Biography

Michael Smith served in British military intelligence before becoming an award-winning journalist with the BBC, the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Times, covering the wars in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq. He is an expert on special operations and intelligence with extremely good contacts inside Britain’s intelligence and special forces community and a track record of breaking stories previously kept top secret. He is the author of a number of widely acclaimed books about spies and special forces including the Sunday Times No 1 bestseller Station X: The Codebreakers of Bletchley Park. Robert Hannigan, former GCHQ Director, has described him as “the pre-eminent historian of Bletchley Park”.

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His many best-selling books also include Killer Elite: America’s Most Secret Special Operations Team, which reveals the secret history of “The Activity”, a top secret US Army intelligence unit which works alongside Delta and Seal Team Six to track down terrorists and other threats to America; and Foley: The Spy Who Saved 10,000 Jews, which led to Israeli recognition of the former MI6 officer Frank Foley as Righteous Among Nations, the same award granted to Oskar Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg. His most recent book is the widely acclaimed The Real Special Relationship: The True Story of How the British and US Intelligence Services Work Together. Sir John Scarlett, former MI6 Chief, said “this excellent book gives a detailed, highly professional account of the unique intelligence relationship” while former CIA Director John Brennan described it as “a fascinating, meticulously researched and deeply insightful book … a remarkably good read”.

Smith is currently working on a follow-up to his first novel Ritter: No Man Dies Twice, based on a Second World War plot to kill Hitler, which was published 2022 by Safe House.

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Books

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A Burning Sea
A Burning Sea
A Burning Sea
A Burning Sea
A Burning Sea
A Burning Sea
A Burning Sea
A Burning Sea
A Burning Sea
A Burning Sea
A Burning Sea
A Burning Sea
A Burning Sea
A Burning Sea
A Burning Sea
A Burning Sea
A Burning Sea

Articles

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The Special Relationship

The Special Relationship

The so-called Special Relationship with America is frequently dismissed by both politicians and the media as a myth, even a joke. Yet the basic truth is that Britain and America are bound together more closely than either is to any other ally, with the two countries sharing nuclear weapons ...
Frank Foley: Pimpernel of the Jews

Frank Foley: Pimpernel of the Jews

I first came across the story of Frank Foley while researching a book on British intelligence. One of the former MI6 officers I met told me about a wartime British spy whose skills as a agent handler were so good that they were still held up as an example to new spies joining Britain’s Secret ...

Interviews

Michael Smith

Michael Smith

Michael Smith, what first attracted you to the period you work in?I was in military intelligence before becoming a journalist in the 1980s, so I was acutely aware of how much the reporting of intelligence matters in that period was based on conspiracy theory rather than reality. I have ...