Latest batch of MI5 files released

24 Oct 2014 02:52 PM

Recently (24 October 2014) saw the 31st release of Security Service records, containing a total of 157 files.

As with previous releases, the majority of the records are personal files which relate to individuals (KV 2). The rest are list files (KV 6). The records cover a range of subjects and span the First World War, Second World War and post-war periods.

Key files include:

• seven files on British Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm and his activities as a member of the Communist Party
• more on the remarkable wartime story of British fascist sympathisers and 'Fifth Columnists' exposed by an MI5 agent posing as a representative of the Gestapo 
• the colourful activities of a Spanish agent working in London on behalf of German intelligence during the Second World War
• three files on the communist sympathiser Robert Oppenheimer who had worked on the Manhattan Project to build an atomic bomb
• three files on an American husband and wife arrested and jailed in 1957 for their role in a New York Soviet spy ring.

Discover more highlights from these files and listen to an introduction to the files by Professor Christopher Andrew.