Richard Norton-Taylor reveals the secrets of his forty-year career as a
journalist covering the world of spies and their masters in Whitehall.
Early in his career, Norton-Taylor successfully campaigned against
official secrecy, gaining a reputation inside the Whitehall
establishment and the outside world alike for his relentless
determination to expose wrongdoing and incompetence. His special targets
have always been the security and intelligence agencies and the Ministry
of Defence, institutions that often hide behind the cloak of national
security to protect themselves from embarrassment and being held to
account. Encouraged by his trusted contacts in intelligence agencies and
Whitehall departments, Norton-Taylor was among the first of the few
journalists consistently to attack the planned invasion of Iraq in 2003
and subsequently covered for the Guardian the devastating evidence of
every witness to the Chilcot inquiry. He also enjoyed unique access to a
wide array of defence sources, giving him a rare insight into the
disputes among top military commanders as they struggled to fight wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan with under-resourced and ill-equipped troops.
Described by a former senior Intelligence official as a 'long-term thorn
in the side of the intelligence establishment', and winner of numerous
awards for his journalism, Norton-Taylor is one of the most respected
defence and security journalists of his generation. Provocative, and
rich in anecdotes, The State of Secrecy is an illuminating, critical
and, at times, provocative account of the author's experiences
investigating the secret world.
