MI5 is arguably the most secret and misunderstood of all the British
government departments. Its enigmatic title - much more than its proper
name, the Security Service - stands in the public mind for the dark
world of the secret services in general. In reality it has a very
specific brief: counterintelligence. Its object is to combat espionage
and subversion directed against the UK.
Nigel West's book traces the history of MI5 clearly and accurately from
its modest beginnings in 1909 until 1945, with the main part of the book
focusing upon the important role which MI5 played in the Second World
War. This includes the story of the sixteen enemy agents who were
rounded up in Britain who were either hanged or shot; the manipulation
of the Axis espionage networks by the use of 'turned' Abwehr agents (the
famous Double Cross System), and the all-important check on its success
provided by the intercepted German signals so brilliantly decoded at
Bletchley; and the various deceptions practiced on the German High
Command.
The book, which is laced with true anecdotes as bizarre and compulsively
readable as any novel, is the fruit of years of painstaking research in
the course of which Nigel West has traced and interviewed more than a
hundred people who figure prominently in the story: German and Soviet
agents, counterintelligence officers and, most remarkably, more than a
dozen of the double agents.
In this new and revised edition, Nigel West details the organizational
charts which show the structure of the wartime security apparatus, in
what is regarded as the most accurate and informative account ever
written of MI5 before and during the Second World War.
