MI6 : fifty years of special operations

Epitomised in the public imagination by James Bond, MI6's svelte and glamorous image has been peeled away by Dorril's searching investigations to reveal a less savoury truth.

Here is the story of MI6's recruitment operation after WW2 of former Nazis; anticommunist guerrilla campaigns in the Ukraine and the Baltic States; Operation Stalin which led to mass arrests and executions ordered by Stalin; the European terrorist network 'Gladio'; tunnels built in Vienna and Berlin known as operation 'Gold and Silver' ;and many other little-known operations.

The dealings of George Blake, Oleg Penkowsky, Kim Philby and Maurice Oldfield, among others, are also fully explained, as are the many tensions that have existed and to some extent still exist between MI6 and its sister intelligence organisations especially in contentious territories such as Ireland.

Post Cold War, Dorril discusses what role, if any, MI6 will have in the future.