0:02

You're listening to the Cyber Wire Network,

0:04

powered by N2K. This

0:12

episode is brought to you by

0:14

Palo Alto Networks, the leader in

0:16

cybersecurity. As AI-driven attacks

0:18

increase, organizations can't afford to

0:20

have network security that's stuck

0:22

in the past. Discover

0:25

how Palo Alto Networks can

0:27

help you predict what's coming

0:29

and proactively secure against it

0:32

with a zero-trust, AI-powered network

0:34

security platform built to secure

0:36

whatever, whenever, wherever. To

0:39

learn more, visit

0:41

paloaltonetworks.com/ networksecurityplatform.

0:55

Welcome to Spycast, the official podcast

0:58

of the International Spy Museum. I'm

1:01

Erin Dietschek, your host, Dr. Andrew Hammond's

1:03

content partner. Each week

1:05

we explore some aspect of the past,

1:07

present or future of intelligence and espionage.

1:10

Please consider leaving us a five-star review on

1:12

Apple Podcasts if you enjoy the show. Coming

1:15

up next on Spycast. So

1:18

this is a fascinating period

1:20

when the worlds of intelligence

1:22

and information and media are

1:25

coming together. And

1:28

there is not only unprecedented interest in

1:30

Charles and Diana, but also kind of

1:32

a moment when the gloves come off,

1:34

when the press is

1:36

becoming less respectful, more intrusive.

1:38

And this presents

1:41

a whole range of problems,

1:43

not least security problems

1:47

for the royal family. This

1:56

week, our guests are Richard Aldrich

1:58

and Roy Cormack. of the

2:01

new book Crown, Cloak, and Dagger,

2:03

the British monarchy and secret intelligence

2:05

from Victoria to Elizabeth II. Richard

2:08

is a professor of international security

2:10

at the University of Warwick and Rory

2:12

is a professor of international relations

2:14

at the University of Nottingham and both

2:16

are former colleagues of Andrew. Now

2:19

we've learned time and time again here on

2:21

Spycast that spies are secretive but this week

2:24

we take it one step further looking at

2:26

spies in the royal family, secrets

2:28

within secrets. In

2:30

this episode the trio discuss Prince

2:33

William's internship with British intelligence, how

2:35

Elizabeth II knew perhaps more secrets

2:38

than anyone else in history, King

2:40

Charles' love of intelligence, Queen

2:43

Victoria as a spymaster, and

2:45

MI5, MI6 and the

2:48

Diana conspiracies. The

2:50

original podcast on intelligence since 2006, we are

2:54

Spycast. Now sit back,

2:56

relax and enjoy the show. I'm

3:02

really looking forward to speaking to both of you guys

3:04

about your book and first off

3:06

congratulations on the book and congratulations

3:08

on getting such a superb and

3:10

conium on the back at the

3:12

top. We aim for

3:14

the highest people, they weren't about to go to

3:16

the hospital,

3:18

we got you instead. I have to

3:20

say we really love doing the book,

3:23

it was great fun and actually

3:31

I think for both

3:34

of us a unique experience because

3:36

although women are playing

3:39

a bigger part in espionage now

3:41

it's very very rare to get

3:43

a chance to talk about women at

3:45

the top, women in charge in

3:49

the sort of espionage space. And

3:51

this book is, a huge amount of

3:53

it is about Victoria and Elizabeth II

3:55

and you

3:58

know they were just The Best

4:00

Buy Chiefs. I'm a

4:02

wonder whether we'll ever, in our entire

4:05

careers, get another chance. To. Talk

4:07

about to very impressive.

4:11

Innovate is females by cheese. But.

4:14

I'm a thing that struck me and said

4:16

to talk about yeah we will We have

4:18

got a chance said and Barbosa got receive

4:20

the other unique pod experience with the secrecy

4:23

of it's. An. Army

4:25

Irish and I are trying to story

4:27

ends in the and the Secret world

4:30

and specializing in espionage and intelligence. Obviously

4:32

on a sudden they were. We were

4:34

researching. The. Royal Family which is out

4:36

of our comfort zones as oh my goodness

4:38

this thing the Cia As he decided he

4:40

said m I six a secret says us

4:42

because I'm see these guys take it's and

4:44

I fall when you levels It was wonderful

4:47

was rising about any women the top of

4:49

themselves, the structures that my god it was

4:51

difficult finding out about. I'm. So

4:54

sorry. Pulsar Wheels within Wheels Secrets

4:56

with in sequence this is marvelous

4:58

moments. When. The Archivist

5:00

acts Windsor Castle disposed to

5:03

know all the secrets. Slowly.

5:05

Discovers the other people have been so secrets

5:07

the he doesn't know. And. So

5:09

you never quite know who's

5:12

on the inside track. Who's.

5:14

Got the most secret secrets.

5:16

Just for a Lesnar the haven't read

5:19

the book, had to do research us.

5:21

Where did you get the material you

5:23

mentioned ones are like where does the

5:25

stuff Presided as an archive private papers

5:27

that after bray been a wonder, how

5:29

did you get access to them? It's

5:31

it could have bought Alzheimer's Know is

5:33

not the brightest as a lock on

5:36

the surface of a man. it's a

5:38

barren wasteland of royal stuff. I remember.

5:40

Finding a file on the Queen's audience

5:43

with the prime minister which is the

5:45

of the most sauce meeting in the

5:47

land that net minutes later I'm still

5:49

feeling When in the Archive undefined you

5:51

finally find something of a surge of

5:53

excitement in Vienna Metal Oxide Dance but

5:56

not historians of Yahoo married off this

5:58

may I I've been uploaded. The offer

6:00

alleyways. who pays the piper? Between

6:02

the greens private sector my melons

6:04

private secretary notice said was service

6:06

will have modesty be okay if

6:09

the parliament has said sun's up

6:11

entails and attacks or something rather

6:13

not have such as it's not

6:15

going to that. I was the

6:17

reach it was which was our

6:19

intrepid omni. Biography. Spices Really

6:21

rich, but age is going through. Books

6:24

second hand, bookshop, pouring foreigners I'll sort

6:26

of infinite yes, I think either. He.

6:29

The. Little fragments everywhere. It's

6:31

that's processes putting together endless

6:33

bread crumbs and finally reassembling

6:35

the lights on in the

6:38

strangest places obviously. Neglected.

6:40

Prize of papers but my favorite

6:43

was the National Railway Museum. He

6:45

messed around museums. they had a

6:47

record of every train journey minute

6:50

by minute, day by day by

6:52

the royal family and as we

6:54

tried to reconstruct the kings more

6:57

time rolling deception. Weeks.

6:59

Units he inspected and how he

7:01

gave credence to typically American deception

7:04

formations. This was the key. We

7:06

could see minute by minute what

7:08

he was doing, so he really

7:11

took his to the very kind

7:13

of limits. Of or ingenuity

7:15

to research the schools. Were.

