Pack of Lies

A high profile espionage case interested Hugh Whitemore to write the play Pack of Lies, and he changed the names of the Search family to Jackson. In 1961, Peter and Helen Kroger (really Morris and Lona Cohen), two Americans living in a London suburb, were convicted of spying for the Russians and sentenced to twenty years imprisonment. British Intelligence, known as MI5, had been monitoring their activities from the home of Bill and Ruth Search (whose daughter Gay went on to be a well known journalist), who were actually good friends of the Krogers. In 1969 the Krogers were exchanged with a British spy and went to Russia.