According to MI5’s website: ‘The threat of espionage (spying) did not end with the collapse of Soviet communism in the early 1990s. Espionage against UK interests continues and is widespread, insidious and potentially very damaging… The ultimate aim of our work is to make it as difficult as possible for foreign spies to operate against the UK.’
In February 2012, outgoing Russian President Dimitri Medvedev told the FSB that Russian counterintelligence exposed 199 foreign spies in 2011, proving that ‘activity of [foreign] intelligence services is not decreasing’.
The FBI agree:
Spies haven’t gone the way of the Cold War. Far from it. They’re more prolific than ever — and targeting our nation’s most valuable secrets. As the lead agency for exposing, preventing, and investigating intelligence activities on US soil, the FBI works to keep weapons of mass destruction and other embargoed technologies from falling into wrong hands, to protect critical national secrets and assets, and to strengthen the global threat picture by proactively gathering information and intelligence.
Will we ever reach a stage where spies aren’t needed? As MI5 Director-General Jonathan Evans said in a speech in the City of London on 25 June 2012:
Those of us who are paid to think about the future from a security perspective tend to conclude that future threats are getting more complex, unpredictable and alarming. After a long career in the Security Service, I have concluded that this is rarely in fact the case. The truth is that the future always looks unpredictable and complex because it hasn’t happened yet. We don’t feel the force of the uncertainties felt by our predecessors. And the process of natural selection has left us, as a species, with a highly developed capacity to identify threats but a less developed one to see opportunity. This helps explain the old saying that when intelligence folk smell roses they look for the funeral.
Spies have been around for as long as there have been opposing groups of mankind. Sun Tzu was counselling, ‘Be subtle! be subtle! and use your spies for every kind of business,’ in The Art of War 2,500 years ago. The threats may change but the need for information about them will never go away. And while that remains the situation, spies will continue to thrive.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My thanks to everyone who has assisted with the preparation of this book, including a couple of sources who need to remain anonymous, and especially to:
Brian J. Robb for many things, especially the introductions and the wise words on the text. It’s my turn to buy the DVDs!
Duncan Proudfoot and Clive Hebard, my editors at Constable & Robinson, for their help in shaping this manuscript and for their patience when real life intervened; and my copy-editor Gabriella Nemeth, for helping me avoid some pitfalls of my own making.
Robert J. Sawyer for the recommendation of the Writers Blocks software which was a great help in plotting out the best way to frame the narrative.
Michael, our Cold War tour guide in Berlin at Easter 2012, for some very interesting insights and tales of the CIA in its early days.
Lee Harris, Amanda Rutter, Lizzie Bennett, Scott Pearson, Jenny Miller, Caitlin Fultz, Patricia Hyde and Adina Mihaela Roman for coming to the rescue when things were looking difficult.
As always, the staff at the Hassocks branch of the West Sussex public library, who provide a ready reminder why the library service needs to be maintained.
My partner Barbara and my daughter Sophie for their love and support; and our terriers, Rani and Rodo, who have finally realized that when I’m sitting at my desk, it doesn’t mean that I’m doing nothing and therefore it’s time to start playing with them!
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