Tuesday 27th October 2009, 5.00pm
Arts Lecture Theatre, New Arts Faculty Building


Intelligence in a Hostile Environment: how it was done in the First World War

Seminar by
Dr Janet Morgan, CBE, (Lady Balfour of Burleigh)

Bio

Janet Morgan’s books include the four-volume edition of Richard Crossman’s Diaries of a Cabinet Minister and Backbench Diaries, authorised biographies of Edwina Mountbatten and Agatha Christie, books about technology, constitutional reform, and technology, and The Secrets of rue St Roch, an account of an allied espionage operation in World War 1. She is a director of various public companies and has had a number of government appointments, currently as chairman of the Nuclear Liabilities Fund and of the Nuclear Liabilities Financing Assurance Board.

Abstract

The Secrets of rue St Roch is the true story, based on archive and other research of an First World War allied espionage operation behind enemy lines, on the Western Front. Intelligence professionals have described it as is the only such account of how such an operation is conceived, managed and brought to a conclusion. Although the events described took place nearly a hundred years ago, the operation is regarded as a model of good practice for intelligence-gathering and assessment today.