Walton - Empire of secrets: British intelligence, the Cold War and the twilight of empire

Contents

TO JENNIFER

. Sir Vernon Kell, the founding father of MI5. (Getty Images)

. The original C, Sir Mansfield Cumming. (Imperial War Museum)

. T.E. Lawrence. (Imperial War Museum)

. RFC plane with aerial reconnaissance camera, 1916. (Imperial War Museum)

. The Colossus at Bletchley Park. (Topfoto)

. Jasper Maskelyne. (Mary Evans Picture Library)

. Dummy tank, Middle East, 194142. (The National Archives, ref. W02012022)

. Dummy Spitfire. (The National Archives, ref. AIR20/4349)

. Dudley Clarke. (Courtesy of Churchill Archives Centre)

. Lszl Almsy. (akg-images/Ullstein Bild)

. Long Range Desert Group, North Africa. (Getty Images)

. Sir Percy Sillitoe. (Popperfoto/Getty Images)

. Police use tear gas during a riot in Calcutta, 1947. (Getty Images)

. The bombing of the King David Hotel, Jerusalem, 22 July 1946. (Getty Images)

. Menachem Begin wanted poster. (Getty Images)

. Sir John Shaw. (The Bodleian Libraries, the University of Oxford)

. MI5 report on Jewish terrorism in the Middle East. (The National Archives, ref. CO 733/457/14)

. British soldiers question a group of schoolboys in Jerusalem, 1947. (Getty Images)

. Major Roy Farran at his brothers grave, 1948. (PA/PA Archive/Press Association Images)

. British paratrooper in the Malayan jungle, 1952. (Getty Images)

. Ghanas independence ceremony, 1957. (Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

. Jomo Kenyatta. (Popperfoto/Getty Images)

Suspected Mau Mau victim. (Getty Images)

. Mau Mau prisoners in Kenya. (Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

. The arrival of the Empire Windrush at Tilbury, 22 June 1948. (Topfoto)

. The Petrov affair, 1954. (National Archives of Australia)

. British paratroopers embarking for Suez, 1956. (Popperfoto/Getty Images)

. Cheddi Jagan with ousted ministers, British Guiana, 1953. (Bettmann/Corbis)

. Archbishop Makarios visiting a British Army camp in Cyprus, 1960. (Topfoto)

. British soldiers in Cyprus, c.1956. (Getty Images)

. British soldier threatening Arab demonstrators, Aden, 1967. (Getty Images)

. Chris Patten, Hong Kong, July 1997. (Eric Draper/AP/Press Association Images)

. The US base on Diego Garcia. (Corbis)

Abwehr German espionage service

ASIO Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Australian domestic intelligence service

ASIS Australian Secret Intelligence Service Australian foreign intelligence service

CIA Central Intelligence Agency American foreign-intelligence-gathering agency

CID Criminal Investigation Department Department of regular police force

CPGB Communist Party of Great Britain

DIB Delhi Intelligence Bureau Pre-independence Indian intelligence agency

DSO Defence Security Officer MI5 liaison officer in a colonial or Commonwealth country

FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation US law-enforcement agency

GC&CS Government Code & Cypher School Pre-war and wartime British SIGINT service

GCHQ Government Communications Headquarters Renamed post-war British SIGINT service

HOW Home Office Warrant MI5s mechanism for mail and telephone interception

HUMINT Human intelligence

IB Intelligence Bureau Indian intelligence service, another name for DIB

IPI Indian Political Intelligence Pre-independence agency in London responsible for intelligence on Indian affairs

JIC Joint Intelligence Committee High table of British intelligence community

KGB Committee for State Security Soviet foreign intelligence-gathering agency

LIC Local Intelligence Committee Regional colonial intelligence set up in colonies on MI5s advice in early Cold War

MI5 British intelligence service responsible for counter-espionage, counter-subversion and counter-sabotage in British territory

MI6 Secret intelligence service responsible for gathering HUMINT from non-British territories

NSA National Security Agency US SIGINT agency

RCMP Royal Canadian Mounted Police Canadian law-enforcement agency

SAS Special Air Service British special forces

Security Service MI5

SIFE Security Intelligence Far East MI5 inter-service intelligence outfit in the Far East

SIGINT Signals intelligence

SIME Security Intelligence Middle East MI5 inter-service intelligence outfit in the Middle East

SIS Secret Intelligence Service British foreign-intelligence-gathering service

SLO Security Liaison Officer MI5 liaison officer in a colonial or Commonwealth country

We are quite impartial; we keep an eye on all people.

HERBERT MORRISON, Home Secretary (February 1941)

Both path-breaking and a very good read. Calder Walton reveals for the first time the full role of British Intelligence in the end of the largest empire in world history

PROFESSOR CHRISTOPHER ANDREW, author of Defence of the Realm: The Authorised History of MI5

People who believe theres not much left to learn about the British Empire should read this book. Calder Walton has sculpted a fascinating study of where spycraft touched palm and pine

PROFESSOR PETER HENNESSY, author of The Secret State

Comprehensive and perceptive It is one of those books that no student of the subject can ignore

Spectator

Empire of Secrets is an important addition to the literature on decolonisation. It shines new light into the murky world of intelligence that underpinned the formalities of departure, the anthems and flag-lowering ceremonies, the wheeling parades and high-flown sentiments of nationalism

Financial Times

An entertaining and welcome demystification of the intelligence services and their role in the demise of Britains empire

Sunday Times

There is enough human anecdote and eccentricity in Empire of Secrets high-octane narrative to please even the most satiated consumer of such subjects a story that often left me wondering what on earth we pay these people for

Literary Review

With fluency and judiciousness, he tells how Britains secret services responded to, then helped engineer and fine-tune, and later hushed up one of the most important historical events of the last century The history of Britains decolonisation will now begin to be rewritten. Waltons first draft is acute, well-researched and agreeably lively

Sunday Telegraph

For those interested in the Cold War, intelligence history, and British decolonization, [Empire of Secrets] proves indispensable

New York Journal of Books

Fascinating moves the spooks from the periphery of history to its heart A well-documented, courageous and incisive first book by an author who has inhabited the real world of intelligence rather than a James Bond fantasy required reading