ALDRICH AND CORMAC, The Black Door: Spies, Secret Intelligence and British Prime Ministers

Apr. 1908 Herbert Asquith becomes Prime Minister
1909 Mansfield Smith-Cumming becomes the first Chief of MI6
1909 Vernon Kell becomes Director General of MI5
1909 Asquith ask the Committee of Imperial Defence to investigate German agents
Sept. 1909 Suffragettes plan the assassination of Asquith
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1910s
1911 Official Secrets Act passed
Nov. 1914 100,000 reports of German espionage since the outbreak of war
1916 Roger Casement arrested in Ireland and hung
Dec. 1916 David Lloyd George becomes Prime Minister
Dec. 1916 Maurice Hankey becomes the first Cabinet Secretary
Dec. 1916 Lloyd George and Hankey create the Cabinet committee system
1917 The Zimmerman telegram is decrypted by British codebreakers
Nov. 1919 GC&CS formed from a merger of cryptanalytical units
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1920s
Oct. 1922 Andrew Bonar Law becomes Prime Minister
May 1923 Stanley Baldwin becomes Prime Minister
1923 Hugh Sinclair becomes Chief of MI6
Jan. 1924 Ramsay MacDonald becomes Prime Minister
Oct. 1924 The Zinoviev Letter
Nov. 1924 Stanley Baldwin becomes Prime Minister
1926 General Strike
May 1927 The Arcos Raid
Jun. 1929 Ramsay MacDonald becomes Prime Minister
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1930s
1931 Industrial Intelligence Centre created under Desmond Morton
1935 Donald Maclean joins the Foreign Office
Jun. 1935 Stanley Baldwin becomes Prime Minister
1936 John Cairncross joins the Foreign Office
1936 Joint Intelligence Committee created
1936 David Anderson becomes the first JIC Chair
Dec. 1936 Baldwin demands MI5 tap the King’s telephone
Dec. 1936 King Edward VIII abdicates
May 1937 Neville Chamberlain becomes Prime Minister
1938 Edward Bridges becomes Cabinet Secretary
Feb. 1938 Anthony Eden resigns as Foreign Secretary
Aug. 1938 Thomas Kendrick MI6 Head of Station in Vienna arrested
1938 Roger Evans and then Frederick Beaumont-Nesbitt becomes JIC Chair
1938 The Woolwich Arsenal spy ring is rounded up
1939 Ralph Stevenson and then Victor Cavendish Bentinck becomes JIC Chair
Jan. 1939 GC&CS loses ability to read high grade Japanese diplomatic traffic
Mar. 1939 Hitler invades Czechoslovakia
Jun. 1939 IRA bombing campaign in Britain with 72 attacks
Aug. 1939 GC&CS moves to Bletchley Park to avoid bombing
Aug. 1939 British intelligence is surprised by the Nazi Soviet Pact
Nov. 1939 Stewart Menzies becomes chief of MI6
Nov. 1939 The Venlo Incident in which MI6 officers are abducted
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1940s
Mar. 1940 Lord Hankey conducts a review of MI5 and MI6
Apr. 1940 British intelligence is surprised by the invasion of Norway
May 1940 Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister
May 1940 Tyler Kent arrested
May 1940 Churchill accelerates internment of enemy aliens
Jun. 1940 'Jasper' Harker becomes acting Director General of MI5
Jun. 1940 Anthony Blunt joins MI5
Jun. 1940 R.V. Jones explains the “Knicherbein” system to Churchill
Jun. 1940 British Security Co-ordination established in New York under Sir William Stephenson
Jul. 1940 William Donovan visits Britain
1940 The Special Operations Executive is created
1941 Kim Philby joins MI6
Jan. 1941 The Doublecross Committee is established
Mar. 1941 David Petrie become Director General of MI5
Mar. 1941 Churchill predicts the German attack on Russia
Sept. 1941 Winston Churchill visit Bletchley Park
Oct. 1941 Churchill orders “Action this Day” on more resources for Bletchley
Oct. 1941 Churchill learns of Lord Sempill’s espionage for the Japanese
Dec. 1941 Pearl Harbor
Mar. 1942 Lord Selborne become Head of SOE
Jun. 1942 OSS created
1943 BRUSA agreement on Anglo-American military signals intelligence
May 1943 Operation Mincemeat
Jun. 1943 Luftwaffe attempt to shot down Churchill returning from the Mediterranean
Nov. 1943 The KGB thwarts German plots against the Teheran conference
Feb. 1944 Churchill creates Cypher Policy Board due to penetration of Allied cyphers
May 1944 The Fortitude deception plan protects D-Day
Sept. 1944 P.G. Wodehouse arrested in Paris
1945 Harold Caccia becomes JIC Chair
May 1945 Adrian Dingli dies on Malta
Jul. 1945 Churchill makes his “Gestapo” election broadcast
Jul. 1945 Clement Attlee
Mar. 1946 Revised BRUSA agreement on Anglo-American sigint co-operation
1946 SOE is absorbed into MI6
1946 Percy Sillitoe becomes Director General of MI5
1947 Information Research Department (IRD) created
1947 Norman Brook becomes Cabinet Secretary
1948 MI6 begins Operation valuable against Albania
1948 Attlee introduces negative vetting and a Whitehall purge follows
1949 William Hayter becomes JIC Chair
Aug. 1949 British intelligence fails to predict detonation of Soviet A-bomb
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1950s
1950 Patrick Reilly becomes JIC Chair
1950 Klaus Fuchs is convicted
1951 Permanent Secretaries Committee on the Intelligence Services (PSIS) created
May 1951 Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess defect to the Soviet Union
Oct. 1951 Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister

