The Real Special Relationship: The True Story of How MI6 and the CIA Work Together

Michael Smith

Ιουλ 2023 · Πωλήθηκε από Simon and Schuster

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Gripping, deeply researched, and authoritative, the history of one of the closest intelligence and security relationships in the world

The Special Relationship between the United States and Britain is touted by politicians when it suits their purpose and, as frequently, dismissed as myth, not least by the media. Yet the truth is that the two countries are bound together more closely than either is to any other ally. In The Real Special Relationship, Michael Smith reveals how it all began, eighty years ago, when a top-secret visit by four American codebreakers to Bletchley Park in February 1941—ten months before the US entered World War II—marked the start of a close collaboration between the intellitence services of the two nations. When that war ended and the Cold War began, both sides recognized that the way they worked together to decode German and Japanese ciphers could be used to counter the Soviet threat. They laid the foundation for the behind-the-scenes intelligence sharing that has continued—despite rivalries among the services and occasional political conflict and public disputes between the two nations—through the collapse of the Soviet Union, 9/11, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and to the threats of the present moment.

Smith, who served in British military intelligence, brings together a fascinating range of characters, from Winston Churchill and Ian Fleming to John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Edward Snowden. Supported by in-depth interviews and a broad range of personal contacts in the intelligence community, he takes the reader into the workings of MI6, the CIA, the NSA, and all those who strive to keep us safe. Sir John Scarlett, former chief of MI6, has written the introduction, and Michael Hayden, former director of the CIA and the NSA, has provided the foreword.

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Michael Smith spent a decade in British intelligence before becoming a journalist, first with the BBC and then with  the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Times. Smith is the author of fifteen books on espionage and special operations, including the number one UK bestseller Station X: The Secrets of Bletchley Park, the US bestseller Killer Elite, The Emperor's Codes, published by Arcade, and Foley: The Spy Who Saved 10,000 Jews, which led to the recognition of former MI6 officer Frank Foley as Righteous Among Nations. Smith is a member of the Historical Advisory Group of the Bletchley Park Trust. He lives in Oxfordshire in England.

Sir John Scarlett is the former chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6.

Michael Hayden is a former director of both the CIA and the National Security Agency (NSA).