Posts Tagged ‘Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service’

Real-life espionage is nothing like James Bond – actually it is, says Mick Smith

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010

By Mick Smith

The resurgence of interest in espionage comes at an opportune time for us here at Biteback. It has been fuelled by the FBI’s discovery of Russian intelligence service sleeper cells spread across America, including the beautiful blonde Russian spy Anna Chapman, and the tragic, and still unexplained, case of a GCHQ officer murdered in Pimlico. We expect spy thrillers to be laced with murder, mystery and the odd femme fatale, but after years of being told that “the real stuff is nothing like James Bond”, it comes as a bit of a surprise to discover that it very often is.

Certainly, as far as my latest book SIX: A History of Britain’s Secret Service, is concerned, there is very little evidence that “it’s nothing like James Bond”, rather the reverse. SIX is so full of murder and mayhem that we made it the sub-title of the book, and this first part, covering the period from the Service’s foundation in 1909 to the outbreak of the Second World War, is packed with Boy’s Own heroes, and noir-style femmes fatales, many of whom have never been heard of before.

But SIX is not the only espionage book we’re publishing. We have just published the three opening titles of our exciting new series Dialogue Espionage Classics, with several more titles already on the stocks waiting to go to print, one of them a book that the British government completely suppressed when it first came out, of which more very soon. (more…)

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SIX terrific review in the Sunday Times

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

9781906447007
Dominic Sandbrook, reviewing Michael Smith’s Six: A history of Britain’s secret intelligence service called the book “engrossing”, and comments, “As a rollicking chronicle of demented derring-do, Smith’s book is hard to beat. His research is prodigious and his eye for a good story impeccable, and his book, while perfectly scholarly, often reads like a real-life James Bond thriller.”

To read the review on the Sunday Times website, click here. You will need to log in to access.

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The Oxford Times discusses the history of MI6 with Mick Smith

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

Maggie Hartford of The Oxford Times writes:

Sword-stick assassinations; the slow torture of Rasputin, found with his testicles crushed; a sack tied to a door, containing the remains of a secret agent. Michael Smith’s latest book, Six: A History of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, doesn’t stint on violence. He said: “People have accused me of exaggerating, because the subtitle is Murder and Mayhem, but it’s all there in the facts.”

Mr Smith made his name in 2004 as defence correspondent of the Sunday Times, exposing the Downing Street memos, which rocked the Bush and Blair administrations with suggestions that the intelligence that sparked the war in Iraq was ‘fixed’.

He is uniquely placed to write about spying and spies, because he used to be one.

To continue reading, please click here.

SIX is available to buy here, priced £19.99.

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How Britain’s first spy chief ordered Rasputin’s murder (in a way that would make every man’s eyes water)

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

9781906447007The Daily Mail‘s Annabel Venning looks at the secrets exposed by Michael Smith in his new book SIX: A History of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service:

The Rolls-Royce sped along the road through the woods outside Meaux, northern France. It was October 1914, two months after the start of World War I.
Driving the car was Alastair Cumming, a 24-year-old intelligence officer. Beside him sat his father, Mansfield Cumming, head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, who had come out to France to visit him. As well as their intelligence work, they shared a love of fast cars. Then, in an instant, the Rolls suffered a puncture. The car veered off the road, smashed into a tree and overturned, pinning Mansfield by the leg and flinging his son out onto his head. Hearing his son moaning, Mansfield tried to extricate himself from the wreckage and crawl over to him. Despite struggling, he couldn’t free his leg. And so, taking out his penknife, he began hacking through the tendons and bone until he had severed his lower leg and freed himself. He then crawled over to where Alastair lay and managed to spread his coat over his dying son. He was found, some time later, unconscious, by the body of his son. This act of extraordinary bravery, sacrifice and a willingness to use whatever means necessary, however unpleasant, to achieve an end, was to become a secret service legend…

To read more (and to find out how Rasputin really met his end) visit the Daily Mail website here.

SIX: A History of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service by Michael Smith is available to buy here.

Richard Cullen’s own investigation into the murder of Rasputin – Rasputin: The role of the British Secret Service in his torture and murder is also available to buy here.

