Bloomsbury to publish authorised history of GCHQ

Bloomsbury has been chosen by GCHQ to publish an authorised history of its first 100 years to commemorate its centenary in 2019.

The acquisition to publish the intelligence, security and cyber agency's history followed "keen competition from major publishing groups", according to Bloomsbury, and it was "the high quality of [Bloomsbury's] offer" offer that swung it, according to Bill Hamilton of AM. Heath who brokered the deal. Publication is due for autumn 2019, with the book expected to be "a key part" of GCHQ’s programme of activities and events planned throughout its centenary year.

The book will be authored by signals intelligence historian Professor John Ferris, working closely with GCHQ’s in-house historian Tony Comer. With "unprecedented access" to the agency’s classified records, the pair will chart GCHQ's origins in the First World War, through Bletchley Park and the Cold War to the present day. The archival material consulted by Ferris will subsequently be released to The National Archives.

Ferris said: "It is truly exciting to be the first historian to see these documents about GCHQ. They illuminate a hidden but important part of the history of the British state, in particular during the Cold War. This history will bring the actions of the most secret of British agencies into the public domain for the first time."

Bloomsbury’s publishing director Michael Fishwick, on whose list the book will appear, added readers could expect "revelations on almost every page".

"I thought the material we were shown was fascinating, because it really was that rare thing, a new way of reading history, like seeing the dark matter in the universe that holds it all together or the third dimension in three-dimensional chess," he enthused. "We will be seeing for the first time the information that helped make the decisions of our leaders in Whitehall and of the commanders on the bridge, in the field, under the sea and in the air over the last hundred years and even earlier; ipso facto there will be revelations on almost every page."

Bloomsbury also published Keith Jeffery’s history of MI6 in 2010. The authorised history of GCHQ will be published in the autumn of 2019.