Author: admin

I’m finished with Iraq now. Turkey beckons. So, as a final appearance, I’m giving an Iraq paper for the Second World War Research Group North America (SWWRGNA) on Friday 19 February 2022. Starring of course (who else?) the fabulous Freya Stark. Do check in, if you have access and are interested, Otherwise, stay tuned for…

With effect from 1 August 2021, I have been awarded the title of Honorary Professor of Intelligence History at Bishop Grosseteste University (Lincoln, UK). This is a splendid honour, and I look forward to exploring ways in which I can contribute to the work of BGU in future years. It is a pleasure to be…

My first post-pandemic research trip to the UK, Ireland, and Germany (May–June 2022) is already at the planning stage. Sadly, it will also be my last ocean voyage by cargo freighter (Halifax–Liverpool), as I shall have surpassed the terminal marker of 80 years. I shall be retracing the WW2 North Atlantic convoy route to Europe.…

The Baghdad Set (2019) has been nominated for the American Political Science Association’s International Security Section Book Award. Fingers crossed!

As part of the North American Society of Intelligence Historians (NASIH) series of Virtual Brown Bag talks, Dr Claire Hubbard-Hall and I have been invited to present a Zoom talk on Tuesday 1 September 2020 at 12:00 EDT (09:00 PDT) on ‘Voices from the Shadows: Spy Wives and Female Agency’. For further details, see <https://www.intelligencehistory.org/virtual-brown-bag>.…

My thoughts and prayers are with all those affected by disease or loss during the current pandemic. Fortunately, as long as I remain unscathed as a self-isolating ‘vulnerable person’ (79 yrs, history of asthma, pneumonia, and pleurisy), I am able to work 24/7.  With most project deadlines postponed, now is the time to catch up…

Despite my total debunking of a KGB assassination myth in my 2015 book on Persia, Espionage and Counterintelligence, Putin’s hack(er)s are today making a big fuss over the death of the “heroic spy” who “foiled” the notional Nazi plot they invented! It’s all BS! See https://today.rtl.lu/news/world/a/1437091.html.

Oops! There’s one major error on page 185 of The Baghdad Set, which needs correcting. Franz von Papen was of course a former Chancellor of Germany (not Austria). A corresponding correction is required in the index (page 318).

Dr Claire Hubbard-Hall (Bishop Grosseteste University) and I have just received a Janet Arnold Award from the Society of Antiquaries supporting our pilot research project exploring ‘SOE Spy Clothing: Dress & Deception during the Second World War’, commencing in January 2020.

‘The Baghdad Set’ is now in production with Palgrave Macmillan/Springer Nature. ISBN 978-3-030-15182-9. Due out in April 2019.

I have been invited back to lecture again at Bishop Grosseteste University on 9 May 2019 at 1800 hrs. My subject will be Secret Intelligence and Security Operations in Iraq during the Second World War. I am hoping that this lecture will more or less coincide with the publication by Palgrave Macmillan of my latest…

During the spring, I will be examining various records at The National Archives (Kew), the Bundesarchiv (Berlin-Lichterfelde), and the Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv (Freiburg im Breisgau). The aim is to collect Second World War geohistorical data for further processing later this year.

Result! ‘The Baghdad Set’ has been commissioned by Palgrave Macmillan. Now in pre-production. Should be out in the early spring. Stay tuned! 

Dr Claire Hubbard-Hall and I have begun work on our next joint project: a study of the wives and partners of Allied and Axis espionage operatives during the Second World War, which we hope to publish in the special issue of the International Journal of Military History and Historiography (IJMHH) on Women and WW2 to…

Unaffiliated = unfunded. I operate my HISTINT and GEOHISTINT research projects as an independent nonprofit enterprise. But there are overheads; research is expensive. Even if I stay at home instead of working in the great archives like The National Archives (Kew, Surrey) and the National Archives and Records Administration (College Park, Maryland). Downloading archival records…

A new article on ‘Landscapes of Intelligence in the Third Reich: Visualising Abwehr Operations and “Covert Space” during the Second World War’, co-authored with Dr Claire Hubbard-Hall of Bishop Grosseteste University, is nearing completion and should be published later in 2018. This will be our response as intelligence historians to the ‘spatial turn’ in the theory…

I was a war baby, born during the Blitz in the heart of the industrial midlands of Great Britain, raised on rations and rare black-market treats. I grew up amidst the sounds and sights of wartime and immediate postwar Britain – the air-raid sirens, the ack-ack, the throbbing roar of massed bomber formations overhead, American…

Towards the end of the final episode of the final series of Detectorists, Lance says to Andy: ‘Metal detecting is the closest you can get to time travel. When you found that whistle and blew it, …  we heard that sound for the first time in centuries. … You see, archaeologists gather the facts, piece…

The Geohistorical Intelligence Project (GEOHISTINT) is my initiative to find ways of enhancing intelligence historiography by encouraging intelligence specialists and historians to embrace the 21st-century ‘spatial turn’ that has touched the methodology of many nonhistorical research disciplines and to add the illustrative and analytical power of Historical Geographic Information Systems (HGIS) to their professional or…

2018 promises to be a busy year. ‘The Baghdad Set’ is 75% completed and is currently under consideration by Palgrave Macmillan. Meanwhile, the HGIS project (GEOHISTINT) is finally under way, with its own website at <geohistint.adrianosullivan.com> and registration at the University of South Africa as an MSc thesis subject. Work is progressing on QGIS software…