CI Centre Professor
Nigel West's latest book:
The Guy Liddell Diaries
1939-1942:
MI5's Director of
Counterespionage
in World War II
"What only his loyal secretary knew was that Liddell kept a secret diary during the entire war - documents hailed as the single most significant insight in to the wartime workings of the intelligence service." The Guardian
Professor West, an intelligence historian and
well-known author on espionage matters, edits the diaries of Guy
Liddell, MI5's Director of Counterespionage during WWII and
makes them easily available for counterintelligence and intelligence
professionals, as well as those with a keen interest in World War II
espionage.
From the book jacket:
THE GUY LIDDELL DIARIES
Vol.1: 1939–1942
Codenamed WALLFLOWERS, this is one of the Security Service’s most treasured possessions, the daily journal dictated from August 1939 to June 1945 by MI5’s Director of Counter-Espionage, Guy Liddell. It was considered so sensitive that it was highly classified and retained in the safe of successive Directors-General, with special permission required to read it.
Liddell was one of three brothers who all won the Military Cross during the First World War and subsequently joined MI5. He initially served in the Metropolitan Police Special Branch at Scotland Yard, dealing primarily with cases of Soviet espionage, until he was transferred to MI5 in 1931. His social connections proved advantageous but in 1940 he employed Anthony Blunt as his personal assistant and became a close friend of both Guy Burgess and Victor Rothschild, and was acquainted with Kim Philby. Despite these links, when Liddell finally retired from the Security Service in 1952 he was appointed security adviser to the Atomic Energy Commission, an extremely sensitive post following the conviction of the physicist Klaus Fuchs two years earlier.
No other member of the Security Service is known to have maintained a diary and the twelve volumes of this journal represent a unique record of the events and personalities of the period, a veritable tour d’horizon of the entire subject. As Director, B Division, Liddell supervised all the major pre-war and wartime espionage investigations, maintained a watch on suspected Fifth Columnists, advised on the fate of Nazi parachutists, laid traps for his adversary Admiral Canaris and established the famous ‘double cross system’ of enemy double agents. Although reclusive, and dependent on a small circle of trusted friends, he was unquestionably one of the most remarkable and accomplished professionals of his generation, and a legend within his own organisation.
NIGEL WEST TO TALK ABOUT LIDDELL DIARIES DURING:
Nigel West is a military historian specialising in security and intelligence topics. He lectures at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies in Washington DC and is the European editor of the World Intelligence Review. In 1989 he was elected ‘the Experts’ Expert’ by The Observer and in 2003 he was the recipient of the US Association of Former Intelligence Officers’ Lifetime Literature Achievement Award.
Other titles by the author include:
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VENONA: THE GREATEST SECRET OF THE COLD WAR ‘Nigel West will have won himself fresh kudos as a first-rate espionage sleuth’ – Independent on Sunday
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Games of Intelligence: The Classified Conflict of International Espionage ‘A world of data normally to be found only in Top Secret intelligence files’ – Daily Telegraph |
‘His uncomfortable conclusions make the book indispensable to lovers of the espionage genre’ – Books Magazine |
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THE CROWN JEWELS: The British Secrets at the Heart of the KGB Archives ‘Generations of students and historians will unquestionably find The Crown Jewels their major source of facts on 20th-century espionage’ – New Statesman
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The Third Secret: The CIA, Solidarity and the KGB's Plot to Kill the Pope ‘Chapters read like an entertaining adventure novel’ – Literary Review |
The Secret War for the Falklands: The SAS, MI6, and the War Whitehall Nearly Lost ‘Exciting reading, mixing graphic description and studied investigation’ – The Times |
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The Friends: Britain's Post-War Secret Intelligence Operations ‘West has got his hands on some pretty radioactive material’ – Evening Standard
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GARBO: The Personal Story of the Most Successful Double Agent Ever |
Mortal Crimes: The Greatest Theft in History: Soviet Penetration of the Manhattan Project 'West's book makes an important contribution to espionage studies by showing the extent to which Stalin was able to use willing accomplices in the West to provide him with Manhattan Project secrets and help the Soviets develop their own A-bomb.' -Publishers Weekly |
"The Liddell diary is a historical gem. This is the first time the genuine operational diary of a senior intelligence officer has ever been released. It gives a unique insight into the security service from the inside."
Historian Emily Wilson
Revealed: secret diaries of quiet man who was Britain's wartime spymaster
(The Guardian)
"There is little doubt about the historical value and genuine interest of these diaries, lightly but usefully edited by Nigel West. They don't tell all the secrets but they give background to a great many and they reveal a wry, likeable and loyal man, who did the state some considerable service."
Sunday Telegraph
