The Sword and the Shield is based on one of the most extraordinary intelligence coups of recent times: a secret archive of top-level KGB documents smuggled out of the Soviet Union which the FBI has described, after close examination, as the "most complete and extensive intelligence ever received from any source." Its presence in the West represents a catastrophic hemorrhage of the KGB's secrets and reveals for the first time the full extent of its worldwide network.Vasili Mitrokhin, a secret dissident who worked in the KGB archive, smuggled out copies of its most highly classified...

The essays in this volume assess the influence of intelligence on the Second World War and open up a number of other important areas for research. Studies of the growth of the imperial intelligence network cast new light on subjects ranging from Canadian surveillance of Vancouver Sikhs to signals intelligence in the Middle East. Studies of Japanese intelligence indicate the significance of Asian intelligence systems as a factor in modern international relations.A number of contributors emphasize the slowness with which governments and high commands learned to assess and use the intelligence...