The publication in 1966 of M. R. D. Foot's SOE in France stands as a significant milestone in the history of British secrecy. The book, which details the exploits in France of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), the organisation set up by Churchill in July 1940 to ‘set Europe ablaze’ by conducting sabotage and subversion throughout German-occupied territory, was the first history of any secret service officially published by HMG. As such, it went against the grain of the long-established convention that Britain never ‘did’ intelligence and that its activities should never be mentioned, save in the highest circles. What prompted HMG to endorse such an unprecedented work? In the book's preface, Foot offered a short explanation, suggesting that the history had derived from mounting pressure, primarily from Parliament, for an ‘accurate and dispassionate’ account of SOE's role in the war. Foot's failure to elaborate on the genesis of the project vexed Dame Irene Ward, Conservative MP for Tynemouth. In the months following the book's publication, and with a serious bee in her bonnet, Ward took to telling all and sundry that she had been the driving force and, accordingly, was deserving of some acknowledgement. Her case, which she made in a succession of angry letters to the press, hinged on the fact that, during the late 1950s, she had lobbied intensively in the House of Commons for an official investigation into charges of incompetence and callousness in the administration of SOE. A woman renowned for charging into parliamentary battle, if at times impetuously, Ward had been particularly anxious to clear up allegations that female resistance fighters had lost their lives on account of incompetent SOE leadership.