7:18

Recently turned the corner historically a

7:20

west Prince Charles becoming King Charles

7:22

so based on your research but

7:24

but the on boarding process be

7:26

like for Charles says he becomes

7:28

the king late says he get

7:30

an audience was the heads of

7:32

S I S and add the

7:34

security service s the is has

7:37

already been read until one of

7:39

the stuff as the Prince of

7:41

Wales are as the Tang and

7:43

Waiting O C B and thought

7:45

It'd and thus World of Intelligence

7:47

the British. Royals of intersected was a

7:49

Zulia in the But. Yes

7:51

Whoop! The. Current King. Is

7:54

already read into this stuff

7:56

because fool. For. some years

7:59

if you do something really amazing

8:01

in the British Intelligence Community, you

8:03

get a special secret award. Prince

8:06

Charles for years would meet intelligence

8:08

officers from the British community and

8:11

give them awards for doing something

8:13

spectacularly brave or successful. And

8:18

the current members of the

8:20

Royal Family actually work as

8:22

interns in the

8:24

Intelligence Community, partly to

8:27

ensure they're ready for their roles,

8:29

but it's also a moral boost

8:31

to go and have one

8:33

of the princes go and work at GCHQ,

8:36

MI5, MI6. So

8:38

they know a lot about this stuff

8:40

before they already step up. What's

8:44

the name of that award? So the CIA's

8:47

highest award is the Distinguished Intelligence Cross? Like,

8:49

do we know what this award is called

8:51

that he was giving out or is that

8:53

classified? It's classified, it's still top secret. But

8:56

what we love is we can see that

8:59

Charles is passionate

9:01

about intelligence, goes back for decades.

9:03

There's a wonderful moment when he's

9:05

just met Princess Diana, years

9:08

and years ago, and going

9:10

off to Scotland, trying

9:13

to get away from the press, the

9:15

press, the paparazzi are stalking them, trying

9:17

to get a long range shot of

9:19

Charles and Di having a crafty snog

9:21

in the heather. They zoom

9:23

in on Charles, Princess Di is

9:25

not there. She's not

9:27

there. What they get is just

9:30

Charles and he's reading a book and

9:32

he's reading R.V. Jones' most secret walk.

9:35

He's reading one of the top books on

9:37

wartime scientific intelligence, all

9:40

that way back. So this

9:42

just shows that Charles is an

9:44

absolute dyed in the wall spy

9:47

fanatic. So for

9:49

all we know, he could be giving out

9:52

pots of rhubarb jam. We don't actually know

9:54

what that is. It's

9:57

probably a blenched pot, certainly. Yeah.

10:00

Okay. I

10:04

guess what I'm trying to get at is, so

10:06

we've got Charles, he's been bloodied

10:09

in intelligence, but is there

10:11

some threshold that he would have crossed

10:13

in becoming the king, the

10:15

sovereign? Is there some new layer that

10:17

he would be read into? Here's George

10:20

Smiley, but now he's control. Is

10:22

there some level of new secrets

10:24

that he gets? Are the responsibilities different

10:27

for him or are the people that

10:29

he meets regularly different? What

10:31

would he be doing now on a weekly,

10:33

monthly basis with regards to intelligence? He'll

10:36

get access to all the top

10:38

stuff. He'll get the copy number

10:40

one of the Joint Intelligence Committee

10:43

weekly report, for example, and all

10:46

the major intelligence assessments. He'll get

10:48

regular briefings and updates from C,

10:50

the chief of MI6. How

10:53

that differs from his role as Prince,

10:56

it's difficult to know. We obviously don't

10:58

know what he received as Prince. What

11:00

we do know is that it varied

11:03

historically, depending on the nature

11:05

of the Prince of Wales and the

11:07

trustworthiness of the Prince of Wales, which

11:09

I'm sure we'll come on to later.

11:12

Some Prince of Wales were

11:15

given stuff at a fairly

11:17

early age and inducted into

11:20

secrets. Princess Elizabeth, as she

11:22

then was, was reasonably

11:24

well-trusted and she was getting access to material

11:27

in a way that, say,

11:30

Queen Victoria's son, Edward VII, wasn't because

11:34

he wasn't particularly trustworthy and he was

11:36

frozen out. So it's kind of known

11:38

formal process, as far as we can

11:40

tell, and it depends on the personality,

11:43

trustworthiness and frankly, black male-ability. That's

11:45

a word of the editor of

11:47

the program. What

11:52

we can see is, down the years,

11:54

for decades, hundreds of years, what

11:56

monarchs have loved is

11:59

getting top-seated. secret scandal

12:01

on other monarchs. So yes, there's

12:04

these JIC papers, there's the most

12:06

classified stuff. But there's also royal

12:08

reports on the misdoings

12:11

of the cousin of the King of

12:13

Bulgaria and all this sort of stuff.

12:16

And that's what the royal family really love

12:18

actually. For

12:20

King Charles and for the Queen Elizabeth

12:22

II, you're basically saying that they get

12:24

access to everything. It's just an open

12:26

door. If they want to see it,

12:28

then they see it. Wow.

12:33

That's what really struck me as I

12:35

was writing this book with

12:37

Richard. What struck me the most

12:39

was how much access the Queen Elizabeth II

12:41

had, how much she knew. I don't

12:44

think it's an exaggeration to say that

12:46

she probably knew more

12:49

state secrets than any human being who

12:51

has ever walked the history of the

12:53

Earth because she had

12:56

access to everything for 70 odd

12:59

years. And we're not just talking about all

13:02

sorts of intelligence assessments. We're talking, as Richard

13:04

said, code words, raw

13:08

material that the chief of

13:10

MI6 would brief her and deliver

13:14

notes in his signature of green handwriting.

13:16

This is the most secretive

13:18

stuff in the country. She was

13:21

uncovered and she loved it. She

13:23

was amazingly brief. I remember reading

13:25

interviews with American diplomats who were

13:27

posted in London and they would

13:30

go for their dinner with

13:32

the palace and meet the Queen. And

13:34

they were always so impressed at how

13:36

she knew everything. They thought she was

13:39

the best-breached person in the whole of

13:41

London. Because

13:43

the intelligence supported their daily

13:45

role. So the

13:47

Queen, the current King, are heads

13:49

of state and they're meeting the heads

13:52

of state of countries, which are frankly

13:54

not democracies. And So

13:56

they're meeting with policymakers. These are

13:58

really important diplomatic meetings. And

14:00

a doing the short term briefing several

14:03

times a day on the people there

14:05

were about to meet. And. Everybody

14:07

remarks on this story seen

14:09

memory which they have to

14:11

develop. So. These people

14:13

who have been a century

14:16

in service for. You.

14:18

Know call for half a century.

14:21

And then knowledge of. The.

14:23

People that they're. Interacting.

14:26

With and their Secrets is

14:28

is probably unparalleled actually. Wow.

14:32

So Anna, another way to think about

14:34

the just as successful as she's She's

14:36

basically been briefed by every ahead of

14:38

Mc Sex going back to Sir Menzies

14:40

His which is kind of crazy me

14:43

think about her. I see

14:45

how you know things like soon

14:47

as for example see have that

14:49

the Top Secret yeah inside track

14:51

on really son says ons controversial

14:53

an influential. Decisions. Like the

14:56

inviting says and fifty six and then

14:58

she becomes a library of state secrets

15:00

and experience and see to man and

15:02

the years and decades to come. I

15:05

do have a constitutional Gc of

15:07

famously raising eyebrows a Prime minister

15:09

and and same are you sure

15:12

that's why his prime minister specifically.of

15:14

that case of experience and knowledge

15:16

and secrets to help her raise

15:18

fast some that.famous eyebrow. It's.

