Were the Arctic convoy sacrifices worth it?
Stalin privately admitted that his army could never have triumphed without western aid, and the convoys also indirectly helped the war in the Atlantic – but the loss of life was horrendous
The spy with the bullet-proof Rolls-Royce
Stationed in Paris from 1926 to 1940, the wealthy, debonair ‘Biffy’ Dunderdale, often seen as a model for James Bond, was also a supremely effective intelligence officer
The assassination of Georgi Markov bore all the hallmarks of a Russian wet job
The Bulgarian dissident sailed too close to the wind with his revelations about Tudor Zhivkov in 1978, provoking the dictator to enlist Russian help in eliminating him
If the Nazis had occupied Britain, how many of us would have collaborated?
Ian Buruma describes three individuals who saved themselves in wartime by betraying others. But none was a ‘typical traitor’, or essentially different from the rest of us
Behind the Five Eyes intelligence alliance
In February 1941 four US officers were landed from a British warship at Sheerness, bundled into vehicles and driven to…
People of little interest: MI5’s view of left-wing intellectuals
If MI5 had a Cold War file on you – paper in those happy days – it didn’t mean they…
The delicate business of monitoring the monarchy
This very readable account of relations between the British intelligence services and the Crown does more than it says on…
Lambs to the slaughter: the fiasco of the Dieppe Raid, August 1942
In carefree days which now seem so distant we used occasionally to take the Newhaven-Dieppe ferry. Docking after a long…
It’s easy to forget how many respectable people embraced eugenics
Between 1923 and 1931 the publisher Routledge produced ‘Today and Tomorrow’, a series of 110 short books by intellectual luminaries…
The Pearl Harbor fiasco need never have happened
It is sometimes said that intelligence failures are often failures of assessment rather than collection. This is especially so when…
The coldest war of all: sabotaging the Nazis in Norway
Anyone mildly interested in the second world war probably knows two things about our wartime alliance with Norway, following its…
Betrayal in Berlin – a small but important part of the Cold War story
The Berlin Tunnel was an Anglo-American eavesdropping operation mounted against Russian-controlled East Berlin in 1955–56. It was a technical and…
It’s judo, not chess, that’s Putin’s game
These two refreshingly concise books address the same question from different angles: how should we deal with Russia? Mark Galeotti…
Why didn’t they try harder to assassinate Hitler?
Awareness of German opposition to Hitler is usually limited to Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg’s attempt to blow up the wretched…
Did the notorious Zinoviev letter ever exist?
This is a well-written, scrupulously researched and argued account of an enduring mystery that neatly illustrates the haphazard interactions of…
Getting women on board: the history of the WRNS
This book is a thoroughly researched account of the parts played by women in the service of the Royal Navy…
Armageddon averted
From 1945 to 1992 the Cold War was the climate. Individual weather events stood out — the Korean War, the…
The infamous four
Most books about British traitors feature those who spied for Russia before and during the Cold War, making it easy…
Out of hot water
During and after the second world war the Fourteenth Army in Burma became famous as the Forgotten Army, almost as…
Listening in to the Russians
There are now enough books about Bletchley Park for it to become part of national mythology, along with the Tudors,…
Robert Nairac: brave to a fault
Captain Robert Nairac was a Grenadier Guards officer serving in Northern Ireland when on 14 May 1977 he was abducted…
Bletchley Park was decades ahead of Silicon Valley. So what happened?
Gordon Corera, best known as the security correspondent for BBC News, somehow finds time to write authoritative, well-researched and readable…
Baiting the trap with CHEESE: how we fooled the Germans in the second world war
Second world war deception operations are now widely known, particularly those which misled the Germans into thinking that the D-Day…
The gripping story of the failed NKVD officer who fooled the FBI and the CIA
This is not quite another story about a man who never was. But it is about a man who certainly…
The Tudor sleuth who's cracked the secret of suspense
Some reviewers are slick and quick. Rapid readers, they remember everything, take no notes, quote at will. I’m the plodding…
