Oreste Pinto was born in Amsterdam in 1889, the youngest child of Louis Pinto, a successful businessman, and Abigael Rozenboom. After military service he studied French literature at
the Sorbonne. He was a proficient linguist, being fluent in Dutch, English, French and German, and could get by in Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Romanian and Swahili. Pinto's career in intelligence began in 1913, when he was recruited by the
Deuxième Bureau, France's external military intelligence agency, and he worked for them during
World War I, initially as a spy. In the years leading up to the Second World War, Pinto was approached by MI5. He did not officially join the service, as doing so would have meant losing his Dutch citizenship, but was employed independently, during the
Second World War as an
MI5 interrogator. He interviewed over 30,000 immigrants to the UK at the euphemistically named "London Reception Centre" in the
Royal Victoria Patriotic Building in
Wandsworth. In 1952, Pinto published two books,
Spy-Catcher and
Friend or Foe? These formed the basis of the 1959-1961
BBC television series
Spycatcher, and also an earlier BBC Radio series, in both of which he was portrayed by
Bernard Archard. A further book,
Spycatcher 2, based on the series, was published in 1960. The 1962 Dutch programme
De Fuik, in which Pinto was portrayed by , was also derived from them.
Dwight Eisenhower once described Pinto as "the greatest living authority on security". The
Daily Telegraph referred to him as a "human
bloodhound". Conversely,
Guy Liddell stated in 1942 that he had been told by
Leonard Burt that Pinto had "a thoroughly bad record". He characterised himself as basically a generalist, with a knack for learning languages, skill in boxing and shooting ("I managed to reach amateur international standard"), and being an excellent bridge player and a "local" zoologist. He died in
Westminster Hospital London, a few weeks before his 72nd birthday, of chronic
bronchitis. ==Works==