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Summary
Summary
From Berlin to the Congo, from Moscow to the back streets of London, these are the stories of the agents on the front lines of British intelligence. And the truth is often more remarkable than fiction.
MI6 has been cloaked in secrecy and shrouded in myth since it was created a hundred years ago. Our understanding of what it is to be a spy has been largely defined by the fictional worlds of Ian Fleming and John le Carré. Gordon Corera provides a unique and unprecedented insight into this secret world and the reality that lies behind the fiction. He tells the story of how the secret service has changed since the end of the Second World War and, by focusing on the people and the relationships that lie at the heart of espionage, illustrates the danger, the drama, the intrigue, and the moral ambiguities that come with working for British intelligence.
From the defining period of the early Cold War through to the modern day, MI6 has undergone a dramatic transformation from a gung-ho, amateurish organisation to its modern, no less controversial, incarnation. Gordon Corera reveals the triumphs and disasters along the way. The grand dramas of the Cold War, the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the 11 September 2001 attacks, and the Iraq War are the backdrop for the individual spies whose stories form the centrepiece of the narrative. And some of the individuals featured here, in turn, helped shape the course of those events. Corera draws on the first-hand accounts of those who have spied, lied, and in some cases nearly died in service of the state. They range from the spymasters to the agents they controlled to their sworn enemies. And the truth is often more remarkable than the fiction.
Author Notes
Gordon Corera is a security correspondent for BBC News. In that role, he covers the work of Britain's intelligence agencies. His documentary series 'MI6: A century in the Shadows' was broadcast in the summer of 2009. His series 'The Real Spooks' on MI5 was broadcast in December 2007. He was educated at Oxford and Harvard Universities and joined the BBC in 1997.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
With exotic locales, global intrigue, and state secrets at stake, Corera, a security correspondent for BBC News, highlights the successes and failures of the British Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6, from the chaotic years immediately after WWII through the reorganization of the post-9/11 new age of espionage. The author goes for the details with the recruiting of double agents, purchases of top secrets, and key defections in such places as Berlin, Vienna, London, and Moscow, all in a lower dramatic tone than Ian Fleming's Agent 007 or Graham Greene's spy exploits. Corera pays much attention to the huge betrayal of MI6 by Kim Philby and his shrewd KGB handlers; spy queen Daphne Park and her astute Congo-Lumumba connection; the dismal Iraq failure; and the British support of American strikes against al Qaeda . With an update on the revamped MI6 bureau still in "knowledge management," Corera's impressive, solid volume about the British spy agency shows there's still some bite and verve in the old dog yet. 16 pages of b&w photos. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
A study of the British intelligence service in which the author ponders an important question: Did the Cold War threat really warrant the grand drama and danger required in betraying country and friendships? As security correspondent for BBC News, Corera is well-positioned to examine the overall arc of British intelligence since the close of World War II and the characters who have had the biggest impact and most lasting legacy. The author advances his stately narrative of the British overseas intelligence service, MI6 (a sister service to the domestic MI5), chronologically, from the first glimmers of panic felt in war-torn Vienna as the Iron Curtain descended over Eastern Europe through the heyday of the Moscow watchers in the 1960s. He then moves on to subsequent hysterical mole hunts and the shift in the 1990s to intelligence monitoring of terrorist cells and rogue governments. In refugee-flooded Vienna, the British security agents Kim Philby, Graham Greene and David Cornwell (aka John le Carr) all got their first taste of the risky commodity of intelligence at a time when there was virtually no knowledge of insider Soviet activity. The British and CIA scoured the migr groups in search of agents and intelligence, with the first efforts involved in supporting partisans in oppressed Baltic states like Albania and Latvia. The two functions of MI6 and the CIA, information gathering and covert action, would converge uneasily in efforts to destabilize governments in Eastern Europe, Egypt, the Congo, Afghanistan and, much later, hauntingly, in Iraq. Corera also looks at some of the significant unsung female agents like Daphne Park and Eliza Manningham-Buller. An absorbing study focused on the questionable cost of gathering secrets.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Corera (security correspondent, BBC News) writes a popular history of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), more commonly known as MI6, tracing its evolution since the end of World War II. His focus, as the title indicates, is how MI6 officers during the course of the Cold War and beyond have persuaded others to betray their countries. He shows that success depends on skill and patience, with luck sometimes coming into play. He also covers how the Soviets during the Cold War recruited high-level British agents who did tremendous damage to the British intelligence establishment. Third, Corera addresses how the Blair government betrayed the professional service in its rush to join the American war against Iraq. Verdict The author himself obviously favors the old style hard work and derring-do of officers in the field, not the policy-makers or technocrats of today, and he writes in a style seeking to appeal to lovers of spy fiction (after all, John le Carre worked for MI6 before crafting his fiction) and true tales of espoionage. Especially recommended to those interested in the human factor in the world of spying.-Daniel K. Blewett, Coll. of DuPage Lib., Glen Ellyn, IL (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| Introduction | p. 1 |
| 1 Into the Shadows - Life and Death in Vienna | p. 9 |
| 2 The Cost of Betrayal | p. 51 |
| 3 A River Full of Crocodiles - Murder in the Congo | p. 94 |
| 4 Moscow Rules | p. 135 |
| 5 The Wilderness of Mirrors | p. 184 |
| 6 Compromising Situations | p. 219 |
| 7 Escape from Moscow | p. 248 |
| 8 The Afghan Plains | p. 290 |
| 9 Out of the Shadows | p. 315 |
| 10 In the Bunker | p. 353 |
| Epilogue | p. 411 |
| Acknowledgements | p. 413 |
| Notes | p. 414 |
| Index | p. 462 |
