The Art of Betrayal: The Secret History of MI6: Life and Death in the British Secret Service

by Gordon Corera

Britain’s military had begun to push for Special Operations in the form of propaganda and the spreading of rumours to try and undermine Soviet influence in Austria and fuel anti-Russian sentiment.61

The vogue phrase to describe this was ‘political warfare’. It ranged from propaganda to manipulating commodity prices, from counterfeiting currency to sabotage, from bankrolling émigré front organisations to dropping leaflets from hot-air balloons (some of which, destined for Czechoslovakia, were discovered by Scottish farmers, much to their bemusement).22

MI6 and the CIA have always had two functions – information gathering and covert action. The latter involves engineering outcomes with the hand of government hidden.

‘The ultimate national aim in the secret war is not simply to know; it is to maintain or to expand national power.

If the United States is to survive, long-standing American concepts of “fair play” must be reconsidered