15:21

A think one of the things that

15:23

I enjoyed about your big was it

15:25

makes you think about the royal family,

15:27

Anna and a different way. All those

15:30

being like the queen are the things

15:32

and in like a relatively boring job

15:34

but no haven't Briefings with the head

15:36

of am I Sex or a Glass

15:38

of the Banana Copley Corgis by your

15:40

say, the I slid doesn't send off.

15:42

Bought by Sonic Bomb, been announced as

15:44

a political agenda suffer under a thousand

15:46

or about his successor successor a cast

15:49

as it has, it's damn side of.

15:51

The Queen is obviously popular

15:53

and is imbued. Ties is

15:55

also very popular around the

15:57

world's. i'm not

15:59

responsible because that means that

16:02

that interacts with her security procedures.

16:04

She doesn't think that anybody is

16:06

going to try and attack her

16:08

or assassinate her. But her biggest

16:11

problem is the people she's going to

16:13

be standing next to when

16:16

she visits countries overseas. So

16:18

although she's not in necessarily

16:20

in personal danger herself from

16:23

an attacker, what

16:25

happens if they attack the person who she's...

16:28

And what happens if someone attacks

16:30

a visiting dignitary? Typically the

16:32

Shah in the 1970s was

16:34

someone that almost every self-respecting

16:36

terrorist group wanted to assassinate.

16:39

And the Queen had to ride to Ascot

16:41

in an open-topped carriage. And

16:43

everybody was just saying, well, how many grenades?

16:46

How many RPGs? How many rocket launchers are

16:48

going to be fired at the Royal carriage

16:50

all the way across London?

16:53

So actually, yes, it's fun, but

16:56

it's also fraught with danger.

16:59

And one of the reasons the royals love

17:01

their intelligence services is

17:03

that they help to keep them alive. Richard

17:16

just noted that royals have a particular

17:18

fondness for their intelligence services due to

17:20

their keen ability to keep them alive

17:22

and well. And I would probably

17:24

think the same if there were constant threats on

17:26

my life and I managed to thwart them all.

17:29

So let's take a few moments to

17:31

look at the royals' relationship with assassinations.

17:37

Despite numerous attempts and many threats,

17:39

the last monarch of the British

17:41

crown to be assassinated rather than

17:43

executed was James I, King of

17:45

Scotland, in 1437. James'

17:49

uncle, Walter Stewart, conspired with around 30

17:51

of his supporters to kill King James

17:53

and take the throne for himself. James

17:56

and his wife had been staying at the

17:58

Royal apartments in Blackfyre's Mountaineau. During her

18:00

scotland for a couple of minutes.

18:03

when one night in February, James

18:05

personal Chamberlain let the conspirators into

18:07

the priory, James and his wife

18:09

suddenly found themselves trapped in their

18:11

room. The locks on the doors

18:13

had been broken and the only

18:15

thing standing between James and certain

18:17

death for the Queen's ladies guarding

18:19

the Do. Using

18:21

a pair of iron tongs, James managed

18:24

to peel back a floorboard in crawled

18:26

through a civil tongue, a sewer tunnel

18:28

that just days before the King had

18:30

ordered to be seal up with no

18:32

exit inside James head until he was

18:35

eventually sound and murdered. With.

18:37

Very little support for the conspiracy. All

18:39

of the individuals who worked with was

18:41

her stewart's were eventually tortured and executed.

18:44

James's. Six year old son but then

18:46

assume the throne of Scotland. And

18:49

was only one assassination in the

18:51

past six hundred years. Clearly the services

18:53

that protect the crowd or doing something

18:55

ring. And if you happen

18:57

to be in person are looking for appliance.

19:00

The sight of this assassination is now. lovely

19:02

pub named after King James Hansen. Will

19:05

pick up with more about assassinations.

19:07

Looking for more global perspective the

19:09

next interlude. It

19:25

is a bit. Of that have. Passed

19:33

on. Cybercrimes

19:36

on the was excluded. By

19:39

close disrupt cybercrime by telling you

19:41

what criminals know about the business

19:43

on just customers so they can

19:45

pick. Spiteful

19:47

are constantly researchers and analyzes

19:50

new data from the criminal

19:52

underground including credentials, cookies, and

19:55

personally identifying information. Size them

19:57

from my we are infected.

20:00

and data breaches. At

20:02

SpyCloud you now have access to

20:05

this data so that you can

20:07

take preventative measures to defend your

20:09

business against ransomware, account takeover and

20:11

hard to detect online fraud. Visit

20:15

spycloud.com/cyberwire to act

20:18

on what criminals know about your

20:20

business and put an end to

20:22

cybercrime that affects your bottom line

20:24

and brand reputation. That's

20:27

spycloud.com/cyberwire and

20:29

we thank SpyCloud for sponsoring our show.

20:45

The Johns Hopkins University Information Security

20:47

Institute is currently seeking qualified

20:49

applicants for its innovative Master

20:51

of Science and Security Informatics

20:53

degree program. Study

20:55

alongside world-class interdisciplinary experts

20:58

and gain unparalleled educational

21:00

research and professional experience

21:02

in information security and

21:05

assurance. Interested

21:07

US citizens should consider the

21:09

National Science Foundation's CyberCorps Scholarship

21:11

for Service program which covers

21:13

tuition and a $6,000 annual

21:15

professional development

21:17

allowance as well as providing a $37,000

21:20

annual stipend. Apply

21:24

for the scholarship and the

21:26

fall semester by March 1st

21:29

and learn more at cs.ja2.edu/mssi.

21:42

Just going back to Rory's point about the

21:44

Queen knowing more secrets than any

21:46

human being has ever lived, I mean that's

21:49

a fascinating point that you make in the book

21:51

as well because her reign was so long and

21:54

it also coincided with the rise of

21:57

systematized professional intelligence in the UK.

22:00

just by definition and giving her a

22:02

level of access over

22:05

that period of time. That's an astonishing number of secrets.

22:07

Yeah, I mean, it's a bold claim when we come

22:09

here and say, she

22:12

knows it's more a secret than anyone's

22:14

ever lived. But I genuinely think it's

22:16

true. I mean, she was on the

22:18

frame for 70 odd years. She had

22:20

high level briefings for all that time.

22:22

There was one really interesting point where

22:24

that level of knowledge actually differed from

22:26

the Prime Minister. And

22:28

it creates this slight constitutional

22:31

conundrum because she at this

22:33

point knew more than the

22:35

Prime Minister about secret intelligence

22:37

matters. And it was 1964

22:40

when Anthony Blunt, the Queen's

22:43

art historian, essentially to the palace, confessed

22:47

to being famously a Soviet

22:49

agent. And the

22:52

Queen was told and the

22:54

Prime Minister was not told. And I'd love to

22:56

be a fly on the wall in our

22:58

weekly Tuesday afternoon chat as they're

23:00

talking about security and things that have

23:02

come up and world affairs. And

23:05

she knows that this guy, at

23:07

the heart of the British establishment,

23:09

has just confessed to being a

23:12

Soviet agent. And she agrees to

23:14

keep him in place so as

23:16

not to alert Soviet intelligence and

23:18

blow potential counterintelligence investigations. She

23:20

plays long, she keeps in place. But

23:23

the Prime Minister, it seems, did

23:25

not know. And I'd love to know

23:27

what the dynamics were like in that particular meeting.

23:29

They're friends as well. I mean, I don't think she was

23:31

the Prime Minister. A kind of

23:33

long forgotten British Prime Minister. But some

23:35

very blue-blooded aristocratic friends of the Queen.

