The friends - Nigel West

This book aims to tell in detail of the British Secret Intelligence Service's overseas triumphs and disasters. The book looks at the defection of Grigori Tokaev - the first GRU officer to escape from East Berlin, the sabotage campaign authorized by the Foreign Secretary to stem the flow of Jewish refugees from Europe to Palestine, the secret deals and collapse of a spy ring which led to the ill-fated Suez invasion, the brilliant coup masterminded in Iran to save the West's oil supply and the exfiltration from Moscow of Oleg Gordievsky, SIS's star agent for more than a decade. These events, woven into the background of treachery provided by Kim Philby and George Blake, and the bizzare purges conducted to rid the organization of other suspect moles, combine to make a story which would be of interest to amateur historians and professional intelligence officers alike. The author's previous books include "A Matter of Trust: MI5 1945-72", "MI6: British Secret Intelligence Service Operations 1909-45", "GCHQ: The Secret Wireless War 1900-86" and "Molehunt: The Full Story of The Soviet Spy in MI5".