MI5: British Security Service Operations, 1909–1945

The author of The Kompromat Conspiracy shares the history of MI5, from its beginnings in 1909 to 1945 and its role in the Second World War.

MI5 is arguably the most secret and misunderstood of all the British government departments. Its enigmatic title—much more than its proper name, the Security Service—stands in the public mind for the dark world of the secret services. In reality it has a very specific responsibility: counterintelligence. Its purpose is to combat espionage and subversion directed against the UK.

Nigel West’s book traces the history of MI5 from its modest beginnings in 1909 until 1945, focusing on the important role it played in World War II. This includes the story of the sixteen enemy agents rounded up in Britain who were either hanged or shot; the manipulation of the Axis espionage networks by the use of “turned” Abwehr agents (the famous Double Cross System) and the all-important check on its success provided by the intercepted German signals decoded at Bletchley; and the various deceptions practiced on the German High Command.

Laced with true anecdotes as bizarre and compulsively readable as any John Le Carré novel, this book is the fruit of years of painstaking research. West has traced and interviewed more than a hundred people who figure prominently in the story: German and Soviet agents, counterintelligence officers, and even more than a dozen double agents.

In this newly revised edition, Nigel West details the organizational charts which show the structure of the wartime security apparatus, in the most accurate and informative account ever written of MI5 before and during the Second World War.