Top Highlights

• the function of an intelligence service is “to know”—to know what are the intentions of an enemy, to know his plans and resources, the disposition of his troops and their morale. J. C. Masterman, Master of Spies
• The creed of the Twenty Committee is given explicitly in Masterman’s text. It is worth repeated reading: To control the enemy system, or as much of it as we could get our hands on To catch fresh spies when they appeared To gain knowledge of the personalities and methods of the German Secret Service To obtain information about the code and cypher wo...
• With double agents we have, as it were, held shares in a great many mines, and some of them, on which we have in the early stages expended labour and money lavishly, have indeed turned out to be El Dorados. Others of course have yielded nothing and cost much; but you cannot expect in any case to draw a fortune unless you pay in, and pay in freely, ...
• In fact by virtue of this system for the greater part of the war we did much more than practise a large-scale deception through double agents; by means of the double agent system we actively ran and controlled the German espionage system in this country.
• In other words, for the period of his novitiate he is not an asset but a liability.