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The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5
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Released: 2009-10-05 Rating:  More Details: The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5 The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5 @Amazon The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5 @aStore |
Customer Reviews:
The things you always wondered about...
If you remember the 60's, 70's or 80's; if you remember the Miners Strike.......If you always wondered if so-and-so worked for the Russians - or should have done - read this book. - this hefty book is both readable and enjoyable - well worth reading!
Size matters
Very heavy to hold and read. Perhaps it should have been published in several volumes.
All the facts about MI5?
This book has been produced to mark the first hundred years of MI5, the service charged with the responsible of protecting the UK against threats to national security. The fact that a `secret' service has chosen to publish its history (said to be a first) is itself worthy of note and is a measure of the new openness of MI5 - it even has a website now - although sceptics might note that the security service is increasingly having to justify its existence and, more importantly, its budget.
The book is a weighty volume (over 1000 pages), which is not surprising as we are told that the security service has over 400,000 paper files. The author, Professor Andrew, a Cambridge academic specialising in intelligence matters, has had the daunting task of distilling this vast mass of information down to a readable form and has successfully produced a serious study of an intrinsically interesting topic. Although his style is somewhat deferential, he is understandably keen to assert his independence and states that all the judgements in the book are his own, has had `virtually unrestricted access' to 20th century and earlier files and a limited number of files from the 21st century. Nevertheless, this is an `authorized' history and has been through a protracted process to obtain clearance. The author strongly hints that in some cases this has resulted in the removal of significant information, for example in the case of the alleged plot to oust Harold Wilson as Prime Minister. There may of course be for good security reasons for this, but we will probably never know and inevitably this will provide fuel for conspiracy theorists.
The book is divided into six sections, A, B etc, rather like an official report. The origins of the Security Service arose from the needs of the military up to and during World War I, the period covered by Section A, which concentrates largely on the traditional spies of fiction. Section B deals with the period between the wars and the new feature of the `Red Menace' - the influence of communist and their sympathisers in British institutions. With the start of World War II, the emphasis was on counter-espionage and Section C contains a detailed account of the successful interception and decoding of German signals that largely nullified enemy activity in this area. After the war the service became preoccupied with the problem of soviet penetration, particularly within its own ranks, and there were even allegations (later found to be untrue, or at least unproved) against a Director General (Sir Roger Hollis) and a Deputy DG. But penetration did of course occur and the hunt for the `Magnificent Five' (Philby, Burgess, Blunt, Maclean and Cairncross) absorbed much time and effort over 20 years and was not finally resolved until the naming of Blunt in 1974. This period is examined in considerable detail in Section D. In fact the period before the 1970s is covered in much more detail than later periods. In the later stages of the `cold war', counter-terrorism, for example opposing the activities of the various armed groups in Northern Ireland, started to assume a greater importance than `traditional' counter-espionage, and the service was involved in a mixture of these activities, together with internal communist subversion. This is the subject of Section E. Finally, in the 21st century, with the rise of Islamic extremism, counter-terrorism has become the overwhelming activity of MI5 and in 2007-08 less than 4% of the security service budget was spent on counter-espionage.
Together with the domestic factual history there is much interesting detail about the people involved, the procedures they employed, the activities of the service overseas, and the rivalry between MI5 and other security services, such as SIS. In the early days the service had the prejudices of the upper classes of the time and was very `in-bred'. It relied on personal recommendations for recruiting officers, many of whom were ex-military and most of whom listed `hunting' and `field sports' as their recreations. There was nothing so vulgar as advertising and of course no women were employed as officers. It took a long time for things to change. The DGs, normally promoted from within the service, have been a mixed bunch, some aloof, others eccentric and at least one hopelessly incompetent. The interest taken in security matters by Prime Ministers has also varied greatly, from the supportive Churchill to the somewhat paranoid Wilson, who maintained that MI5 was bugging his communications.
