Ferris, John. "The Road to Bletchley Park: The British Experience with Signals Intelligence, 1892-1945." Intelligence and National Security 17, no. 1 (Spring 2002): 53-84. Ferris, John. "The Road to Bletchley Park: The British Experience with Signals Intelligence, 1892-1945." Intelligence and National Security 17, no. 1 (Spring 2002): 53-84.
The author examines "the state of the evidence and the literature on British signals intelligence between 1892 and 1945,... consider[s] how the evidence in the public domain has changed since the Waldegrave Initiative,... [and] sketches an alternative history of British signals intelligence during 1892-1945."
Hoare, Oliver, ed. "Special Issue on British Intelligence in the Twentieth Century: A Missing Dimension?" Intelligence and National Security 17, no. 1 (Spring 2002): Entire issue.
Click for Table of Contents.
Johnson, Robert. Spying for Empire: The Great Game in Central and South Asia, 1757-1947. London: Greenhill, 2006. St. Paul, MN: MBI, 2006.
Kelly, I&NS 21.6 (Dec. 2006), notes the author's "impressive research in the pertinent archives." Johnson shows "how British India built up its intelligence network ... beyond the frontiers" with "listening posts."
For Peake, Studies 51.2 (2007), the author demonstrates that "by the end of the 19th century, British military intelligence in India had become a professional service that did more than monitor the northern frontier. It also maintained India's domestic security through collaboration with the local Indian police."
Northcott, Chris. "The Role, Organization, and Methods of MI5." International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 20, n0. 3 (Fall 2007): 453-479.
This is a broad, nuts-and-bolts description of MI5 from its inception to the present. It is a useful outline of the development of the organization.
Smith, Michael. The Spying Game: The Secret History of British Espionage. London: Politico Publishing, 2004. [pb]
claclair, AFIO WIN 6-04 (6 Mar. 2004), notes that this "paperback edition is a completely revised and updated version" of New Cloak, Old Dagger (1996). The reviewer adds that "[t]he one criticism to be made is the lack of notes on sources, an omission the author ascribes to a trade-off insisted upon by the publisher in order to produce the paperback edition."
For Kruh, Cryptologia 28.2, "[t]his is an excellent and fascinating book ... that belongs in your personal library."
Thomas, Martin. Empires of Intelligence: Security Services and Colonial Disorder After 1914. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2008.
Peake, Studies 52.2 (Jun. 2008) and Intelligencer 16.1 (Spring 2008), finds that the author "compares French intelligence operations [broadly defined] in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Syria with those of the British in Iraq, Palestine, Transjordan, Egypt, and Sudan.... Thomas's extensively detailed and well-documented analysis concludes that the inevitable failure of colonialism was in part a result of the inability of the 'intelligence state' to accomplish unrealistic goals."
Tomlinson, Richard. The Big Breach: From Top Secret to Maximum Security. Moscow: Narodny Variant Publishers, 2001. London: 192.com, 2001.
Clark comment: This is the disillusioned MI6 officer's "expose" of both his time in the British SIS and his continuing battle with the agency since his dismissal. Tomlinson's book was at one time (but on 1/25/05 is no longer) available for downloading at: http://thebigbreach.com.
Included at the site was a "statement of authenticity" from Tomlinson, dated 1 March 2001. Inter alia, Tomlinson states: "'The Big Breach' was not in any way written, sponsored or published by Russian intelligence or any of their agents. It was written entirely by myself and the text was not added to or altered (except for minor editing changes). I have never even met or spoken to any officers or agents of Russian intelligence, let alone allowed them to have any input into the writing or publication of 'The Big Breach'."
Tomlinson had a "Postscript to The Big Breach: From Top Secret to Maximum Security" at http://thebigbreach.com/download/bbtxt.zip, but it no longer [5/4/03] appears to be there.
See Reuben F. Johnson, "Opening MI6's Can of Worms," Moscow News, 16 Mar. 2001, II [http://www.themoscowtimes.com]. This is really not so much a review of Tomlinson's book as a reiteration of its main themes.
Andrew, Times (London), 15 Feb. 2001, and Intelligencer 12.1, comments that although "Tomlinson's story is rarely dull, it suffers from his evident difficulty in distinguishing fact from fiction.... There is not much in The Big Breach of whose reliability we can be sure.... [For example,] Tomlinson's inaccurate account of [Oleg] Gordievsky's exfiltration [from Russia in 1985] is similar to the KGB version."
For Gordievsky, telegraph.co.uk, 28 Jan. 2001, there is no doubt that the KGB both paid Tomlinson "an unheard-of sum" for his book and "wrote large chunks of it.... Tomlinson is ... a new kind of traitor: one not motivated ... simply by spite. His treachery is treachery by temper-tantrum.... Still, the effects ... are just as damaging as the old, more familiar variety. No one should be under any illusion that Tomlinson has seriously damaged MI6. Whether his allegations are fact or fantasy (and they are mostly fantasy) hardly matters. Tomlinson has undermined MI6's most potent weapon: its reputation for being able to keep secrets."
West, Nigel. [Rupert Allason] At Her Majesty's Secret Service: The Chiefs of Britain's Intelligence Agency, MI6. London: Greenhill Books, 2006.
Peake, Studies 51.2 (2007), notes that this work explains why the existence of the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI6) and the name of its chief -- "C" -- remained official secrets until 1994. It also "provides short biographical essays on each of the 13 'Cs' since Mansfield Smith-Cumming."
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