Jan. 1952 Positive Vetting announced
1952 Home Secretary David Maxwell-Fyffe creates a directive setting out MI5's relationship with Government
May 1952 Churchill approves night spy-flights over Russia
Jul 1952 Churchill enquires about UFOs
1953 Dick White becomes Director General of MI5
1953 John Sinclair becomes Chief of MI6
1953 Patrick Dean becomes JIC Chair
Jul. 1953 Churchill approves Operation Boot/Ajax in Iran
Feb. 1954 The GCHQ move from Eastcote to two sites at Cheltenham is completed
1954 Churchill approves the Berlin tunnel operation
Jun. 1954 Alan Turing dies of cyanide poisoning in Wilmslow, Cheshire
Apr. 1955 Anthony Eden becomes Prime Minister
Nov. 1955 Harold Macmillan clears Kim Philby in the House of Commons
Apr. 1956 KGB General Ivan Serov accompanies the Soviet delegation to Britain
Apr. 1956 Buster Crabb disappears on his infamous dive at Portsmouth
1956 Dick White becomes Chief of MI6
1956 Roger Hollis becomes Director General of MI5
Aug. 1956 The Egyptians roll up MI6 networks in Cairo and imprison agents
Jan. 1957 Harold Macmillan becomes Prime Minister
Jan. 1958 CIA-MI6 working group accelerates operations against Indonesia
Feb. 1959 Macmillan visit Moscow and is struck by levels of surveillance
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1960s
1960 Hugh Stevenson becomes JIC Chair
May 1960 Loss of Gary Powers U-2 aircraft over Russia
Aug. 1960 Macmillan moves out of Downing Street to allow for reburshiment
1960 Clive Loehnis becomes Director of GCHQ
Jan. 1961 Death of Patrice Lumumba
Apr. 1961 Bay of Pigs operation
1961 George Blake is arrested and early compromise of Berlin Tunnel realised
Apr. 1962 Macmillan informed of the Golitsyn revelations about KGB penetration
Sept. 1962 Vassall spy case
Oct. 1962 David Bruce and Chester Cooper present imagery of Cuba to Macmillan
1962 Oleg Penkovsky is arrested in Moscow
1963 Bernard Burrows becomes JIC Chair
1963 Kim Philby of MI6 defects to the Soviet Union
1963 Burke Trend becomes Cabinet Secretary
Mar. 1963 Macmillan authorises covert action against Yemen
Mar. 1963 The Profumo Affair is first mentioned by George Wigg in Parliament
Mar. 1963 Harold Wilson is quizzed on Profumo by John F. Kennedy
Jun. 1963 Macmillan defends his actions over Profumo in the Commons
Jul. 1963 Lord Denning's Report reveals publicly for first time details of MI5's role
Sept. 1963 Macmillan told of Golitsyn’s accusations against Harold Wilson
Oct. 1963 Macmillan returns to Downing Street after refurbishment
Oct. 1963 Alec Douglas-Home becomes Prime Minister
Apr. 1964 Anthony Blunt is interviewed by Arthur Martin of MI5
Apr. 1964 Blunt is offered immunity from prosecution and public anonymity
Jul. 1964 Lord Boothby scandal
Jul. 1964 Joint Action Committee (JAC) created
Jul. 1964 Douglas-Home denies intervention in the Yemen civil war
1964 Police Act introduces regional Special Branches
Oct. 1964 Harold Wilson becomes Prime Minister
Feb. 1965 The JIC issue “The Bible” – a set of guidelines on interrogation
Apr. 1965 Gilchrist letter affair in Indonesia
Sept. 1965 Indonesian coup and Army counter-coup
1965 Joe Hooper becomes Director of GCHQ
1965 Martin Furnival Jones becomes Director General of MI5
Nov. 1965 Ian Smith declares Rhodesian UDI
1966 Denis Greenhill becomes JIC Chair
1966 Seamen's Strike bugged on the orders of Harold Wilson
Sept. 1966 George Wigg, Harold Wilson's Paymaster General, reviews security at GCHQ
Jan. 1966 Ken Flower of Rhodesian intelligence visits Downing Street for talks
Oct. 1966 George Blake escapes and Heath and Wilson are briefed together by Dick White
Feb. 1967 Chapman Pincher and the ‘D-Notice Affair’ exposes cable vetting
Jun. 1967 Wilson rejects Radcliffe report on D-Notice affair
Jun. 1967 Helen Keenan tried for espionage in Downing Street on behalf of BOSS
1967 Burke Trend begins reform of central intelligence machinery
Jan. 1968 Geoffrey Prime offers his service to the Russians
1968 Edward Peck becomes JIC Chair
1968 John Rennie becomes Chief of MI6
1968 Dick White becomes the first Cabinet Office Intelligence Co-ordinator
1968 Geoffrey Prime joins GCHQ
Aug. 1968 The Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia takes JIC by surprise
Aug. 1968 Hugh Cudlipp, Zolly Zuckerman and Lord Mountbatten discuss a new government
Nov. 1968 Douglas Britten is sentenced for passing signals intelligence secrets to the KGB
Dec. 1968 Dick White as Co-ordinator reviews warning systems after Czech invasion
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1970s
1970 Stewart Crawford becomes JIC Chair
Jun. 1970 Edward Heath becomes Prime Minister
Jan. 1971 Angry Brigade bomb attack on the home of Robert Carr, Employment Secretary
May 1971 Angry Brigade attempt to kill Heath with bombs in his Sidcup constituency
Aug. 1971 Internment in Northern Ireland
Au. 1971 Oleg Lyalin arrested for drink driving
Sept. 1971 Heath launches Operation Foot, expelling Soviet intelligence personnel in London
Nov. 1971 Compton report on interrogation techniques in Northern Ireland
Dec. 1971 Black September attempt to kill the Jordanian ambassador in London
1972 Peter Wilkinson becomes Cabinet Office Intelligence Co-ordinator
1972 Michael Hanley becomes Director General of MI5
Jan. 1972 The First Miners Strike
Mar. 1972 The JIC re-write guidelines on interrogation to exclude the five techniques
Mar. 1972 Harold Wilson meets with IRA leaders
1973 Geoffrey Arthur becomes JIC Chair
1973 John Hunt becomes Cabinet Secretary
Feb. 1973 SAS ‘Pagoda’ anti-terrorist unit created
Feb. 1973 US Senate begin an investigation of Watergate
Aug. 1973 Arthur Bonsall becomes Director of GCHQ
1973 Maurice Oldfield becomes Chief of MI6
Dec. 1973 Heath uses intelligence from Industrial Assessments Group in public speeches
Jan. 1974 Second Miners Strike. MI5 gives more emphasis to "domestic subversion" at Heath’s behest
Mar. 1974 Harold Wilson becomes Prime Minister
Aug. 1974 Richard Nixon resigns
Nov. 1974 Harold Wilson approves a back channel to the IRA
1974 Oleg Gordievsky recruited by MI6
1975 Antony Duff becomes JIC Chair
Feb. 1976 Harold Wilson arranges for a private sweep of Downing Street for bugs
Feb. 1976 Harold Wilson meets with Senator Frank Church to discuss CIA
Mar. 1976 Harold Wilson meets with George Bush, Director of the CIA
Apr. 1976 James Callaghan becomes Prime Minister
May 1976 Eight members of the SAS arrested by the Dublin government
May 1977 The SAS advise the Dutch government over a train hijacking
Oct. 1977 The SAS assist the Germans GSG-9 to end a hijacking at Mogadishu
Oct. 1977 Downing Street probes a plan by former SAS to assassinate the President of Togo
Aug. 1977 Margaret Thatcher and the Cabinet Secretary discuss Harold Wilson’s political reliability
Aug. 1977 MI5 briefs senior ministers and civil servants on the Militant Tendency
1977 Peter Wright retires from MI5
1977 IRD is closed down and its functions moved to MI6 and other FCO departments
1978 Brian Tovey becomes Director of GCHQ
1978 Brooks Richards becomes Cabinet Office Intelligence Co-ordinator
Jul. 1978 Former Iraqi president Said al-Naif is assassinated in London
Sept. 1978 James Callaghan tells Cabinet to back the Shah against the ‘mad mullahs’
Sept. 1978 ABC Trial opens at the Old Bailey
Oct. 1978 Tony Benn presses James Callaghan for better accountability of intelligence
Oct. 1978 James Callaghan predicts the downfall of the Shah
Oct. 1978 All section 1 charges dropped in ABC Trial
1979 Antony Acland becomes JIC Chair
1979 Dick Franks becomes Chief of MI6
1979 Howard Smith becomes Director General of MI5
1979 Robert Armstrong becomes Cabinet Secretary

