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

Paranoia with respect to Russia raged in the wake of World War II, just as Churchill had foreseen: fear of a "nuclear Pearl Harbor" and the growing challenge of political stability in Europe gripped the Western world. The advent of new and terrifying weapons of war and annihilation-atomic bombs, biological and chemical weapons, and intercontinental missiles-contributed to a pervasive atmosphere of menace in the US, Britain, and all the countries of Western Europe. And in the thick of this cold war, it was the Secret Service and its intelligence operations that took action, that was capable of creating early warning systems and making inroads in the years of the cold war. It was a time of what Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. called "the rise of a religion of secrecy," a time that fostered the clandestine relationships and treachery of such infamous spies as Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Klaus Fuchs, and Kim Philby.

In what one-time British Ambassador Richard Seitz calls "a superlative record of Anglo-American intelligence collection, cooperation, and competition," noted author Richard Aldrich reveals startling new information about the relationship between Britain and the US during the Cold War: the extent of the US and British covert operation successes-notably in Iran and Guatemala-as well as many costly debacles and follies.

Using the formidable mass of material recently declassified by the US, as well as many files released by the British, Aldrich details the "special relationship" of cooperation between the British and the US, as well as the rampant rancor and suspicion that followed public amity and cooperation in the fight against Nazi Germany and Japan. This is a gripping and highly readable history.