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At risk of being overwhelmed by Hennesey's deep expertise in Cold War doomsday scenario planning.... I thought this was a history of Britain, not of what Macmillan wanted to say to Kennedy, or what a Soviet submariner was thinking during the Cuban Missile Crisis!

There is an award-winning darkly comic story roughly every three pages. The one about the swab stolen by the newborn, with its anecdote-within-an-anecdote about a hospital dessert spoon lingering inside a patient for decades (pp.206-208) is just a particularly fine specimen of this very numerous race.

“…especially dangerous among the newly-independent nations of Africa and Asia. Against this background the Long predominance of European culture, civilisation, wealth and power may be drawing to a close.”
Plus ça change!
[Notice also the quality of HM’s prose. And the omission of the comma after the time/context opening clause (which is obligatory in Chinese, and not needed in English!) Love it.]

Marvellous, but too much to take in!
Among many other gems, we note PM Harold MacMillan’s observations in a secret-ish memorandum at the start of 1961:
“In the political and propaganda field, Russian (and to a lesser extent Chinese) subversion, blackmail, seduction and threats, as well as the glamour of what seems a growing and dynamic system, have impressed hesitant and neutral countries, and are proving…”