Feb. 1979 CIA attempts a deal with Ayatollah Khomeini as he returns to Teheran
Mar. 1979 Richard Sykes, Ambassador to The Hague assassinated by the IRA
Mar 1979 Airey Neave assassinated by the IRA
May 1979 Margaret Thatcher becomes Prime Minister
Nov. 1979 Anthony Blunt publicly exposed
Dec. 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
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1980s
1980 Antony Duff becomes Cabinet Office Intelligence Co-ordinator
Jan 1980 Margaret Thatcher and Jimmy Carter discuss covert action in Afghanistan
1981 John Jones becomes Director General of MI5
Feb. 1981 Bill Casey presents the OSS Veteran’s Donovan Medal to Margaret Thatcher in New York
Feb. 1981 Margaret Thatcher’s adviser call for restoration of IRD
May 1981 Margaret Thatcher makes a statement about Roger Hollis in the Commons
May 1981 Moscow launches Operation Ryan to watch for a Western pre-emptive attack
1982 Patrick Wright becomes JIC Chair
1982 Colin Figures becomes Chief of MI6
Mar. 1982 The JIC fail to spot the impending invasion of the Falklands
Apr. 1982 Falklands task force despatched
May 1982 The Argentine cruiser the Belgrano is sunk
1983 Defence Secretary Michael Heseltine creates MoD’s DS 19 to combat CND propaganda
Sept. 1983 - Michael Bettaney revealed as an MI5 traitor who gave secrets to Soviet Union
Sept. 1983 Peter Marychurch becomes Director of GCHQ
Jan. 1984 GCHQ staff receive the surprise GN 100/84 letter ending union membership
Feb 1984 Oleg Gordievsky briefs Margaret Thatcher before her departure for Moscow
Apr. 1984 WPC Yvonne Fletcher is shot outside the Libyan People’s Bureau in London
May 1984 Margaret Thatcher visits Hungary and speaks of captive nations
1984 Michael Bettaney imprisoned
Oct 1984 Margaret Thatcher escapes injury at the Brighton hotel bombing
1985 Percy Craddock becomes JIC Chair
May 1985 Oleg Gordievsky is ordered back to Moscow
1985 Interception of Communications Act
1985 Colin Figures becomes Cabinet Office Intelligence Co-ordinator
1985 Christopher Curwen becomes Chief of MI6
1985 Antony Duff becomes Director General of MI5
Mar. 1985 Cathy Massiter reveals MI5 surveillance of CND
Apr. 1986 US bombing raid on Libya
Nov. 1986 "Spycatcher" features in an Australian court case
Nov. 1986 Iran-Contra is exposed
May 1987 - Mrs Thatcher tells the House of Commons she has asked MI5 Director General Sir Anthony Duff to investigate the allegations of a conspiracy against Wilson
Dec. 1986 Zircon satellite controversy
Jun. 1987 “Spycatcher” court case Australia
Nov. 1987 Sir Philip Woodfield is appointed to the new post of MI5 Staff Counsellor
Dec. 1987 Margaret Thatcher asks Gorbachev to release Oleg Gordievsky’s family
1988 Robin Butler becomes Cabinet Secretary
1988 Three IRA terrorists are killed in Gibraltar
1988 Patrick Walker becomes Director General of MI5
Oct. 1988 The Law Lords lift the ban on Peter Wright’s Spycatcher
1989 Christopher Curwen becomes Cabinet Office Intelligence Co-ordinator
1989 The Official Secrets Act is revised removing the public interest defence for 'whistle-blowers'
1989 Colin McColl becomes Chief of MI6
1989 John Adye becomes Director of GCHQ
Dec. 1989 Security Service Act puts MI5 on a statutory basis for the first time
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1990s
Mar. 1990 Gerald Bull, creator of the Supergun, is assassinated in Brussels
Aug. 1990 Iraq invades Kuwait and Western leaders are surprised despite warning
Nov. 1990 John Major becomes Prime Minister
Dec. 1990 MoD loses the plans for attack in the Gulf outside a Land Rover showroom
1991 Gerry Warner becomes Cabinet Office Intelligence Co-ordinator
Jan. 1991 Liberation of Kuwait covered by a major deception plan
Feb. 1991 IRA launch a mortar attack on Downing Street
Aug. 1991 Percy Cradock dispenses champagne to mark the end of the Soviet Communism
Dec. 1991 John Major flies out for the Maastricht negotiations
1992 Rodric Braithwaite becomes JIC Chair
Apr. 1992 IRA bomb the Baltic Exchange in London
Feb. 1992 Stella Rimington becomes Director General of MI5
Jun. 1992 Waldegrave Initiative accelerates intelligence document declassification
Jun. 1992 Vasili Mitrokhin is extracted from Riga by MI6
Oct. 1992 Ken Alibeck defects bringing detailed intelligence on Soviet biological weapons
1993 Pauline Neville-Jones becomes JIC Chair
Apr. 1993 John Major is asked about the activities of Stephan Kock in the Commons
1994 Paul Lever becomes JIC Chair
Sept. 1994 David Spedding becomes Chief of MI6
Jun. 1994 Intelligence Services Act
Jun. 1994 Sir Michael Quinlan’s ‘Review of Intelligence Requirements and Resources’ completed
Mar. 1995 Roger Hurn’s ‘Special Study’ of GCHQ completed
Mar. 1995 Aum Shinrikyo nerve gas attack on the Tokyo tube system
1996 Colin Budd becomes JIC Chair
1996 John Alpass becomes Cabinet Office Intelligence Co-ordinator
Feb. 1996 The Scott Report on Arms to Iraq is released
Jul. 1996 David Omand becomes Director of GCHQ
Feb. 1996 IRA bomb Canary Wharf
Apr. 1996 Stephen Lander becomes Director General of MI5
1997 Michael Pakenham becomes JIC Chair
May 1997 Tony Blair becomes Prime Minister
Jul. 1997 David Shayler’s MI5 revelations
Dec. 1997 Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness visit Downing Street
1998 Richard Wilson becomes Cabinet Secretary
1998 Michael Pakenham becomes Cabinet Office Intelligence Co-ordinator
Jan. 1998 Kevin Tebbit becomes Director of GCHQ
Apr. 1998 Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland
Jul. 1998 Francis Richards becomes Director of GCHQ
Feb. 1999 Richard Dearlove becomes Chief of MI6
Jul. 1999 Richard Tomlinson’s MI6 revelations
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2000s
2000 Peter Ricketts becomes Cabinet Office Intelligence Co-ordinator and JIC Chair
2001 John Scarlett becomes JIC Chair
Sept. 2001 Terrorist attacks on New York and Washington DC
2002 Andrew Turnbull becomes Cabinet Secretary
2002 Sir David Omand becomes Cabinet Office Intelligence and Security Co-ordinator
Oct. 2002 Manningham-Buller becomes Director General of MI5
Mar. 2002 Major Cabinet meeting on action over Iraq
Apr. 2002 Blair meets resistance on action against Iraq from British military
Jun. 2002 JTAC begins operations in the MI5 headquarters at Thames House
Sept. 2002 Downing Street Dossier on WMD published
Nov. 2002 UN passes resolution 1441 stating Iraq was in material breach of obligations
Jan. 2003 George W. Bush spotlights British intelligence in his State of the Union address
Feb. 2003 David Manning and John Scarlett embark on their “Middle Six” intelligence tour
Feb. 2003 Second Downing Street Dossier on Human Rights abuses published
Feb. 2003 The Observer publishes an NSA email leaked by Katherine Gun at GCHQ
Feb 2003 Clair Short is cautioned by the Cabinet Secretary for discussing sigint and the UN on TV
Apr. 2003 Dr David Pepper becomes Director of GCHQ
May 2003 Andrew Gilligan appears on Radio 4 regarding WMD dossier
Jun. Foreign Affairs Select Committee inquiry into the WMD claims
Jul. 2003 Dr David Kelly is found dead and inquiry by Lord Hutton is launched
May 2004 William Ehrman becomes JIC Chair
Jan. 2004 Hutton Report into the death of Dr David Kelly is published
May 2004 GCHQ move to 'The Doughnut' is completed
May 2004 John Scarlett becomes Chief of MI6
2005 Gus O'Donnell becomes Cabinet Secretary
2005 Bill Jeffrey becomes Cabinet Office Intelligence and Security Co-ordinator
2005 Richard Mottram becomes Permanent Secretary, Intelligence, Security and Resilience/JIC chair
Jul. 2005 Suicide bombers attack London
Oct. 2005 President Putin is briefed in COBRA by Eliza Mannigham-Buller
Nov. 2005 Dana Priest reveals secret prisons in Europe
2006 Special Branch is disbanded and incorporated in counter-terrorist units
Nov. 2006 Alexander Litvinenko is killed in London
2007 Robert Hannigan becomes Head of Security, Intelligence & Resilience
2007 Alex Allan becomes JIC Chair
Apr. 2007 Jonathan Evans becomes Director General of MI5
Jun. 2007 Gordon Brown becomes Prime Minister
Jun. 2007 Attack on Glasgow airport and failed attack on the Haymarket in London
Mar. 2008 Inquiry into the Death of Princess Diana concludes there was no conspiracy
Jul. 2008 Iain Lobban becomes Director of GCHQ
Oct. 2008 Eliza Manningham-Buller urges the Lords to vote down extended detention
Nov. 2008 Major terrorist attack with firearms in Mumbai triggers security review in London
Apr. 2009 Richard Holbrooke visits MI6 headquarters for a briefing on Afghanistan
Jun. 2009 John Sawers becomes Chief of MI6
Oct. 2009 MI5 publishes an authorised history written by Christopher Andrew
Feb. 2009 Binyan Mohamed, a British citizen, is released from Guantanamo
Oct. 2009 The UK High Court orders the release of US documents relating to torture
Nov. 2009 Barack Obama criticises UK over release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi to Libya
Nov. 2009 MI6 efforts to talk to the Taliban disintegrate amid reports of a bogus negotiator
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2010s
2010 Oliver Robbins becomes Deputy National Security Adviser (Intelligence Security and Resilience)
May 2010 David Cameron becomes Prime Minister
Jun. 2010 Chequers summit on leaving Afghanistan discusses talking to the Taliban
Aug. 2010 Gareth Williams, a GCHQ officer seconded to MI6 is found dead in Pimlico
Sept. 2010 MI6 published an official history written by Keith Jeffery
Feb. 2011 David Cameron visits GCHQ and is briefed on cyber threats
Mar. 2011 UK special forces mission to Libya is arrested by rebel forces
2012 Jeremy Heywood becomes Cabinet Secretary
2012 Jon Day becomes JIC Chair
Jan. 2012 Lord Justice Gibson's judicial inquiry on British collusion in torture abandoned
Jun. 2012 British and American diplomats in Libya attacked
Mar. 2013 Andrew Parker becomes Director General of MI5
Jun. 2013 Snowden revelations about NSA and GCHQ begin
Jul. 2013 JIC material on use of chemical weapons in Syria released
Jul. 2014 Government announce a public inquiry into the murder of Alexander Litvinenko
Nov. 2014 Alex Younger becomes Chief of MI6
2015 Charles Farr becomes JIC Chair
Jan. 2015 Terrorist attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo in Paris

A Chronology of some literature on British intelligence and security

1944 Kessel, Joseph, Army of Shadows, (London: Cresset Press, 1944)
1947 Bruce Lockhart, R. H., Comes the Reckoning, (London: Putnam, 1947)
1949 Maclean, F., Eastern Approaches (Jonathan Cape, 1949)