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SIX: A History of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service by Michael Smith – out now

Monday, July 19th, 2010

9781906447007Part one of a major two-part history of Britain’s external intelligence community by the acclaimed writer, award-winning journalist and defence correspondent for The Sunday Times, Michael Smith.

This first part of acclaimed author Mick Smith’s epic unauthorised history of Britain’s external intelligence community begins with the creation of the Secret Service Bureau in 1909, charged with controlling intelligence within Britain and overseas, and 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. SIX tells the complete story of the service’s birth and early years, including the tragic, untold tale of what happened to Britain’s extensive networks in Soviet Russia between the wars. It reveals for the first time how the playwright and MI6 agent Harley Granville Barker bribed the Daily News to keep Arthur Ransome in Russia, and the real reason Paul Dukes returned there. It shows development of “tradecraft” and the great personal risk officers and their agents took, far from home and unprotected. In Salonika, for example, Lieutenant Norman Dewhurst realised it was time to leave when he opened his door to find one of his agents hanging dismembered in a sack.

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.

SIX: A History of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, Part 1: Murder and Mayhem 1909-1939, by Michael Smith is available to buy HERE.

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Author Richard Cullen discusses his experiences writing Rasputin…

Monday, July 12th, 2010

To me the most exciting part of researching and writing this book was analysing the witness statements from the Russian State Archives (GARF). Previously, authors had not in any meaningful way examined or analysed these statements. The statements of the two police officers who were on duty close to the Yusupov Palace on the night of the murder are particularly revealing. In fact, one of the officers in his statement destroys much of what Yusupov and Purishkevich, two of the main players, say about the murder. Understanding who was where and when on that fateful night and then linking this to the times that various events were meant to have occurred proves the conspiracy to pervert the course of justice committed by Yusupov and Purishkevich.

The forensics are fascinating and challenging but once you accept, which cannot now be denied by anyone, that Rasputin was shot through the forehead at contact range by a large calibre weapon, you start to see that the previous accepted version was just a tissue of lies. Of particular importance to re-investigating the case are such important details as whether it was snowing or not, whether the River Nevka was tidal and the length of the day in St Petersburg on the date of the murder. These past overlooked details were obtained easily from various organisations.

The way the book has been received by many shows that this is a ‘cold case’ review of what previously had been a grave miscarriage of the Russian justice system. As for the British SIS involvement the evidence is all there in the book including the damning Captain Alley/Major Scale ‘Dark Forces’ letter.

Richard Cullen.

Rasputin: The role of the British Secret Service in his torture and murder is out now and available to buy here.

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Rasputin: The role of the British Secret Service in his torture and murder – OUT NOW

Friday, July 9th, 2010

9781906447076The murder of Grigori Rasputin, mystic, healer and advisor to the Tsar and Tsaritsa, Nicholas and Alexandra, remains one of the most intriguing crimes of the last century. Rasputin was lured to the St Petersburg palace of Prince Felix Yusupov, son of the richest man in Russia, where he was allegedly poisoned by a group of leading Russian nobles, including Yusupov and the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich. Legend has it that when Rasputin survived the poisoning, and was therefore shot a number of times before being thrown alive into the freezing Neva River.

The official truth behind the killing is that Rasputin was murdered to remove his influence over the Tsaritsa. However, in 2004 former Metropolitan Police Commander Richard Cullen helped reveal to the world that British secret services were involved in the plot to kill Rasputin, with a young British secret service officer called Oswald Rayner even firing the fatal shot. He has uncovered a story of sexual tensions, torture and murder in which MI6 was up to its neck.

An historical whodunnit, Cullen, together with forensic scientists, uses witness testimonies, contemporary police and official reports, clothing and photographs, and forensically examines the crime scene itself to uncover the truth. In this extraordinary book, an experienced former Scotland Yard detective rips apart the myths surrounding one of the most fascinating murder cases in history and proves the involvement of British spooks in the protracted torture and murder of one of the major figures of the twentieth century.

To buy Rasputin…, click here.

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