M16

by Smith, Michael

• ISBN13: 9781906447007
• ISBN10: 1906447004
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-05-24
• Publisher: Dialogue

Summary

"Engrossing. . . . As a rollicking chronicle of demented derring-do, Smith's book is hard to beat. His research is prodigious and his eye for a good story impeccable, and his book, while perfectly scholarly, often reads like a real-life James Bond thriller."-Dominic Sandbrook, The Sunday Times Six tells the complete story of the Secret Intelligence Service's birth in 1909 and its first thirty years, including the tragic tale of what happened to Britain's extensive interwar networks in Soviet Russia. It tells the story of Britain's hidden networks in the United States, thwarting German shipping saboteurs and tracking down Indian seditionaries. It also shows the development of "tradecraft" and the great personal risk officers and their agents took, far fromhome and unprotected, as well as the violence meted out in the King's name-including running a Swiss murder gang that used attractive girls to lure and murder Bolshevik messengers. This first part of Six takes us up to the eve of World War II, using hundreds of previously unreleased files and interviews with key players to show how one of the world's most secretive of secret agencies originated and developed into something like the MI6 we know today. Michael Smith , former military intelligence officer and award-winning journalist, is one of the world's leading experts on Britain's spies. The defense correspondent of The Sunday Times , he is author of the bestseller Killer Elite: The Inside Story of America's Most Secret Special Operations Team and Foley: The Spy Who Saved 10,000 Jews .

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. viii
'Capital sport'	p. 1
Preparing for war	p. 20
Turf wars with the military	p. 43
La Dame Blanche	p. 61
Air operations - Cumming's Jesuit priest	p. 84
Hunting the Hun from Switzerland - 'Deny everything!'	p. 96
Navies and Nemesis	p. 113
Englishmen in New York	p. 133
Middle East adventures - 'Brigands and terrorists'	p. 151
Middle East adventures 2 - 'The British Secret Service Gang'	p. 168
Murder and mayhem in Russia	p. 187
'The Ace of Spies'	p. 206
'Deception, dirt and mean behaviour'	p. 222
Red dusk	p. 239
'A very useful lady'	p. 257
Post-war operations - 'Fantasy and intrigue'	p. 274
The Zinoviev letter	p. 291
Moscow rules - 'A very risky game'	p. 312
The Jonny case - 'A very valuable agent'	p. 331
Preparing for another war - 'Scratching the surface'	p. 356
	p. 386
	p. 399
Bibliography	p. 403
Notes	p. 410
Index	p. 449
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