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1953 Manus, M., Underwater Saboteur, (London: William Kimber, 1953)
1953 Montagu, Ewen. The Man Who Never Was. (Annapolis, MD: Bluejacket Books, 1953)
1954 Reed-Olsen, O., Two Eggs on my Plate, (London: Companion Book Club, 1954)
1955 Sillitoe, P. Cloak Without Dagger (Cassel & Co., 1955)
1955 Tickell, Jerrard, Odette, (London: Pan, 1955)
1955 Ward, Irene, FANY Invicta, (London: Hutchinson, 1955)
1956 Braddon, Russell, Nancy Wake, (Gateshead: Northumberland Press, 1956)
1956 Muus, F. B., (trans. J.F. Burke), The Spark and the Flame, (London: Museum Press, 1956)
1956 Tickell, Jerrard, Moon Squadron, (London: Allan Wingate Ltd, 1956)
1957 Babington Smith, Constance. Evidence in Camera: the Story of Photographic Intelligence in World War II. (Newton Abbot, UK: David & Charles, 1957)
1957 Howarth, D., We Die Alone, (London: The Reprint Society, 1957)
1958 Nicholas, Elizabeth, Death be not Proud, (London: Cresset, 1958)

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1962 Young, G.K. Masters of Indecision: An Inquiry into the Political Process (Methuen & Co., 1962)
1963 Bulloch, J., M.I.5 Origin and History of British Counter Espionage (Arthur Baker, 1963)
1965 Escott, Bickham Sweet, Baker Street Irregular, (Fakenham: Methuen, 1965)
1966 Cookridge, E.H., Inside SOE: The Story of the Speical Operations Executive in Western Europe, 1940-45 (Arthur Baker, 1966)
1966 Foot, M.R.D., SOE in France (HMSO, 1966)
1966 Penkovsky, Oleg V., The Penkovsky Papers (Collins, 1966)
1967 Minney, Rubeigh James, Carve her name with pride, (London: Pan, 1967)
1968 Mclachlan, D., Room 39, Naval Intelligence in Action 1939-1945, (London, Weidenfield & Nicolson, 1968)
1968 Page, P., Leitch, B., & Kinghtley, D., The Philby Conspiracy (Doubleday, 1968)
1968 Philby, K., My Silent War: The Autobiography of a Spy (MacGibbon & Key, 1968)
1968 Philby, Kim. My Silent War. (London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1968)
1969 McDermott, G., The Eden Legacy and the Decline of British Diplomacy (Leslie Frewin, 1969)

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1970 Dupuy, Trevor, European Resistance Movements, (London: Littlehampton Book Services Ltd. 1970)
1970 Hutton, J. B., The Fake Defector (Howard Baker, 1970)
1971 Farago, Ladislas. The Game of the Foxes: the Untold Story of German Espionage in the United States and Great Britain during World War II. (New York: D. McKay, 1971)
1971 Overton-Fuller, Jean, Madeleine, (The Hague: East/West Publications, 1971)
1972 Mastermann, JC. The Double Cross System, (Yale: Yale University Press, 1972)
1972 Michel, H., The Shadow War: Resistance in Europe 1939-1945, (trans. R. Barry), (London: Andre Deutsch, 1972)
1972 Young, G.K. , Who is My Liege? A Study of Loyalty and Betrayal in our Time (Gentry, 1972)
1974 Foot, P., Who Framed Colin Wallace? (Pan, 1974)
1974 Neagle, Anna, There’s Always tomorrow, (London: W.H. Allen / Virgin Books, 1974)
1974 Winterbotham, F.W., The Ultra Secret (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1974)
1975 Brown, Anthony Cave. Bodyguard of Lies. (New York: Harper & Row, 1975)
1975 Cockrill, A.W., Sir P. Sillitoe (W.H. Allen, 1975)
1975 Gallagher, T., Assault in Norway: The True Story of the Telemark Raid, (London: Purnell, 1975)
1975 Hamilton-Hill, D., SOE Assignment, (London: New English Library, 1975)
1975 Hawes, Stephen and Ralph White ed. Resistance in Europe: 1939-1945, (London: Allen Lane, 1975)
1975 Macksey, K., The Partisans of Europe in World War II, (London; Hart-Davis Macgibbon, 1975)
1975 Masterman, J.C. On the Chariot Wheel. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975)
1976 Aspin, L., The Kovaks Contract: Autobiography of the Notorious Master Mercenary (Everest Books, 1976)
1976 Barker, E., British Policy in South-East Europe in the Second World War (Macmillan, 1976)
1976 Fitzgibbon, C., Secret Intelligence in the Twentieth Century (NY: Stein and Day, 1976)
1976 Foot, M.R.D., Resistance (Eyre Methuen, 1976)
1976 Howarth, D., The Shetland Bus, (London: Elmfield Press, 1976)
1976 Stephenson, William, A Man called intrepid, (London: Macmillan, 1976)
1977 Mure, David. Practice to Deceive. (London: William Kimber, 1977)
1977 Rochester, Deveroux, Full Moon to France, (London: Harper Collins, 1977)
1977 Tolstoy, N., Victims of Yalta (Hutchinson, 1977)
1978 Foot, Michael, Six faces of courage, (London: Eyre Methuen, 1978)
1978 Jones, R.V., Most Secret War (Hamish Hamilton, 1978)
1978 Lewin, R., Ultra Goes to War: The Secret Story (Hutchinson, 1978)
1978 Lewin, Ronald. Ultra Goes to War. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978)
1979 Bennett, R., Ultra in the West: The Normandy Campaign of 1944-45 (Hutchinson, 1979)
1979 Boyle, A., The Climate of Treason: Five Who Spied For Russia (Hutchinson, 1979)
1979 Cruickshank, Charles. Deception in World War II. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979)
1979 Hæstrup, J., Europe Ablaze: An Analysis of the History of the European Resistance Movement, (Odense: Odense University Press, 1979)
1979 Hinsley, F. H. et al., British Intelligence in the Second World War, vols. 1-4 (HMSO, 1979-83)

