The Green Ribbon Books

The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence

Richard J. Aldrich
John Murray (Publishers) Ltd.
2001

The crucial role of intelligence to the Anglo-American special relationship has long been recognised. In this book, historian Richard Aldrich provides a profound new insight into the nature of that relationship in the first two decades of the cold war.

Intelligence liaison has often been portrayed as a polite variation of espionage, and Aldrich shows the extent this was true even between these closest of allies.

At the start of the cold war both states considered covert action to undermine the Eastern bloc. However, their interests diverged after the first Soviet atom bomb tests in 1949.

Defending the Realm: MI5 and the Shayler Affair

Mark Hollingsworth and Nick Fielding
Andre Deutsch
1999

In 1997, MI5 officer David Shayler went public with a series of damning criticisms of the Security Service. With this book, Hollingsworth and Fielding took Shayler's story as the starting point for a survey of the organisation as a whole.

At the time, Shayler's primary grievance was with what he saw as MI5 incompetence, and the two journalists were particularly impressed by his refusal to indulge in wild conspiracy theories, or to reveal details of  ongoing operations' or agents' identities.

His more recent bizarre behaviour is obvious ammunition for his critics, but arguably only enhances the importance of this book as an exposition of his original views.

My Silent War: The Autobiography of a Spy

Kim Philby
1968

The autobiography of the KGB's top spy in MI6.

Harold Adrian Russell Philby was born in 1912, the son of Harry St John Philby, an officer of the Indian Civil Service who was closely involved in the rise of the House of Saud in Arabia.

Philby's lifelong nickname 'Kim' would prove to be singularly appropriate. Like Kipling's hero, he was a key player in the great game being played out between Britain and Russia. The crucial difference was that Philby was playing for the Russian side.

Ths book is own account of his role, written in Moscow after his final defection to the Soviet Union.

MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service

Stephen Dorril
Fourth Estate 2000
Touchstone 2002

A magisterial study of Britain's foreign intelligence service, the SIS, better known as MI6.

Although Dorril covers operations around the world and up to the 1990s, the key focus for more than half the book is on Europe and the early Cold War.

During Word War II, MI6's prestige rested more on its control of the Bletchley Park code-breaking programme than on recruiting agents in Europe, where its thunder was stolen by the rival Special Operations Executive.

MI6 absorbed SOE after the Second World War, acquiring in the process some expertise in political warfare as opposed to intelligence-gathering. One of the most intriguing aspects of this, MI6 involvement in the Gladio stay-behind networks, is touched on but largely left for another volume, which will certainly be very interesting if it appears.

In the Public Interest: A devastating account of the Thatcher Government's involvement in the covert arms trade

Gerald James
Little, Brown and Company
1995

I briefly met Gerald James once at a meeting of MOJO, the group organised by former Birmingham Six member Paddy Hill. It was an incongruous setting in which to come across a former paratrooper and successful city accountant, but James had a fascinating tale to tell, the bones of the story which is told more fully in this book.

As a former member of the Monday Club, and friend of MI6's George Kennedy Young, James was by his own admission part of the Tory clique that brought Thatcher to power, the very group that would bring down his company ten years later. "On the face of it," he writes, "this is the great irony of my story."

Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry

Peter W. Singer
Cornell University Press
2003

A prescient study of the privatisation of warfare, that predates the Iraq War but explores one of the key trends that has shaped that conflict.

Singer uses a number of case studies to highlight the growing range of military services being provided by private companies.

A chapter on South Africa's Executive Outcomes (EO) and its various affiliates illustrates the role of the 'Military Provider Firm', which engages in frontline combat. An intriguing appendix includes a copy of the agreement between EO offshoot Sandline and the government of Papua New Guinea, and a list of the huge array of military equipment involved in the company's abortive plan to suppress the rebellion in Bougainville.

The role of the 'Military Consulting Firm' is illustrated by US company MPRI, which advised the Croatian Army in the run-up to the 1995 'Operation Storm' offensive against the Krajina Serbs.  Another US company, Brown and Roots Services, exemplifies the logistical role played by the 'Military Support Firm.'

As well as providing a comprehensive survey of the privatised military industry, Singer shows that the phenomenon represents a fundamental challenge to established assumptions in a huge range of fields.

This book should be the first port of call for anyone looking for a serious theoretical study of the subject. A ground-breaking piece of scholarship.

Buy this book at the Green Ribbon aStore: UK - US - France - Deutschland - Canada

Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror

Robert Young Pelton
Crown Publishers
2006

Adventure traveller Pelton turned his attention to the growing use of mercenaries by Western governments after running into a team of contractors on the Afghan-Pakistan border in 2003.

The result was this book, which combines firsthand reportage from war-zones across the globe with some very significant investigative journalism about private military companies like Aegis and Blackwater.

Pelton provides the best account yet of how Aegis won its controversial US Government contract in Iraq. He also cover Simon Mann's 'Wonga Coup' attempt in Equatorial Guinea, in a chapter which quotes some interesting sources on the British Government's role.

His on the-ground reporting from Iraq and Afghanistan provides a unique insight into the emerging private military culture. Yet without moralising, he raises profound questions about a phenomenon that seems to be here to stay.

Buy this book at the Green Ribbon aStore: UK - US - France - Deutschland - Canada