Espionage and Intelligence-Then and Now

There’s some great books on the Stasi too, and their surveillance which was incredibly extensive (I think at least 1% of the population were Stasi informers).

I can recommend these three:

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You are in Australia @smithcorp , correct?

Yep

My favourite Int story was the guy from Brixmis stopped on a bridge in East Germany having lunch. His primary task was to find out the size of the main gun on the new BMP1. A train went under him loaded with them, recognisable despite the tarpaulins. He jumped onto the train and rammed his half eaten apple into the barrel. That afternoon the Apple was flown to UK giving a perfect image of the weapons diameter. The operator got a shiny medal for this. Believed to be the only time the UK classified an apple under the Official Secrets Act. For those not familiar Brixmis roamed East Germany openly and in uniform. US and France also had small detachments doing the same. Soxmis operated in W Germany. UK never lost an operator though several were badly beaten up. The EBerlin Brixmis Chipmunk acquired a few bullet holes. The US had an operator killed. The UK unit is now declassified and can be read about in published books.

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Brixmis was the British liaison mission to the Soviet Commander in Chief. Established in 1945 and only disbanded when the Soviets pulled out

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Goes to show it wasn’t all fun and games but deathly serious business. Thank you for doing your part in keeping us safe. While I am a socialist at heart, I can’t say I care much for the kind that the soviets were trying to export, so thank you for having kept that from happening!

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I emphasise I never served in Brixmis. I operated within an area of the UK in a counter terror role

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