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1980 Calvocoressi, P., Top Secret Ultra (Cassell, 1980)
1980 Howarth, P., Undercover: The men and Women of the Special Operations Executive, (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980)
1980 Montgomery Hyde, H., The Atom Bomb Spies (Hamish Hamilton, 1980)
1980 Mure, David. Master of Deception: Tangled Webs in London and the Middle East. (London: William Kimber, 1980)
1980 Stafford, D., Britain and the European Resistance, 1940-1945: A Survey of the Special Operations Executive, with Documents (Macmillan, 1980)
1980 Wheatley, Dennis. The Deception Planners: My Secret War. (London: Hutchinson, 1980)
1980 Young, G. K., The Diaries of Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart, vol. II 1939-1965, (London: Macmillan, 1980)
1981 Ambrose, Stephen, Ike's Spies: Eisenhower and the Espionage Establishment (NY: Doubleday, 1981)
1981 Beevor, John Grovesnor, SOE, (London: The Bodley Head, 1981)
1981 Winter, G., Inside Boss: South Africa’s Secret Police (Allen Lane, 1981)
1982 Beesly, P., Room 40: British Naval Intelligence, 1914–1918 (Hamish Hamilton, 1982)
1982 Howe, E., The Black game: British Subversive Operations against the Germans during the Second World War, (London: Michael Joseph, 1982)
1982 West, N., A Matter of Trust: MI5, 1945-72 (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1982)
1983 Bamford, J., The Puzzle Palace: America's National Security Agency and Its Special Relationship with GCHQ (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1983)
1983 Butler, Josephine, Churchill’s Secret Agents, (Ashburton: Blaketon-Hall Ltd, 1983)
1983 Cruickshank, C., SOE in the Far East (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1983)
1983 Dodds-Parker, D., Setting Europe Ablaze: Some Accounts of Ungentlemanly Warfare, (Windlesham: Springwood, 1983)
1983 Geraghty, T., Who Dares Wins: History of the Special Air Service (Fontana Press, 1983)
1983 Verrier. A., Through the looking glass: British foreign policy in an age of illusions (Jonathan Cape, 1983)
1984 Andrew, C.M. and Dilks, D., (eds.) The Missing Dimension: Governments and Intelligence Communities in the Twentieth Century (Macmillan, 1984)
1984 Bethell, N., The Great Betrayal: the Untold Story of Kim Philby’s Biggest Coup (Hodder & Stoughton, 1984)
1984 Bower, T., Klaus Barbie: The Butcher of Lyon (NY: Pantheon, 1984)
1984 Campbell, D., The Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier (Michael Joseph, 1984)
1984 Foot, Michael, SOE 1940-46, (London: BBC, 1984)
1984 Gorodetsky, G., Stafford Cripps' Mission to Moscow, 1940-2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984)
1984 Lorain, P., Secret Warfare: The Arms and Techniques of the Resistance, (London: Orbis Publishing, 1984)
1984 Pincher, C., Too Secret Too Long (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1984)
1984 Popham, Hugh, FANY, (London: Leo Cooper, 1984)
1985 Andrew, C.M., Secret Service: The Making of the British Intelligence Community (Heinemann, 1985)
1985 Deacon, Richard. ‘C’: A Biography of Sir Maurice Oldfield. (London: Macdonald & Co., 1985)
1985 Pimlott, B., Hugh Dalton, (London: Papermac, 1985)
1985 Richelson J. & Ball, D., Ties that Bind: Intelligence Co-operation between the UKUSA Countries (Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1985)
1985 Wark, W., The Ultimate Enemy: British Intelligence and Nazi Germany, 1933-39 (I.B. Tauris, 1985)
1985 Warner, Philip, The Secret forces of World War II, (London: Leo Cooper, 1985)
1986 Howarth, P., Intelligence Chief Extraordinary (The Bodley Head, 1986)
1986 Kramer, A., The Griffin (Boston: Houghton and Mifflin, 1986)
1986 Kramish, A., The Griffin, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1986)
1986 Neave, Airey, Little Cyclone, MI9, (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1986)
1986 Pimlott, B., The Second World War Diary of Hugh Dalton, (London: Jonathan Cape, 1986)
1986 West, N, GCHQ: The Secret Wireless War, 1900-86 (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986)
1986 Wiggan, R., Operation Freshman, (London: William Kimber, 1986)
1987 Cave Brown, A., C: The Secret Life of Sir Stewart Graham Menzies, Spymaster to Winston Churchill (NY: Macmillan, 1987)
1987 Davidson, Basil, Special Operations Europe, (Devon: Harper Collins Publishers, 1987)
1987 Fitzgerald, P. and Leopold, M., Strangers on the Line: A History of Phone-tapping (Bodley Head, 1987)
1987 Flower, K., Serving Secretly – An Intelligence Chief on Record: Rhodesia into Zimbabwe, 1964-81 (John Murray, 1987)
1987 Higonnet, Margaret and others ed. Behind the Lines – Gender and the Two World Wars, (Yale: Yale University Press, 1987)
1987 Knightley, P. and Kennedy, C., An Affair of State: The Profumo Case and the Framing of Stephen Ward (Cape, 1987)
1987 Montgomery Hyde, H., George Blake: Superspy (Futura, 1987)
1987 Pincher, C., Traitors; Labyrinths of Treason (Sidgwick & Jackson, 1987)
1987 Porter, B., The Origins of the Vigilant State (Weidenfield & Nicolson, 1987)
1987 Williams, R.C., Klaus Fuchs: Atom Bomb Spy (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1987)
1987 Wright, P., Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer (NY: Viking, 1987)
1988 Cecil, R., A Divided Life: Donald Maclean (The Bodley Head, 1988)
1988 Knightley, P., The Master Spy: The Story of Kim Philby (Andre Deutch, 1988)
1988 West, N., The Friends: Britain's Post-war Secret Intelligence Operations (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988)
1988 Williams, Heather, Parachutes, Patriots and Partisans, (London: C Hurst & Co, 1988)
1989 Bower, T., The Red Web (Aurum Press, 1989)
1989 Brook-Shepherd, G., The Storm Birds: Soviet Postwar Defectors New York (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1989)
1989 Jones, R.V., Reflections on Intelligence (Heinemann, 1989)
1989 Leitch, D., Guy Burgess (Lennard, 1989)
1989 Porter B., Plots and Paranoia: History of Political Espionage in Britain, 1790-1988 (Routledge, 1989)
1989 Shipley, P., Hostile Action: The KGB and Secret Operations in Britain (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1989)

