''The Spike'' is a 1980 spy thriller

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

Arnaud de Borchgrave Arnaud Charles Paul Marie Philippe de Borchgrave (26 October 1926 – 15 February 2015) was a Belgian-American journalist who specialized in international politics. Following a long career with the news magazine ''Newsweek'', covering 17 wars i ...

and

Robert Moss Robert Moss, born in Melbourne (Victoria) in 1946, is an Australian historian, journalist and author and the creator of Active Dreaming, an original synthesis of dreamwork and shamanism. Biography Early life and education Moss survived severa ...

(New York: Crown Publishers, 1980). Drawing on de Borchgrave's experience as a jet-setting ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis (businessman), Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print m ...

'' journalist and conservative Washington insider, it tells the story of a radical '60s journalist, Bob Hockney, who stumbles upon a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

plot for global supremacy by 1985. When he tries to expose the web of blackmail, sex and espionage, he's hamstrung by his editors' liberal

media bias Media bias is the bias of journalists and news producers within the mass media in the selection of many events and stories that are reported and how they are covered. The term "media bias" implies a pervasive or widespread bias contravening of J ...

. In the news world, to "

spike Spike, spikes, or spiking may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Books * ''The Spike'' (novel), a novel by Arnaud de Borchgrave * ''The Spike'' (book), a nonfiction book by Damien Broderick * ''The Spike'', a starship in Peter F. Hamilto ...

" a story means to cancel its publication. De Borchgrave and Moss envision a scenario in which the

KGB The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...

exploits the attitudes of the unsuspecting Western media, which was allegedly more interested in unmasking

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

agents than stopping the Soviets, threatening to thwart Hockney's big scoop. The best-selling book was marketed not only as a spy thriller but an exposé of real-life Washington. ''Time'' called the book a ''

roman à clef ''Roman à clef'' (, anglicised as ), French for ''novel with a key'', is a novel about real-life events that is overlaid with a façade of fiction. The fictitious names in the novel represent real people, and the "key" is the relationship ...

'' for its fictionalized versions of real people and organizations, including

Zbigniew Brzezinski Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzeziński ( , ; March 28, 1928 – May 26, 2017), or Zbig, was a Polish-American diplomat and political scientist. He served as a counselor to President Lyndon B. Johnson from 1966 to 1968 and was President Jimmy Carter's ...

and the radical left-wing magazine ''Ramparts''. In a 1980 interview with ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

,'' de Borchgrave mentions that he came up with the idea for a novel after he and his wife had to hide in the English countryside, after anonymous threats were made in response to a ''

'' article he wrote that named some of the terrorists behind the

1972 Munich massacre The Munich massacre was a terrorist attack carried out during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, by eight members of the Palestinian people, Palestinian militant organization Black September Organization, Black September, who i ...

. The authors' 1983 follow-up, ''

Monimbo ''Monimbo'' is the 1983 follow-up novel to the 1980 Arnaud De Borchgrave- Robert Moss spy thriller '' The Spike''. Plot Fidel Castro attends a conference in Monimbo, Nicaragua. It begins with the kidnapping of a U.S. Senator in Puerto Rico by th ...

'', envisioned Miami race rioters as the pawns of Nicaraguan and Cuban communists.

Footnotes

1980 American novels American spy novels American thriller novels {{1980s-spy-novel-stub