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Remember this?

The giant behemoth of a book I was making my way through several weeks ago? Well, I have finally finished it. That behemoth is Defend the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5 by Christopher Andrew.

It is the first time any historian/writer has been let in to the archives of MI5 to write a history on the service. It was MI5's 100th anniversary in 2009, so they celebrated by releasing this giant book. It is an extensive history of MI5, with unprecedented access to its archives. Of course, there are some things which remain classified, and the Secret Service Agents who were interviewed for the book cannot be named.

This is a scholarly book, but is nevertheless interesting for the amateur historian/spy. The book touches on all aspects of MI5's work. First, perhaps, to explain who/what MI5 is. MI5 is the agency responsible for intelligence within the borders of the United Kingdom. It is the UK's internal security service. While this essential mandate hasn't changed, how MI5 fulfills that mandate has changed over time.

We begin in 1909, when the Service started with Vernon Kell in a small office in London. Despite his lack of manpower, Kell was still able (with the assistance of the local police force) to discover and round up a number of German spies upon the breakout of World War One. In fact, the number of spies caught exceed the number of actual agents who worked for the Service at that time. The Service expanded rapidly during World War One and was notable for employing a large number of women - mostly for filing and typing as all information collected on various individuals was kept on index cards. That said, women continued to play an important role in the Service. The Service has always employed more women than any other government department, and women have headed MI5 twice. When the first female Director General (DG) was appointed, she was the first woman to be at the head of any intelligence agency in the world. Should any historians/history majors be looking for an interesting book/essay/thesis topic, I would advise one to look at the role of women in British intelligence.

After World War One, two new threats arose - the opposing forces of Communism and Fascism. Despite cuts in budget and staff (later restored) MI5 managed to expand its role and establish offices throughout the British Empire. However, the Communists were still at work, as this is when the famous spy ring - The Cambridge Five - were recruited by what would later become the KGB. (However, despite the excellent opportunity for intelligence gathering by these well-placed agents, it appears that the Soviets were not able to properly analyze the intelligence they received, as often the Soviet government was beset by internal conspiracy theories about the role of the West. Any intelligence which did not fit with these theories was discounted, and many spy runners told the government what it wanted to hear, and not what the spies were telling them.)

World War Two brought the Service's proudest moment - one of the greatest double-crosses ever seen in international espionage. MI5 was responsible for catching German agents who had been sent to Britain to spy. Not only was MI5 extraordinarily successful in catching these agents, it managed to turn many of the German spies into double-agents - feeding false information to their controllers back in Germany. This system of providing false information allowed the Allies to plan for a mock invasion at Calais, while simultaneously planning for and concealing their true plans to land at Normandy. MI5's double-agents were an essential part of the success of this plan.

After World War Two, England had to cope with the falling-apart of its empire. MI5 agents were key factors in the transfer of power to the former colonies. The governments in Malaysia, Kenya, Ghana, and India had good relationships with the MI5 agents. However, at home MI5 had to cope with increased Soviet penetration into intelligence and a large number of embassy or trade delegation workers who were actually spies. MI5 managed to successfully expel a large number of spies and agents in the 1970's. Successive governments worried about the effects of subversion and Communist penetration into unions, leading to strikes and increased vetting of people by MI5.

After the fall of the Iron Curtain and the break-up of the Soviet Union, terrorism also became an issue: nationals of other states would come to England to attack nationals of the same state; and more local terrorism with the rise of the IRA. It was interesting to read that Libya supported the IRA and gave it weapons - of which many shipments were caught by MI5. Of course, after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and attacks in London on the subway, foiling terrorist attacks became MI5's main priority.

As you can see, this is a lot of information packed into one dense book! It is an extremely interesting read. Of course, when faced with so much information, the author can only tell a general story about many things. Now I am going to have to get out some other books to read more about the Cambridge Five, the double-cross system during World War Two, and decoding Soviet transmissions. I can tell you that Wikipedia certainly got a workout while I was reading this book, as I was always chasing down further stories. This is a great introduction to the world of spies. But do set aside some time to read it - it is a great big book and is scholarly (yet entertaining). It will take some time to read.

Now that I have read this book, I may need to take another look at a book I have on my bookshelf: A Century of Spies: Intelligence in the Twentieth Century by Jeffrey T. Richelson.

This was my textbook when I took a History of Espionage class at university. From what I recall, it was quite interesting and sparked a definite interest in espionage. I always thought codes and code-breaking were interesting - and spying and spies (for those not in the business) have a romance about them for the ordinary person. Witness the success of the James Bond series. (Although I've never read a James Bond book.)

For my paper in that class, I wrote about the Special Operations Executive. While MI5 enjoyed remarkable success during World War Two with the double-cross system, SOE suffered a devastating defeat while trying to run agents in the Netherlands. The first agent was captured by the Germans, who then managed to intercept and capture or kill the remaining agents which SOE tried to send over to the Netherlands. Fortunately, the SOE had more success in other operations in Europe. According to the paper I wrote, I used a number of sources. However, the one that I seem to remember to be the most interesting is Secret War: The Story of SOE, Britain's Wartime Sabotage Organisation by Nigel West. I can't find it in the library to confirm that this is the one, but at any rate it would probably be a good place to start.

I hope this post has inspired you to seek out some spy fiction or non-fiction of your own! We don't all have to make it through Defend the Realm, but I now have several more avenues of intelligence I would like to pursue. Happy (and secretive!) reading!