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Secret Wars: One Hundred Years of British Intelligence Inside MI5 and MI6, by Gordon Thomas
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Gordon Thomas, a leading expert on the intelligence community, returns in Secret Wars to provide the definitive history of the famed MI5 and MI6.
Thomas's wide-sweeping history of two of the oldest and most powerful agencies in the world chronicles a century of both triumphs and failures. He recounts the roles that British intelligence played in the Allied victory in World War II; the postwar treachery of Great Britain's own agents; the defection of Soviet agents and the intricate process of "handling" them; the cooperation between the British and Americans in the search for Osama bin Laden; and the ways in which MI5 and MI6 have fought biological warfare espionage and space terrorism.
Based on prodigious research and interviews with significant players from inside the British intelligence community, this is a rich and even delicious history packed with intrigue and information that only the author could have attained.
- Sales Rank: #186906 in Books
- Published on: 2010-02-16
- Released on: 2010-02-16
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.21" h x .91" w x 6.14" l, 1.10 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 448 pages
From Publishers Weekly
Two famous British institutions will celebrate their centenaries in 2009: the Security Service and the Secret Intelligence Service, better known as MI5 and MI6. They maintain an aura of secrecy, a touch of sophistication and a hint of melodrama even in this age of populist candor. Thomas (Descent into Danger), who enjoys justified respect as an authority on the intelligence world, has a broad spectrum of contacts and confidants in both services. He taps their memories and insights in this reconstruction of Britain's intelligence operations from the Age of Empire through the cold war and into today's constantly metamorphosing Islamic challenge. The emphasis on personal evidence at the expense of archival sources gives the work an anecdotal tone and a contemporary focus that makes the subtitle misleading. Both are compensated for by the immediacy of the material and the vividness of the narration, presenting a fascinating cast of moles and double agents, whistle-blowers and politicians. For the ambience of the closed world that inspired James Bond and George Smiley, this book is a winner. (Mar. 3)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
A veteran writer offers this centennial history of the two almost legendary British intelligence agencies, MI5 (foreign) and MI6 (domestic). Founded during the run-up to World War I, they have served the British Crown with varying degrees of skill and success in all the political conundrums and crises since. They have also been gold mines for thriller writers. As an author of intelligence-related fiction and nonfiction (e.g., Gideon’s Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad, 3d ed., 2007), Thomas bring to the agencies’ histories a high level of expertise, a fluent style accessible to lay reader and expert alike, and a combination of frankness and balance about some of his subjects’ less glorious chapters. Those involve such things as the Soviet mole during the post–World War II era, the ongoing tension with the CIA, and the problem of deciding whether operations against the IRA and more recent terrorist groups are foreign or domestic. A good basic book on its subjects.
Review
"A rollicking good read." --"NPR" "[A] fascinating cast of moles and double agents, whistle-blowers and politicians. For the ambience of the closed world that inspired James Bond and George Smiley, this book is a winner." --"Publishers Weekly""" "[In] his rollicking, readable new history of Britain's famous spy organizations...Thomas builds one fast-paced anecdote upon another, often yielding surprising insights." --"Los Angeles Times" "Authoritative history of Britain’s spy services by a veteran who has been writing about “the Great Game” for 50 years [and a] well-written page-turner that demystifies the notoriously foggy “wilderness of mirrors.”" "--Kirkus Reviews """ "Thomas brings to the agencies' histories a high level of expertise, a fluent style accessible to lay reader and expert alike, and a combination of frankness and balance about some of his subjects' less glorious chapters." --"Bookl
"A rollicking good read." --"NPR" "[A] fascinating cast of moles and double agents, whistle-blowers and politicians. For the ambience of the closed world that inspired James Bond and George Smiley, this book is a winner." --"Publishers Weekly""" "[In] his rollicking, readable new history of Britain's famous spy organizations...Thomas builds one fast-paced anecdote upon another, often yielding surprising insights." --"Los Angeles Times" "Authoritative history of Britain's spy services by a veteran who has been writing about "the Great Game" for 50 years [and a] well-written page-turner that demystifies the notoriously foggy "wilderness of mirrors."" "--Kirkus Reviews """ "Thomas brings to the agencies' histories a high level of expertise, a fluent style accessible to lay reader and expert alike, and a combination of frankness and balance about some of his subjects' less glorious chapters." --"Booklist"
Most helpful customer reviews
95 of 102 people found the following review helpful.
Complete Rubbish
By Andrew Lownie
Inside British Intelligence is described by its publisher as "the definitive and up-to-date history of two of the oldest and most powerful secret services in the world" though it has no source notes, has very little on M15 and M16 before 1990 - and what there is is unfamiliar only because it is often inaccurate - and is largely devoted to the activities of Mossad and CIA.
There is no mention of important British intelligence episodes such as the Zinoviev letter which influenced the outcome of the 1924 election, the breaking of Enigma, the Venlo incident where two SIS officers were captured at the outbreak of war, the Profumo Affair, Buster Crabb, the running of Penkovsky and his role in the Cuban missile crisis and the intelligence services role in Empire. All very curious.