23:38

But she knew and he didn't, which creates all

23:40

sorts of interesting constitutional problems.

23:45

That's fascinating right there, right? The Queen

23:47

knew who the fourth man was and

23:49

the Prime Minister's in the dark. Wow.

23:52

So I think now it could be quite

23:54

interesting to jump back to Queen Victoria. We've

23:56

actually done a couple of podcasts on Elizabeth

23:58

the First. than Francis Wawingham. So I'm just

24:01

going to leave that aside so that we

24:03

can go into more depth in a couple

24:05

of other topics. So let's go back to

24:07

Victoria because you make the point in the

24:10

book that really the

24:12

assassination attempts against her were really

24:14

the seeds that led to the

24:16

birth of British intelligence. Could you

24:19

just tell us a little bit

24:21

more about that? She

24:24

was the most fascinating

24:26

woman, leader, monarch. She

24:28

was just amazing

24:31

and I came to this not

24:33

knowing anything about her. She was supposed to feature in about

24:35

two chapters in the book and she ends up being

24:38

I think four because

24:40

she just loved intelligence. She

24:43

was such an avid consumer

24:45

and an obsessive. From an

24:48

early age she was taught

24:50

in deception techniques and how

24:53

to evade counterintelligence. She

24:56

was an intelligence analyst.

24:59

She would sit at her desk in

25:01

Windsor Castle alongside the prime minister and

25:03

the two of them would be poring

25:05

over the latest human intelligence reports and

25:08

she would be helping him interpret them

25:10

and say what they mean because they

25:12

were often about her friends and relatives

25:14

and she knew the dynamics about stuff

25:17

better than the prime

25:20

minister. She had her own network

25:22

of agents and spies across the

25:25

European royal houses and

25:27

sometimes she used that to support British

25:29

foreign policy. Sometimes let's be honest she

25:31

used that to outmaneuver and manipulate British

25:34

foreign policy. So she was obsessive but

25:36

when it came to the assassination attempts

25:39

of which there were about nine or

25:41

so she shifts

25:43

from becoming a intelligence

25:45

analyst consumer, come gatherer, to

25:48

becoming a kind of ballistics

25:50

expert. One of the first

25:52

ones was there was

25:54

an attempt to shoot her and

25:57

she insisted on being shown the bullet

25:59

hole in the wall where it missed

26:01

her head and she wanted to see how close

26:03

it had come. She dragged the home secretary off.

26:06

She wanted regular updates on the interrogation of all

26:08

these things. My favorite

26:10

story of the assassination

26:12

attempts was when

26:15

Xi'alba were out on about

26:17

one of their walks and

26:21

someone stepped forward and tried to shoot

26:23

them and fortunately misses, but he escapes.

26:26

The next day, the queen, talking

26:28

about bravery of monarchs, decides

26:30

to use herself as bait with Albert. She

26:32

sends her ladies away to get back into

26:35

the castle, which is far too dangerous for

26:37

you. She and Albert

26:39

go out and retrace their

26:41

footsteps in the hope that

26:43

this assassin would step out again and

26:46

try for a second time. This time,

26:49

the police had planted all

26:51

sorts of undercover officers, disguised

26:54

as trees and whatnot, to

26:56

try and catch

26:59

the assassin. So

27:03

it goes and they retrace their steps

27:05

and sure enough, the assassin steps out

27:07

from behind another tree and there's this

27:09

wonderful moment where the undercover officer forgets

27:11

what he's actually supposed to be doing

27:13

and he stands forward to salute their

27:16

royal majesty as they're walking past because

27:19

he has no intelligence training, no

27:21

undercover training. His patriotism overtakes him

27:23

and he salutes the royal majesty

27:27

and the assassin tries to kill

27:29

them again. Unfortunately, again, this time

27:31

it's apprehended. There's a botched

27:33

attempt like that with terribly

27:36

amateurish detective work, which

27:38

helped to, as you say, spur

27:40

the creation of special bans and

27:42

undercover policing. So tell

27:45

us a lot more about that. So the

27:47

special branch undercover policing, and then

27:49

eventually we get to the

27:52

intelligence bureau MI5. Yes. So something

27:54

that I think intelligence historians haven't

27:57

realized that the attempts to assassinate

27:59

the British royal family. But.

28:01

Also, rule families across Europe or

28:04

a very major driver in terms

28:06

of the growth of professional intelligence

28:08

services the the British Royal Family

28:11

Victoria Albert, an incredibly brave. Albert

28:14

actually sit with them attack so often

28:17

the Albert actually commission's a special umbrella

28:19

made of chain mails to defense as

28:21

the queen is bit heavy just as

28:24

easy very often. But but the disease

28:26

and did is a serious point. Hes.

28:29

You. Know did the British royal

28:31

family survive? Partly because they're attacked

28:33

by. Nicely. Eccentrics

28:35

who are mentally disturbed across

28:37

Europe. It's also an A

28:39

case and. Royals.

28:42

Including relatives of victoria adoring

28:44

like flies. Over a

28:46

period of about fifty years and this

28:48

is a big driver in terms of

28:51

the creation and the professionalization of intelligence.

28:54

I wish I had the umbrella when all of them

28:56

birmingham. Could. Have been suppressed

28:59

on the surface and a sort

29:01

of a me that success thus

29:03

another financing that yeah lane and

29:05

the book ends What people have

29:07

them for gather around the same

29:09

as as up a pine european

29:11

network own blood relations the as

29:13

grafted on top of the the

29:15

rise of nationalism with and various

29:17

countries so tells us about more

29:20

that are so as he's got

29:22

relatives and will get in Denmark,

29:24

Greece, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Romania, Russia

29:26

and spin I mean us. Beset

29:28

with a full year of saud

29:30

Zero what they're owed trading secret

29:32

service or you know, gossiping about

29:34

each other that involves the secret

29:36

sam helplessness on the standards, but

29:38

more about how that sort of

29:41

Royal Intelligence network songs and. We'll.

29:43

See what the head outside of this

29:45

network see Sas said they're very very

29:47

top of their and they were Oh

29:49

yes, they're gossiping with Arrow feeding intelligence

29:51

backups a huff. And the wonderful thing

29:54

about it was. This. was

29:56

a world where you see a formal

29:58

intelligence didn't really exist noire No,

30:00

it was all blurred in with the

30:02

personal. So you'd have a letter saying,

30:04

oh, so and so's dog is a

30:06

bit point today. By the

30:08

way, Bismarck's amassing troops on the border of

30:11

Austria. Blurred

30:14

and merged into one. So it

30:16

was it had some genuinely really,

30:18

really important stuff. And

30:20

it had material which the

30:22

government didn't have access to.

30:25

One of the most famous

30:27

examples was the Schlesig-Holstein Wars

30:30

in the mid 19th century.

