Frederick Forsyth's - "The Fourth Protocol" Quiz

Answer: An assassination attempt on Margaret Thatcher

Reading this story, one at first wonders how on earth all these unrelated storylines could come together. But they do, and no reader can guess how!

Answer: Harold "Kim" Philby

In real life these four spies formed The Cambridge Five (named after the University where they all met). No one knows who number 5 was, but the book says it was a gentleman named Blake. Kim Philby is about to turn 75 and since Blake is his (only) friend (also living in Moscow as a defector), he throws Philby a party.
In 1963 Philby was the last of the group to defect to Russia. He did the most damage as head of MI6, so his name is the most remembered today.
In this story, he is bitter about his life in the Soviet Union. Even though he was treated like a hero, he has long since been disillusioned about communism and secretly wants to be forgiven and return to England. Fat chance.

Answer: 1987

Forsyth published this story in 1984. At the time, most of its events would have been very plausible. Especially the Russians wanting to throw Britain into chaos for their own ends - i.e. Gorbechev hadn't come to power yet.

Answer: John Preston

John Preston works for M15. His job is to "keep an eye" on extremists in Britain's Labour Party. He prepares a dossier called The Preston Report about a possible brewing coup - extremists wanting to take over The Labour Party (legally and secretly) and to sever all British ties with the United States.
His report is not taken seriously by his superior. However when Moscow (via Kim Philby) learn about this, they are determined to help The Labour Party win the next election. By any means necessary.

Answer: Michael Caine

When I first started reading this book I idly thought Michael Caine would have been a good choice to play John Preston. As you might imagine, I was gobsmacked when I found out he DID!

Answer: Manifesto of the British Revolution

The MBR has been carefully planned and prepared in secret for many years by the Labour Party extremists (though never written down, of course). These "hard left" politicians are not completely united, but if their party is elected in the 1987 election, they will (not illegally) oust the elected candidate and gain control of the party overnight.
Their "MBR" will turn virtually every British industry, emergency service and public service over to state control. If the (quite legally elected) hard-left legislators do all this, then the United Kingdom will be changed into a communist country in all but name. Not only that, the MBR's next step is to sever ties with the rest of Europe, the USA, and all other NATO parties. A situation perfect for the USSR! This is one of the more frightening and plausible aspects of this book.
Harold "Kim" Philby has been keeping an eye on British politics since he fled to Moscow and he now tells the General Secretary of the USSR that "the stability of British politics has never been more over-estimated than at the present time".

Answer: False

George Berenson, one of the top nobs at the Ministry of Defence, and his wife leave their rich apartment on New Year's Eve to stay with family. They don't know Jim Rawlings, a master jewel thief, has been staking out their place. That night Jim breaks in, blows the safe, grabs the famous Glen Diamonds and leaves as Big Ben strikes midnight for 1987.
But Berenson returns home early (after a row with his wife) and discovers the theft. One then wonders why he does not ring the police. In fact, he rings someone else who does not answer, and he panics.

Answer: False

At first Jim took the Glen Suite to his usual fence who took them to HIS usual fence in Belgium. But the diamonds' owner's husband has now made contact with the man he tried to ring. The mysterious man advises him not to go to the police. Curiously, it seems Berenson is anxious about something other than the diamonds.

His friend uses his contacts in the underworld to find the diamonds. Hired thugs find them, kill Jim's fence and the Belgian friend, and then go looking for Jim himself. The diamonds are recovered, however they have been altered. So Berenson gets replacement diamonds as well as a new safe door before his wife comes home.

However, he is still very anxious. But what about?

Answer: Documents

When Jim's friend the jeweler is murdered by thugs, his widow telephones Jim to warn him they're after him next. Jim is puzzled why they wanted the attaché case; he had emptied its contents before leaving Berenson's flat. He decides to investigate it further, and finds a concealed compartment containing some papers. There's nothing remarkable about the papers...except for the words "MINISTRY OF DEFENCE" and "TOP SECRET".
He anonymously sends all the papers back to The Ministry; he might be a thief and a scoundrel, but that doesn't mean he's not a patriot. He also prepares a surprise welcome for his "visitors".
The latter visit Jim soon, but return to their hideout with no attache case, broken bones and a promise if they return they will be found floating in the Thames wearing "concrete underpants". Forsyth humour...

Answer: The hero

John Preston, co-incidentally, has been "promoted" in MI5 to a boring routine surveillance job. His new job is keeping an eye on all government ministries. It was called a promotion, but in reality his boss put him there to avoid the embarrassing Preston Report ever surfacing again.
But as fate would have it, John's new job means he's the one who finds out about the leak at the Ministry of Defence. At first it seems unrelated to his efforts at exposing the MBR, but later the two link up.

Answer: All these things

The hero and his team finally get the list of possibilities down to two men. The first is eliminated when the surveillance team stumble upon him living a secret life, rather than betraying his country. The man is however, embarrassed to the same degree.

Answer: Russia

John Preston's surveillance team witness Berenson passing information to an ice-cream salesman who passes it on to a South African gentleman. The latter turns out to work for the South African embassy, but Preston travels to South Africa to investigate further.

