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Article: To defend the realm MI5, Britain's counter-intelligence agency, turns 100 next month. Historian Nigel West looks at the service's success, its secrets and scandals
- Article from:
- The Sunday Telegraph London
- Article date:
- September 27, 2009
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2009 The Sunday Telegraph London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Happy Birthday, MI5. The UK's counter-intelligence agency
celebrates its centenary next month and my, how it's changed: from
an organisation so completely veiled in secrecy that even the
British government would not admit it existed, to one in which its
Director-Generals now talk openly to the media - and even write
books on their time there.
Its foundations were inauspicious to say the least. The perceived
intelligence disaster of the Boer War prompted the Committee of
Imperial Defence to review the failure of the British Secret
Service. However, it was discovered that no such organisation
existed. So the CID recommended the creation of a new branch of
government, the Secret Service ...