30:33

Don't worry, you don't need to know the Inver now. So in

30:35

fact, there was a famous quip

30:38

by Lord Palmerston as Prime Minister when

30:40

he said something like these wars are

30:42

so complicated. Only three people

30:44

ever understood them. One was Prince Albert

30:46

and he's dead. One was a

30:49

German professor and he's gone mad and one

30:51

was me and I forgotten. Essentially,

30:53

she had her daughter was in the was married

31:00

to the Crown Prince of

31:02

Prussia and was passing

31:04

her intelligence on Prussian

31:07

capabilities and intentions. And

31:10

she used that to effectively

31:12

change the government's foreign policy

31:14

and maybe not intervene in

31:17

a war that they otherwise

31:19

would have intervened in. So

31:21

whenever dynastic interests clashed with

31:23

British government interests, the

31:26

Queen would and did use her

31:29

royal network of agents to

31:32

try to shape things. And

31:35

eventually Bismarck got wise to this

31:37

and gradually froze her daughter Vicky

31:40

out evermore. And to be fair, he

31:42

had a point. Vicky also engaged in

31:44

what we might call

31:47

using modern terminology as a hack and

31:49

leak operation. She leaked a bunch of

31:51

letters to the Times newspaper to

31:55

expose Bismarck's naughtiness

31:58

and When Wismarck accused her

32:00

of being a spy and an agent, he

32:03

had a point, to be fair. And

32:05

Wismarck attempts counter-operation, so he

32:07

puts spies into Vicky's

32:09

household, and they're not just

32:11

watching her, they're warning her. So they go

32:13

away for a little holiday, they come back,

32:17

drawers have been visibly broken into, locks

32:19

have been broken. Very much like

32:21

the KGB used to do in the

32:24

1950s, they go into a diplomat's flat,

32:26

visibly mess things up, there's a kind

32:28

of physical warning, things are getting

32:31

a bit hot. It's

32:34

the same techniques run down the centuries.

32:38

And just to jump back to something you said

32:40

earlier Rory, you mentioned that she

32:42

was trained in tradecraft and

32:45

counter-intelligence and even covert communications,

32:48

how did that come about? Is

32:50

that something that royals got taught?

32:53

The informal family business, this

32:55

was her uncle

32:58

who was Leopold, King of the

33:00

Belgians, when Victoria was a 14,

33:02

15 year old girl, was

33:06

training her, teaching her about how

33:08

if you know that the

33:12

government postal service where

33:15

you are sending a letter to is

33:17

going to intercept that letter, or you

33:19

assume they're going to intercept it, you

33:21

can release, you can write something fake

33:23

in order to deceive them. It's

33:26

a classic intelligence

33:28

deception tradecraft, knowing that the

33:30

enemy's counter-intelligence organizations or domestic

33:32

security organizations are intercepting letters.

33:35

You feed them some truth,

33:37

some chicken feed,

33:40

some, yeah, same

33:42

principle from a century, same

33:44

as the D-Day deception operations.

33:47

And yeah, he pointed out that you can do

33:49

this. And later on, there

33:51

was a minor scandal about government interception

33:53

of letters. And Prince Albert was just,

33:56

kind of, say blasé. He said, well,

33:58

of course government's intercept letters. What

34:00

are we, what are you worried

34:02

about? They do and we can exploit that.

34:04

We can use that to our advantage. Stop

34:07

being so flippin' squeamish, he thought. Stop

34:09

being so British. Very hard for him. So

34:13

we have the Victorian era, we have

34:15

the birth of British intelligence

34:18

in a formal sense. We

34:21

have MI5, MI6, the government code

34:23

in Cypher School and then GCHQ.

34:26

So just before we got up to

34:28

the war, my question is, do they

34:31

have a favourite? Is there one

34:33

that they're particularly close to? Do

34:36

they love the tittle-tattle that they get

34:38

from GCHQ? Are

34:41

they particularly intrigued by the director

34:43

of MI6? I think

34:45

in the first part of the 20th

34:48

century has to be MI6 because

34:50

they simply won more medals. George

34:54

V decorated them highly and

34:56

the head of MI6 in Russia,

34:58

Paul Dukes, was knighted for his

35:01

services. I think pretty much the

35:03

only MI6 officer as opposed to

35:05

a chief who was knighted.

35:07

And this, we think, relates

35:10

to two operations. Firstly,

35:13

an attempt to, a

35:15

successful attempt to assassinate

35:17

Rasputin. It's now pretty

35:19

clear that MI6, nor

35:21

a Russian prince, assassinated

35:24

Rasputin and then attempts

35:26

to extricate the Tsar

35:29

after the revolution and some

35:31

operations thereafter, an attempt, it seems, perhaps

35:33

to kill Lenin. Certainly

35:36

these things endeared MI6 very

35:39

much, not

35:41

only to the king but

35:43

to Moritz everywhere. And

35:45

so we come up to the war. Tell

35:48

Us a little bit more about the Second

35:50

World War, the royals and intelligence. This is

35:52

quite a fascinating story. So Tell us a

35:54

little bit more about King George VI and

35:57

his daughter, of course, the future of Elizabeth

35:59

II. What? Will it when

36:01

he came. Over. To the

36:03

throne he has a bit of

36:05

a trust billie exercise see seats

36:07

suited to do see how to

36:09

win over the intelligence services because

36:12

of course his brother had would

36:14

be a sad just disgraced himself.

36:17

He was spied on by the

36:19

intelligence services he was on I

36:21

think is sad to say on

36:23

put it mildly sympathetic Cb Nazi

36:26

cause. And. The intelligence

36:28

services did not trust him, they

36:30

were spying on him. They also

36:32

knew that he was very lucky

36:34

with their secrets. He there was

36:36

one on occasion where he was

36:38

on a cocktail party at her

36:40

for Belvedere and it was leaving.

36:43

Documents. Subsequent on from is lying

36:45

around the they combined with red wine

36:47

stains on them and there was one

36:49

moment where he said something's the merits

36:51

and a today with said oh you're

36:53

you're going box and London via Downing

36:55

Street on your shop. Would you mind

36:57

hatching these top secret documents revealed some

36:59

in a box of privatise on your

37:01

way home and it's a smarter than

37:03

a horror a half British Intelligence as

37:05

he was behringer. I'm. So into

37:07

to save comes and as he is also

37:09

on a piece on he was known. For.

37:13

Not as likely brother but he wasn't a

37:15

piece on He lived through the horrors of

37:17

war One and didn't ones are obese it's

37:19

and famously publicly aligned himself. the chamber them

37:21

on Chamberlain come back with his by waving

37:24

his a piece of paper in the ass

37:26

and yeah, I peace in our time. I'm.

37:28

so when war i see

37:30

breaks out t cause an

37:33

uphill task of winning the

37:35

trust of the intelligence of

37:37

this slow going on but

37:39

eventually to guess brought in

37:41

to. Every sequence in alarms.

37:44

And he really loves sabotage. He

37:46

really loves the sort of stuff

37:48

that as sorry on our sense

37:50

of doing. He goes off. To.

37:53

Some of the food front

37:55

line bases in North Africa

37:57

and. Who does he see? The.

38:00

I'm whole range of people, some hollywood

38:02

movie stars who brought up to do

38:04

some sabotage. he was he com as

38:06

a back and he's full of sales

38:09

for the rest of the royal family.

38:11

the Queen Princess Margaret, Princess Elizabeth. he

38:13

can't take them out to North Africa

38:15

to see. Just awesome. He takes them

38:18

to an essay we. Are.

38:20

Field Training Base north of London. And.

38:23

They're all their admiring all the

38:25

top secret gadgets, all the. Over.

38:28

Sinus Pistols The campuses

38:30

says favorite is Exploding

38:33

Holston. The. Queen's goes over

38:35

to the king says that everyone has

38:37

their as as as as the suffering

38:40

of others You know the royal family

38:42

love horses but exploding horse on so

38:44

all the royal family admiring this some

38:46

this whole spoof. Which on

38:48

has has a special secret

38:50

purposes great. Our

38:53

favor one was sudden. He

38:55

also got in don't Side since

38:57

v D Day, Deception and secret

38:59

so this is. Possibly.

