The Secret Corps: A Tale of

by Ferdinand Tuohy

Excerpt from The Secret A Tale of "Intelligence" On All Fronts

Intelligence officers, possibly the best judges in the matter, will appreciate that in order faithfully to subscribe to such test it has been necessary to omit almost as much about Intelligence work as is here set down in type.

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305 pages, Hardcover

First published July 18, 2009

Reviews

[Ebook Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book, the e-book version can be found at:
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-...

[Ted · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great find, a rollicking intelligence memoir of the First World War, ranging widely across Europe and touching on the Palestine Campaign just a bit. Those who aren't familiar with Military Intelligence are unlikely to enjoy it as much as I did, but this one has it all - HUMINT, IMINT, SIGINT, PSYOP, BDA, D&D, and, of course, intelligence analysis - all retold in jovial Brit fashion. Every tale is a mini-case study, with its effects and influences on the war directly told, implied, or sometimes just hinted at with a wink and a nudge. I enjoyed a few little things in particular, like the challenges of recording early SIGINT intercepts on phonograph cylinders and of PSYOP loudspeaker ops using gramophones. In a bit of self-contradiction, early in the book he rants for about two pages about how and why women are unsuitable for intelligence work, then proceeds to interject little vignettes throughout the book that demonstrate how they proved their value. In the section on interrogation, he covers in concise detail the cage in a major conflict, prisoner screening, and tactical interrogation - describing the need for detailed OB knowledge for effective interrogation and the how and why of breaking for spot reports along the way, again hinting at battles easily referenced. When he talks about interrogation methods for more in-depth technical interrogations, it is reflective of both Scharff's WWII era "The Interrogator" and Herrington's Vietnam memoir "Silence was a Weapon." Near the end, a bit of bitterness breaks through when he recounts how the British General Staff was hidebound in their ways and refused to recognize in the first few years of the war how much early SIGINT and IMINT was compromising their positions and plans - with the resulting massive loss of life. He states that intelligence advice and recommendations on deception against those collection methods were rejected again and again by senior staff officers, while the Germans exploited such deception much earlier than the allies. All in all, I really enjoyed this one and highly recommend it to anyone with a Military Intelligence background.