Churchill's Spy Files: MI5's Top-Secret Wartime Reports

by Nigel West

The Second World War saw the role of espionage, secret agents and spy services increase exponentially as the world was thrown into a truly global conflict on an unprecedented scale. At this time, very few people in government were fully aware of what MI5 and its brethren really did. But with Churchill at the country’s helm, MI5 reluctantly decided to let the inquisitive prime minister in on the secret, providing him with a weekly report of the organisation’s clandestine activities – so highly classified that he was handed each report personally and copies were never allowed to be made, nor was he allowed to keep hold of them. However, the original documents have survived, buried deep in the archives, with many pages annotated by hand by ‘W.S.C.’ himself. Here acclaimed intelligence expert Nigel West unravels the tales of previously unknown spy missions, revealing a fresh view of the worldwide intelligence scene of the Second World War, and exposing the Soviet mole who drafted Churchill’s briefings.With foreword from Lord Evans of Weardale, former Director-General of MI5.

Genres: History

464 pages, Hardcover

Published February 26, 2018

Reviews

[Literary Redhead · Rating 5 out of 5]

CHURCHILL’S SPY FILES is an intriguing look at MI5 and its place in British government during WWII. In fact, its work was so secretive that few in the government knew its dealings before the war. The agency decided to keep Churchill in the loop during the conflict, but only through files so Top Secret that he was given a weekly report, but never allowed to make or keep a copy. Only now is the curtain pulled back, including the revelation that the report compiler was a Soviet spy! Highly recommended!

Thanks to the author, the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC; opinions are mine.

#Churchill'sSpyFiles #NetGalley

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

This only took me 8 months to read! Reflective of how heavy it was at times. There were definitely some interesting bits but it was hard to keep up and sometimes the context was a little hard to follow or relate to. Overall it was still interesting though to see how we were so much better than the Germans in this area during WWII and how this helped with so many aspects of winning the war. For example, deception played a key role in throwing the Germans off the D-day scent, helping break various cryptography and significantly reducing the casualties caused by the V1 and V2 bombs. The ingenuity of some of the characters involved was also fascinating.

[Cristie Underwood]

This book shed light on some little known information about the role of secret information given to Winston Churchill during the War. It was interesting to read about the Russian mole that provided this. Interesting read!

[Kenzie Mills · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a copy of this ebook in exchange for an honest review
This was quite an interesting read. Each War Report held such fascinating aspects of the inner workings of the war effort in general behind the scenes that I just couldn't get enough