39:02

The most secret and sensitive

39:05

parts of of of the

39:07

second ago when. I.

39:09

Lie size of course are launching

39:12

their the double cross section operations

39:14

trying to convince her love of

39:16

the overlords to Normandy landings are

39:18

going to say place in Calais

39:20

rather the Normandy and the the

39:22

King father. says. A row, you

39:24

see? Spooks coming. I was

39:27

the palace and. He.

39:30

Guess. I don't face

39:32

into secrets on the under his

39:34

heart was Is T coordinated his

39:36

movements around the country to align

39:39

with see deception operations were line

39:41

with the material which B M

39:43

I six Network Estate agents was

39:46

sending back to Hitler. And.

39:48

His sense the operates it as

39:51

a giant royal highlights a pen

39:53

drawer and him as attention to

39:55

sasson italians have certain parts of

39:57

the contrary to give this impression.

40:00

That the invasion was going to

40:02

come from a from Calais on

40:04

this also involves bravery to thats

40:06

where because the less famous the

40:08

less famous passive the operation was

40:10

some eagle ford seed north which

40:12

would convince the germans the that

40:15

was also going to be a

40:17

and evasion and to Norway on

40:19

so what's the king did to

40:21

back off and to give more

40:23

credibility Service to succeed narrative. Was.

40:25

To fly so islands and way off

40:28

the north coast of Scotland close. It's

40:30

a new item. They was a London

40:32

and visit the Northern Fleet knowing full

40:34

well that the British newspapers reports on

40:37

this thing with as Northern Fleet knowing

40:39

full well that the Nazis were reading

40:41

will the British press reporting on just

40:43

giving the exited abilities suit was oh.

40:46

It was buried tacitly coordinated, skimming

40:48

the King himself a row and

40:50

he was delighted. The question of

40:52

i think it was his private

40:54

sectors diaries. The quote was he

40:57

was delighted in bamboozling bamboozling the

40:59

German because he loved this because

41:01

this was something that he took

41:03

part in. Soda was a top

41:05

secret internal reports on this deception

41:07

operation. And. It seems

41:09

this is the last thing he was reading when

41:11

he died. Or. Maybe early nineties

41:14

really fall on this was a smart

41:16

really close to his hearts because

41:18

he was upset about the scale

41:20

of casualties. Annie. Saudi section

41:22

of something that would essentially

41:24

protests. The. Be Allied

41:26

troops as they landed in Nineteen Forty Four. So

41:30

basically King George the Sex was part

41:32

of the d the deception operations. While.

41:36

I'm Sarah Lessons of Saints A

41:38

really interesting am A I'm thinking

41:40

as well the Tank during the

41:42

war he's saying these metals but

41:44

for doesn't he eats are you

41:46

say He starts off a bus

41:48

soft and symbol in Azkaban remember

41:50

reason and chart shows memoirs the

41:52

he said the kings practice and

41:54

was as as different Buckingham Palace.

41:56

it's just the Jackson's star in

41:58

the post as and playlists. I

42:00

think I think you been trust

42:02

and know to turn to Elizabethans

42:04

fellow both and announcing everything on

42:07

to die On Charles I'm Diana

42:09

So Elizabeth and fellow that you

42:11

mentioned the Nazi connection so think

42:13

there's and the book disease city

42:15

of Phillips Sisters or Nazi sympathizers

42:18

in one of them even a

42:20

member of the party and so

42:22

that the does that must trust

42:24

that the intelligence services off towards

42:26

egg and sex transfer over on

42:29

to Elizabeth. That that the

42:31

future at concerts their sisters and

42:33

a nazi connections. There. Will be

42:35

worried and sire if ever see be. They

42:37

get a bit of digging and came up

42:39

with a dossier on them. But. Very

42:42

very pretty. They realize that

42:44

he was not to be

42:46

tainted by his family connections.

42:48

on is anything to he's

42:50

worried came more from the

42:52

the last his side of

42:54

things he was upset bit

42:56

more of a faceless van

42:58

be added the rope allergies

43:00

the say robbed know the

43:02

any real security risk with

43:04

him was more about potential.

43:06

A sublime ailerons bomb company

43:08

he may or may not.

43:10

Cats. Are totally. In.

43:23

The last interlude, I noted that

43:25

the British crown has only seen

43:27

one assassination, and it's past six

43:30

hundred years of history. This is

43:32

particularly fascinating when we compare that

43:34

to the one hundred year span

43:36

between Eighteen Sixty Four and Nineteen

43:38

Sixty Four in which for American

43:41

presidents or assassinated and unsuccessful attempts

43:43

made. Analyze three enters. Only

43:46

after William Mckinley was killed in

43:49

Buffalo, the third Presidents be assassinated

43:51

to the United States implements systematic

43:53

and continuous protection of the President.

43:56

And. This is not just an American

43:58

trend globally. the air. of 1880 to 1914 is

44:00

known as the Golden Age of Assassination. During

44:05

this period, the Western world saw

44:08

the assassinations of Tsar Alexander II,

44:10

Archduke Franz Ferdinand, both the

44:12

King and Prime Minister of

44:15

Greece, Humberto I of Italy,

44:17

Alexander I of Serbia, Grand Duke

44:20

Sergei Romanov, and later the entire

44:22

Royal Romanov family in 1918. The

44:27

trend of murdering those in power

44:29

was certainly not random. The rises

44:31

of Marxism, nihilism, and anarchism engendered

44:34

a tumultuous era of revolutionary thought

44:36

that spread across the world faster

44:38

than ever due to new and

44:40

modernized forms of global communication. 100

44:44

years after the beginning of the Golden

44:46

Age of Assassination, anarchy caught popularity again,

44:49

this time in the form of musical

44:51

expression. In England, the Sex

44:53

Pistols sent punk rock shockwaves across the

44:55

country with their iconic song, God Save

44:57

the Queen, an anti-monarchy,

45:00

anti-accomplishment song that criticized

45:02

British politics, specifically the

45:04

so-called old-fashioned royals. Without

45:08

utilizing violence, the punk subculture in the

45:10

1980s mirrored much of

45:13

the same social and political beliefs associated

45:15

with the revolutionary wave a century earlier,

45:17

with, of course, less assassinations.

45:20

For more on the Golden Age of Assassinations

45:22

and the origins of what we now know

45:25

as terrorism, check out our recent episode with

45:27

James Crossland. Now,

45:29

back to Rory and Richard. Here

45:51

on Spycast, we talk a lot about

45:53

how important it is to protect yourself

45:55

and your data from scammers who want

45:57

to use your personal information for the

45:59

future. own benefit. Just check

46:02

out any of our recent cyber-related episodes

46:04

to learn more. As

46:06

the cyber-era continues to grow

46:08

and expand, protecting ourselves from

46:10

identity theft, phishing attempts, and

46:12

online harassment has become increasingly

46:15

difficult alongside us. Luckily,

46:17

I have a solution for you, and it's

46:19

a service called Delete Me. Delete

46:22

Me is a subscription service

46:24

that finds and removes any

46:26

personal information you don't want

46:28

online and makes sure it

46:30

stays with you. All you have

46:32

to do is sign up and tell the

46:34

experts at Delete Me what information you want

46:36

deleted. It's as simple as that. You'll

46:39

hear back regularly from Delete Me showing

46:41

what info they've found, where

46:43

they found it, and what they have removed.

