Red List

A gripping history of the Security Service and its covert surveillance on British writers and intellectuals in the twentieth century

In the popular imagination MI5, or the Security Service, is known chiefly as the branch of the British state responsible for chasing down those who endanger national security—from Nazi fifth columnists to Soviet spies and today’s domestic extremists. Yet, working from official documents released to the National Archives distinguished historian David Caute discovers that suspicion also fell on those who merely exercised their civil liberties, posing no threat to national security. In reality, this ‘other history’ of the Security Service was dictated not only by the consistent anti-communist and imperial aims of the British state but also by the political prejudices of MI5’s personnel. The guiding notions were “Defence of the Realm” and “subversion.”

Caute exposes the massive state operation to track the activities and affiliations of a range of journalists, academics, scientists, filmmakers, writers, actors and musicians, whom the Security Service classified as a threat to national security.

Among the targets of surveillance are such prominent figures as Arthur Ransome, Paul Robeson, J.B. Priestley, Kingsley Amis, George Orwell, Doris Lessing, Christopher Isherwood, Stephen Spender, Dorothy Hodgkin, Jacob Bronowski, John Berger, Benjamin Britten, Christopher Hill, Eric Hobsbawm, Kingsley Martin, Michael Redgrave, Joan Littlewood, Joseph Losey, Michael Foot and Harriet Harman.

About the Author

David Caute is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Historical Society. His recent books include Isaac and Isaiah, Politics and the Novel during the Cold War, and The Dancer Defects.