Books Alan Turing: the enigma of intelligence Andrew Hughes (Unwin 1985) If you have a chance, read Alan Turing: the enigma of intelligence by Andrew Hughes (Unwin 1985). Now in paperback, Hughes’ excellent biography rescues from near obscurity a true eccentric genius. It is of interest to us because of Turing’s essential work on […]
[…] therefore, that they are fully aware of his activities. He has extensive connections with members, or more accurately, former members, of the most important western security and intelligence services, eg the Comte de Meronges, ex Director of the French SDECE. Furthermore he has a close relationship with Mr ‘Dickie’ Franks, Director of the British […]
Michael Smith Gollancz, London,1996, £20 This is a curious and rather pointless book. In short chapters Smith attempts potted histories of MI5, SIS, signals and military intelligence. These are quite well done, but covering half a century in 20 pages, say, the chapters are barely more than sketches. (The Information Research Department gets a […]
[…] timing of this is not fortuitous: ….the Conservative Victories in 1979 and 1983, the defeat of the miners in 1985 (in which the security services played an intelligence gathering role)….. the collapse of cherished beliefs….. led inescapably to the conclusion that there was a right-wing conspiracy which had hoodwinked the entire nation….’ There has […]
[…] – provided he could earn a living or clinch a deal in exchange. By 1904-1905, in the Far East, he was simultaneously wheeling and dealing with the intelligence services of Russia, Japan, Britain, France and the USA. In due course his abilities and official connections in various countries made him a natural for the […]
[…] essential features of such parallel services – clear even before Colonel Oliver North agreed to tell all – can be noted in recent developments in the French intelligence community, fractured by rivalry, innumerable leaks and spectacular failures. It was perhaps to avoid this minefield that Chirac’s Interior Minister, Charles Pasqua, former founder of the […]
[…] He canters briskly and amusingly over the field of spook foul-ups in the post-war period to ‘show the pointlessness of so much of the work of the intelligence services everywhere.’ The result is an entertaining but very sharp analysis of that peculiar mixture of ruthless patriotism and utter incompetence which characterises so much of […]
[…] 30th Something very strange happened in British politics almost a decade ago. A Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, and the journalist with the closest links to the British intelligence services, Chapman Pincher, both said that elements of MI5 had been trying to bring down the Labour Government during 1974-76 – and nothing happened. There was […]
[…] the Soviet bloc. Talbot recasts events in this period as attempts by Kruschev and JFK to wind down the Cold War which were frustrated by their military-industrial- intelligence complexes who were making too much money and generating too many good careers for that to be accepted. Talbot conveys better than any other account I […]
Police use of computers Unreported in the daily papers in this country, Merseyside County Council recently decided to refuse the funding for Merseyside Police’s criminal intelligence computer. (Detailed account in Computing 13th September 1984) This is the most significant step to date in the struggle to get some kind of control established over policing […]
