The Guy Liddell Diaries, Vols. 1 & 2
Edited by Nigel West (2005)
1. Britain entered World War II woefully unprepared. Its military was underpowered, and its laws were both antiquated and inadequate to deal with the thousands of domestic fascists, scores of whom were intent on betraying their country to Germany. The Security Service, tasked with defusing the very real threat of British Nazi supporters, spies and saboteurs, was hobbled by a lack of resources and the hostility of its political masters in Whitehall. Guy Liddell, one of MI5’s most senior officers, recorded its attempts to identify and contain these British traitors. His diaries are waspish, remarkably frank and often despairing of the government’s stubborn refusal to recognize the danger. “There seemed to be a complete failure to realize the power of the totalitarian state and the energy with which the Germans were fighting a total war,” he wrote during the febrile months in which invasion seemed imminent and inevitable.
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