Secrets, spy tools and a 110-year-old lemon are on show in an exhibition from Britain's MI5

APNews - 02/04
A 110-year-old lemon that played a key role in espionage history is one of the star attractions of a London exhibition drawn from the files of British spy agency MI5.

LONDON (AP) — A desiccated 110-year-old lemon that played a key role in espionage history is one of the star attractions of a London exhibition drawn from the files of MI5, Britain’s domestic intelligence agency.

Compact spy cameras, microdots in a talcum powder tin and a briefcase abandoned by fleeing Soviet spy Guy Burgess are also part of the show at Britain’s National Archives, which charts the history of a secretive agency that is – slowly – becoming more open.

MI5 Director General Ken McCallum told journalists at a preview on Tuesday that the organization’s work “is often different from fiction, whether that fiction is George Smiley or Jackson Lamb” – the brilliant spymaster of John le Carré's novels and the slovenly supervisor of MI5 rejects in Mick Herron’s “Slow Horses” series.

Many stories told in the exhibition, however, would no...
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