The State of Secrecy: Spies and the Media in Britain

353 Pages·2020·13.315 MB·English

by  Richard Norton-Taylor

The State of Secrecy
ii
The State of Secrecy
Spies and the Media in Britain
Richard Norton-Taylor
I.B. TAURIS
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
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First published in Great Britain 2020
Copyright © Richard Norton-Taylor, 2020
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‘Let her and falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse
in a free and open encounter?’ – John Milton, Areopagitica
vi
Contents
Author’s note viii
Acknowledgements ix
Preface xi
Prologue xiv
Introduction 1
1 Heroes and hacks 13
2 Poachers and gamekeepers 35
3 Brussels, city of myths and contradictions 69
4 The culture and language of secrecy 91
5 Secrecy obsessed 115
6 History is an official secret 143
7 Spies: Their uses and abuses 163
8 Spies: More uses and abuses 193
9 Provoking terror 225
10 Chilcot redux 255
11 Defending the past 271
12 Defending the future 301
Notes 313
Index 324
Author’s note
Id escribe as the ‘Common Market’ and the European Economic Community
(EEC), and occasionally the ‘European Community’, what later became
the European Union. I also follow common practice in calling the Security
Service, MI5, and the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6.
Acknowledgements
Iw ould like especially to thank Iradj Bagherzade who first suggested I write
an account of more than fifty years of journalism. He steered me through
this book’s journey as it changed shape from a personal memoir to a study of
official secrecy, albeit illustrated and I hope illuminated by personal anecdotes.
I thank, too, Joanna Godfrey formerly of I.B. Tauris, whose patience and
suggestions were crucial, and her colleagues, especially Olivia Dellow and all
those at I.B. Tauris and Bloomsbury who contributed to the publication of
this book.
I owe a big debt to my first Guardian editor, Peter Preston, who set me off
on my career as a journalist in Brussels, and to his successor, Alan Rusbridger,
who showed the world what committed, brave journalism can achieve. I also
have to thank a succession of news editors despite the critical asides I have
directed at them here. Among former colleagues at the Guardian I want to
thank in particular Ian Cobain, Duncan Campbell, Rob Evans, David Gow,
Simon Hattenstone, David Leigh, Ian Mayes, Hella Pick and Ed Vulliamy, for
their comradeship and outstanding journalism.
For years I have been helped and encouraged by Maurice Frankel, director
of the Freedom of Information Campaign, Andrew Smith of the Campaign
Against the Arms Trade (CAAT), the committed staff of the law charity
Reprieve, and in particular Clive Stafford Smith and Cori Crider, by the law
firm Leigh Day and especially Sapna Malik, by Gareth Peirce, the indefatigable
pursuer of abuse by state agencies, Geoffrey Robertson QC, staff at the
National Archives and the National Audit Office responsible for monitoring
the activities of the Ministry of Defence, Tony Bunyan of Statewatch, and by
David Lowry, an encyclopedic source of information about British defence
policy and nuclear weapons.