Chatter: Secret Intelligence and the British Royal Family with Rory Cormac
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 21 September 2023
⏱️ 76 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The British royal family and UK intelligence operations have been linked since Queen Victoria's time, involving everything from personal protection to matters of international intrigue to concerns about blackmail. Professor and author Rory Cormac, who has conducted extensive research on the British intelligence services, has recently added to his corpus of writings in the field with a book about the modern royal-intelligence intersection: Crown, Cloak, and Dagger, co-authored with Richard Aldrich.
David Priess and Rory discussed the difference in US and UK education about the royal family; intelligence foundations during the reign of the first Elizabeth; why it fell apart under her successor; the seeds of modern intelligence under Victoria; the involvement of UK intelligence officers in the death of Grigori Rasputin; the challenges and advances involving intelligence and Edward VII, George V, and Edward VIII; the contributions of George VI to the Allies' massive D-Day deception operations; Elizabeth II's reading of intelligence reports; Soviet spy Anthony Blunt's close relationship with the royal family; Elizabeth's role as a diplomatic "helper;" the exposures of Charles III and Prince Willliam to intelligence; why Clement Attlee was an underappreciated prime minister; and more.
Among the works mentioned in this episode:
The book Crown, Cloak, and Dagger by Richard J. Aldrich and Rory Cormac
The book How To Stage a Coup by Rory Cormac
Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair |
| 0:07.2 | podcast become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash LawFair, that's patreon.com slash |
| 0:16.9 | LawFair. Also check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair |
| 0:25.6 | no bull, and the aftermath. |
| 0:35.6 | Welcome to chatter. I'm David Pries, this week, professor and author Rory Kormack on secret |
| 0:41.2 | intelligence in the British Royal family. |
| 0:46.0 | Queen Elizabeth II knew more state secrets than anybody I record who has ever walked |
| 0:53.5 | the earth. Victoria, she was the only intelligence chief in her in a way. She was also intelligence |
| 1:01.7 | analyst when the prime minister would bring her to materials. She would sit next to him |
| 1:05.9 | and they would look at him and she would help him analyze. She knew the intricacies |
| 1:11.2 | of European politics better than most people because they were her family. |
| 1:15.4 | The prime minister at this point is asking to tap the phone of the monarch and burning |
| 1:24.9 | hell out of my five is a gas. It is not MIFI's job to be rummaging through the dirty |
| 1:32.1 | nick a draw of the British establishments. |
| 1:40.1 | Rory, thanks for joining me on chatter today. |
| 1:42.5 | Absolutely pleasure. Thanks for having me. There's so many issues that I want to talk to you |
| 1:47.7 | about but we don't have 16 hours to record nor do our listeners perhaps have the patience |
| 1:54.1 | for that. But let me just already put out an offer to follow up with you one on one |
| 1:59.3 | of these topics that we don't have time to explore fully in the recording. I have you here |
| 2:04.9 | today explicitly to talk about issues related to the British royal family and intelligence that |
| 2:13.2 | intersection that hasn't been explored as much as obviously the government prime ministers |
| 2:19.6 | and intelligence or as much as intelligence perhaps in the United States when it comes to |
... |
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