Churchill & Secret Service - Softcover

Uniquely among modern British statesmen, Churchill believed passionately in the value of secret intelligence both in peace and war. Shaped by his experiences as a war correspondent and soldier, he helped ensure the passing of the Official Secrets Act of 1911, and was the first Home Secretary to authorise general warrants for the secret interception of mail. As wartime Prime Minister he built a centralised intelligence community, created the Special Operations Executive to work behind enemy lines, and with Roosevelt built the transatlantic intelligence alliance that endures to this day. Based on wide-ranging sources, many never explored or only recently released, the book offers an intriguing insight into both modern intelligence and the mind and character of Churchill himself.

David Stafford is an historian and former diplomat who has written extensively on espionage, intelligence, Churchill, and the Second World War. The former Project Director at the Centre for The Study of the Two World Wars at the University of Edinburgh, he is now an Honorary Fellow of the University and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, where he and his wife now live. He has frequently acted as a TV and radio consultant, has written radio documentaries for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the BBC, and his latest book, Ten Days to D-Day, formed the basis for a Channel Four two-part Docudrama. He is currently acting as Historical Consultant on a TV documentary being made by ORTV in London on the legendary CIA-SIS Berlin Cold War spy tunnel based on his book, Spies Beneath Berlin. He is a regular book reviewer, appearing in The Times (London), BBC History Magazine, The Spectator, The Times Literary Supplement, The New York Times, the Times Herald Tribune (Paris), and Saturday Night and the Globe and Mail (Toronto). David Stafford was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, has degrees from Cambridge University and the University of London (London School of Economics and Political Science), and when he is not writing books is an avid reader of fiction and a devotee of the operas of Mozart. In April 2005 he was appointed by the Prime Minister to write the official history of SOE in Italy ( Part Two, 1943-1945) which was published by the Bodley Head in March 2011.