MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909-1949

"We’re turning to the UK now. Keith’s book is really useful because it highlights that Britain does this stuff too; we’re not just talking about the CIA and American activity. The book is particularly important because it is an authorised history. It’s the first time an academic or any outsider has ever had access to MI6 files. MI6 are notoriously closed and British authorities tend to fetishize secrecy, so the fact that he was able to go into their archives and have a good old rummage allowed for a very significant and original book. The outcome is a book that is broader than covert action, and talks about intelligence generally. We should remember that covert action is just a small percentage of what MI6 do, that most of what they do is intelligence gathering rather than event-shaping. But, in terms of covert action, his book rescues British history from the dominance of the ‘Special Operations Executive.’ The vast majority of British books about special operations focus on World War II and an organisation called the Special Operations Executive, which was established by Churchill with the express directive to ‘set Europe ablaze.’ It was an organisation that did sabotage and sponsored partisans behind enemy lines. Keith Jeffery says, ‘Yes, there was the Special Operations Executive but MI6, after the war, are important in this field as well.’ The book only goes up to 1949, unfortunately, because of issues of classification and secrecy, but we start to get a hint of what MI6 was doing in the post-war world. There were operations in Palestine, for example. They were trying to sabotage ships to prevent illegal immigration going to Palestine, which was very controversial in the aftermath of the horrors of World War II. With the operation in Albania which we mentioned earlier, the book gives detailed accounts of what happened using sources that no one else had access to. It gives an account of MI6’s attempts to work with Soviet emigres to try and penetrate the Soviet bloc in the late 1940s, showing a very fine line between intelligence and covert action. So the book is really useful in that it’s authoritative, it relies on official sources, and shows us that MI6 are doing this—that Britain does this—and it’s not just the domain of the CIA. It’s a shame that it doesn’t go further than 1949. There are plenty of other books that do, but they don’t have the same kind of access. I’d also recommend The Art of Betrayal by Gordon Corera as a book on MI6 which goes beyond 1949. But I think Keith’s is worth highlighting because it is an authorised history and he has had access to secret papers that nobody else outside of MI6 has ever seen."