The past is never dead, it isn’t even past
Recent years have seen a welcome recognition of the many women who worked in top secret roles with the intelligence services, particularly during the Second World War. Helen Fry’s highly impressive new book on Women in Intelligence goes even further, describing how...
On the day Britain declared war on Germany, 3 September 1939, Parliament immediately passed The National Service (Armed Forces) Act. All men aged between 18 and 41 were required to register for service. My grandfather John James Doherty ‘JJ’, a talented linguist,...
Michael, The Real Special Relationship book deals with the intelligence relationship going back to the Second World War between Britain and the US. Where and when did that relationship begin? There had been ad hoc intelligence cooperation between MI5 and the FBI...
British and US Spies with Michael Smith | RSS.com
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...
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...
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...
