Rory Cormac, "Fakers: A Top-Secret Tale of Phantoms and Forgeries on the Disinformation Front Line" (Oxford UP, 2026)

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast · Jul 17, 2026 · 59m

Fakers: A Top-Secret Tale of Phantoms and Forgeries on the Disinformation Front Line (Oxford UP, 2026) reveals the rise and fall of the mavericks running Britain's Cold War forgery empire. Their secret mission was audacious: to disrupt and discredit adversaries across the world using phantom groups, fake sources, and counterfeit documents. The leader was a remarkable character, wrestling with personal and professional dilemmas: Hans Welser. An Austrian refugee and one-time MI5 suspect interned behind barbed wire, Welser was a great survivor who rose to become special operations adviser to the…