The Black Door' explores the evolving relationship between successive British prime ministers and the intelligence agencies, from Asquith's Secret Service Bureau to Cameron's National Security Council.

The Black Door

History

Cormac, Rory

Europe

HarperCollins, Publishers

‘The Black Door’ explores the evolving relationship between successive British prime ministers and the intelligence agencies, from Asquith’s Secret Service Bureau to Cameron’s National Security Council.At the beginning of the 20th Century the British intelligence system was underfunded and lacked influence in government. But as the new millennium dawned, intelligence had become so integral to policy that it was used to make the case for war. Now, covert action is incorporated seamlessly into government policy, and the Prime Minister is kept constantly updated by intelligence agencies.But how did intelligence come to influence our government so completely?‘The Black Door’ explores the murkier corridors of No. 10 Downing Street, chronicling the relationships between intelligence agencies and the Prime Ministers of the last century. From Churchill’s code-breakers feeding information to the Soviets to Eden’s attempts to assassinate foreign leaders, from Wilson’s paranoia of an MI5-led coup d’état to Thatcher’s covert wars in Central America, Aldrich and Cormac entertain and enlighten as they explain how our government came to rely on intelligence to the extent that it does today.

Aldrich, Richard

William Collins

The Black Door explores the evolving relationship between successive British prime ministers and the intelligence agencies, from Asquith’s Secret Service Bureau to Cameron’s National Security Council.
Intelligence can do a prime minister’s dirty work. For more than a century, secret wars have been waged directly from Number 10. They have staved off conflict, defeats and British decline through fancy footwork, often deceiving friend and foe alike. Yet as the birth of the modern British secret service in 1909, prime ministers were strangers to the secret world – sometimes with disastrous consequences. During the Second World War, Winston Churchill oversaw a remarkable revolution in the exploitation of intelligence, bringing it into the centre of government. Chruchill’s wartime regime also formed a school of intelligence for future prime ministers, and its secret legacy has endured. Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair and David Cameron all became great enthusiasts for spies and special forces. Although Britain’s political leaders have often feigned ignorance about what one prime minister called this ‘strange underworld’, some of the most daring and controversial intelligence operations can be traced straight back to Number 10.

The Black Door: Spies, Secret Intelligence and British Prime Ministers

British leaders use spies and Special Forces to interfere in the affairs of others discreetly and deniably. Since 1945, MI6 has spread misinformation designed to divide and discredit targets from the Middle East to Eastern Europe and Northern Ireland. It has instigated whispering campaigns and planted false evidence on officials working behind the Iron Curtain, tried to foment revolution in Albania, blown up ships to prevent the passage of refugees to Israel, and secretly funnelled aid to insurgents in Afghanistan and dissidents in Poland. MI6 has launched cultural and economic warfare against Iceland and Czechoslovakia. It has tried to instigate coups in Congo, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and elsewhere. Through bribery and blackmail, Britain has rigged elections as colonies moved to independence. Britain has fought secret wars in Yemen, Indonesia, and Oman--and discreetly used Special Forces to eliminate enemies from colonial Malaya to Libya during the Arab Spring. This is covert action: a vital, though controversial, tool of statecraft and perhaps the most sensitive of all government activity. If used wisely, it can play an important role in pursuing national interests in a dangerous world. If used poorly, it can cause political scandal--or worse. In Disrupt and Deny, Rory Cormac tells the remarkable true story of Britain's secret scheming against its enemies, as well as its friends; of intrigue and manoeuvring within the darkest corridors of Whitehall, where officials fought to maintain control of this most sensitive and seductive work; and, above all, of Britain's attempt to use smoke and mirrors to mask decline. He reveals hitherto secret operations, the slush funds that paid for them, and the battles in Whitehall that shaped them.

Disrupt and Deny: Spies, Special Forces, and the Secret Pursuit of British Foreign Policy

Oxford University Press

Disrupt and Deny is the untold story behind Britain's secret scheming against both enemies and friends from 1945 to the present day.\nBritish leaders use spies and Special Forces to interfere in the affairs of others discreetly and deniably. Since 1945, MI6 has spread misinformation designed to divide and discredit targets from the Middle East to Eastern Europe and Northern Ireland. It has instigated whispering campaigns and planted false evidence on officials working behind the Iron Curtain, tried to foment revolution in Albania, blown up ships to prevent the passage of refugees to Israel, and secretly funnelled aid to insurgents in Afghanistan and dissidents in Poland. MI6 has launched cultural and economic warfare against Iceland and Czechoslovakia. It has tried to instigate coups in Congo, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and elsewhere. Through bribery and blackmail, Britain has rigged elections as colonies moved to independence. Britain has fought secret wars in Yemen, Indonesia, and Oman - and discreetly used Special Forces to eliminate enemies from colonial Malaya to Libya during the Arab Spring.\nThis is covert action: a vital, though controversial, tool of statecraft and perhaps the most sensitive of all government activity. If used wisely, it can play an important role in pursuing national interests in a dangerous world. If used poorly, it can cause political scandal - or worse.\nIn Disrupt and Deny, Rory Cormac tells the remarkable true story of Britain's secret scheming against its enemies, as well as its friends; of intrigue and manoeuvring within the darkest corridors of Whitehall, where officials fought to maintain control of this most sensitive and seductive work; and, above all, of Britain's attempt to use smoke and mirrors to mask decline. He reveals hitherto secret operations, the slush funds that paid for them, and the battles in Whitehall that shaped them.

