests in the Middle East. The real star of the story though is Hannay’s undercover British friend Sandy Arbuthnot, a soldier and Orientalist who travels through Asia Minor using his fluency in local languages and Arab contacts, and who ends up operating in deep disguise as the leader of a band of wild dervish dancers!

Journey into Fear - Eric Ambler

A British engineer, having just completed a defence contract that could bring Turkey into the war on the Allied side, becomes the target of a Nazi assassination plot as he attempts to leave Istanbul by sea. Turkish security chief Colonel Haki oversees his protection. Ambler is widely seen as the first writer of modern spy novels, his plots pitting gifted amateurs against lethal professionals.

From Russia with Love - Ian Fleming

Soviet counter-intelligence organisation SMERSH devises an elaborate operation to discredit and eliminate James Bond, luring him to Istanbul with the promise of a Soviet cipher clerk willing to defect along with a valuable Spektor decoding machine.

Istanbul Passage - Joseph Kanon

Set in the immediate aftermath of WWII, an American businessman, Leon Bauer, who has previously carried out odd jobs for US intelligence, is drawn into the murky world, and moral dilemmas, of early Cold War espionage. When a routine assignment goes wrong, Bauer finds himself caught up in a manhunt in a city teeming with competing spies, as well as the local police force. The city itself is very much a key character.

For those seeking further inspiration, we recommend checking out Spybrary

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