UK SPYMASTER'S DIARY SHOWS TRANS-ATLANTIC TENSION

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_BRITAIN_SPY_FILES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-10-26-04-47-45


This photo supplied by Britain’s National Archives shows files containing the diaries of Guy Liddell, former deputy director of the MI5 intelligence service. Liddell’s dairies for the years 1945-53 were made public for the first time on Friday Oct. 26, 2012. Overstaffed, overconfident and all too often over here. That's how a top British spymaster saw his American counterparts at the FBI and CIA, according to newly declassified diaries from the years after World War II. Friction between British spies and their American colleagues is a recurring theme in journals kept by Guy Liddell, the postwar deputy director of Britain's domestic intelligence agency, MI5. (AP Photo/National Archive)

LONDON (AP) -- Overstaffed, overconfident and all too often over here.

That's how a top British spymaster saw his American counterparts at the FBI and CIA, according to newly declassified diaries from the years after World War II.

Friction between British spies and their American colleagues is a recurring theme in journals kept by Guy Liddell, the postwar deputy director of Britain's domestic intelligence agency, MI5.

The diaries, published for the first time Friday by Britain's National Archives, show Liddell was frustrated by FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover - "a cross between a political gangster and a prima donna" - and skeptical of the brand-new U.S. espionage service, the CIA.