INTRODUCTION •xxviiwhile seeking to retain an element of secrecy about their personnel and
operations, were to be handicapped by the fact that many of their offi-
cers were writers and self-publicists, and some others turned out to be
traitors working for the Soviets.
Although MI5, SIS, and GCHQ were to play pivotal roles in Britain’s
Cold War history, the heads of those organizations went largely un-
known and unrecognized and completed their careers in anonymous ob-
scurity, protected by D Notices to discourage newspaper revelations and
a convention of almost Trappist silence adopted by the staff. This was
all the more remarkable considering the extraordinary personalities that
were drawn into the intelligence world. Politicians, authors, musicians,
playwrights, and scoundrels have participated in what to some might
seem like a long, continuing drama, not unlike a family saga; many of
those involved knew each other well, in many cases being related, hav-
ing served together in the forces, or having attended the same universi-
ties and schools.
From literature came Graham Greene, John le Carre ́,Somerset
Maugham, Compton Mackenzie, and dozens of others. The historians
included Bob Carew-Hunt, Hugh Trevor Roper, and Roger Fulford.
From the armed forces came many hundreds decorated for valor; the
universities provided some of the country’s greatest intellects, their
powers applied to cryptography; and politics gave cabinet ministers
such as Sam Hoare, Richard Crossman, David Ennals, and Roy Jenkins.
The Parliamentary benches were to seat John Buchan, Dick
Brooman-White, Niall Macdermot, Stephen Hastings, Julian Amery,
Tom Normanton, Henry Hunloke, Airey Neave, Hugh Gaitskell, George
Cockerill, Billy McLean, Peter Smithers, Douglas Dodds-Parker, Sir
Reginald Hall, Admiral Morgan Morgan-Giles, Walter Fletcher, Aubrey
Jones, Bill Allen, Sir Frank Nelson, Henry Kerby, Rod Richards, Ken-
neth Younger, and Paddy Ashdown. The House of Lords produced the
hereditary peers Tennyson, Ashley, Harcourt, Selborne, Sandhurst,
Glenconner, Cottenham, Asquith, Rea, and Rothschild, who were
joined by the life peers Meta Ramsay, Rex Fletcher, Kenneth Keith,
Gladwyn Jebb, Daphne Park, Henry Hopkinson, John Cuckney, Ber-
nard Ballantrae, and Cranley Onslow.
The law provided Old Bailey judges, such as Sir Helenus Milmo, Sir
Edward Cussen, Sir Blanshard Stamp, and John Maude; an Appeal
Court judge, Sir John Stephenson; and a host of barristers and solicitors