46:46

Now this isn't just a one-time deal. With

46:49

Delete Me, you'll find a cyber

46:51

piece of mind knowing you have

46:53

a team of experts constantly monitoring

46:55

the internet for your information's safety.

46:58

Take control of your data and keep

47:01

your private life private by signing up

47:03

for Delete Me. Now at

47:05

a special discount for our listeners. Today,

47:08

get 20% off

47:11

your Delete Me plan

47:13

when you go to

47:15

join deleteme.com/spycast and

47:17

use promo code spycast at

47:19

checkout. The only way to

47:21

get 20% off is

47:23

to go to join

47:26

deleteme.com/spycast and enter code

47:28

spycast at checkout. That's

47:30

join deleteme.com slash

47:33

spycast code spycast.

47:45

So let's say I do a jump cut

47:47

forward. So we get up to the era

47:49

of Margaret Thatcher and

47:51

James Antipower. Then we have Prince

47:53

Charles, the future king, and he

47:56

marries a young woman called Diana

47:58

Speck. And you

48:00

know, this is huge over on this side

48:02

of the Atlantic. I feel

48:04

like people in the States are more

48:07

interested in the British royals than British

48:09

people in general. So I

48:11

think that this will be a good one to zero in

48:13

on. So tell us a little bit more about that. Tell

48:16

us about that part of your book where you

48:18

look at Charles and you look at Diana. So

48:21

this is a fascinating period when

48:24

the worlds of intelligence and

48:26

information and media are coming

48:29

together. And there

48:31

is not only unprecedented interest in Charles

48:33

and Diana, but also kind of

48:35

a moment when the gloves come off, when

48:37

the press is becoming

48:40

less respectful, more intrusive. And

48:42

this presents a

48:44

whole range of problems, not

48:47

least security problems for

48:50

the royal family. So you

48:52

find that intelligence and security officers

48:54

who traditionally have been trying to

48:57

protect the royal family

48:59

from people

49:01

who are mentally disturbed, assassins, are

49:03

also trying to keep the press

49:05

away who are proving to be

49:07

not just annoying, but actually

49:09

physically dangerous to the royal family. And

49:13

the press are using intelligence techniques themselves,

49:16

aren't they? With long range surveillance cameras

49:18

and wiretapping and

49:21

all this kind of stuff. There's a

49:23

weird blurring of intelligence and

49:25

journalism and royalism, they're all

49:27

mixed in together. And

49:30

of course, the resources, the

49:32

resources that the press

49:34

and the paparazzi have that follow

49:36

the royals is extraordinary. All the

49:38

best spy gadgets, all the best

49:40

telephone, military equipment. There's a moment

49:42

when Prince Charles very annoyed

49:45

confronts the

49:48

top royal reporter from the Sun, one

49:50

of Britain's tabloids, and he's kind

49:52

of lost his temper. And he

49:54

says, your scum, your scum, your scum. And

49:57

the reporter replies very deferentially, sort of tucking

49:59

his Yes sir, we are

50:01

scum, but we are the creme

50:03

de la scum. The way

50:05

men work, essentially, they were the

50:08

A-Team. And what we

50:10

discovered later was actually MI6 uses

50:13

a bunch of freelancers with special

50:15

skills. The top,

50:17

top, the world's top long-range

50:20

photographer who moonlights the MI6

50:23

is by day a royal paparazzi. So

50:25

these two worlds really were coming

50:27

together in a quite remarkable way.

50:31

And tell us about Diana, did

50:33

she and anybody intersect more directly

50:35

with the world of intelligence? So

50:38

we know Charles was interested

50:40

in it and involved in it, but

50:42

Diana as the

50:44

Princess of Wales, what was her

50:46

relationship like with intelligence? Well

50:49

I think Diana increasingly became

50:52

anxious about the role of government,

50:54

the role of some of the

50:56

security people around her. This

50:59

contributed to her anxiety,

51:02

perhaps even instability. And

51:04

so as her relationship with the

51:07

royal family becomes more

51:09

distant in 1992, 1993, as Charles and

51:11

Diana separate, she

51:15

deliberately decides to drop

51:18

her official security. This

51:21

is around December 1993. There's

51:24

fabulously interesting official documents

51:26

about this because Whitehall

51:28

and Westminster panic. This

51:31

is unprecedented. Someone who's attracting

51:34

this much attention from the press

51:36

from people who are potentially disturbed,

51:39

doing away with her security. And

51:41

the home secretary and the prime

51:43

minister want it formally recorded that

51:46

this isn't their decision because

51:48

they anticipate that this is potentially

51:51

going to lead to disaster, as

51:54

indeed it does in Paris a few years later. She

51:57

gets paranoid with regards

51:59

to the intelligence. services, she

52:01

thinks that the men in grey

52:03

suits, the deep British

52:06

state are somehow looking

52:08

at her or somehow she's going to

52:11

tragically intersect with them at some point.

52:13

Tell us a little bit more about

52:15

that aspect of Diana and maybe even

52:17

go on to the Diana conspiracy. MI6

52:20

were involved or British intelligence were

52:22

involved in Diana because

52:25

she was cavorting within Muslim

52:27

Arab. This is

52:29

the tragedy of

52:32

Princess Diana is the encroaching

52:36

paranoia. She sheds

52:39

the A-team of

52:42

security and counterintelligence and protection

52:44

because she's convinced they're out to get her

52:47

and goes with

52:49

the more amateurish

52:51

private set up

52:53

which ultimately lets her down.

52:56

And she was, you know,

52:58

they'll always the question just

53:01

because she's paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get

53:03

you. So the question

53:05

then is were they spying

53:08

on her? And we know

53:10

that the NSA has

53:13

files on Princess Diana.

53:15

But the really, really important point is

53:17

that she wasn't the target. This is

53:20

stuff when she is dealing with Latin

53:23

American governments or clearing landmines in

53:27

sub-Saharan Africa and NSA or GCHQ

53:29

or whoever might be intercepting different

53:32

communications of governments or NGOs and listening

53:34

to different parts of the world. And

53:36

Diana might well be caught up in

53:38

some of that material. But we

53:40

know that doesn't mean that she

53:42

was a target of espionage. And

53:44

we certainly know that she

53:47

was not as

53:49

fascinated as the conspiracy theorists like

53:52

to point out. We

53:54

spent a lot of time on the Diana

53:56

conspiracy and it's clear that the main reason

53:58

that this is conspiracy is that when

54:01

a state decides to assassinate someone, it

54:04

takes weeks, even months to set this

54:06

up. Governments

54:09

do assassinate people, but they only do it when all

54:11

the paperwork is in order. Essentially,

54:14

Diana's visit to Paris was done on the spur

54:16

of the moment. This

54:18

is a clear indication that this was not an

54:20

assassination, this was an accident. But

54:23

there are still nevertheless, in all those

54:25

inquiries, and there were three enormous

54:27

inquiries revealing some really top secret

54:29

documents. There's some amazing stuff, and

54:31

you can see how, because

54:34

some of those top hotels are

54:36

sites of intelligence gathering, the top

54:38

hotels in Paris working closely with

54:41

the French intelligence service, essentially,

54:43

if you're a royal or a

54:45

dignitary, a Saudi prince, as

54:48

you visit one of those hotels, you're

54:50

essentially walking into

54:52

an intelligence

54:54

surveillance box. So,

54:57

yes, they were rubbing

54:59

shoulders with intelligence wittingly and

55:02

unwittingly all the time. Just

55:05

for our listeners, who protects the royal

55:08

family? So, in the United States, it's

55:10

the secret service that looks after the

55:12

president, for example, is there a British

55:14

version of the secret service? So,

55:17

in the UK, it's the specialist branch

55:20

of the police. And

55:22

of course, they talk to the American secret

55:24

service all the time. There's a wonderful moment,

55:26

actually, when, because the

55:29

scale of attacks on the British royal

55:37

family have not been the same as

55:39

have been directed to American presidents. The

55:42

secret service were warning the British in

55:44

the 80s about

55:48

the growing scale of attacks, the

55:50

British police were being a little

55:52

bit relaxed with fine, everything's cool.

