An Audience with Michael Smith

Author and journalist Michael Smith talks about his latest book - Foley: The Spy Who Saved 10,000 Jews. The story of the "British Schindler" who helped thousands of Jewish families escape from Nazi Germany after Kristallnacht and before the outbreak of war.

Frank Foley was the MI6 Head of Station in Berlin before the outbreak of WW2. At the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann, he was described as a "Scarlet Pimpernel" for the way he risked his own life to save Jews threatened with death by the Nazis. Despite having no diplomatic immunity, Foley would bend the rules when stamping passports and issuing visas, to allow Jews to escape "legally" to Britain or Palestine. Often going into internment camps to get Jews out and hiding them in his home it is estimated that he saved tens of thousands of people from the Holocaust. The state of Israel has named Foley as Righteous Among Nations, the highest award the Jewish state can give to a Gentile.

Michael Smith served in British military intelligence before becoming a journalist and covering the wars in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan. He was named Specialist Writer of the Year by the British Press Association for uncovering the Downing Street Memos, which exposed the truth about the intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq. 

He also talks about Bletchley Park; MI6 and spying; the use of espionage and special operations in the modern world and the use of intelligence during the Second World War. Smith is the chief historical adviser to the Bletchley Park Trust and the author of numerous books on spying and on Bletchley Park including the Number One bestseller, Station X.

Presented in association with Clive Conway Productions.