Churchill and Secret Service (Paperback)

Winston Churchill believed passionately in the value of secret intelligence - in times of war, of course, but also in times of peace. As a young correspondent and soldier in Cuba and South Africa, he experienced its worth first hand. As wartime Prime Minister, he built a centralised intelligence community, responded daily to raw 'Ultra' reports, created the Special Operations Executive to work behind enemy lines and with Roosevelt built the intelligence alliance that endures to this day. With absorbing detail about the secret world of agents and double agents rivalling le Carre, this groundbreaking work traces Churchill's connections from his days as a member of the Cabinet that established the Secret Service to the war years, when his extensive network provided him with superior information. Both a riveting account of the origins and inner workings of modern intelligence agencies and a study of Churchill and his role in their development, CHURCHILL AND SECRET SERVICE is a major contribution to the study of modern and military history and a crucial missing key to understanding Churchill himself.