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1990 Andrew, C. M. and Gordievsky, O., KGB: The Inside Story (Hodder & Stoughton, 1990)
1990 Blake, G., No Other Choice: An Autobiography (Cape, 1990)
1990 Cavendish, A., Inside Intelligence (HarperCollins, 1990)
1990 Fielding, X., One Man in his Time: the Life of Billy McLean (Macmillan, 1990)
1990 Hunt, Sir David. A Don at War. (London: Frank Cass, 1990)
1990 MacDonald, P., SAS in Action (Sidgwick and Jackson, 1990)
1990 Riley, M., Philby: The Hidden Years (Penzance: United Writers Publications, Ailsa, 1990)
1990 Ruby, Marcell, F section SOE, (London: Grafton Books, 1990)
1990 Welham, M.G. and J.A., Frogman Spy: The Mysterious Disappearance of Commander Buster Crabb (Allen, 1990)
1991 Bearse, R., Conspirator: The Untold Story of Tyler Kent (Macmillan, 1991)
1991 Butler, Josephine, Cyanide in my shoe, (London: This England Books, 1991)
1991 Cooper, J., One of the Originals: Story of a Founder Member of the SAS (Pan, 1991)
1991 Curry, John. The Security Service, 1908-1945. (Kew: Public Record Office, 1999)
1991 Dillon, M., The Dirty War (Arrow, 1991)
1991 Elliott, Nicholas. Never Judge a Man by his Umbrella. (Norwich: Michael Russell, 1991)
1991 Jablonsky, D., Churchill, the Great Game, and Total War (Routledge, 1991)
1991 Jones, Liane, A Quiet Courage, (Reading: Corgi, 1991)
1991 Newton, V., The Cambridge Spies; The Untold Story of Maclean, Philby and Burgess in America (NY: Madison Books, 1991)
1992 Aldrich, R. J., (ed.), British Intelligence, Strategy and the Cold War, 1945-51 (Routledge, 1992)
1992 Dorril, S. & Ramsey, R., Smear!: Wilson and the Secret State (HarperCollins 1992, New Edition)
1992 Herman, M., Intelligence Power in Peace and War (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1992)
1992 Hodges, A., Turing: The Enigma (Vintage, 1992)
1992 Kahn, D., Seizing the Enigma, (London: Arrow Books, 1992)
1992 Schecter, J. L. & Deriabin, P.S., The Spy Who Saved the World (NY: Charles Scribner's, 1992)
1992 Tennant, P., Touchlines of War, (Hull: University of Hull Press, 1992)
1992 Urban, M., Big Boys’ Rules: The Secret Struggle against the IRA (faber & faber, 1992)
1992 Ward, M., Greek Assignments: SOE 1943-1948 UNSCOB (Athens: Lycabettus Press, 1992)
1993 Bristow, Desmond with Bill Bristow. A Game of Moles: the Deceptions of an MI6 Officer. (London: Little, Brown, 1993)
1993 Crozier, B., Free Agent: The Unseen War, 1941-91 (HarperCollins 1993)
1993 Elliott, N., With My Little Eye (Michael Russell, 1993)
1993 F.H. Hinsley and Alan Stripp (eds.), Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993)
1993 Hinsley, F. H. and Stripp, A. (eds.), Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1993)
1993 Koch, S., Double Lives: Spies and Writers in the Secret Soviet War of Ideas Against the West (NY: The Free Press, 1993)
1993 Smith, B. F., The Ultra-Magic Deals and the Most Secret Special Relationship, 1940-1946 (Shrewsbury: Airlife Publishing, 1993)
1993 West, Nigel, Secret War - The Story of SOE, (Seven Oaks: Coronet Books, 1993)
1993 Wilkinson, P. and Astley, J.B., Gubbins and SOE (Leo Cooper, 1993)
1994 Aldrich, R. J. and Hopkins, M. F., (eds.) Intelligence, Defence and Diplomacy: British Policy in the Post War World (Frank Cass, 1994)
1994 Bennett, R., Behind the Battle: Intelligence in the War with Germany (Sinclair Stevenson, 1994)
1994 Borovik, G., The Philby Files (Little and Brown, 1994)
1994 Cave Brown, A., Treason in the Blood: H. St John Philby, Kim Philby and the Spy Case of the Century (Robert Hale, 1994)
1994 Davies, B., Fire Magic: Hijack at Mogadishu (Bloomsbury, 1994)
1994 Kemp, A., The SAS: Savage Wars of Peace (John Murray, 1994)
1994 Lustgarten L. & Leigh, I., In from the Cold: National Security and Democracy (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1994)
1994 Popplewell, R., Intelligence and Imperial Defence: British Intelligence and the Defence of the Indian Empire 1904-1924 (Frank Cass, 1994)
1994 Thurlow, R., The Secret State: British Internal Security in the Twentieth Century (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994)
1994 Woollacott, Angela, On her their lives depend, (London: University of California Press, 1994)
1994 Young, James, The Texture of Memory, Holocaust Memorials and Meaning, (Yale: Yale University Press, 1994)
1995 Andrew, C. M., For the President's Eyes Only: Secret Intelligence and the American Presidency from Washington to Bush (HarperCollins, 1995)
1995 Bar-Jospeh, U., Intelligence Intervention in the Politics of the Democratic States: The United States, Israel, and Britain (PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995)
1995 Bower, Tom. The Perfect English Spy: Sir Dick White and the Secret War, 1939-90. (London: Heinemann, 1995)
1995 Cull, N.J., Selling War: The British Propaganda Campaign Against American Neutrality in World War Two (NY: Oxford UP, 1995)
1995 Gordievsky, O., Next Stop Execution: The Autobiography of Oleg Gordievsky (Macmillan, 1995)
1995 Rathmell, A., Secret War in the Middle East: The Covert Struggle for Syria, 1949-61 (IB Tauris, 1995)
1995 Richelson, J., A Century of Spies: Intelligence in the Twentieth Century (NY: Oxford UP, 1995)
1995 Weitz, Margaret Collins, Sisters in the Resistance, (New York: Wiley, 1995)
1996 Dear, Ian, Sabotage and Subversion, (London: Weidenfeld Military, 1996)
1996 Kahn, D., The Codebreakers (NY: Scribner, 2nd Edn, 1996)
1996 Kramer, Rita, Flames in the field, (London: Penguin, 1996)
1996 Lashmar, P., Spy-Flights of the Cold War (Stroud: Sutton, 1996)
1996 Lycett, A., Ian Fleming (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1996)
1996 Nesbit, R.C., Eyes of the RAF: A History of Photo Reconnaissance (Alan Sutton, 1996)
1996 Overton-Fuller, Jean. The German Penetration of SOE, (Maidstone: George Mann, 1996)
1996 Rawnsley, G., Radio Diplomacy and Propaganda: The BBC and VOA in International Politics, 1956-64 (Macmillan, 1996)
1996 Smith, B. F, Sharing Secrets with Stalin: How the Allies Traded Intelligence, 1941-5 (Kansas: Uni. of Kansas Press, 1996)
1996 Smith, M., New Cloak, Old Dagger: How Britain's Spies Came in from the Cold (Victor Gollancz, 1996)
1996 Urban, M., UK Eyes Alpha: The Inside Story of British Intelligence (faber & faber, 1996)
1997 Cradock, P., In Pursuit of British Interests: Reflections on Foreign Policy under Margaret Thatcher and John Major (John Murray, 1997)
1997 Denniston, R., Churchill's Secret War: Diplomatic Decrypts, the Foreign Office and Turkey, 1942-44 (Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1997)
1997 Stafford, D., Churchill and Secret Service (John Murray, 1997)
1997 West, N., The Secret War for the Falklands (Little, Brown & Co, 1997)
1997 Wilkinson, P & Astley, J. B., Gubbins and SOE, (London: Leo Cooper 2nd edition, 1997)
1997 Wilkinson, P., Foreign Fields: the Story of a SOE Operative, (London: Taurus, 1997)
1998 Aldrich, R. J., (ed.), Espionage, Security and Intelligence in Britain, 1945-70 (Manchester: Manchester UP, 1998)
1998 Cole, D.J., Geoffrey Prime: The Imperfect Spy (Hale, 1998)
1998 Cunningham, C., Beaulieu: The Finishing School for Secret Agents, (London: Leo Cooper, 1998)
1998 Harney, D., The Priest and the King: Eyewitness Account of the Iranian Revolution (IB Tauris, 1998)
1998 Lashmar, P. and Oliver, J., Britain's Secret Propaganda War: The Foreign Office and the Cold War, 1948-1977 (Stroud: Sutton, 1998)
1998 Mahl, Thomas E., Desperate Deception: British Covert Operations in the United States, 1939-44 (Washington D.C.: Brassey's, 1998)
1998 Seaman, M., (ed.) Operation Foxley: The British Plan to Kill Hitler (PRO, 1998)
1998 Smith, M., Station X: The Codebreakers of Bletchley Park (Channel 4 Books, 1998)
1998 Vincent, D., The Culture of Secrecy: Britain, 1832-1998 (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998)
1998 West, N., Counterfeit Spies (Little, Brown & Co, 1998)
1998 West, Nigel & Oleg Tsarev. The Crown Jewels: the British Secrets at the Heart of the KGB Archives. (London: HarperCollins, 1998)
1999 Aldrich, R. J., Intelligence and the War Against Japan: Britain, America and the Politics of Secret Service (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999)
1999 Aldrich, R. J., Rawnsley, G. and Rawnsley, M. Y., (eds.), The Clandestine Cold War in Asia, 1945-65 (Frank Cass, 1999)
1999 Andrew, C. M. and Mitrokhin, V., The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB (NY: Basic, 1999)
1999 Bennett, G., A Most Extraordinary and Mysterious Business: The Zinoviev Letter of 1924 (Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 1999)
1999 Connor, K., Ghost Force: The Secret History of the SAS (Orion, 1999)
1999 Curry, J., The Security Service 1908-1945, The Official History (PRO Publications, 1999)
1999 Jakub, J., Spies and Saboteurs: Anglo-American Collaboration and Rivalry in Human Intelligence Collection and Special Operations, 1940-45 (Macmillan, 1999)
1999 Judd, A., The Quest for C: Sir Mansfield Cumming and the foundation of the British Secret Service, (London: Harper-Collins, 1999)
1999 Rigden, D., Kill the Fuhrer: Section X and Operation Foxley (Sutton, 1999)
1999 Robertson, K. G. (ed.), War Resistance and Intelligence: Essays in Honour of MRD Foot, (Barnsley: Leo Cooper, 1999)
1999 Scott, L.V., Macmillan, Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis: Political, Military and Intelligence Aspects (Macmillan, 1999)
1999 Seaman, Mark, The Bravest of the Brave, (London: Michael O’Mara Books ltd, 1999)
1999 West, N, Venona: The Greatest Secret of the Cold War (HarperCollins, 1999)
1999 West, N., & Tsarev, O., The Crown Jewels: The British Secrets at the Heart of the KGB Archives (New Haven: Yale UP, 1999)
1999 West, Nigel, Counterfeit Spies, (London: St Ermins Press, 1999)

