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Defend the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5

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Many years ago,Professor Christopher Andrew has written an article with co-author David Dilks.They claimed that the history of intelligence and espionage was missing and was ignored even by serious historians.They called this "the missing dimension of history".Indeed, it would be absurd today for any serious historian
to dismiss or disregard this important part of history.In the past, historians said that the history of espionage and intelligence should be dealt by quacks,second- or third-hand writers or amateurs
and that this kind of history does not have any importance or relevance for the historical profession.
However,with the fall of the Iron Curtain,this view has changed drastically mainly because classified archival materials were open to everyone.
The USA archives were among the first to declassify and thus enable historians and others to come and read perhaps tens of millions of documents that were produced by intelligence analysts and sources
during the Cold War.
Professor Andrew was among those pioneers to whom humanity and serious researchers owe a lot in this respect, because he has dedicated many years to write and lecture about many and various intelligence episodes, thus offering the readers a new perspective on the Cold War.
This is exactly what he has done again.We all remember his magnum opus on the Mitrockhin Archive, published some years before.In this current heavyweight volume, which has more than one thousand pages,he offers us a linear ,fascinating and intriguing history of MI5.
It all started in 1909 when two officers from the Navy and the Army started to work in an office in London.Their mission was to try and catch as many German spies as they could.The first German agent who showed up in England after WW1 started was Carl Lody,who was sentenced to death and he was executed in the Tower of London.The first director of MI5 was Vernon Kell and he kept his job for more than 31 years- the longest period of any director.
Another director was Maxwell Knight.He is described as someone who had a special interest " in unusual pets".Visitors to his house would usually find him taking his bear for a walk.(The bear's name was Bessie.)Knight would also feed a giant toad or carry a parrot on one of his shoulders.He did not mind being "considered a bit mad" because "a few unusual people give a little colour to life"(.p.123)
We are talking about the period between the two wars,especially during the thirties,when the job of MI5 agents was to infiltrate as many fascist groups as possible.This was also when the famous Cambridge spies made their debut and Prof.Andrew devotes many pages to the way Kim Philby and the others were recruited by the Russians.
Another short chapter deals with the way the Soviets penetrated the Communist party in Britain .
The best part of this book, however,which starts the second third of it,is-in my opinion- about the history of MI5 during the Cold War.Here we are offered much new information about the various spies that were engaged to work for the Soviet Union during the forties.The first female recruits were employed by the MI5 masters.Many new insights are given about Igor Gouzenko,a cipher clerk who was working for the GRU and decided to defect in Canada.He had with him hundreds of pages which showed clearly to what extent the Manhattan Project and other sectors of the American administration were deeply penetrated by KGB spies.In fact, one can say that Giuzenko has caused a Pandora box to open and spill out many secrets which shocked the public opinion in the west, especially in the USA and Britain.During the fifties and sixties the hunt for the Magnificent Five of Cambridge was itensified .A KGB agent by the name of Oleg Gordievsky ,who was recruited by the the British(and has written a number of intelligence studies together with Prof.Andrew)confirmed that the fifth man's name was John Cairncross.(p.441)
Chapter 9 is unique because it has-for the first time- a new topic never discussed before, namely:the role of MI5 during the decolonizanion and demise of the British Empire.African leaders were especailly kept under surveillance because of their ties with the masters from the Kremlin.
The author dismisses all the conspiracy theories which were built around Roger Hollis, one of the most famous MI5 directors,and this beacuse he found no evidence about such claims in the Hollis archives.
The most surprising revelation in the book is that Harold Wilson was under surveillance of the MI5 agents, not because he was suspected of being a spy, but because of Wilson's many contacts with the Russians.Talking one day in his PM's office to one of his confidants,Lord Kissin, Wilson told him:"There are only three men listening-you, me and MI5"(p.632) Andrew also thinks that one cabinet minister,John Stonehouse,who was a Czech agent, was the only
minister to have worked for a foreign power.Stonehouse faked his own death in Miami in 1974.
The various attitudes to the MI5 displayed by the various Prime Ministers after 1945 is discussed in detail.Harold Macmillan, for instance,used to bellitle the agents of MI5.Here, we get vintage Andrew, as he discusses in length the Profumo affair and offers the reader new facts unknown hitherto.
Additional chapters are about Mi5's role in the struggle against IRA ,and the service's battle against organized crime and the different ways that are employed to combat contemporary terrorism.There are 82 photos which show many the many players of the Great Game,including the present Director General's picture,Jonathan Evans,who has also written the foreword of the book.
This is a brilliant and authoritative work, full of vignettes and hundreds of meticulously- researched episodes running from 1909 to 2009.
In short: this work is a must for everyone interested in spies, espionage,modern and contemporary history and the role of intelligence ,written by a master historian.

As an official history, vice an unauthorized "tell-all" like Spycatcher, Andrew's work should be approached and read as a product of officially-imposed constraint. With that acknowledgement, enjoy it.

The book is well-structured. The chapters are relatively short and quickly digestable. Andrews' writing style is masterful and polished, and keeps the reader's interest. The history moves along at a measured but brisk pace.