Overall, has the security service succeeded in its aims? This is something an outsider cannot really judge. Certainly, there have been successes (neutering the German espionage efforts in World War II, for example) and one suspects that there have been more recent examples, the details of which have not been fully revealed. But at the same time, it is clear that much security service activity has been reactive (the London bombings came `out of the blue') and in earlier days simply pointless (recording the entire membership of the British Communist Party). At least the security service has never intruded on everyday life in the way that, for example, the Stasi did and, admittedly on their own evidence, the service has resisted pressure from politicians to provide evidence about people unless they were judged as a danger to the state. This is the way it should be. Professor Andrew has produced a well-written history that I thoroughly recommend. But keep an open mind.
A "safe" history of the Spooks. 
Christopher Andrew is a respected UK historian who has witten widely about the UK intelligence services. He is the only historian whom the Spooks would let near their offical archives - and, even, then, he was not granted total access.
This is fine, so far as it goes. But as reviews of the book in "Private Eye" magazine, and in letters to the London "Times" newspaper have pointed out, there is a price to be paid for such access: you cannot write a fully independent account of the Security Service whilst at the same time be chummy with those same services. Andrew's closeness to the Spooks, whilst allowing him access to a wealth of sensitive material, has at the same time compromised his independence and objectivity. The reviews of the books have pointed out massive gaps in the MI5 story which no fully independent researcher would have allowed to have gone unchallenged and unacknowledged.
That said, the book is the best and fullest account of the Security Service to date. But, given the above caveat, it should be read with caution.
Intelligence insulted. 
I found this book worse than useless, so I'm glad I didn't buy a copy. Obviously every word has been censored by MI5 before publication, and the author selected to know his limits in any case. But the Boy's Own combination of adolescent anorak-ism (another reviewer points out a fixation on hobbies and outdoor pursuits) and an apparently unshakeable faith in the Good Eggness of the organisation and its personnel was a shocker, even given my low expectations.
I don't suppose there is anything actually invented - at least not to the certain knowledge of the author - in there, but there is undoubtedly a huge amount of great interest that has been suppressed (and not for national security reasons, unless you go along with the slippery slope thinking that says National Security = National Interest = Interest of the Government = Whatever is least likely to cause even the slightest inconvenience or embarrassment for the government or the establishment more generally = don't tell the public anything they might actually find useful). Systematic omissions can be every bit as misleading as outright fabrications, especially if the reader is not alert to the overwhelming likelihood of such pervasive bias. The way to look at it is that this book was basically written by MI5. (Of course I don't have any way of knowing what the author's relationship is to MI5, beyond being trusted to look at selected files. I mean that he was basically working on MI5's behalf and under their supervision in writing this book. Though of course there are - there must be - MI5 'assets', agents and employees in academia, publishing, the media etc.)
I should have trusted Private Eye's dismissive review and saved some time. If you want something with more depth and bite than a school newsletter, read some Robin Ramsay, David Leigh, Stephen Dorril (not the MP of similar name) or Richard M Bennett instead.
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By: Christopher Andrew - ISBN-13 978-0-7139-9885-6 (ISBN-10 0-7139-9885-7)
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Fantastic Fiction « Annette J Dunlea Irish Author's Literary Blog
Title: The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5 Author: Christopher AndrewHardcover: 1088 pages Publisher: Allen Lane (5 Oct 2009) ISBN-10: 0713998857 ISBN-13: 978-0713998856 Product Dimensions: 24 x 16 x 6.6 cmProduct ...
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Book in the Media - The Defence of the Realm
ISBN-10: 0713998857 ISBN-13: 978-0713998856 Product Dimensions: 24 x 16 x 6.6 cm Product Description To mark the centenary of its foundation, the British Security Service, MI5, has opened its archives to an independent historian, ...
http://annettedunlea.blogspot.com/2009/11/book-in-media-defence-of-realm.html
創設100年記念！ MI5公式解説本（ネタじゃありません。本当です）
0713998857, The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5 Allen Lane 2009-10-05 by G-Tools. 10月に入ってからしばらくは英メディアはどこもこの話題を大きく取り上げていて、各メディアで小出しにされる情報を少しずつ見ているうち ...
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