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2000 Bayly, C., Empire and Information: Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780-1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000)
2000 Budiansky, S., Battle of Wits: The Complete Story of Codebreaking in World War II (NY: Free Press, 2000)
2000 Doneaux, Jacques, They arrived by Moonlight, (London: St Ermins Press, 2000)
2000 Dorril, S., MI6: Fifty Years of Special Operations (4th Estate, 2000)
2000 MacKenzie, William, The Secret History of SOE, (London: St Ermin’s Press, 2000)
2000 Marks, Leo. Between Silk and Cyanide, (London: Harper Collins, 2000)
2000 Marshall, Bruce, The White Rabbit, (London: Ted Smart, 2000)
2000 Moore, B., (ed.), Resistance in Western Europe, (Oxford: Berg, 2000)
2000 Smith, M., The Emperor’s Codes: Bletchley Park and the Breaking of Japan’s Secret Ciphers (Bantam, 2000)
2000 Stafford, D., Roosevelt and Churchill: Men of Secrets (Abacus, 2000)
2000 Stafford, David, Secret Agent, (London: BBC, 2000)
2001 Aid, M. & Wiebes, C. (eds.), Secrets of Signals Intelligence During the Cold War and Beyond (Frank Cass, 2001)
2001 Bamford, J., Body of Secrets: How NSA and Britain's GCHQ Eavesdrop on the World (Doubleday, 2001)
2001 Foot, M.R.D. SOE in the Low Countries. (London: St. Ermin’s Press, 2001)
2001 Herman, M., Intelligence Services in the Information Age (Frank Cass, 2001)
2001 Sebag-Montefiore, H., Enigma: The Battle for the Code, (London: Phoenix Books, 2001)
2001 Smith, M. & Erskine, R., (eds.) Action This Day: Bletchley Park from the Breaking of the Enigma Code to the Birth of the Modern Computer (Bantam, 2001)
2001 Tomlinson, R., The Big Breach: From Top Secret to Maximum Security (Edinburgh: Cutting Edge, 2001)
2002 Aldrich, R.J., The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence (John Murray, 2002)
2002 Best, A., British Intelligence and the Japanese Challenge in Asia, 1914-41 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002)
2002 Carter, M., Anthony Blunt: His Lives (Macmillan, 2002)
2002 Cradock, P., Know Your Enemy: How the Joint Intelligence Committee Saw the World (John Murray, 2002)
2002 Garnett, D., The Secret History of PWE: The Political Warfare Executive 1939-1945, (London: St. Ermin‟s Press, 2002)
2002 Hennessy, P., The Secret State: Whitehall and the Cold War (Allen Lane, 2002)
2002 Marnham, Patrick. Resistance and Betrayal, The Life and Death of Jean Moulin, (New York: Random House, 2002)
2002 Ottaway, Susan, The Life that I have, (Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2002)
2002 Rimington, S., Open Secret (Arrow, 2002)
2002 Routledge, R., Public Servant, Secret Agent: The Elusive Life and Violent Death of Airey Neave (Fourth Estate, 2002)
2002 Stafford, D., Spies beneath Berlin (John Murray, 2002 2nd Edition)
2002 Taylor, P., Brits: The War against the IRA (Bloomsbury, 2002)
2003 Boyce, F. & Everett, D., SOE: the Scientific Secrets, (Stroud: Sutton Publishers, 2003)
2003 Smith, M., The Spying Game: A Secret History of British Espionage (Politico’s, 2003)
2004 Davies, P. H. P., The MI6 and the Machinery of Spying (Frank Cass, 2004)
2004 Harrison, Edward R, and others, France and British Intelligence in World War Two, (Salford: European Studies Research Institute, 2004)
2004 Holt, Thaddeus. The Deceivers: Allied Military Deception in the Second World War. (New York: Scribner, 2004)
2004 Jones , C., Britain and the Yemen Civil War 1962-1965: Ministers, Mercenaries and Mandarins: Foreign Policy and the Limits of Covert Action (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2004)
2004 Ritchie, S., Our Man in Yugoslavia: The Story of a Secret Service Operative (Frank Cass, 2004)
2004 Walker, J., Aden Insurgency: The Savage War in Yemen 1962-67 (History Press, 2004)
2005 Andrew, C. M. and Mitrokin, The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World (NY: Basic Books, 2005)
2005 Helm, Sarah, A life in Secrets, (London: Little Brown, 2005)
2005 Machon, A., Spies, Lies and Whistleblowers: MI5, MI6 and the Shayler Affair (Lewes: The Book Guild, 2005)
2005 West, N., Historical Dictionary of British Intelligence (Scarecrow, 2005)
2006 Bicheno, H., Razor’s Edge: The Unofficial History of the Falklands War (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2006)
2006 Maddrell, P., Spying on Science: Western Intelligence in Divided Germany, 1945-61 (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006)
2006 Murphy, Christopher J. Security and Special Operations: SOE and MI5 during the Second World War. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006)
2006 Sanders, J., Apartheid’s Friends: The Rise and Fall of South Africa’s Secret Service (John Murray, 2006)
2006 Seaman, Mark, ed. Special Operations Executive: A new instrument of War, (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006)
2006 Seligmann, M., Spies in Uniform: British Military and Naval Intelligence on the Eve of the First World War (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006)
2006 Turchetti, S. The Pontecorvo Affair: A Cold War Defection and Nuclear Physics (Chicago: Uni. of Chicago Press)
2006 West, N., At Her Majesty’s Secret Service: The Chiefs of Britain's Intelligence Agency, M16 (Greenhill, 2006)
2007 Goodman, M.S., Spying on the Nuclear Bear: Anglo-American Intelligence and the Soviet Bomb (Stanford: Stanford UP, 2007)
2007 Hennessy, P., The New Protective State (Continuum, 2007)
2007 Pattinson, Juliette, Behind Enemy Lines: Gender, Passing and the SOE in the Second
2007 Sixsmith, M., The Litvinenko File: A True Story of a Death Foretold (Macmillan 2007)
2007 Szabo, Tania, Young, Brave and Beautiful, (Trowbridge: Channel Island Publishing, 2007)
2007 White, Rosie, Violent Femmes, Women as spies in popular culture, (Oxon: Routledge, 2007)
2008 Bamford, J., The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to Eavesdropping on America (NY: Doubleday, 2008)
2008 Conant, J., The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington (NY: Simon & Schuster, 2008)
2008 Crowdy, Terry. Deceiving Hitler: Double Cross and Deception in World War II. (New York: Osprey Publishing, 2008)
2008 Foot, Michael, Violette Szabo, (online edition October 2008)
2008 Hughes, R.G., Jackson, P., & Scott, L.V., Exploring Intelligence Archives: Enquiries Into the Secret State (Routledge, 2008)
2008 McMahon, P., British Spies and Irish Rebels: British Intelligence and Ireland, 1916-1945 (Boydell Press, 2008)
2008 O’Halpin, E., Spying on Ireland: British Intelligence and Irish Neutrality during the Second World War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008)
2008 Rankin, Nicholas. Churchill’s Wizards: the British Genius for Deception. (London: Faber and Faber, 2008)
2008 Thomas, M., Empires of Intelligence (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008)
2008 Thomas, Martin. Empires of Intelligence: Security Services and Colonial Disorder after 1914. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008)
2008 West, N., Historical Dictionary of World War II Intelligence (Scarecrow, 2008)
2009 Andrew, C. M., Defence of the Realm: The Official History of the Security Service (Allen Lane, 2009)
2009 Barrass, G., The Great Cold War: A Journey Through the Hall of Mirrors (Stanford: Stanford UP, 2009)
2009 Batey, Mavis. Dilly: the Man Who Broke Enigmas. (London: Biteback Publishing, 2009)
2009 Bennett, G., Churchill's Man of Mystery: Desmond Morton and the World of Intelligence (Routledge 2009)
2009 Dover, R. & Goodman, M. (eds.), Spinning Intelligence: Why Intelligence Needs the Media, Why the Media Needs Intelligence (NY: Columbia UP, 2009)
2009 Hennessy, T. and Thomas, C., Spooks: The Unofficial History of MI5 from the First Atom Spy to 7/7, 1945-2009 (Stroud: Amberley, 2009)
2009 Moore, R., My Word is My Bond (Michael O’Mara, 2009)
2009 Satya, P., Spies in Arabia: The Great War and the Cultural Foundations of Britain’s Covert Empire in the Middle East (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)
2009 Sellers, L., Shot in the Tower: The Story of the Spies Executed in the Tower of London During the First World War (Pen & Sword, 2009)
2009 Starns, Penny, Odette, World War Two’s Darling Spy, (Stroud: The History Press, 2009)
2009 Svendsen, A.D.M., Intelligence Cooperation and the 'War on Terror': Anglo-American Security Relations after 9/11 (Routledge/Studies in Intelligence, 2009)
2009 West, N., The A-Z of British Intelligence (Scarecrow, 2009)
2009 Wilkinson, N.J., Secrecy and the Media: The Official History of the United Kingdom's D-Notice System (Routledge, 2009)

