Gill Bennett was Chief Historian of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office from 1995 to 2005 and Senior Editor of the FCO’s official history of British foreign policy, Documents on British Policy Overseas.

As an official historian in Whitehall for over forty years, she 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 has worked in the Cabinet Office and was part of the research team working on the official history of the Secret Intelligence Service by the late Professor Keith Jeffery, published in 2010.

She is a Senior Associate Fellow of the Royal United Services Institute and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Research Interests

• British foreign policy and statecraft
• Decision-making and the impact of intelligence
• History of secret intelligence
• Current research includes the impact of intelligence on foreign policy

Publications

• Churchill’s Man of Mystery: Desmond Morton and the World of Intelligence (Routledge, 2006)
• Six Moments of Crisis: Inside British Foreign Policy (OUP, 2013)
• The Zinoviev Letter: The Conspiracy that Never Dies (OUP, 2018)
• Intelligence, Communication and Leaks: The Perennial Paradox of Secret Information in Matthew Hefler (ed), Intelligence and Contemporary Conflict (Bokforlaget Stolpe, 2024)

Research Centres or Groups

• Forum on Future British Strategy (KCL)
• Kings Centre for the Study of intelligence