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Overview
This is a history of the Norwegian Intelligence Service (NIS) during the Cold War, based on its secret archives. The author describes a service that grew from a handful of specialists in 1946 to a multi-faceted organization with a personnel of about 1000 by the end of the 1960s.
Synopsis
This work is the first history of a western intelligence service in the Cold War written by independent historians with full access to the archives of the service. The Norwegian Intelligence Service (NIS) during the Cold War is the result of a unique enterprise: for the first time a western intelligence service has opened its most secret archives from this period to two independent historians. After many more or less imaginative and often speculative books about the service we now have the real and thoroughly documented history of the build up of a network of Norwegian signals intelligence stations in the North, of border crossings by clandestine agents, of Norwegian merchant mariners' reporting from ports behind the iron curtain, of the intimate cooperation between the NIS and the secret services of the United States and other countries, as well as the establishment of a "Stay Behind" network. The book describes a service which grew from a handful of specialists in 1946 to a multifaceted organisation with a personnel of about one thousand by the end of the 1960s. The authors' assessment is that the NIS was "Norway's perhaps most significant contribution to the strength and security of the western alliance in this crucial period of postwar history.
Booknews
For the first time, a Western intelligence service has opened its secret archives from the period to an independent historian, resulting in this history of the Norwegian Intelligence Service (NIS) during the Cold War. Presents detailed descriptions of a network of signal intelligence stations, and looks at cooperation between the NIS and the secret services of the US and other countries. The author is research director of the Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies, and adjunct professor of history at the Universities of Bergen and Oslo. Distributed by ISBS. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)