Victims of Yalta was first published in Britain in 1978. Over ensuing weeks, the scandal it provoked filled the press, and resulted in numerous radio and television interviews. Among media and public alike, the reaction was one of almost universal horror and disgust at what could only be regarded as major war crimes.

Particular obloquy was directed against the then British Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, and his underlings in the Northern Department of the Foreign Office. The generally reluctant role played by British troops in despatching hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children, to what Harold Macmillan blithely anticipated as ‘slavery, torture, and probably death’ at the hands of the Soviets, was viewed with mingled dismay and compassion.