Mr Thomas a self-styled "leading expert on the intelligence community" knows a great deal about what people wore (suits "tailored by Gieves & Hawkes, a hand-sewn shirt with double cuffs and his Travellers Club tie" etc), what they said, thought, ate and drank at particular moments but is less certain in other areas: sometimes Century House is the headquarters of M15 (p.208 and 255) and sometimes correctly M16 (p.286); sometimes Sir Christopher Curwen is head of M15 (p.216)and sometimes rightly M16 (p.195); Vernon Kell is head of MI6(p.421) and sometimes accurately M15(p.78); the M15 chiefs Stella Rimington and Patrick Walker also mysteriously work for M16 (p.177 and p.255). Maybe Mr Thomas knows something we don't?
He makes much of his `prime sources' which for the UK are: Eddie Chapman, a low-level World War Two agent who died aged 83 twelve years ago; the former M16 officer Richard Tomlinson who claims Princess Diana was murdered by British Intelligence and the former M15 couple Annie Machon (who believes Mossad was behind the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in London in 1994) and David Shayler (who has declared himself the messiah after having discovered eternal life). For some reason, Mr Thomas prefers these accounts to the thousands of readily available M15 documents declassified over the last twenty years.
He cites an extensive bibliography but doesn't appear to have consulted the books himself . A few pages about The Cambridge Spies, extensively chronicled in numerous books, gives a flavour of the Thomas interpretation of history : Kim Philby's father St John Philby is called Sir Harry Philby, Kim is a member of the Apostles (he was not) and is recruited at Cambridge (he was not) is a fluent Spanish speaker (he was not) and appears to defect from Britain rather than is commonly assumed Beirut. Maclean begins his spying career in 1938 some three years after the generally accepted date of his recruitment and his London apartment is bugged though in truth he didn't have one and commuted from just outside London.
Guy Burgess is described as a counterintelligence officer (he wasn't), serves alongside George Blake in the Far East Department (he doesn't) , his outrageous behaviour in Washington leads to calls for his recall in the summer of 1950 (he only arrived in August 1950) ; he is ordered to leave America "within forty-eight hours" of engineering traffic violations to warn Maclean( the violations take place in February1951 , have nothing to do with his departure and he leaves in May 1951), he returns to "a job in the Foreign Office" (he doesn't) etc. Blunt is identified by the press as `the Third Man' thirty years earlier than the reality. You get the picture.
The book, a series of incorrectly spelt names, discredited conspiracy theories and repetitious, often completely fabricated, stories the purpose of which it is sometimes difficult to ascertain, jumps around in time and location with no central narrative and it is difficult to ascertain at whom it is aimed since readers new to the subject will be baffled and those with some knowledge will be exasperated. One can only assume in this wilderness of mirrors that a deeper deception game is being played by the proof reader and our intelligence expert, a winner, as he proudly states , of "the Mark Twain Society Award for Reporting Excellence and an Edgar Allan Poe Award for Investigation" to confuse us when the official histories of M15 by Christopher Andrew and M16 by Keith Jeffery appear later this year and next. That can be the only explanation for this farrago of nonsense.
20 of 24 people found the following review helpful.
Intersting read, with jarring factual errors
By Chicago Dad
Gordon Thomas has produced an interesting read with numerous revelations, but also with a number of jarring, sloppy factual errors. These errors, in addition to the ones pointed out in other reviews, detract from the credibility of the author's pronouncements, despite the first-person sourcing.
For example, Thomas noted that the US Navy was assigned to manage the rescue of US hostage from Iran in 1980, leading to the debacle at Desert One. The author, however, identifies the US Marines as the strike force, not Delta Force as has been covered by actual participants Eric Haney and Charlie Beckwith, in their books Inside Delta Force: The Story of America's Elite Counterterrorist Unitand Delta Force: The Army's Elite Counterterrorist Unit respectively.
Secondly, Thomas has the US invading Kuwait from Kuwait during Desert Storm, rather than from Saudi Arabia. This is simply sloppy writing/research/proof-reading.
Lastly, stupid errors abound, such as the failure to correctly identify the Israeli versions of the F-15 and F-16 fighters as F-15I and F-16I. Thomas names them the F-151 and F-161.
For an author who repeatedly cites discussions and meetings with the actual participants in the operations discussed in this book, the repeated failures in original copy and/or proof-reading are surprising, distracting at best, and have the overall effect of creating uncertainty in the reader. If he can't get fundamental, widely documented facts correct, what chance do the lesser-known items have?
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
Totally confusing
By Guillermo Maynez
The subject is, undoubtedly, fascinating: a hundred years of British intelligence, starting with the formal establishment, in 1909, of MI5 (domestic security) and MI6 (foreign intelligence service). Alas, the book is a total disappointment. In spite of some interesting anecdotes (and reading some informed reviews one has to doubt, at least, their accuracy), the book is just too much of a disorder: the author jumps from a story and subject to another with no notice; from a time period to some other, with no discernible thread. There is no analysis, no clear explanation of the two agencies' differences and fields of work, no reference to internal functioning, philosophy, evolution, current trends and challenges. It's just a collection of gossip, trivial details, incidents, and some interesting stories but without context or analysis. A pity.
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