Spies, Lies and Deception at the Imperial War Museum
In April the Group was joined byGill Bennett (1969, History), Senior Associate Fellow of RUSI, former Chief Historian of The Foreign Office and a specialist in the history of secret intelligence, for a tour of the Spies, Lies and Deception exhibition at The Imperial War Museum.
Gill introduced the exhibition, which covered the role of real life spies and military deception from the First World War to the present day, by describing several effective D-Day deceptions the Allies perpetrated to confuse the enemy and maximise the landings’ success.
The Imperial War Museum
We were a large group, and Gill spent much time adding details and answering questions in the various rooms which displayed over 150 objects, including a fountain pen capable of firing a jet of tear gas, a lipstick containing a hidden sub-miniature camera, a 1980s boombox embedded with KGB surveillance equipment, a dummy sniper’s head and a fake tree with look-out points. There were written records too: a 1985 letter from Margaret Thatcher to KGB officer and British spy, Oleg Gordievsky, written after the Soviets had initially denied his family permission to join him, reflected the personal costs of defection.
We are extremely grateful to Gill, whose experience and expertise gave us a marvellous insight into this fascinating world whose future seems assured.