Volume 33, Number 5 · March 27, 1986
Spooky Business
By David Cannadine
Her Majesty's Secret Service: The Making of the British Intelligence Community
by Christopher Andrew
Elisabeth Sifton Books/Viking, 619 pp., $25.00
The best-known department of the British government is Her Majesty's Secret Service. But it is better known in fiction than in fact, thanks to the popular stories that have established a particular image of it in the public mind, many of them written by former agents. Some, like William Le Queux, John Buchan, and Ian Fleming, have created a world of breathless excitement and daring adventure, in which the patriotic endeavors of a few brave and resourceful heroes change the course of history—invariably to Britain's advantage. Others, such as Somerset Maugham, Graham Greene, and John Le Carré, have evoked a more reflective mood of monotony and disenchantment, which, nevertheless, has its own brand of clandestine romance. Yet it may well be that the open secrets of these books provide the most effective and misleading cover for the real work and identity of the British intelligence community, partly by making it seem more successful than it actually is, and partly by implying that more is generally known about it than is in fact the case.
Review, 3182 words
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