The Guy Liddell Diaries Volume II, 1942 - 1945

WALLFLOWERS is the codename given to one of the Security Service's most treasured possessions, the daily journal dictated from August 1939 to June 1945 by MI5's Director of Counter Espionage, Guy Liddell, to his secretary, Margo Huggins. The document was considered so highly classified that it was retained in the safe of successive Directors-General, and special permission was required to read it.

Liddell was one of three brothers who all won the Military Cross during the First World War and subsequently joined MI5. He initially first served in the Metropolitan Police Special Branch at Scotland Yard, dealing primarily with cases of Soviet espionage, until he was transferred to MI5 in 1931. His social connections proved important because in 1940 he employed Anthony Blunt as his personal assistant and became a close friend of both Guy Burgess and Victor Rothschild, and was acquainted with Kim Philby. Despite these links, when Liddell retired from the Security Service in 1952 he was appointed security adviser to the Atomic Energy Commission, an extremely sensitive post following the conviction of the physicist Klaus Fuchs two years earlier.

No other member of the Security Service is known to have maintained a diary and the twelve volumes of this journal represent a unique record of the events and personalities of the period, a veritable tour d'horizon of the entire subject. As Director, B Division, Liddell supervised all the major pre-war and wartime espionage investigations, maintained a watch on suspected pro-Nazis and laid the foundations of the famous "double cross system" of enemy double agents. He was unquestionably one of the most reclusive and remarkable men of his generation, and a legend within his own organization.

Go to Guy Liddell Diaries website

Mortal Crimes: Soviet Penetration of the Manhattan Project

Nigel West offers a wide angle view of Soviet espionage in the light of the broader picture that includes the UK and Canada, along with the United States, to steal the secrets of the Atomic bomb.

Historical Dictionary of Cold War Counterintelligence (Historical Dictionaries of Intelligence and Counterintelligence)

Historical Dictionary of World War II Intelligence (Historical Dictionaries of Intelligence and Counterintelligence)

MASK MI5's Penetration of the Communist Party of Great Britain

MASK is the codename for one of the most sensitive, long-term sources ever run by any British intelligence organization. It concealed the existence of a radio interception programme operated by the Government Code and Cipher School (GC&CS) which succeeded in monitoring, and reading, large quantities of encrypted wireless traffic exchanged between the headquarters of the Comintern in Moscow, and numerous Comintern representatives abroad, in countries as far apart as China, Austria and the United States. The content of these secret messages was of immense use to the very limited group of people who had access to it. Of greatest interest to MI5 and Stanley Baldwin's Cabinet was the material passing to and from the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), which was monitored from a covert intercept station located on Denmark Hill, south London. Its principal target was the daily wireless traffic of a clandestine transmitter based in Wimbledon and operated by a member of the CPGB's underground cell, controlled by a Scot, Bob Stewart.

GC&CS was one of the most secret branches of Whitehall, under the control of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), and for years had supplied the Prime Minister and a handful of Cabinet ministers with summaries of decrypted foreign communications.

At Her Majesty's Service: The Chiefs of Britain's Intelligence Agency, M16

This is the only history that exists of the famed British secret intelligence agency, MI6, the service responsible for gathering intelligence overseas. Chapters focus on each of the reigning MI6 chiefs, beginning with Sir Mansfield Cumming, and describe clandestine operations that took place during each chief’s tenure through 2004. Made famous by the wildly popular James Bond 007 movies, the London-based organization--known internally as "The Firm" and to other agencies as "The Friends"--has attracted a great deal of attention over the years as it collected secret foreign intelligence around the world. Until the publication of this book in 1983, however, the truth about the service’s past had remained largely unwritten. Nigel West, the author, is the pseudonym of Rupert Allison, a Conservative ex-MP who has written numerous spy books under the West name. Until 2010, when an "official" history of MI6 through the early Cold War is scheduled to be published, this book remains the only source to turn to.

The Third Secret: The CIA, Solidarity and the KGB’s Plot to Kill the Pope (HarperCollins, London)

The title comes from the third secret received from the Virgin Mary who appeared to three young girls at Fatima, (Portugal) in 1917. The first two secret were made known soon after the girls revealed their story. The third, described an avoidable apocalyptic catastrophe in Europe, and was kept secret until recently when made public by Pope John Paul II. West tells how it influenced how the CIA combined with the Vatican and the Pope to launch a massive campaign to destabilize Warsaw - and how the KGB reacted by trying to kill the Pope in 1981. He goes on to describe how the rise of the Solidarity movement in Poland in the 1980s, which began the undermining of the Soviet Bloc and the defeat of international communism, was essentially funded by the CIA covertly, through the Vatican. Pope John Paul II (elected in 1978) had a deep interest in mysticism and his belief in "the third secret" which led to his ideological offensive against the Soviet Bloc.

