Five Lives in One: An Insider's View of the Defence and Intelligence World

Author: Professor R Benjamin CB, PhD, DSc, FIE, FCGI, FEng

After a childhood spent as a schooboy in Nazi Germany, and then a brief period in a Swiss refugee camp, Ralph Benjamin came to England as a teenage boy in 1939. Arriving with no money, no one to meet him and two suitcases to his name, he made his way across London, 23 miles on foot to his aunt's house.

The young Ralph excelled academically at high school and then at university. He went on to forge a successful career in the Royal Naval Scientific Service, where he was a pioneer in naval radar and Command-and-Control information systems.

He went on to work for the Ministery of Defence for 27 years in naval weapons research, before transferring to GCHQ in Cheltenham and then finally to NATO.

This book offers a glimpse into what really happens behind the scenes in the corridors of Whitehall, the MoD and the Intelligence Services. A personal account from someone who has worked on the inside.