Each section begins with a snapshot of MI5 life at a given point in time. Amusing anecdotes are mixed with Andrew's more general observations; the personalities and the lifeblood of the organization emerge from the past. The quaint, almost amateurish, charm of early MI5 makes for particularly enjoyable reading.

Beyond the well-trodden path of "the Ring of Five" etc., Andrew sheds light on lesser episodes and achievements. Complementing these are critical, detached assessments: Andrew does not shirk from his historian's duty. The result, I believe, is a balanced, constructive account of a lesser publicized arm of government.

If you are looking for "dirt", this is not the book. It better appeals to people interested in, say, long-term historical trends, organizational evolution, and panoramic history---and diversely amusing characters.

This book is one of the most comprehensive books ever written about an intelligence organization. It is also an authorized history meaning that MI5, the UK's domestic intelligence service actually co-operated with the author to produce this astonishingly complete history.
It should be emphasized that MI5 has evolved considerably since its creation in 1909, but it was never simply a "domestic intelligence" organization. Its original purpose was what today is called counter-intelligence and the allied mission of keeping track of foreign residents in the UK. As the organization evolved and, in spite of missteps and pratfalls along the way, proved its worth it branched out into other duties and responsibilities. After a rather confused start MI5 performed quite well in WWI preventing sabotage, espionage and subversion by German agents. In WWII it did much the same, but also created and executed the so-called `double-cross' system of turning enemy spies into double agents. After the war it was active not only in the UK, but also in the British colonies as the UK slowly dismantled it Empire. And long before the al Qaeda terrorist movement, MI5 operatives initiated counter-terrorist strategies against both colonial terrorist movements, particularly in Malaysia and Kenya, and in the UK against the Provisional Wing of the IRA.
The real mission of MI5 is and has always been what is called national security and its organization and mission has changed repeatedly as threats to UK national security have changed. Today MI5 responsibilities include domestic intelligence operations, executive protection, and counter-terrorism/counter-intelligence. Yet it is essential that MI5 has always avoided anything that could be called `law enforcement' or para-military operations. By avoiding these it has avoided being called a secret police organization. It is what it has always been, an organization that identifies and develops information (intelligence) on threats to UK national security and if required involves the police or military to actually counter them. MI5 often walks a very fine line between domestic intelligence and law enforcement, but for the most part has succeeded in keeping the two separate.
This is a very fine book that provides an absolutely riveting account of a most interesting organization.

This book is mostly an organizational and management history, with much more on the interactions between MI-5 and other British government bodies than I had anticipated. I am amused that the jacket blurb includes a glowing endorsement from Stella Rimington, who is a former DG of MI-5 and was heavily consulted by the author; it's not surprising that Rimington would think it reads like a thriller.

My personal interest is in the internal workings of an intelligence agency, and in its interactions with intelligence agencies of other powers. This book contains quite a bit that I either had not known on these matters, or that I had not fully understood. It also shed light on various episodes in the history of US intelligence organizations that I was aware of but had been puzzled by. A number of these have to do with failures to take advantage of VENONA decrypts, or decisions not to use the info derived from these. These were very delicate questions, and although I've been aware of Venona for a great many years. I was never privy to decisions about what to use and what not to use, and why. I understand this much better now. By the way, for people interested in cryptology, "Defend the Realm" contains information on the construction of Soviet one-time ciphers that I've never seen elsewhere and was surprised to see here. For the first time I can reconstruct methods of attack on certain ciphers of that type, and why some messages can be completely decrypted, some partially, and others not at all. I wonder if NSA realized how much insight into methods of attack on "unbreaakable" ciphers cn be inferred from the material in this book.

There is little on ULTRA, which is OK, given that the ULTRA effort has been extensively discussed elsewhere. Unfortunately, however, there is essentially nothing on other cryptology work at Bletchley Park, including studies of what ciphers could be used by Britain and the US. For example, the book does not mention (nor does any other document I've seen) the fact that Turing, while at Bletchley Park, developed most of the necessary theory to make public key cryptography work and that he proposed this as an encipherment method for certain allied communications. His proposal was rejected for what at the time were very good reasons. But this is an interesting aspect of the history of public key cryptography, and one that's not generally known.

All told, I'm glad I bought and read this book, although much of it was hard. dull reading.

Once again Christopher Andrew has written the quintessential history of intelligence and in this case 20th century British internal intelligence & security. What remains to be done is the 19th century history of British intelligence from the French Revolution, Napoleonic Wars, and Victorian Imperial Intelligence -- no matter how viscerated by Foreign Office and Defense Ministry inter-ministerial intrigues. Or does the real story of intelligence & security during this period shift to the French, Russian, and Prussian-German intelligence services? Professor Andrew would be our best source.

I have just completed "Defending The Realm" and I have to say from a amatuer historian's view I loved it. From the minute that I picked it up I could not put it down. I found it well written and very informative, Christopher Andrew is an excellent author and I have another book that he has written about the KGB that I am looking forward to getting to. I will be buying more books by this author that is for sure.

