Book description
To mark the centenary of its foundation, the British Security
Service, MI5, opened its archives to an independent historian. The
Defence of the Realm, the book which results, is an
unprecedented publication, It reveals the precise role of the Service
in twentieth-century British history, from its foundation by Captain
Kell of the British Army in October 1909 to root out 'the spies of the
Kaiser' up to its present role in countering Islamic terrorism. It
describes the distinctive ethos of MI5, how the organization has been
managed, its relationship with the government, where it has triumphed
and where it has failed. In all of this, no restriction has been
placed on the judgements made by the author.
The book also casts new light on many events and periods in British
history, showing for example that though well-placed sources MI5 was
probably the pre-war department with the best understanding of
Hitler's objectives, and had a remarkable willingness to speak truth
to power; how it was so astonishingly successful in turning German
agents during the Second World War; and that it had much greater roles
than has hitherto been realized during the end of the Empire and in
responding to the recurrent fears of successive governments (both
Conservative and Labour) and or Cold War Communist subversion. It has
new information about the Profumo affair and its aftermath, about the
'Magnificent Five' and about a range of formerly unconfirmed Soviet
contacts. It reveals that though MI5 had a file on Harold Wilson it
did not plot against him, and it describes what really happened during
the failed IRA attack in Gibraltar in March 1988.
Christopher Andrew is Professor of Modern and Contemporary History
and former Chair of the Faculty of History at Cambridge University. He
is also chair of the British Intelligence Study Group, Founding
Co-Editor of
Intelligence and National Security
, former Visiting Professor at Harvard, Toronto and the Australian
National University, and a regular presenter of BBC Radio and TV
documentaries. His fifteen previous books include
The Mitrokhin Archive
volumes 1 and 2, and a number of path-breaking studies on the use and
abuse of secret intelligence in modern history.