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2010 Aldrich, R. J., GCHQ: The Uncensored Story of Britain's Most Secret Intelligence Agency (HarperPress, 2010)
2010 Hayman, A., with Gilmore, M., The Terrorist Hunters: The Ultimate Inside Story of Britain’s Fight against Terror (Corgi, 2010)
2010 Hennessey, Thomas & Claire Thomas. Spooks: the Unofficial History of MI5 from Agent ZIGZAG to the D-Day Deception, 1939-45. (Stroud: Amberley Publishing, 2010)
2010 Jeffery, K., The Secret History of MI6 (NY: Penguin Press, 2010)
2010 Macintyre, B., Operation Mincemeat: The True Spy Story that Changed the Course of World War II, (Bloomsbury, 2010)
2010 O’Sullivan, Donal. Dealing with the Devil: Anglo-Soviet Intelligence Cooperation during the Second World War. (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 2010)
2010 O'Sullivan, D., Dealing with the Devil: Anglo-Soviet Intelligence Cooperation during the Second World War (Peter Lang, 2010)
2010 Sisman, Adam. An Honourable Englishman: the Life of Hugh Trevor-Roper. (New York: Random House, 2010)
2010 Smyth, Denis. Deathly Deception: the Real Story of Operation Mincemeat. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)
2010 Wilkinson, P. & Bright Astley, J., Gubbins and SOE (Pen and Sword, 2010)
2011 Dover, R. & Goodman, M. (eds.), Learning From the Secret Past: Cases in British Intelligence History (Washington D.C.: Georgetown UP, 2011)
2011 Elliott, G., Gentleman Spymaster: How Lt. Col. Tommy 'Tar' Robertson Double-crossed the Nazis (Methuen, 2011)
2011 Grob-Fitzgibbon, B., Imperial Endgame: Britain's Dirty Wars and the End of Empire (Palgrave Macmillan 2011)
2011 Mackenzie, A., Special Force: The Untold Story of 22nd Special Air Service Regiment (I.B. Tauris, 2011)
2011 Rankin, N., Ian Fleming's Commandos: The Story of 30 Assault Unit in WWII (faber & faber, 2011)
2011 Service, R., Spies and Commissars: Bolshevik Russia and the West (Macmillan, 2011)
2011 Smith, M., Six: The Real James Bonds 1909-1939 (Biteback, 2011)
2011 Stafford, David, Mission Accomplished, SOE and Italy 1943-1945, (London: The Bodley Head, 2011)
2011 Taylor, P. , Talking to Terrorists: Face to Face with the Enemy (HarperPress, 2011)
2011 Urban, M., Task Force Black: The Explosive True Story of the SAS and the Secret War in Iraq (Abacus, 2011)
2012 Davies, P. H. P, Intelligence and Government in Britain and the United States: A Comparative Perspective Volume I & II (Praeger, 2012)
2012 Hart-Davis, D., The War that Never Was (Arrow, 2012)
2012 Hennessy, P, Distilling the Frenzy: Writing the History of one’s own Times (Biteback, 2012)
2012 Keene, J., Cloak of Enemies: Churchill’s SOE, Enemies at Home and the ‘Cockleshell Heroes’ (Spellmount, 2012)
2012 Macintyre, Ben. Double-Cross: the True Story of the D-Day Spies. (New York: Crown, 2012)
2012 Moran, C., Classified: Secrecy and the State in Modern Britain (Cambridge UP, 2012)
2012 Pincher, C., Treachery: Betrayals, Blunders, and Cover-Ups – Six Decades of Espionage (Mainstream 2012)
2012 West, N, Mask: MI5's Penetration of the Communist Party of Great Britain (Routledge, 2012)
2013 Cadwallader, A., Lethal Allies: British Collusion in Ireland (Cork: Mercier Press, 2013)
2013 Corera, G., The Art of Betrayal: The Secret History of MI6 (Pegasus Books, 2013)
2013 Davenport-Hines, R., A Very English Affair: Sex, Class, and Power in the Age of Profumo (HarperPress, 2013)
2013 Hennessy, P., Distilling the Frenzy: Writing the History of One’s Own Times (Biteback, 2013)
2013 Nicholson, M., Activities Incompatible: Memoirs of a Kremlinologist and a Family Man 1963-1971 (Self-published, 2013)
2013 Stafford, D, Britain and European Resistance 1940-1945: A Survey of the Special Operations Executive with Documents (Thistle Publishing, 2013)
2013 Summer, A. & Dorril, S., The Secret Worlds of Stephen Ward (Headline, 2013)
2013 Walton, C., Empire of Secrets: British Intelligence, the Cold War and the Twilight of Empire (HarperPress, 2013)
2014 Aldrich, R.J., Cormac, R., and Goodman, M., Spying on the World: The Declassified Documents of the Joint Intelligence Committee, 1936-2013 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2014)
2014 Bennett, G., Six Moments of Crisis: Inside British Foreign Policy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014)
2014 Bochel, H., Defty, A., and Kirkpatrick, J., Watching the Watchers: Parliament and the Intelligence Services (Palgrave, 2014)
2014 Cormac., R., Confronting the Colonies: British Intelligence and Counterinsurgency (NY: Oxford UP, 2014)
2014 Goodman, M.S, The Official History of the Joint Intelligence Committee: Volume I: From the Approach of the Second World War to the Suez Crisis (Routledge, 2014)
2014 Harding, L., The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the Word’s Most Wanted Man (Guardian Faber, 2014)
2014 Harrison, E.D.R. (ed.) The Secret World: Behind the Curtain of British Intelligence in World War II and the Cold War by Hugh Trevor-Roper (IB Tauris, 2014)
2014 Hermiston, R., The Greatest Traitor: the Secret Lives of Agent George Blake (Aurum 2014)
2014 Macintyre, B., A Spy among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal (Bloomsbury, 2014)
2014 Madiera, V., Britannia and the Bear: The Anglo-Russian Intelligence Wars, 1917-1929 (Boydell Press, 2014)
2014 Milne, T., Kim Philby: The Unknown Story of the KGB’s Master Spy (Biteback, 2014)
2014 Quinlan, K., The Secret War Between the Wars: MI5 in the 1920s and the 1930s (Bowyer, 2014)
2014 Rossiter, M., The Spy who Changed the World: Klaus Fuchs and the Secrets of the Nuclear Bomb (Headline, 2014)
2015 Anglim, S., Orde Wingate and the British Army, 1922-1944 (Routledge, 2015)
2015 Close, F., Half Life: The Divided Life of Bruno Pontecorvo, Physicist or Spy (Oneworld, 2015)
2015 Hayes, P., Queen of Spies: Daphne Park, Britain’s Cold War Spy Master (Duckworth, 2015)
2015 Lownie, A., Stalin’s Englishman: Guy Burgess (Hodder and Stoughton, 2015)
2015 Scott, L.V. and Twigge, S., Planning Armageddon: Britain, the United States, and Command of Western Nuclear Forces, 1945-1964 (Routledge, 2015)
2015 Warwicker, J., An Outsider Inside No 10: Protecting the Prime Ministers, 1974-79 (History Press, 2015)
2015 Zamir, M., The Secret Anglo-French War in the Middle East: Intelligence and Decolonisation, 1940-48, (Abingdon: Routledge, 2015)
2016 Rezk, D., Western Intelligence and the Arab World: Analysing the Middle East, 1956-1981 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016)

Book Reviews

"Aldrich and Cormac are particularly revealing about the government management of intelligence and security ...

But it is the interest shown in and use of intelligence by successive Prime Ministers which makes The Black Door so fascinating. Aldrich and Cormac show that both Churchill and Attlee revolutionised the relationship between intelligence and No 10."

Keith Simpson, MP for Broadland and books editor for Total Politics, 20 July 2016.

"All Prime Ministers, whether they like it or not, have to deal with the intelligence services, even more so in recent years ... It’s easy to concoct conspiracy theories and the left has always been plagued with those who do so, but when you read this magisterial study of prime ministerial relations with the intelligence services you are more likely to conclude that they are right. The number of clandestine wars, secret talks with terrorists, spying on trade union officials, bugging No 10 and listening in on those supposed to be our friends, makes for something of a revealing read. This is a study, coming not from a bunch of conspiracy cranks on the left, but from two eminent historians and fully backed up with references. It’s an eye-opener and one that should be carefully digested by everyone involved in politics."

Stephen Kelly, Tribune, 14 July 2016

"This doorstop of a book is the first close study of the relations between 19 successive prime ministers and their secret services since the domestic branch, MI5, and the overseas operation, MI6, were founded in 1909. The authors have trawled the archives to shed light on the often tricky relationships between politicians and spooks. It looks at the major bungles — Neville Chamberlain’s approach to Nazi Germany; Anthony Eden and the Suez debacle; Tony Blair with Iraq — but also quieter times. Clement Attlee, for instance, was effective at using the secret services to curb communist subversion — and also authorised covert operations such as the sinking of Zionist ships in Italian ports. Inevitably, there is some acronym-itis but the book has plenty of lively stories and characters to keep readers turning the pages, such as Stanley Baldwin overruling the objections of MI5 to insist on surveillance of Wallis Simpson during the Abdication crisis."

Summer Books selection, The Times, 2 July 2016

"pioneering book ... a major contribution to our understanding of British prime ministers over the last century. This is one of those rare books that deserve to change the way that modern British political history is researched and written."

Christopher Andrew, Literary Review, June 2016

"British prime ministers have never been neutral towards the intelligence services. Intelligence historians Richard Aldrich and Rory Cormac have written an accessible book, indicating how different premiers reacted to intelligence reports - and often bypassed their own officials, establishing their own private operations ...

This fascinating account uncovers now known unknowns, but a mountain of unknown unknowns remains."

Colin Shindler, The Jewish Chronicle, 20 May 2016

"Richard Aldrich and Rory Cormac are inexhaustible researchers, who use a wide range of archives (some only recently declassified) and include striking material from off-the record informants. The Black Door is a vital authoritative book."

Richard Davenport-Hines, The Times 23 April 2016

"... most prime ministers become somewhat unhinged in handling the secret services, as the authors show in this excellently informed yet also admirably unsensational history of the past century’s relationship between spooks and No 10."

Max Hastings, Sunday Times 17 April 2016

"...a fascinating insight into the relationship between Britain's spying agencies and Downing Street."

Matt Dathan, Daily Mail, 28 April 2016

"In an era when the balance between security and liberty has rarely been more delicately poised, The Black Door is a timely read." ★★★★

Dominic Midgely, Daily Express, 14 April 2016

Politics and International Studies

ALDRICH AND CORMAC, The Black Door: Spies, Secret Intelligence and British Prime Ministers

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