Empire of Secrets: British Intelligence, the Cold War and the Twilight of Empire

Empire of Secrets: British Intelligence, the Cold War and the Twilight of Empire
Calder Walton

The winner of the 2013 Longman-History Today Book Prize is the gripping and largely untold story of the role of the intelligence services in Britain’s retreat from empire.Against the background of the Cold War, and the looming spectre of Soviet-sponsored subversion in Britain’s dwindling colonial possessions, the imperial intelligence service MI5 played a crucial but top secret role in passing power to newly independent national states across the globe.Mining recently declassified intelligence records, Calder Walton reveals this ‘missing link’ in Britain’s post-war history. He sheds new light on everything from violent counter-insurgencies fought by British forces in the jungles of Malaya and Kenya, to urban warfare campaigns conducted in Palestine and the Arabian Peninsula. Drawing on a wealth of previously classified documents, as well as hitherto overlooked personal papers, this is also the first book to draw on records from the Foreign Office’s secret archive at Hanslope Park, which contains some of the darkest and most shameful secrets from the last days of Britain’s empire.Packed with incidents straight out of a John le Carré novel, Empire of Secrets is an exhilarating read by an exciting new voice in intelligence history.

Praise for Empire of Secrets: (#ulink_d470fdc3-5e31-524a-aa08-c9c0f2504e01)

‘Both path-breaking and a very good read. Calder Walton reveals for the first time the full role of British Intelligence in the end of the largest empire in world history’

PROFESSOR CHRISTOPHER ANDREW, author of Defence of the Realm: The Authorised History of MI5

‘People who believe there’s not much left to learn about the British Empire should read this book. Calder Walton has sculpted a fascinating study of where spycraft touched palm and pine’

PROFESSOR PETER HENNESSY, author of The Secret State

‘Comprehensive and perceptive … It is one of those books that no student of the subject can ignore’

Spectator

‘Empire of Secrets is an important addition to the literature on decolonisation. It shines new light into the murky world of intelligence that underpinned the formalities of departure, the anthems and flag-lowering ceremonies, the wheeling parades and high-flown sentiments of nationalism’

Financial Times

‘An entertaining and welcome demystification of the intelligence services and their role in the demise of Britain’s empire’

Sunday Times

‘There is enough human anecdote and eccentricity in Empire of Secrets’ “high-octane” narrative to please even the most satiated consumer of such subjects … a story that often left me wondering what on earth we pay these people for’

Literary Review

‘With fluency and judiciousness, he tells how Britain’s secret services responded to, then helped engineer and fine-tune, and later hushed up one of the most important historical events of the last century … The history of Britain’s decolonisation will now begin to be rewritten. Walton’s first draft is acute, well-researched and agreeably lively’

Sunday Telegraph

‘For those interested in the Cold War, intelligence history, and British decolonization, [Empire of Secrets] proves indispensable’

New York Journal of Books

‘Fascinating … moves the spooks from the periphery of history to its heart … A well-documented, courageous and incisive first book by an author who has inhabited the real world of intelligence rather than a James Bond fantasy … required reading’

The Tablet

TO JENNIFER

We are quite impartial; we keep an eye on all people.

HERBERT MORRISON, Home Secretary (February 1941)

Contents

Cover (#uc27298ac-936a-5396-a6a6-608a4ddd27de)

Title Page (#ufd51aa06-b89b-5e26-9de8-a396ca74b94b)

Praise for Empire of Secrets (#u66c4f112-8d38-580a-b65b-7e1ead9b9b91)

Dedication (#u64d4ee7a-4565-584e-9b1d-c6858658af7e)

Epigraph (#u0e418f0d-1322-594e-bcd2-027ac3cd1cd2)

List of Illustrations (#ud490cf99-5910-5c6a-aa00-d1980c55c670)

Abbreviations and Glossary (#ua474cd1e-9ab1-5356-9b40-34c8c4003761)

Map: Principal MI5 posts in the empire and Commonwealth in the early Cold War (#u9519d840-2d28-534c-a078-2707111030ac)

Introduction (#u2be35329-4bbc-5d37-8467-18e941f5c180)

1. Victoria’s Secrets: British Intelligence and Empire Before the Second World War (#uf76bc41f-c91c-54ad-83a3-5ac604f404c6)

2. Strategic Deception: British Intelligence, Special Operations and Empire in the Second World War (#uc79b8fb7-2a07-5e33-8ad8-d7ba1d694b96)

3. ‘The Red Light is Definitely Showing’: MI5, the British Mandate of Palestine and Zionist Terrorism (#uf9e05586-74d1-5784-9643-7b0bd3341b8d)

4. The Empire Strikes Back: The British Secret State and Imperial Security in the Early Cold War (#litres_trial_promo)

5. Jungle Warfare: British Intelligence and the Malayan Emergency (#litres_trial_promo)

6. British Intelligence and the Setting Sun on Britain’s African Empire (#litres_trial_promo)

7. British Intelligence, Covert Action and Counter-Insurgency in the Middle East (#litres_trial_promo)

Conclusion – British Intelligence: The Last Penumbra of Empire (#litres_trial_promo)

Picture Section (#litres_trial_promo)

Note on Sources and Methodology (#litres_trial_promo)

Notes (#litres_trial_promo)

Bibliography (#litres_trial_promo)

Index (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)