Cambridge don to write MI5 history

Professor Andrew will write MI5's official history

Intelligence agency MI5 has appointed a Cambridge academic to write a history of the agency to mark its centenary in 2009.

Professor Christopher Andrew, Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at Corpus Christi College, will become a "part time member" of the security service to write the volume, said a Home Office spokesman.

The author would be granted "full access" to MI5's files, the spokesman said.

"The Security Service is delighted to have secured such an eminent historian to work on this project," he said.

Professor Andrew will have access to the files

MI5 will have editorial control over the history.

"While MI5 will edit material for reasons of national security, it will not attempt to influence his judgment or censor material for any other reason," the spokesman said.

Professor Andrew, 61, is likely to work in Thames House, MI5's headquarters on Millbank in London.

The author was previously given privileged access to MI5 and MI6 files when he wrote a history of the KGB with the KGB defector Oleg Gordievsky.

His main publications include Secret Service: The Making of the British Intelligence Community (1985), For The President's Eyes Only: Secret Intelligence and the American Presidency from Washington to Bush (1995) and Eternal Vigilance?: Fifty Years of the CIA (1997), co-written with Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones.

He has also presented radio and TV documentaries.