The importance of this book lies in the fact that it was published, not in what it has to say. Even after the Cold War ended and the government formally admitted what most of us knew all along–that we had a security service, MI5, which under the guise of protecting national security kept an eye on us all–no one dreamed that the head of such an organisation would ever dare write an autobiography.
So let me say early on, that Stella Rimington, deserves our thanks for resisting the bullying of the Cabinet Office and many of her colleagues and associates in Whitehall and pushed on to publication. This is a blow struck for a more open society, hitherto one of the most secret of the western democracies. With luck it could well end in the death of the Official Secrets Act, especially its heavy-handed suppression of any former spy who wants to write about their days in the service.
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