Misdefending the Realm: How MI5's incompetence enabled Communist Subversion of Britain's Institutions during the Nazi-Soviet Pact

When early in 1940 an important Soviet defector provided hints to British Intelligence about spies within the countrys institutions MI5s report was intercepted by a Soviet agent in the Home Office... She alerted her lover Isaiah Berlin and Berlins friend Guy Burgess whereupon the pair initiated a rapid counter-attack. Burgess contrived a reason for the two of them to visit the Soviet Union which was then an ally of Nazi Germany in order to alert his bosses of the threat and protect the infamous Cambridge Spies.The story of this extraordinary escapade hitherto ignored by the historians lies at the heart of a thorough and scholarly expose of MI5s constitutional inability to resist communist infiltration of Britains corridors of power and its later attempt to cover up its negligence. This book will be of interest to all students of history international relations espionage and civil national and international security.