12 - Whitehall, Intelligence and Official History: Editing SOE in France

Summary

In the historiography of British intelligence, the publication of SOE in France – an officially sponsored account of the activities of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War – stands out as a significant moment. While the existence of the organisation and its activities already constituted something of an open secret – a consequence of numerous memoirs and investigative works published since its dissolution in 1946 – SOE in France was an account of part of the wartime secret world, which was published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office: an official history, based on access to SOE's own records – material that would not begin to make its way into the public domain for a further thirty years. Its publication proved controversial; legal action from disgruntled ex-agents who objected to their treatment in the book soon followed, resulting in the speedy appearance of an amended second impression, while work began on a more extensively amended second edition. Chronicled in the national press – which had already shown interest in the book – the controversy was not only public, but costly. In July 1969, it was recorded that the book had resulted in lawsuits which saw £10,000 paid out in damages and £5,613 in associated costs, despite the fact that the manuscript had spent almost three years going through an extensive editorial process.