A world of rogues and treachery

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Published Aug 27, 2012

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Who doesn’t love Cheaters? Joey Greco getting stabbed, those ultra-cheesy one-liners about philandering waitresses who have “a lot on their plates” and what not. Oh, that’s not why people watch the show?

Okay. Well, as far as documenting someone being stabbed in the back, Cheaters is all right entertainment. It isn’t actually anything like a documentary.

Well, Betrayal, which airs on TopTV’s Top History channel during the week, is a documentary series. And a good one at that.

Sure, there are no funny lines, but we’re watching the stories of real people who didn’t have to sign a release form for their tragic stories to be told.

Treachery does not look cute or funny, but it does make for a very interesting history lesson. In this series, actual acts that took place are explored.

Like the tale of Hana and Karl Koecher who apparently found a way to use the carnal pleasures of life to hoodwink the CIA.

The Koechers – who were working for the KGB – had planned to infiltrate the agency by attending orgies and taking part in the kind of wife-swopping that doesn’t resemble the popular TV show of the same name. And they succeeded.

Who knew a little bump and grind could make the Central Intelligence Agency turn into the Central Distracted Agency?

Remember Saddam Hussein’s Super Gun? Perhaps that’s not a good line to follow talk of bumping and grinding with, but I digress.

Dr Gerald Bull, the scientist who was the brain behind Hussein’s Super Gun, was assasinated, but the circumstances around his death became such a mystery that the case still has not been solved.

You’ll have to watch who betrayed whom in that case, but in the case of Oswald Mosley, there is betrayal left, right and centre.

During World War II, this leader of the British Union of Fascists hatched a plan for a Nazi coup which was only thwarted by Winston Churchill’s order to have Mosley arrested.

What’s cool about Betrayal is that it doesn’t only offer the re-enactments of the various cases, but also has exclusive interviews with some of the people who were involved in each dramatic story.

Obviously, there are also interviews with experts and scholars who have taken a particular interest in the biggest betrayals in history.

From Tel Aviv to Washington DC, Germany and beyond, this programme travels to all sorts of places to reveal some of the most monumental betrayals. But alas, there will be no “Et tu, Brute?”.

• Betrayal airs on Top History (TopTV channel 301) from Tuesday to Friday at 8pm.

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