"Among the more sensational espionage cases of the Cold War were those of Moscow's three British spies - Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, and Guy Burgess. In this book S. J. Hamrick draws on documentary evidence concealed for almost half a century in reconstructing the complex series of 1947-51 events that led British intelligence to identify all three as Soviet agents." "Basing his argument primarily on the Venona archive of broken Soviet cables released in 1995-96, as well as on complementary Moscow and London sources, Hamrick refutes the myth of MI5's identification of Maclean as a Soviet agent in the spring of 1951. British intelligence knew far earlier that Maclean was Moscow's agent and concealed that knowledge in a 1949-51 counterespionage operation that deceived Philby and Burgess. Hamrick also introduces evidence of a 1949-50 British disinformation initiative using Philby to mislead Moscow on Anglo-American retaliatory military capability in the event of Soviet aggression in Western Europe." "Deceiving the Deceivers breaks new ground in reinterpreting the final espionage years of three infamous spies and in clarifying fifty years of conjecture, confusion, and error in Anglo-American intelligence history."--BOOK JACKET.