Gordon Thomas’ Secret Wars: One Hundred Years of British Intelligence Inside MI5 and MI6 is a book that the British government did not want you to read.
The British security services wanted to stop the publication of the book because it contained the names of officers previously unidentified. They were unsuccessful in gaining a court injunction preventing the publication, however, as the book had already been published in the United States.
August marked a century of the two oldest and most powerful secret intelligence services in the world: the British Security Service (MI5) and the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). Thomas, an author who has covered intelligence and espionage for more than 50 years and has published 40 books, interviewed a wide array of current and former intelligence chiefs and officers for this mesmerizing book.
He interviewed the former directors of the British security services as well as the former directors and senior officers of the American CIA and the Israeli Mossad. He also interviewed the legendary spymaster East German Stasi espionage chief, Markus Wolf.
The British security services defended the empire through two world wars, the long Cold War against Communism and terrorists ranging from the IRA to al-Qaeda. The one-hundred-year history produced a good number of fascinating stories about fascinating people and Thomas does a fine job of presenting them to the reader.
Through his many interviews with key players and vivid anecdotal accounts, Gordon presents a fast-paced inside history of the spy game that reads like a good thriller.
Thomas offers a good story about how Stella Rimington, the MI5 chief who lead the fight against both the KGB and the IRA, flew to Moscow after the fall of the Soviet Union and advised the Russians on intelligence-gathering in a democracy.
Another good tale is how MI6 set up a mansion outside London during World War II to house captured high-ranking Nazi generals in style. On Winston Churchill’s orders, MI6 installed listening devices throughout the mansion.
The generals’ shop-talk and gossip in their comfortable surroundings provided Churchill and the security services with invaluable insights that were employed to defeat the Germans. The tapes remained secret until 2007.
The book also covers the history of American intelligence, as our intelligence agencies worked closely with the British during World War II, the Cold War and in the war on terrorism.
“A book that deals with MI5 and MI6 can have no conclusion,” Thomas writes. “New threats emerge every day from unexpected quarters as you read these words.”
Thomas notes that Peter Hennesssy, a lecturer on intelligence at Queen Mary University, said that it is difficult to calibrate, let alone control the ebb and flow of terrorist action/reaction on a national or international basis to any one threat.
The one certainty, Thomas tells us, is that coping with the new form of international terrorism, as MI5 and MI6 celebrate their 100-year- anniversaries, will become even more difficult and protracted.
Paul Davis also writes an American crime blog for GreatHistory. His website is http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/site/. He can be reached at pauldavisoncrime@comcast.net
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