The Cambridge Five were a ring of spies in the United Kingdom that passed information to the Soviet Union during the Second World War and the Cold War and was active from the 1930s until at least the early 1950s. None of the known members were ever prosecuted for spying. The number and membership of the ring emerged slowly, from the 1950s onwards.
The Naval Intelligence Division (NID) was created as a component part of the Admiralty War Staff in 1912. It was the intelligence arm of the British Admiralty before the establishment of a unified Defence Intelligence Staff in 1964. It dealt with matters concerning British naval plans, with the collection of naval intelligence. It was also known as "Room 39", after its room number at the Admiralty.
Major General Sir Stewart Graham Menzies, was Chief of MI6, the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), from 1939 to 1952, during and after the Second World War.
Oleg Antonovich Gordievsky, CMG is a former colonel of the KGB who became KGB resident-designate (rezident) and bureau chief in London, and was a double agent, providing information to the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) from 1974 to 1985. After being recalled to Moscow under suspicion, he was exfiltrated from the Soviet Union in July 1985 under a plan code-named Operation Pimlico. The Soviet Union subsequently sentenced him to death in absentia.
Alfons Vilhelm Robert Rebane, known simply as Alfons Rebane was an Estonian military commander. He was the most highly decorated Estonian military officer during World War II, serving in various Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS units of Nazi Germany.
Intelligence assessment, or simply intel, is the development of behavior forecasts or recommended courses of action to the leadership of an organisation, based on wide ranges of available overt and covert information (intelligence). Assessments develop in response to leadership declaration requirements to inform decision-making. Assessment may be executed on behalf of a state, military or commercial organisation with ranges of information sources available to each.
Sir Dick Goldsmith White, was a British intelligence officer. He was Director General (DG) of MI5 from 1953 to 1956, and Head of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) from 1956 to 1968.
Cambridge Spies is a four-part British drama miniseries written by Peter Moffat and directed by Tim Fywell, that was first broadcast on BBC Two in May 2003 and is based on the true story of four brilliant young men at the University of Cambridge who are recruited to spy for the Soviet Union in 1934.
British Security Co-ordination (BSC) was a covert organisation set up in New York City by the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) in May 1940 upon the authorisation of the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill.
Ladislas Faragó or Faragó László was a Hungarian military historian and journalist who published a number of best-selling books on history and espionage, especially concerning the World War II era.
Lobster is a magazine that is interested primarily in the influence of intelligence and security services on politics and world trade, what it calls "deep politics" or "parapolitics". It combines the examination of conspiracy theories and contemporary history. Lobster is edited and published in the United Kingdom and has appeared twice a year for 40 years, at first in 16-page A5 format, then as an A4 magazine. Operating on a shoestring, its contributors include academics and others. Since 2009 it is distributed as a free downloadable PDF document.
Commander Wilfred Albert "Biffy" Dunderdale, was a British spy and intelligence officer. It has been suggested that Dunderdale was used by Ian Fleming as a basis for the character of James Bond.
Operation Jungle was a programme by the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) early in the Cold War from 1949 to 1955 for the clandestine insertion of intelligence and resistance agents into Poland and the Baltic states. The agents were mostly Polish, Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian exiles who had been trained in the United Kingdom and Sweden and were to link up with the anti-Soviet resistance against the communist governments. The naval operations of the programme were carried out by German crew-members of the German Mine Sweeping Administration under the control of the Royal Navy. The American-sponsored Gehlen Organization also got involved in the draft of agents from Eastern Europe. However, the MGB penetrated the network and captured or turned most of the agents.
Anthony Bruce Summers is an Irish author. He is a Pulitzer Prize Finalist and has written ten non-fiction books. He worked for the BBC in current affairs coverage as a producer and then as an assistant editor of the long-running investigative documentary series Panorama. His first book was published in 1976.
John Gerson was deputy head of MI6. He studied Art History at the University of Freiburg and then went to King's College, Cambridge. He went to India on the Commonwealth Expedition (COMEX) in 1965.
Eric Welsh OBE RNVR was a British chemist and naval intelligence officer during the Second World War. Between 1919 and 1940 he worked for the Bergen branch of the company International Paint Ltd. From 1941 he headed the Norwegian branch of Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). Welsh is fleetingly referred to in the Norwegian television series The Heavy Water War and, based on the comments by Stephen Dorril of Welsh as a "...ladies' man who drank and smoked to excess" and a "master of dirty tricks" alluded to as one of the models to James Bond
The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6, is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligence in support of the UK's national security. SIS is one of the British intelligence agencies and the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service ("C") is directly accountable to the Foreign Secretary.
The Royal Office transliterated:maktab al sultani is one of the most senior and therefore powerful ministries in the Sultanate of Oman. It is a government body that has most influence in national security and intelligence issues and the minister in charge has been the de facto national security advisor to the Sultan. The Palace Office also acts as a foreign liaison focus on all international intelligence and security matters.
Norman Darbyshire (1924–1993) was a British spy who worked for the SOE and the MI6. He played a key role in the 1953 coup d'état that overthrew Mohammed Mossadegh, the democratically-elected prime minister of Iran.
Though not officially a belligerent during the Soviet–Afghan War, the United Kingdom was heavily involved, playing a key covert role in the conflict. Also known as the Second Great Game, the British provided both indirect and direct support for the Afghan mujahideen in their fight against the Soviet Union, including secretly arming, funding and supplying various factions. Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) primarily supported the Mujahideen group Jamiat-e Islami, commanded by Ahmad Shah Massoud who, having received little support from the US and Pakistan, became Britain's key ally in the conflict. Fighting in the Panjshir valley, Massoud and his fighters with British support and intelligence, overcame nine Soviet offensives and held out up to the Soviet withdrawal from the vital valley in 1986. Massoud became the most successful and feared out of any of the Mujahideen commanders.
"Secrecy is the British Disease." Extended interview with Stephen Dorril.