Ament, Suzanne

English

North Georgia College & State University: Digital Commons

International Social Science Review
Volume 91 | Issue 2 Article 14
2015
Book Review: Most Secret Agent of Empire:
Reginald Teague-Jones Master Spy of the Great
Game by Taline Ter Minassian
Suzanne Ament
Radford University
Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.northgeorgia.edu/issr
Part of the Anthropology Commons, Communication Commons, Economics Commons,
Geography Commons, International and Area Studies Commons, Political Science Commons, and
the Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration Commons
This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by Nighthawks Open Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in
International Social Science Review by an authorized administrator of Nighthawks Open Institutional Repository.
Recommended Citation
Ament, Suzanne (2015) "Book Review: Most Secret Agent of Empire: Reginald Teague-Jones Master Spy of the Great Game by Taline
Ter Minassian," International Social Science Review: Vol. 91: Iss. 2, Article 14.
Available at: http://digitalcommons.northgeorgia.edu/issr/vol91/iss2/14
Book Review: Most Secret Agent of Empire: Reginald Teague-Jones
Master Spy of the Great Game by Taline Ter Minassian
Cover Page Footnote
Dedicated to the memory of Kate Harshberger.
This book review is available in International Social Science Review: http://digitalcommons.northgeorgia.edu/issr/vol91/iss2/14
Ter Minassian, Taline. Most Secret Agent of Empire: Reginald Teague-Jones Master Spy of 
the Great Game. Translated by Tom Rees. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. xviii + 
283 pages. Hardcover, $29.95. 
 
 Ter Minassian’s biography of Reginald Teague-Jones (known as Ronald Sinclair after 
1922) grabs the reader’s attention immediately.  In the introduction we learn of the historian’s 
efforts to do the research despite closed British Archives, a spy’s penchant for destroying his 
own papers, and a world-wide tour to track him down!  We also learn that, at the end of his life, 
Teague-Jones returns to Britain and settles into a retirement home with his second wife.  Upon 
her death, Teague-Jones tracks down his first wife - fifty years after their divorce - and brings her 
to live with him at the home.  It is intriguing that his first wife’s grandfather was an Armenian 
Nationalist leader during the time that Teague-Jones was reporting from Transcaucasia! 
 The book’s agenda is to link Teague-Jones to the “Great Game” between Russia and 
Britain over the territory between British India and the Russian empire.  Ter Minassian contends 
that this game continues into the twenty-first century and that Teague-Jones played a key role in 
its evolution.  She is not alone in making this argument and cites many historians and writers 
supporting the link.  Ter Minassian certainly makes the case that Teague-Jones was intimately 
involved in many parts of this game.  He started his early career on the Indian Frontier, spent 
much time in Persia/Iran, was in Transcaucasia for the Russian revolution and civil war, knew of 
the dismantlement of the Raj from New York, and worked to promote counter-propaganda when 
the United States was pushing for Indian Independence.  Although this elite British intelligence 
officer surely provided key information, and in some cases definitely smoothed out situations, 
his lasting effect on British strategy seems minimal.  In fact, the British did not follow his advice 
concerning the central Asian region.  Had Britain used more force against the fledgling Soviet 
government at that time, the game may have turned out much differently.  
 The biography is set up in chronological order running from Jones’s boyhood (before he 
compounded his middle and last names) in Liverpool, to his formative years as a companion to a 
family in St. Petersburg, Russia during the 1905 revolution.  It follows his career from the Indian 
frontier district at the beginning of Word War I, through Persia, Central Asia and the Caucasus 
region, then to Iran and the Middle East, and on to New York and Bermuda at the outset of Word 
War II.  The thorough account of his travels, friendships, and writings ends around 1950 when he 
retires.  The author seeks to understand the change in Teague-Jones’s social class, rising from an 
obscure  lower-middle class family, to rubbing shoulders with the elite of British social and 
military society as well as with Indian and central Asian tribesman.   
The book is both broad and deep.  Extensive use of extant writings, letters and reports 
gives a voice to Teague-Jones which can be sentimental, cynical, humorous and prophetic.  We 
have a picture of a strong personality: ambitious yet directed towards serving his nation; a 
charming raconteur who could function in many social circles; and an imperialist often wistful at 
the changes he saw, yet intimately involved in bringing some of those changes to pass.  He was 
the first to drive an automobile across the entirety of Iran.  He had the colorful adventure in a 
Model A Ford named Zobeida!  
 The book has depth in that it transcribes incredible amounts of detail.  Sometimes 
overwhelming, the book includes the background leading to Teague-Jones’s involvement, the 
1
Ament: Most Secret Agent of Empire
Published by Nighthawks Open Institutional Repository, 2015
biographies of his friends and acquaintances, and marvelous descriptions of the landscape he 
travels through.  The latter take an ethnographic twist when we learn of the tribes, songs, dances, 
foods, and customs of many of the people Teague-Jones encountered.  
 Ter Minassian stresses one particular event in Teague-Jones’s life: the case of the 
execution of twenty-six Bolshevik commissars in Turkmenistan in 1918.  She presents a full 
historiographic account of the incident along a railway line where twenty-six men supporting the 
Reds in the Civil war were killed.  Although the Soviets blamed Teague-Jones for the event in 
histories, speeches and films, Ter Minassian and other scholars believe he had little to do with 
the decision and may not have known of the execution at the time.  Only after the fall of the 
Soviet Union has the importance of the incident, the symbolism of the various monuments, and 
the villainization of Teague-Jones quieted down.  The author also spends a great deal of time 
describing a First World War German spy, Wilhelm Wassmuss, whom Teague-Jones was 
assigned to destroy.  Rather than succeeding, Ter Minassian asserts that the young British agent 
learned from the elusive Wassmuss, developing and evolving his own Secret Agent methods and 
tactics. 
 This book provides a plethora of material especially for those interested in the British 
intelligence world, the Indian Political Service, Early Soviet Russia, the politics and convoluted 
nationality issues in the Caucasus region and Central Asia, and the intelligence relations of 
Britain and the United States during World War II.  The text is extremely dense, not only due to 
the extraneous material, but also because of the writing style itself.  (This may be partially due to 
the fact that the book was originally written in French, and there are lengthy sentences with 
multiple inserts).  Nevertheless, Most Secret Agent of Empire: Reginald Teague-Jones Master 
Spy of the Great Game is a fascinating book.  The reader gets to meet and ponder a man who 
observed and valued people unlike himself, and undoubtedly brought a better understanding of 
the West to other regions of the world. 
 
Suzanne Ament, Ph.D. 
Associate Professor of History 
Radford University 
Radford, Virginia   
2
International Social Science Review, Vol. 91 [2015], Iss. 2, Art. 14
http://digitalcommons.northgeorgia.edu/issr/vol91/iss2/14


Book Review: Most Secret Agent of Empire: Reginald Teague-Jones Master Spy of the Great Game by Taline Ter Minassian

https://digitalcommons.northgeorgia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1144&context=issr

Book Review: Most Secret Agent of Empire: Reginald Teague-Jones Master Spy of the Great Game by Taline Ter Minassian

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

North Georgia College & State University: Digital Commons