Why did so many believe that Conan Doyle’s fictitious sleuth was real? ibid.
So how did hanging go from being a spectator event to the taboo it is now? 1955 ... The last woman to be hanged in this country – Ruth Ellis. ibid.
Albert Pierrepoint: more than four hundred people. His record being seventeen in a single day. ibid.
‘It is said to be a deterrent. I cannot agree ... I have not prevented a single murder.’ ibid. Albert Pierrepoint
Tyrants, despots and dictators: A self-proclaimed king [Amin] snubbed by a Queen. Portillo’s State Secrets 2/10: Tyrants
Spying on the king [Edward VIII]: files that show how the police slandered his lover Wallis Simpson. Portillo’s State Secrets 3/10: Celebrity and Scandals
Lord Kitchener: The body is lost at sea and in the fog of war, suspicions reach new depths ... Some claim foul play ... bumped off by his own side (Frank Power). Portillo’s State Secrets 4/10: Mysteries
Playing games and playing politics – the secrets of Britain’s involvement with Hitler’s Olympics. The fight against discrimination: why the first black Heavyweight boxing champ was banned from fighting in London. Portillo’s State Secrets 5/10: Sport and Politics
Jack Johnson: outcry by the church ... Winston Churchill took out the Injunction. ibid.
Traitors and spies: how the Gunpowder Plot was foiled, and how the best known conspirator confessed. Portillo’s State Secrets 6/10: Traitors and Spies
‘The structural condition of HM Prison Wormwood Scrubs presents no problem to a person determined to escape’ ... These files represent a comedy of incompetence. ibid.
The most damaging of all was George Blake. ibid.
Scientology: It was attracting followers in Britain ... an organisation that is ‘essentially evil’. Portillo’s State Secrets 7/10: Monarchy
Scientology: Not welcome in Britain. The religious leader that the government tried to keep out. Portillo’s State Secrets 8/10: Banned
The religion was causing alarm amongst government ministers. ibid.
Critics accused Hubbard of running a money-making cult. ibid.
On trial: The magazine that found itself in the dock, and the moral campaigner who put it there. Portillo’s State Secrets 9/10: On Trial
Helen Duncan, the psychic or fraudster, the last woman to be jailed under the witchcraft laws … during the Second World War. ibid.
The Church of England’s shameful secret: the files that reveal its role in slavery. ibid.
The veteran campaigner Mrs Whitehouse brought a private prosecution for the common law offence of blasphemous libel against the magazine Gay News for a poem that it published in 1976. ibid.
The trial lasted six days … The editor Denis Lemon and Gay News were found guilty, and Lemon was given a nine-month prison sentence suspended for 18 months. ibid.
National Security and the birth of a legend. The secret letter that preceded the storming of the Iranian Embassy by the SAS. Portillo’s State Secrets X: National Security
I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvellous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if only one hides it. Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
Secrecy is the element of all goodness; even virtue, even beauty is mysterious. Thomas Carlyle
Secrecy, once accepted, becomes an addiction. Edward Teller
Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead. Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1735, attributions & variations
If you would keep your secret from an enemy, tell it not to a friend. ibid.
Secrecy is the first essential in affairs of state. Cardinal Richelieu, Maxims
If you have hitherto conceal’d this sight,
Let it be tenable in your silence still.
And whatsoever else shall hap to-night,
Give it an understanding, but no tongue. William Shakespeare, Hamlet I ii 249
Secrecy has many advantages, for when you tell someone the purpose of any object right away, they often think there is nothing to it. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame. Alexander Pope
Secrets, silent, stony sit in the dark palaces of both our hearts: secrets weary of their tyranny: tyrants willing to be dethroned. James Joyce
A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it! Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
No, rubbish! Maps of Britain? Yeah, come on! Mark Thomas Comedy Product special: Secret Map of Britain, rozzer, Channel 4 2003
This is where Britain assembles its nuclear weapons. ibid.
‘Two to three thousand sites across the whole country that are not on the maps. There’s also many other sites that are not named.’ ibid.
The biggest American arms dump in Europe. ibid.
Here at Greenham in the ’50s occurred a ‘dispersal of uranium’. ibid.
In whose interest does secrecy work? ibid.
And that is why I intend on keeping that secret for as long as I possible can. The Office US s2e13: The Secret, Dwight’s chores assignments, NBC 2005
It’s the question that everyone wants an answer to: what is the secret to extraordinary success? Is it grit? Is it determination? Luck? Or is it who you know? The Secret to Extraordinary Success, BBC 2015
Success in business is not a fine science … Not all of my ventures have succeeded. ibid.
Certain factors that can give us all a fighting chance … Have the confidence to change what you don’t like … Self-trust … ‘You’re really only investing in the person’ … It’s that self-doubt that drives her … We don’t readily take no for an answer … ibid.
There are enough nuclear weapons on Earth to wipe out the human race. We have already stood on the very brink of Armageddon. The race for nuclear supremacy has fuelled a world of conspiracy, deceit and espionage. It is a race in which spies risked their lives to betray their country, their friends and their family. And at its heart lies the world’s best-kept secrets. Nuclear Secrets I: The Spy from Moscow, BBC 2007
His [Penkovsky] offer to spy for the West reached Washington but the CIA failed to make contact. ibid.
Penkovsky made an astonishing claim that turned Cold-War perceptions on their head: the Soviets were way behind in the nuclear race, but Khrushchev was planning an all-out nuclear attack. ibid.
Penkovsky was going back behind the Iron Curtain as the Cold War intensified still further. ibid.
In May 1963 Penkovsky & Wynn were tried in Moscow. The KGB had arrested Wynn in Hungary – sentenced to eight years, he was released within eighteen months in a spy exchange. Oleg Penkovsky received the sentence of a common traitor. ibid.
1945: America prepares to unleash the most destructive weapon ever seen. It’s the dawn of the nuclear age … a weapon of mass murder created by men of genius – but one is a communist spy: Dr K Fuchs. Nuclear Secrets II: Superspy
Fuchs was against any country having a monopoly on the bomb. ibid.
The Soviets were progressing fast building four secret nuclear cities to service the bomb project. ibid.
In six London meetings Fuchs passed on ninety documents of nuclear secrets. ibid.
There are enough hydrogen bombs on Earth to destroy every human being. But sixty years ago there was no such thing. And one man was determined to keep it that way. Robert Oppenheimer claimed he was defending the human race. His enemies believed he should be crushed for betraying America. Was the world heading for Armageddon? Nuclear Secrets III: Superbomb
‘As of today we are living in the age of the superbomb.’ ibid. Oppenheimer
Sakharov had seen all of Fuch’s information but he wanted to go his own way. ibid.