55:55

And then there's that famous moment when

55:58

someone gets into the Queen's bedroom. Jack

56:01

called Fagan who climbs down a drain

56:03

pipe gets into the Queen's bedroom. The

56:06

Queen is phoning the police for

56:08

assistance. Nobody's coming. And

56:11

we're told that the American Secret Service

56:13

were pleased that it all turned out

56:15

right, but was slightly smug. Like

56:18

we told you, we told you

56:21

that you needed to sharpen up and

56:23

you guys were asleep. I think it

56:25

was actually a fair comment, fair comment

56:27

from the American Secret Service. There was

56:30

another moment when the Secret Service was

56:32

shocked that that British counterpart wouldn't be

56:34

allowed to rugby tackle the Queen if

56:36

they were assassinated from a crowd. In

56:40

a way, they would dive in front of Regan

56:42

and push him out of the way. Doing that

56:44

for the Queen was a no-no. And yeah, it

56:46

just came from weird dark comedic moments. So

56:50

it's a special branch that protects the Royal Family.

56:52

Well, a special branch doesn't exist anymore. A special

56:55

branch has been merged with the counterterrorism

56:57

police. It's specialist protection officers who

56:59

cover both the Royal Family and

57:01

also diplomats in the UK. So

57:04

they are actually very like the American Secret

57:06

Service. There's a

57:09

really important point here, which is that

57:11

the monarch can't be locked away.

57:15

The Queen used to say, I need to be seen

57:17

to be believed to

57:19

have any legitimacy. She has to

57:21

be seen amongst her

57:23

people and to be respected

57:25

and cheered. And that means she

57:27

has to and her family have

57:29

to be in and out amongst

57:32

the people shaking hands. And whether

57:35

it was Queen Victoria back in the

57:37

19th century or Queen Elizabeth, they knew.

57:39

They knew they couldn't hide

57:41

away behind armored vehicles and

57:44

rows and rows of armed

57:47

forces with big riot shields.

57:49

They had to be with the

57:52

people. And this meant that intelligence

57:54

becomes Particularly crucial because it

57:56

gives you that kind of forewarning to

57:58

allow you to. Minimize the more

58:00

visible, protect the security of state which would

58:02

have been a do, but it's been a

58:05

disaster as he lock yourself away and Buckingham

58:07

Palace to sixty years. As

58:09

we get towards the end the

58:11

current Prince of Wales Prince volumes

58:13

the been no has disposition towards

58:15

intelligence way we didn't work experience

58:17

he was doing i two weeks

58:19

a a week when he eats

58:22

intelligence service sick of two or

58:24

three years back now and he

58:26

was he joining M I five

58:28

on supposedly on me under cover

58:30

of drunken driver of homes with

58:32

him in there and back cities

58:34

heard of the to was watching

58:37

suspect he was in am. I

58:39

think supports has been given briefings

58:41

or lysis the latest intelligence and

58:43

and press as known as as

58:45

well. And. He was a was

58:47

there and sell them in the don't us

58:49

sitting around the town seen as well gossiping

58:51

with the other you know if is intelligence

58:54

newbies a home said he is t three

58:56

interstate they say one since get a feel

58:58

of a slave us about but this agencies

59:01

and a and from what i did dislikes

59:03

his his parents and grandparents or is that.

59:07

So. Just a cool though I'm sure

59:10

some people are listening to doesn't Sanctum

59:12

God the Bracer? Absolutely. Barton Mods for

59:14

the hell are those people? Just so

59:16

that leaves on to the question but

59:19

this is a something that's going to

59:21

continue the ever seen thus kind of

59:23

course relationship coming to an end He

59:25

ever see some future prime minister is

59:28

super modernist saying you know weapon on

59:30

an to thus M Dia What's your

59:32

take on the phone Ten forecasting of

59:34

the skin of relationship. I

59:37

think as long as the Mauna

59:39

Kea is in existence than this

59:41

is gonna continue these the that

59:43

a general trend of decline in

59:46

terms of how answered and meddling

59:48

into fairing that between debate in

59:50

a Queen Elizabeth dad's a lot

59:52

less meddling with on crematoria dead

59:54

for example spur you know she

59:56

would still. Play

59:59

an item, role on occasion

1:00:02

but gradually that role is dwindling but

1:00:04

they're always gonna have knowledge

1:00:06

as long as there is a monarch and

1:00:09

you know what's the phrase with

1:00:11

knowledge comes power. I think

1:00:14

the best reward for a British

1:00:18

spy who's risking

1:00:20

their lives to penetrate the

1:00:23

terrorist organization Al-Qaeda, ISIS

1:00:26

was to be brought in and given

1:00:28

a cup of tea and a cucumber

1:00:30

sandwich with the monarch

1:00:33

and as long as we have

1:00:35

spies risking their lives there's going

1:00:37

to be a role for the

1:00:39

monarch dishing out the tea and

1:00:41

the cucumber sandwich and

1:00:44

this is a motivator, this

1:00:46

is important. Well thanks

1:00:48

ever so much this has been a really fun and

1:00:52

engaging and interesting conversation and I

1:00:54

really did enjoy your book so

1:00:57

congratulations and thanks for sharing

1:00:59

your expertise and experience you

1:01:23

please follow us on Apple Spotify or

1:01:25

wherever you get your podcasts coming

1:01:28

up next week on Spycast. Sometimes

1:01:31

when I was chief of staff to the

1:01:33

president I'd be alone in the

1:01:35

Oval Office and I'd

1:01:37

look around and say my god here

1:01:40

I am the son of Italian

1:01:42

immigrants in

1:01:44

probably the most powerful place on the face of

1:01:46

the earth. If

1:01:48

you have feedback you can reach

1:01:50

us by email at spycast at

1:01:53

spymuseum.org or on Twitter at INCL

1:01:55

spycast. If you go

1:01:57

to our page the cyberwire.com/podcast

1:02:01

I can't even bring. Suffer the

1:02:03

resources detailed foreigners and full transcript.

1:02:05

An anti check in your house

1:02:07

is Doctor Andrew Hammond. The rest

1:02:09

of the team involved in the

1:02:11

show is Make Nancy Memphis on

1:02:13

the third, I'm like a lotta

1:02:15

a fool and Aqua Emily runs

1:02:17

aerial. Samuel L. E Apartments Try

1:02:20

has Sir and Gentlemen. This show

1:02:22

is brought to you from the

1:02:24

home of the world's preeminent collection

1:02:26

of intelligence and espionage related artifacts.

1:02:28

The Internet.