SIX: A History of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service

This first part of acclaimed author Michael Smith’s epic history of Britain’s spooks begins with the creation of the Secret Service Bureau in 1909 to prevent German spies uncovering the UK’s secrets and provide a deniable team of spies to infiltrate the Kaiser’s Germany. It goes on to detail the extraordinary British successes during the first ‘Cold War’ of the 1920s and 30s before coming full circle, recording the previously untold work against Nazi Germany ahead of the Second Cold War. This is the first comprehensive account of the successes and failures of Britain’s secret service during the First World War and the critical period between the two world wars when British and Russian spies saw each other as ‘the main enemy’. Smith makes extensive use of private and public archives and personal accounts from across the world to reveal stunning new detail on the murder and mayhem carried out by Britain’s spooks in the name of the King. Official histories of the first 100 years of Britain’s spies remain unable to name the heroes and villains of the spy world for reasons of secrecy, but Smith’s account is full of both, revealing new heroes of espionage who rival more familiar names like Sidney Reilly, the so-called Ace of Spies, for their bravery and ability to outsmart their German and Russian opponents and dastardly new villains. This first part of Six examines the murder and mayhem by British spooks that formed the foundations for the greatest intelligence rivalry of all time, between the predecessors of the KGB and MI6, including the remarkable espionage successes enjoyed by Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, stealing the hidden-most secrets of the Kaiser’s Germany and Bolshevik Russia and destroying their plans for world domination.