Secret History of the Five Eyes: The untold story of the shadowy international spy network, through its targets, traitors and spies

The Times best political books of 2022

‘This thought-provoking and informative book suggests that the era of globetrotting lone agents such as James Bond is long gone.’ – Sydney Morning Herald

‘the stories Kerbaj tells reveal … a story of failure – of missing warnings that could have prevented atrocities, of misusing intelligence to start a war’ – Observer

‘Scintillating … full of scoops … by focusing on the human relationships which are the beating heart of the Five Eyes, Kerbaj has made a singular contribution to the intelligence discourse. It’s a service to democracy.’ – The Australian

‘Puts Richard Kerbaj in the front rank of modern authors on espionage. It is, by turns, gripping and shocking and sheds completely new light on the most important intelligence alliance in the world’ – Tim Shipman, author of All Out War

‘Kerbaj … has chronicled the history of the Fives Eyes spy network. His list of interviewees speaks for itself – several former heads of MI5, MI6, GCHQ, the CIA, four former British and Australian prime ministers, and myriad other current and former spooks. But this account is unencumbered by any sense of an agreed or official narrative (the usual price for this level of journalistic access).’ – Gabriel Pogrund, Whitehall Editor, The Sunday Times

‘It is an extraordinary development . . . sets out evidence that the British authorities conspired in a cover-up.’ – The Times

‘Sensational’ – Nigel Nelson, Political Editor, The Mirror

‘An impressively detailed account of a remarkable alliance’ – Jeremy Bowen, The New Statesman

‘Examines decades of intelligence sharing’ – The Telegraph

‘Reopen[s] the debate’ – The Times

‘Explosive’ – The World News

The Secret History of The Five Eyes: The untold story of the international spy network, is a riveting and exclusive narrative of the most powerful and least understood intelligence alliance, which has been steeped in secrecy since its formation in 1956.

Richard Kerbaj, an award-winning investigative journalist and filmmaker, bypasses the usual censorship channels to tell the definitive account of authoritative but unauthorised stories of the Western world’s most powerful but least known intelligence alliance made up of the US, Britain, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. As Kerbaj shows, spy stories are never better than when they are true – and these span from 1930s Nazi spy rings to the most recent developments in Ukraine and China.

Through personal interviews with world leaders – including British Prime Ministers Theresa May and David Cameron – and more than 100 intelligence officials, this book explores the complex personalities who helped shape the Five Eyes. They include a Scotland Yard detective who became a spymaster and inspired the first exchanges between MI5 and the FBI. An American home economics teacher who helped create one of the most effective programmes to counter Soviet espionage. The CIA’s lone officer in Budapest during the Hungarian Revolution. GCHQ’s chief during the Edward Snowden intelligence leak. And the Australian politician turned diplomat whose tip-off to the FBI instigated the inquiry into Russia’s meddling in the US presidential contest between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Richard Kerbaj is able to draw from deep inside the secret corridors of power and his unparalleled access spans all 5 countries. Some of the people he has interviewed include former GCHQ director Sir Iain Lobban, CIA director General David Petraeus, MI5 director-general Eliza Manningham-Buller, NSA director Admiral Mike Rogers, British National Security Advisor Kim Darroch, ASIO chief Mike Burgess, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service’s chief Richard Fadden, and Ciaran Martin, the official who oversaw Britain’s assessments on whether the Chinese telecoms firm, Huawei, should have had a role in the creation of the UK’s 5G network.

This page-turning book will lift the lid on spy stories from across the English-speaking world, question the future of the alliance, and our place within it

Format: Paperback
Pages: 416
Imprint: John Blake
Publication date: 06/07/2023