John Ferris

For a hundred years GCHQ--Government Communications Headquarters--has been at the forefront of British secret statecraft. Born out of the need to support military operations in the First World War, and fought over ever since, today it is the UK's biggest intelligence, security and cyber agency and a powerful tool of the British state. Based on unprecedented access to documents in GCHQ's archive, many of them hitherto classified, this is the first book to authoritatively explain the entire history of one of the world's most potent intelligence agencies

The Authorized History of GCHQ, Britain’s Secret Cyber-Intelligence Agency

Behind the Enigma

The Authorised History of GCHQ, Britain's Secret Cyber-Intelligence Agency

John Ferris' work in strategic and intelligence history is widely praised for its originality and the breadth of its research. At last his major pioneering articles are now available in this one single volume. In Intelligence and Strategy these essential articles have been fundamentally revised to incorporate new evidence and information withheld by governments when they were first published. This volume reshapes the study of communications intelligence by tracing Britain's development of cipher machines providing the context to Ultra and Enigma, and by explaining how British and German signals intelligence shaped the desert war. The author also explains how intelligence affected British strategy and diplomacy from 1874 to 1940 and world diplomacy during the 1930s and the Second World War. Finally he traces the roots for contemporary intelligence, and analyzes intelligence and the RMA as well as the role of intelligence in the 2003 Gulf War. This volume ultimately brings new light to our understanding of the relations between intelligence, strategy and diplomacy between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 21st century.

Selected Essays

Intelligence and Strategy

In For the Love of Rome, John Ferris conveys his excitement in discovering the city of Rome through language that moves those unfamiliar with the enchanted city, as well as those who have often been there. The book is not about wars, persecutions, internal struggles for power within Roman and Vatican rule, nor cultural development. As Ferris said, "The book is about our experiences in [mid-1960s and -1970s] Rome, what drew my wife and me there, and what we learned by seeing and reading." The style is witty, amusing, and unfailingly interesting as he relates historical anecdotes and reveals Rome's impact on various major figures, including Charles Dickens, James Joyce, and many more.

Memories, Musings, and Anecdotes

For the Love of Rome

John Ferris wrote The Winds of Barclay Street on behalf of the men and women who worked on the New York World-Telegram and Sun. After the prestigious newspaper's demise, in 1967, he often reminisced with his former colleagues, fondly remembering the antics and tomfoolery of fellow journalists as well as their reportage of serious news. Their past seemed a wondrous experience that must be preserved before it faded completely, consigning their signi?cant if often foolish history to oblivion. The Winds of Barclay Street recalls comical episodes of the reporters on daily assignment for news, as well as the highly-gifted sta? writers and editors who enlivened their working hours by writing ?ctitious, amusing articles not found in straight news. The book covers the heady days of the newspaper's prime through its sad but inevitable decline and eventual demise due to economic and social conditions in New York City of the 1960s. Today the old Barclay Street is unrecognizable, as giant behemoths of architectural stone and granite cover the former location of a once-great newspaper and the small businesses of lower Manhattan. The Winds of Barclay Street recalls a lost era and the individual men and women who wrote a newspaper read by thousands of commuters on subway, bus, train, or ferry, and by subscribers at home.

The Amusing Life and Sad Demise of the New York World-Telegram and Sun

The Winds of Barclay Street

The world we live in is a world of dualityan outer world composed of relationships and an inner world of what those relationships mean. For this reason, there are two threads that run throughout the book. The main thread is a deeper soul-searching journey about what happens when we experience the loss of a loved one. Do we have the power within to change what has happened? Is the past set in stone, or is it malleable? Are our loved ones lost to us forever, or are they waiting to be rediscovered? These are some of the questions that I have addressed on my search to reunite with my daughter. What I have discovered will shock some and surprise many but has the potential to empower all. The second thread is a more lighthearted, superficial coming-of-age story that runs parallel to the deeper journey, showing how, when life gets you down, inspiration can come from a most unexpected and unlikely source.

John Ferris

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