I just finished reading Defend the Realm- the Authorized History of MI-5 and I enjoyed the book for the most part. Clearly Christopher Andrews had unprecedented access to old files and interviews of former and current Security Service employees and the fact that he was granted such access raises the question was his research independent. I can only compare the history and analysis of the CIA described in Tim Weiner's book Legacy of Ashes. Weiner's text is also well researched and documented but certainly was not sanctioned or condoned by the CIA. MI-5 comes out smelling like a rose in Andrews's text which is not remarkable considering he has been granted the access he has. Andrews is also highly critical of Peter Wright's The Spy Catcher, which is also to be expected by an author in the service of Her Majesty's Government. The history of MI-5 is a compelling story especially in light of strained resources and conflicting policies of Labor or Conservative British governments. The book is well written but does rehash a considerable amount of material repeatedly. I too must raise my objection to the cost of the Kindle edition. It is the first electronic book I have purchased which cost more than 10 dollars and despite the high price, there are innumerable errors in the electronic version and the graphics and illustrations did not reproduce well at all. If you are interested in a somewhat imbalanced version of the history of the Security Services of the United Kingdom, then I would recommend buying the paper edition of this book and remind the reader not to expect a lot of introspection or harsh criticism.

Too many restrictions have been placed on what the author was allowed to include. Some chapters come close to saying what MI5 does; but there is, for example, nothing on method or tradecraft and much on bureaucracy and politics.

Christopher Andrews has done it again with this masterpiece of a book.This book is notable because not only does it depict the history of the British Domestic Intelligence service ,it also reveals some interesting bits of twentieth century history,first we learn that the first terrorist threat from the middle east came not from the Arabs but from the Zionist extremists,this I am sure will shock many Jews and Born again Christians (Please note I am not an anti -semite and being catholic i am not anti christian).I highly recommend this book

Have Britain's domestic spies been injected with truth serum? The huge palaver accompanying the release of this thousand page, authorised centenary history of MI5 would seem to suggest so. `Official' history has its limits, however, and Andrew's book keeps bumping up against them.

MI5 revelled in its `national security' panic over the `Hun' during WW1, setting up a secret register of `enemy aliens', interning and deporting tens of thousands based on `ethoncentric prejudice". Also the target of MI5 raids and prosecutions under the `Defence of the Realm Act' were thousands of anti-conscription activists and anti-militarists.

Marxists were high on MI5's list of subversives, kicking off a 70 year fetish about `reds under beds' by "a deeply conservative, strongly patriotic, establishment network" of MI5 officers, a paranoia even extending to the decidedly non-revolutionary Labour Party.

MI5 again excelled itself in mass internment during WW11 (hamfistedly locking up anti-Nazi Germans and anti-Fascist Italians with supporters of Hitler and Mussolini), bugging and burgling the left (during the Cold War), vetting public servants (purging over 120 and displaying particular suspicion of homosexuals) and spying on trade unions, nationalist radicals in the colonies, university student, the media, the peace movement, and civil libertarians.

Only a handful of officers opposed MI5's spying on ordinary citizens but even they believed that spying on communists remained "within the Service's remit", as does an MI5-friendly Andrews. In any case, `communist sympathisers' (which encompassed anyone whose views intersected in any way with the organised left) always remained in scope of `legitimate' spying.

The demise of the Eastern Bloc, and of Irish terrorism, threatened MI5's future until Osama bin Laden came to the rescue and MI5 has been quick to tell us of the countless, but unverifiable, plots they have foiled, whilst the glory in MI5's `counter-terrorism' crown has been the conviction of the Libyan, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, for the bombing of a PanAm Boeing 747 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988, in which MI5 intelligence, says Andrew, was crucial. And most probably wrong.

Andrew's book is permeated by just such a lack of scepticism towards MI5 claims. He absolves MI5 from assisting in British shoot-to-kill policies aimed at Irish Republicans, and he finds MI5 not guilty of dirty tricks against the National Union of Miners in the 1984-85 Miners' Strike. Hand-on-heart, nothing to do with us, swear the MI5 files, which is good enough for Professor Andrew.

MI5 is, indeed, portrayed by Andrew as the voice of reason and moderation in all things, far less alarmist than their political masters who suspected a Moscow masterplan behind every challenge to government policy. For Andrew, the modern MI5 is an exemplary, reformed, professional, open, politically neutral public service agency. Can we believe this?

There was, as Andrew himself notes, a lack of public confidence in MI5 by the late 1980s arising from its Cold War-fixated, anti-democratic, illegal activities in snooping (and worse) on all sorts of dissidents. This generated a need for an image makeover which is where Andrew's book comes in. PR fluff written by an MI5 hack would have had zero credibility, but not a book by an `independent' historian who shares the security world's basic value system and assumptions - the `realm' must be defended; there were reds under beds; the `atom spies' [including the framed Rosenbergs] were guilty of treachery and got their just desserts; MI5 by-and-large kept out of politics and has contented itself with chasing the `Boche', the KGB and Islamist terrorists.

MI5 saw its job as defending the `safety and well-being of the State'. This is quite distinct from a defence of the interests of the ordinary people of Britain. It was the working class and the left which was overwhelming the target of a secret police who were part of a capitalist state apparatus defending Britsih capitalism. MI5's true history remains to be written.