The History of MI-6, Authorized and Unauthorized
Two histories of the early decades of MI-6, the United Kingdom’s foreign intelligence service, have recently been published. “MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909-1949” by Keith Jeffery is the authorized version, prepared with the cooperation of the Service. “Six: A History of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service” by Michael Smith is the unauthorized version.
Close students of intelligence history will want to read both volumes, which neatly represent the respective virtues of authorized and unauthorized history. As the authorized historian, Jeffery enjoyed privileged access to classified Service archives that no other writer is likely to obtain for years to come. But he was also subject to official restrictions on what he was permitted to publish. So, for example, he could not identify any agents who had not already been publicly identified nor could he tell their stories if doing so would result in their identification.
“Six,” the unauthorized history by veteran intelligence reporter Michael Smith, ranges more widely (though it ends a decade earlier in 1939), taps into foreign archives and private, non-governmental collections, and is subject to no such prior restrictions on disclosure.
The tales of the Service’s early years, now nearly a century old, are vividly told by author Smith, whose book is full of striking observations and asides. Trainspotting in World War I and the early confrontation with Soviet intelligence, among other topics, are treated in this volume, which ends at the dawn of World War II. “Six” has not yet been published in the U.S. but is available from Amazon.com in the UK.
To tune into the action on the ground, we convened practitioners, state and local officials, advocates, and policy experts to discuss what it will actually take to deploy clean energy faster, modernize electricity systems, and lower costs for households.
From grassroots community impacts to global geopolitical dynamics, understanding developing data center capacities is emerging as a critical analytical challenge.
Over the past few months, the Trump administration has been laying the foundation to expand the use of the Defense Production Act (DPA) for energy infrastructure and supply chains.
Get it right, and pooled hiring becomes a model for how the federal government decides what to do together and what to do apart. That’s a bigger prize than faster hiring. It’s a more functional government.