Skip to main content

Check out our new blog page, KCSI Insights!

Biography

Gill Bennett is a Senior Associate Fellow of RUSI. She was Chief Historian of the Foreign Office from 1995-2005, and Senior Editor of its official history of British foreign policy, Documents on British Policy Overseas. She has worked as a historian in Whitehall for over forty years and provided historical advice to twelve Foreign Secretaries under six Prime Ministers, from Edward Heath to Tony Blair.

A specialist in the history of secret intelligence, she published a ground-breaking biography, Churchill’s Man of Mystery: Desmond Morton and the World of Intelligence, in 2006. She was also part of the research team working on the official history of the Secret Intelligence Service by the late Professor Keith Jeffery, published in 2010.

Gill continues to work on a part-time basis with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office Historians, and is a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of War Studies at King’s College, London. Publications include Six Moments of Crisis: Inside British Foreign Policy (2013), and her most recent book, The Zinoviev Letter: The Conspiracy That Never Dies (2018).

Areas of expertise

  • British foreign policy since 1900
  • Intelligence studies
  • Decision-making in government
  • Offensive and  defensive information management

Media

Print
5th Nov 2024

The enduring mystery of the Zinoviev Letter

The continuing interest in the Zinoviev Letter, a century after its publication, is illustrative of how the defeated look for someone to blame, often with destructive results.

Publications

Article
1st Jan 2020

Secret Alliances: Special Operations and Intelligence in Norway 1940-1945: Tony InsallBiteback Publishing, 2019

Bennett, G., 2020, (Accepted/In press) In: RUSI Journal.

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Article
1st Jul 2014

War and Intelligence: The Catalytic Effect of Conflict

Bennett, G., Jul 2014, In: RUSI Journal.159, 4, p. 50-556 p.

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Book
18th Oct 2006
Article
1st Mar 2002

Declassification and release policies of the UK's intelligence agencies

Bennett, G., Mar 2002, In: Intelligence and National Security.17, 1, p. 21-3212 p.

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review