Ripping yarn of the Sunday Times reporter and how the truth of his murder as a spy can finally be told
I love a good spy story… and there are few more murky and murderous than the real-life riddle of Sunday Times journalist David Holden.
Holden, the paper’s chief foreign correspondent, was shot dead in December 1977 in Cairo, where he planned to cover peace talks between Egypt and Israel.
Why and by whom has remained a mystery for almost half a century – a torment that dogged editor Harold Evans to his grave.
Now a new book by Peter Gillman and Emanuele Midolo claims to have solved the riddle. The pair wrote a special report for the Sunday Times Magazine, which they say reveals who killed Holden.
As with all good spy thrillers, it is a twisty tale of lies and deceit. Holden, 53, a handsome man with slicked back hair and, we are told, china-blue eyes, was not only a journalist but also a spy.
Holden’s body, stripped of all means of identification, was found lying in the dirt beside a road. He had been shot once in the back. The bullet had pierced his heart.
The reporter had landed in Cairo on the evening of December 6. When he failed to check in with the Sunday Times foreign desk the editor ordered his staff to action stations. They contacted embassies and Holden’s rivals but turned up no clues.
On December 10, with the first edition put to bed, the news reached Evans that his chief foreign correspondent was lying in a Cairo mortuary. There could be no mistake – the body had been identified by a BBC reporter who had worked with Holden.
Evans replated Page One with the story of Holden prominent below the titlepiece. Then he sent reporters to Amman, Jerusalem and Cairo and utilised another journalist already in Beirut to piece together the truth of Holden’s death.
Evans suspected it might be linked to an article exposing torture by Israel’s internal security service Shin Bet. Had the Mossad taken revenge?
The team of investigators uncovered evidence of a professional hit. Holden was met at the airport by a stolen Fiat car. He was shot in another, similar vehicle. The killers made their getaway in a third.
Evans ordered his team to delve into Holden’s background – “no expense spared,” he said in a reflection of those Fleet Street times.
Holden grew up in Sunderland, the son of an editor of the Sunderland Echo. He read geography at the University of Cambridge and in 1954 landed a job with The Times. After a spell in London, the paper sent him to Washington.
In a lightning rise, he became Middle East correspondent in 1956 and reported from Cairo during the Suez crisis. He joined the Sunday Times in 1965.
Evans’s reporters discovered that British Intelligence had tried to recruit him while at Cambridge. They also found that he was gay and had formed a relationship with Leo Silberman, who was much older, a KGB asset and a proven charlatan.
Holden was recruited as a KGB agent before he turned to journalism. There were also strong indications that he worked for the CIA, though efforts by the Sunday Times to prove this were rebuffed.
The journalists discovered that Holden was not the only spy working at the Sunday Times. Another correspondent, John Slade-Baker, had been hired by the paper’s foreign manager Ian Fleming, the James Bond creator who was a former Navy intelligence officer.
Indeed, even one of the reporters Evans sent to pursue the Holden story was a correspondent and an MI6 agent.
After many hours reviewing the evidence gathered for Harry Evans, Gillman and Midolo concluded that Holden was killed by the Egyptians.
A journalist and former government minister, Mohamed Heikal, was approached by a BBC reporter as he entered a lift. He said he couldn’t talk and the BBC man called: “Okay, just tell me who killed David.”
“We did,” he said as the lift doors closed.
The Cairo police chief was said to have confirmed it years later. “We did it,” he said. “Holden was working for the KGB.”
That was his misfortune. Cairo had been on Russia’s side but in a dramatic geopolitical shift, Henry Kissinger persuaded Egypt to team up instead with America. Holden became expendable.
Evans wrote in his memoir, My Paper Chase: “We were plunged into many mysteries in my 14 years as editor of the Sunday Times, but the most profound was right there in our own office.”
*Murder in Cairo: Solving a Cold War Spy Mystery is published by Biteback at £20 on March 20.
*****
I wonder when Reach boss Jim Mullen will finally realise that he is managing the cream of his newspaper stable into an early grave.
The publisher, which owns the Daily Mirror, Daily Express and Daily Star, was basking last week in the glow of a 71.2 per cent rise in profits – from £36.7 million to £62.8 million.
But this was achieved largely by cutting costs: slashing jobs and reducing print circulation. The disturbing figure for Mullen should be that revenue fell by 5.3 per cent to £538.6 million.
With the economy in such a dire state and further pain to come from Trump’s tariffs and Europe’s sudden rush to re-arm, the amount of money coming in could shrink still further.
Digital revenues were up 2.1 per cent to £130 million, while print revenues fell 7.3 per cent to £406.7 million. Despite this, print still comprises 75 per cent of Reach’s income. The company publishes more than 100 newspaper titles.
The City was not impressed. After the results were announced, shares fell 1.3 per cent.
Reach’s problem is that Mullen and the people around him have little respect for or understanding of the job of journalists. The mindset is that they cost too much; and what do they actually bring to the party?
So Reach has turned to Artificial Intelligence for help. About 20 per cent of the Reach papers’ content was generated using AI. You can be sure that more will follow.
Mullen has got rid of most of the newspapers’ columnists without replacing them with anything else. The modern equivalent of columnists is the podcast. Good journalists and their bosses have realised this. Done properly, they generate a lot of money.
Former No. 10 Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell and his Tory ex-Cabinet Minister sparring partner Rory Stewart have a popular one called The Rest Is Politics.
Times radio double act Jane Garvey and Fi Glover do another. Sky’s Sam Coates teams up with Politico’s Jack Blanchard to chew over the Westminster news.
Reach does podcasts. Just not very well. I listened to some (so you don’t have to). They are banal and frankly pointless, offering no new insight or wit.
The company’s fixation on the switch to digital has brought data-driven judgments, with quality measured by page views and stories valued by clicks.
Chief Executive Mullen said: “Millions of people in this country are not in a position to pay for news and making ad-funded news sustainable will ensure that it remains accessible to all.”
A laudable aim. But it will end in tears at the gravesides of some fine newspapers.
*****
Former CIA director John Brennan has accused Donald Trump of extortion over his withdrawal of intelligence sharing with Ukraine.
A perfect analysis of Trump’s shameful action. No wonder Brennan served as spymaster under six US Presidents.
As he enriched himself in the New York property market, Trump rubbed shoulders with some very shady characters – cheap hoods, wise guys, Mafia dons – and learnt a key lesson.
When you have them by the balls, squeeze hard and don’t let go.
His treatment of Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House was the classic shake-down in a protection racket.
First get one of your goons – in this case a tame journalist called Brian Glenn from a conservative cable network – to ask Zelensky sneeringly why he did not wear a suit.
That’s the bit where thugs swagger into the diner and break the crockery.
Follow that with a little intimidation from the Vice-President and throw in some threats – “You either make a deal or we’re out,” snarled Trump.
That’s the bit where they slap the diner’s owner around.
And the shake-down is almost complete. Zelensky was kicked out of the White House. Days later, military aid was suspended; then access to intelligence was denied.
That’s the bit where Trump sends in his hoodlums, led by one Vladimir Putin, to wreck the joint and beat up the owner.
“Okay, okay,” said Zelensky. “I’ll pay.”
Trump should be careful whom he antagonises or one day, perhaps, a big cod wrapped in newspaper will be left on the steps of the White House.
The message will be… Donny sleeps with the fishes.
I mean politically. Obviously.
*****
“I tried to resist his overtures, but he plied me with symphonies, quartets, chamber music and cantatas.” – S J Perelman
RICHARD DISMORE
11 March 2025
