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Rating: 
Summary: Superb
Review: A great book and a must for all spies. It probes deep into the establishment and functioning of this organisation. You will not be disappointed if you love books on spying and related activities
Rating:
Summary: brilliant
Review: A most wonderful book.You won't have the chance of being bored even for one second.Every page is a blockbuster.Meticulously researched and -I believe-the first of its kind in depth of analysis.It will surely be the reference book on the subject for years to come.John Le Carre, you are having a heavy contestant in your field.
Rating:
Summary: A must read!
Review: Anyone interested in 20th century world history simply has to read this work. I personally have no interest in 'spycraft' but found (finally!) a truthful and complete accounting of UK/US imperialism and plain thuggery. Believe readers interested in a better understanding of the past and current situtation in the Middle East will, in particular, be fascinated (and disgusted with the decades of Western dastardly deeds and misinformation).
Rating: 
Summary: Great facts... poor conclusions
Review: As others have said more eloquently than I. However, it is worth repeating (or at least speaking up about it) the fact that the conclusions reached by the author are the worst kind of historical reconstruction.The Soviet Union is presented as more of a victim of the west rather than a primary cause of what the author would have you believe they were a victim of. According to the author, the Cold War was the fault of the west, we were the bad guys. As most who have even barely studied history know, things are seldom that black and white. The author poses his theory without ever mentioning all the offenses and atrocities commited by the Soviet Union which gave the west good reason to be deeply concerned. If you have read Venona or any other more balanced works, you will see this book for what it is and take the facts for what they are worth and leave the subtle attempt at indoctrination out of the picture.
Rating:
Summary: The Spy Who Gagged Me.
Review: I love how this book debunks almost everything we ever heard about the people who spy for our respective countries, yet simultaneously corroborates many of the stories we've heard concerning the technologically advanced gadgets at their disposal. Ultimately, it's not the country with the best toys that wins the war, it's the one with the best toy actuators. This story was remarkably similar to an even more fascinating and alarming story that I just read called "Inside Job: Deep Undercover as a Corporate Spy." If you really want to be shocked out of your gourd over a spy story that will or has already deeply effected your life, do yourself a favor and pick up this book...then contact your Congressperson and scream at the top of your lungs, "I'm mad and I'm not gonna take it anymore!
Rating:
Summary: Great facts... poor conclusions
Review: I read Stephen Dorril's account with some dismay. Far from a balanced treatment of MI6's impact on the Cold War, Dorril drops one suggestion after another pointing at the West as instigator of the Cold War. Amazingly, Dorrill treats the presence of Philby, McClean and other Soviet spies in MI6 as normal, as if a diversity of views should take precendence over the destructive effect Philby had on MI6/CIA activity and morale.
This book portrays the Soviets as "victims" of Western treachery or buffoonery, a thesis that is itself a nice work of propaganda.
Nevertheless, Dorril presents events that are factual, albeit framed to suit his goal of painting MI6 as a prime cause of the Cold War. Dorril frequently omits relevant information about similar or related Soviet activity, and selectively quotes protagonists to place them in the worst possible light. He has little to say about Soviet concentration camp atrocities (which spanned two decades) or Russian political intimidation and murder in Eastern Europe after the Second World War -- facts that inconveniently undermine his thesis.
Rating: 
Summary: Meticulously researched, but...
Review: Meticulously researched, but dry as an official communique from the Foreign Office itself. There's a great story within the panoply of names and facts here, but Dorril wastes no time with a striking narrative. An unfortunate loss.
Rating:
Summary: Meticulously researched, but...
Review: Meticulously researched, but dry as an official communique from the Foreign Office itself. There's a great story within the panoply of names and facts here, but Dorril wastes no time with a striking narrative. An unfortunate loss.
Rating: 
Summary: Factoid Pigout
Review: Stephen Dorril's humungous (800+pages) history of the U.K.'s foreign intelligence service has a limited value. But for seekers of factual accuracy, reading this book takes care. I examined this volume mainly for its treatment of one of MI6's earlier Cold War adventures - Valuable: the effort to dump Albania's Enver Hoxha. Dorril's fairly thorough account is littered with errors and misinterpretations, i.e. naming Xhafer Deva, a World War II collaborator with Nazi Germany, as a member of a Free Albania Committee set up in the U.S. Deva never fit with the MI6-CIA affiliated FAC set up in Rome and New York. Dorril links directly episodes which, in actual time, were months or years apart, i.e. describing relations of the FAC and Assembly of Captive European Nations; the CIA set up the latter after the Truman administration's "containment" doctrine was dumped. Lest one think this is nitpicking, remember that all these factoids added togther as errors or accuracies can influence a book's value. If one episode is ridden with mistakes, why would one trust that the author's other episodes are any more reliable? Dorril ends most of his paragraphs with a footnote that usually includes multiple sources for what he writes in the paragraph. Far too many footnotes for this book to be a fun read. It is best used by a serious student of espionage who also has other sources on his desk.
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