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The Day of the Jackal author Frederick Forsyth has revealed he was working for MI6 for more than 20 years.
The disclosure comes with the publication of the author’s autobiography The Outsider: My Life.
Fans have long suspected that Forsyth, 77, acclaimed for his highly realistic spy novels, may have been involved with British Intelligence.
He told the BBC it started when he was asked to send information from the Biafran War in Nigeria.
He said he was approached by an intelligence officer who asked him to “tell us what’s going on” inside that civil war, which lasted from 1967 to 1970.
‘Dying like flies’
“For the last year of the Biafran War I was sending… both journalistic reports to the media and other reports to my new friend,” he said.
He said MI6 wanted to know if it was true that many children were dying.
“The Foreign Office was denying that there were any dying children and they were passionate in supporting the dictatorship in Lagos, and it was oddly enough MI6 that had a different viewpoint,” he said.
Mr Forsyth said he saw “no harm” in confirming the truth that “children were dying like flies” in Biafra.
Forsyth remains best known for novels such as The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File and The Dogs of War.
A former BBC and Reuters journalist, many of his fictional plots drew on real-life experiences covering stories around the world.
Despite going on to become an established author with the success of 1971’s The Day of the Jackal – which earned Forsyth a three-book publishing deal and led to a hit film – he later took up missions to Rhodesia, South Africa and, at the height of the Cold War, East Germany.
“It was normally a phone call: ‘can we meet – why don’t you join us for lunch? We have a little problem – would you mind slipping into East Germany and picking something us for us?'” the author told Sky News.
‘Is it OK?’
“Back then a lot of volunteers did things for the old country – it wasn’t regarded as weird”.
“There was no fee, no reward, you just do it. It was a different attitude back then.”
As a kind of pay-off for his services, however, he said MI6 did agree and approve passages from some of his later novels.
“I had a number I could ring… I’d ask, ‘Is it OK?’. They would check with superiors,” the award-winning author revealed.
Forsyth, who is known for his political views, has sold some 70 million books, many of which have been adapted into films. His most recent novel was 2013’s The Kill List.
He was awarded a CBE in 1997.
BBC