Moving the debate beyond the place of tactical intelligence in counterinsurgency warfare, Confronting the Colonies considers the view from Whitehall, where the biggest decisions were made. It reveals the evolving impact of strategic intelligence upon government understandings of, and policy responses to, insurgent threats.Confronting the Colonies demonstrates for the first time how, in the decades after World War Two, the intelligence agenda expanded to include non-state actors, insurgencies, and irregular warfare. It explores the challenges these emerging threats posed to intelligence assessment and how they were met with varying degrees of success. Such issues remain of vital importance today. By examining the relationship between intelligence and policy, Cormac provides original and revealing insights into government thinking in the era of decolonisation, from the origins of nationalist unrest to the projection of dwindling British power. He demonstrates how intelligence (mis-)understood the complex relationship between the Cold War, nationalism, and decolonisation; how it fuelled fierce Whitehall feuding; and how it shaped policymakers' attempts to integrate counterinsurgency into broader strategic policy.

Confronting the Colonies: British Intelligence and Counterinsurgency

Military

Spying on the World: The Declassified Documents of the Joint Intelligence Committee, 1936-2013

Reproduces and contextualises the intelligence documents that influenced crucial UK Government decisionsThese 20 case studies reveal the declassified papers of the JIC, shining a light on the workings of Whitehall's secret world and the vital, previously unknown, role played by intelligence in pivotal events across the 20th and 21st centuries.For more than half a century, the Joint Intelligence Committee or 'JIC' has been a central component of the British Government's secret machinery. It represents the highest authority in the world of intelligence and acts as a broker between the spy and the policy-maker. From WWII to the War in Iraq, and from the Falklands to the IRA, it has been involved in almost every key foreign policy decision.

Aldrich, Richard J.

Goodman, Michael S.

Edinburgh University Press

Reproduces and contextualises the intelligence documents that influenced crucial UK Government decisions These 20 case studies reveal the declassified papers of the JIC, shining a light on the workings of Whitehall's secret world and the vital, previously unknown, role played by intelligence in pivotal events across the 20th and 21st centuries. For more than half a century, the Joint Intelligence Committee or 'JIC' has been a central component of the British Government's secret machinery. It represents the highest authority in the world of intelligence and acts as a broker between the spy and the policy-maker. From WWII to the War in Iraq, and from the Falklands to the IRA, it has been involved in almost every key foreign policy decision.

Surprising revelations about the active role of the monarch in British intelligence\nThe British Royal Family and the intelligence community are two of the most mysterious and mythologized actors of the British State. Crown, Cloak, and Dagger offers a new history of how the two have been inextricably linked from the reign of Queen Victoria to the present.\nRichard J. Aldrich and Rory Cormac unveil a wealth of archival detail that changes our understanding of the role of the monarch in politics, intelligence, and international relations. Successive queens and kings have all played an active role in steering British intelligence, sometimes against the wishes of prime ministers. Even today, the monarch receives "copy No. 1" of every intelligence report. Attempted assassinations and kidnappings, the abdication crisis, world wars and the Cold War, and the death of Princess Diana are just some of the topics covered in the book.\nFascinating and fast-paced, Crown, Cloak, and Dagger demonstrates that the British monarch continues to be far more than a figurehead. This book will inform as well as entertain anyone with an interest in history, espionage, and the royals.

Crown, Cloak, and Dagger: The British Monarchy and Secret Intelligence from Victoria to Elizabeth II (Georgetown Studies in Intelligence History)

Georgetown University Press

A Daily Mail Book of the Year and a The Times and Sunday Times Best Book of 2021\n'Monumental.. Authoritative and highly readable.' Ben Macintyre, The Times\n'A fascinating history of royal espionage.' Sunday Times\n'Excellent... Compelling' Guardian\nFor the first time, The Secret Royals uncovers the remarkable relationship between the Royal Family and the intelligence community, from the reign of Queen Victoria to the death of Princess Diana.\nIn an enthralling narrative, Richard J. Aldrich and Rory Cormac show how the British secret services grew out of persistent attempts to assassinate Victoria and then operated on a private and informal basis, drawing on close personal relationships between senior spies, the aristocracy, and the monarchy. This reached its zenith after the murder of the Romanovs and the Russian revolution when, fearing a similar revolt in Britain, King George V considered using private networks to provide intelligence on the loyalty of the armed forces - and of the broader population.\nIn 1936, the dramatic abdication of Edward VIII formed a turning point in this relationship. What originally started as family feuding over a romantic liaison with the American divorcee Wallis Simpson, escalated into a national security crisis. Fearing the couple's Nazi sympathies as well as domestic instability, British spies turned their attention to the King. During the Second World War, his successor, King George VI gradually restored trust between the secret world and House of Windsor. Thereafter, Queen Elizabeth II regularly enacted her constitutional right to advise and warn, raising her eyebrow knowingly at prime ministers and spymasters alike.\nBased on original research and new evidence, The Secret Royals presents the British monarchy in an entirely new light and reveals how far their majesties still call the shots in a hidden world.

The Secret Royals: Spying and the Crown, from Victoria to Diana

Literature & Fiction

Genre Fiction

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Books by Cormac, Rory

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cormac, Rory. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Black Door

The Black Door

The Black Door: Spies, Secret Intelligence and British Prime Ministers

Disrupt and Deny: Spies, Special Forces, and the Secret Pursuit of British Foreign Policy

Disrupt and Deny: Spies, Special Forces, and the Secret Pursuit of British Foreign Policy

Confronting the Colonies: British Intelligence and Counterinsurgency

Spying on the World: The Declassified Documents of the Joint Intelligence Committee, 1936-2013

Spying on the World: The Declassified Documents of the Joint Intelligence Committee, 1936-2013

Crown, Cloak, and Dagger: The British Monarchy and Secret Intelligence from Victoria to Elizabeth II (Georgetown Studies in Intelligence History)

The Secret Royals: Spying and the Crown, from Victoria to Diana