BiteBack Publishing

This first part of acclaimed author Mick Smith’s epic history of Britain’s external intelligence community begins with the creation of the Secret Service Bureau in 1909, which was charged with controlling intelligence within Britain and overseas – in particular, establishing through spies the strength of the Imperial German army and navy. This naturally came to the fore during World War One. Between the wars the service really established itself, restyling itself the Secret Intelligence Service. Under the aegis of the diplomatic service, the SIS expanded its network of European spies in order to counter the threat of Russian Bolshevism. In 1918 an operation to overthrow the Bolshevik government by SIS agents failed badly. With the ascent of the Nazis, the SIS switched its focus to the threat of German aggression, recruiting sources within the German government and admiralty.

This first part of SIX takes us up to the eve of the conflict, using hundreds of previously unreleased files and interviews with key players to show how one of the world’s most secretive of secret agencies originated and developed into something like the MI6 we know today. The second part, published in Spring 2011, will tell the story from the outbreak of World War Two to the present, showing the development of the agency into the model for the world’s spies during the Cold War, and detailing the work of MI6 in Afghanistan and Iraq today.