Crown Jewels: The British Secrets at the Heart of the KGB Archives (co-authored with former KGB officer Oleg Tsarev)

The "Crown Jewels" was the phrase used by the KGB to describe their most valuable assets: the authentic manuscript and typescript reports by the infamous Cambridge spy ring. Many of these reports are reproduced here. As well as adding unsuspected dimensions to the Cambridge ring (including Burgess's offer to murder his fellow conspirator Goronwy Rees), the files reveal a completely unknown Soviet network based in London and headed by a named "Daily Herald" journalist. They also refer to the huge scale of Soviet penetration of the British Foreign Office from 1927 to 1951; details of a previously unknown spy-ring in Oxford, organized by university undergraduates who went on to work in Whitehall; and the key role played by Anthony Blunt in supervizing post-war Soviet espionage activities in London.

A Matter of Trust: MI5 Operations 1945-1972 (Also known as "The Circus")

An investigation into the British Intelligence Service. Was the former Director-General of the Security Service, Sir Roger Hollis, a traitor?

MI5: British Security Service Operations 1909-45

The shadowy world of counterintelligence is startlingly illuminated by this history of MI5.

MI6: British Secret Intelligence Service Operations 1909-45

A detailed history of SIS's prewar and wartime activities, covering virtually all the overseas stations, listing its officers, agents, internal structure and budget, MI6 discloses numerous successes and failures, including the revelation that Admiral Canaris's mistress, Halina Szymanska, was run by SIS's Berne Station. "Authentic history more vivid than most fiction"-- Contemporary Review

Secret War: The Story of SOE, Britain's Wartime Sabotage Organisation

Thousand of agents were trained and dropped into enemy-occupied territory. many were captured and killed. What did SOE really achieve? And what went wrong? 'Secret War is important, even necessary in political terms'--Financial Times

Operation GARBO: The Personal Story of the Most Successful Double Agent of World War II (with Juan Pujol)

Nigel West was the author who discovered the identity of World War II's most important double agent--Juan Pujol. Known as GARBO to British intelligence (because the British thought he acted so beautifully), Pujol played a key role in deceiving the Germans about D-Day. This is an incredible true story about an incredible man who saved the lives of thousands.

A Thread of Deceit : Espionage Myths of World War II

(Also known as "Counterfeit Spies ")

Since the end of World War II, many books have been published about the exploits of secret agents behind enemy lines. In this volume, the author examines nearly two dozen books, accepted as genuine contributions to Britain's secret history, and explains why he believes they are hoaxes.

The Friends: Britain's Postwar Secret Intelligence Operations
A controversial review of SIS's postwar activities, including details of the plot to assassinate General Grivas in Cyprus, the blackmailing of Archbishop Makarios, the disastrous Suez plot, the telephone tapping tunnels dug in Vienna and Berlin, what really happened to Colonel Oleg Penkovsky of the GRU and his SIS contract Greville Wynne, and the loss of Commander Crabb in Portsmouth in 1956. "West has got his hands on some pretty radioactive material"--Evening Standard

The Illegals

The most secret of agents are those known as "illegals", the committed professionals who adopt a carefully-crafted false identity and live in a host community as an unsuspected mole, often for years. Nigel West has been granted unprecedented access by the former spymasters of the KGB to delve into their history.

The Faber Book of Treachery

Following "The Faber Book of Espionage", Nigel West presents an anthology of writings on the subject of treachery. Divided loyalties are at the heart of the human dilemma confronting those convicted or charged with treachery. Some traitors were ideological converts who simply wrote autobiographical accounts of their experiences, thereby exposing corruption and totalitarianism. Others deliberately set out to inflict maximum damage in order to destabilize an odious system or organization. Some so-called traitors include German patriots who fled the Nazis, or Soviet intelligence personnel who defected to the West. Did P.G. Wodehouse betray his country? Was the KGB defector Anatoli Golitsyn a geniune political dissident, or merely a shrewd opportunist? Why were the anti-Hitler plotters shunned in post-war Germany? All the authors gathered in this anthology were either guilty of treason or have been the subject of an accusation. One was hanged, several committed suicide, some were imprisoned, and most were obliged to assume new identities. Their books did not merely make a difference - in some cases they changed history. "There are things here that cannot easily be obtained anywhere else, and we should be grateful for them"--Daily Telegraph

FICTION:

The Blue List

Cuban Bluff

Murder in the Commons

Murder in the Lords