It turns out the man has been dead since World War Two and this fellow is a Russian sympathiser using his identity. The South Africans are furious, but agree to let the British deal with him. It turns out the man has tricked Berenson for years.

The latter thought he was passing sensitive information to South Africa, not Russia. When Bereson is confronted and showed their findings, he buries his head in his hands and groans "Oh my God, what have I done?!"

Answer: Part of a Nuclear-Arms treaty

In 1968, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was signed by many countries, including China, the USSR, the USA, Britain and France (these five had the largest weapons). It basically restricts the spread of nuclear weapons. The fourth protocol (according to this novel) states no side may secretly import tiny nuclear weapons via the postal service, diplomatic pouches, smuggling, etc.

Answer: False

When Kim Philby and a bunch of advisers come up with a plan to influence Great Britain's next election, they present it to the General Secretary (the emperor of Russia, in all but name). He originally asked them to come up with a plan, but he is enraged at the result. Plan Aurora is insane, reckless, not to be discussed, and they are all to return to their normal duties, and never mention it ever again. But as everybody drives away, Philby is summoned back to the old man's office.

The old man smiles, compliments the plan and says he is delighted by it; he wants it to go ahead after all.

But he insists on absolute secrecy. Not even the KGB or the rest of the Soviet government are to know about it (they would probably object to the danger of breaching the fourth protocol). Philby will have all the assistance he needs, but no one outside this room is to know.

Answer: Setting of an atomic explosion in England

Plan Aurora IS actually quite brilliant (but we would expect nothing less from Frederick Forsyth, would we?). It involves one Russian agent living in England and having visitors from Eastern bloc countries bringing him strangely ordinary everyday items. One wonders how these items could present any threat.

Answer: True

Well...they do PROMISE him all that, but they have no intention of keeping their word. Not least because he is expected to die!
Poor Valeri Petrofsky is one of the KGB's top men and he is thrilled when offered this chance of a lifetime. He flies to England using a false passport and a perfect English accent. He sets himself up in a remote quiet suburb of Ipswich and buys a car and motorbike. He uses the latter to meet sailors, professors, tourists, etc, who fly or sail into Great Britain to give him parts of an atomic bomb. The bomb to be assembled in his home.
He is told by Philby pressing the bomb's button will give him two hours to flee before detonation. Philby lied.

Answer: A Glasgow mugging

One of the couriers is a seaman whose boat is tied up at Glasgow. He sneaks off the boat at night and heads for the rendezvous point to meet Petrofsky. But some punks accost him, and beat him up when he won't surrender his bag. At the hospital, realising he has failed, he jumps off the roof to avoid the wrath of his superiors. One of the Scottish Special Branch wonders what was in the bag that he tried so desperately to protect. John Preston is called in, runs a mysterious object in the bag past a scientist, and learns it's radioactive!

Answer: False

In fact, this particular courier is MEANT to be discovered. But the courier is not sent by Philby and co; he is sent by a KGB General. General Karpov wondered what this strange Plan "Aurora" is (a plan he and his organisation are not supposed to know about).

He later learned about it when the head of MI6 (via Berenson, who's now co-operating) prepared a fake memo saying plan Aurora is discovered. General Karpov then sends this courier to Britain with a deliberately-obviously fake passport and so John Preston and co follow him.

The Austrian leads them to two Greek brothers who will meet Petrofsky when the plan is nearly completed. When Petrofsky finally shows up, they follow him back to his temporary home in Ipswich and call in the SAS (plus nuclear disposal experts!).

Answer: Vassiliev

The last person to visit Great Britain to see Petrofsky is Vassiliev , a man from Soviet Nuclear Engineering. Petrofsky meets him at the airport and takes him to his house. Then we (and Valeri Petrofsky) finally learn what all the delivered components are and how they can be fitting together to make an atomic bomb. One device is the timer and the professor explains to Petrofsky which button to press to give himself the two hours he needs to escape before detonation. It is unclear if Vassiliev has been told the truth: that the bomb (and Petrofsky) will explode instantly.

But what is clear, is that Petrofsky has been given orders of his own about Vassiliev. When he drives the old man back towards the airport, he pulls over on the roadside for a call of nature.

Then he cries for help, the old man runs to investigate, and Petrofsky breaks his neck. One less witness for Philby and co...

Answer: False

At the end of the story it seems that Philby has been communicating with the British embassy in Moscow (via his carrier pigeon) for some years. We assume it was he that leaked word of Plan Aurora in exchange for being allowed to come home. But it was not so, therefore he stayed in Moscow.

In real life he died in 1988. In a way, though, Philby did contribute to the foiling of Plan Aurora in this story. When Petrofsky is watching TV (unaware the SAS are about to break down his door) he sees Philby's pigeon in the hands of an expert.

He wrongly assumes Philby has sent his pigeon to England to betray the plan, and him! He is so enraged he does not answer his ringing telephone (again, the SAS) and thus he is not standing where he is supposed to be when they burst in. Luckily (for the SAS, at least) the operation is still a success and the only fatality is Petrofsky. John Preston asked him to be captured alive, but he was deliberately silenced. An unspoken condition of the unofficial agreement between KGB General Karpov and Sir Nigel Irvine of the SIS (MI6).