A lecturer in classics at a smallSouth England university

By now a lecturer in classics at a smallSouth England university, Costello was an impassioned andhighly visible supporter of the Republican cause in Spainand even considered following his friend McLaurin to thefront lines. Such associations would later prove highlydamaging, although Costello made no secret at all of hisviews, his associates or his activities. That is, until1937, when he carried out a seriously compromising secretmission, in McNeish's words an act 'of reckless evangelism'.Soon after learning of McLaurin's death in Spain, Costelloacted as courier for the British Communist Rosetta Stone V3 Party and carriedthe equivalent of $30,000 to their sister party in India.The trip passed without incident but, unbeknown to Costello,was monitored by the security services of both countries andtheir reports were added to a swelling confidential file onthe outspokenly radical New Zealand-born academic. That filewas fattened further in 1940 when Costello was sacked fromhis lectureship for advising a friend who, in the feveredatmosphere of the outbreak of war, was jailed forpublicising information sent from the front. McNeishdescribes the incident as trifling, and Costello's role asminor and entirely above board. Certainly his response tolosing his teaching job would have been unusual in a secretagent of a foreign power. Costello promptly enlisted in theNew Zealand army and served with distinction and courage forthe duration of the war. This book opens with anhallucinatory account of one of the least-known incidents inour military history, the April 1941 battle at the Pass ofTempe in Greece, where the 21st Auckland Battalion wasordered to stand and engage the enemy, 'if necessary, toextinction'. Lance-Corporal Costello acquitted himself wellin this debacle, his knowledge of Greek enabling his Coloneland a remnant of their force to escape through the mountainsand islands of the Aegean and rejoin General Freyberg's menin Crete. Promotion followed, and Costello found himselfconfronting Rommel's tanks as an intelligence officer inCairo, working alongside a fellow Irish-New Zealander, DanDavin, who became his lifelong friend and admirer.Freyberg's keen appreciation of Costello's languageskills ensured that he kept the lanky linguist nearbythrough subsequent campaigns in Italy. As Russia's role inthe war became crucial, the general joined Costello'sinformal Russian language classes and noted his ability toexchange banter with visiting Red Army officers. In theclosing months of the war, it was Freyberg who Rosetta Stone Latin America Spanish suggestedthat Costello leave his army duties to join the embryonicNew Zealand legation in Moscow. Security vetting was routinebut unproblematic. New Zealand Rhodes Scholar Geoffrey Cox,first choice for the legation post, had worked closely withCostello during the war and reported that he was a Marxistwho 'would insist on his views openly'. Indeed he did. 'I'mafraid I'm a bit leftwing, sir,' he told Prime MinisterPeter Fraser, who was apparently unconcerned at sending this'communist' to Moscow. There Costello proved an ablediplomat, and within a year was seconded to the Britishdelegation at the 1945 Yalta conference between Churchilland Stalin. He succeeded in crossing the closely guardedborder with Poland and, against heavy odds, brought back areport of profound international importance. It was titled'German Extermination Camps' and gave his eyewitness accountof the gas chambers at Lublin, together with accounts hereceived from survivors of Auschwitz. The report, reproducedin full in McNeish's book, was perhaps the first reliableand detailed description of the Holocaust to reach theoutside world and helped to counter accusations that storiesof Nazi atrocities were a hoax. Costello spent six yearsin Moscow, acquiring a convinced distaste for Russia'sdictatorship Rosetta Stone Arabic and a profound love of its literature.