The Liddell Diaries And British Intelligence History

This article discusses the wartime diaries of Guy Liddell of MI5. It argues that they are a crucial source for the study of wartime intelligence history, not only in respect of MI5 but also of other British secret agencies, particularly MI6 and SOE. Written in an accessible style, the diaries cast much new light on personalities, events, discussions and decisions both on operational matters and on questions of high policy, including relations with foreign intelligence services, debate on postwar intelligence priority and organization, and ministerial involvement in intelligence and security issues. In their breadth of coverage and information, their treatment of opinions and personalities, their abundance of detail and their fresh and unguarded prose, they are far more interesting, more accurate and more authoritative than either the various in-house MI5 section histories which have been opened to research in recent years, or the Hinsley Simkins volume of the official history of British intelligence. They are as significant a source for intelligence history as are the Cadogan diaries for the study of British foreign policy between 1939 and 1945. The article also points to inconsistencies in redaction throughout the diaries, and to other questions arising from the appearance of this crucial source.