LONDON: 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 not be out of place in a thriller.
The lemon, now black and shriveled, helped convict Karl Muller, a German spy in Britain during World War I. It was found by police in his bedside table, along with another in his overcoat pocket. Evidence at his secret trial showed their juice had been used to write invisible-ink letters detailing British troop movements.
Muller was executed by firing squad at the Tower of London in 1915.
In a coda that would not be out of place in “Slow Horses,” MI5 pretended Muller was still alive and wrote to his German handlers to ask for more money.
“The Germans duly sent more funds and MI5 used the funds to purchase a car,” exhibition curator Mark Dunton said. “And they christened the car ‘The Muller.’
“They then were reprimanded by the Treasury for unauthorized use of expenditure,” he added.
The show includes declassified records held by the National Archives and items loaned from the secret museum inside Thames House, MI5’s London headquarters.
It charts the changing role of an agency that was founded in 1909 as the Secret Service Bureau with an initial staff of two officers.
There are records of its World War II successes, when the agency used captured Nazi agents to send disinformation back to Germany, deceiving Adolf Hitler about the location of the looming Allied invasion in 1944.
Failures include the years-long betrayal of the upper-crust “Cambridge Spies,” whose members spilled secrets to the Soviet Union from the heart of the UK intelligence establishment. Recently declassified MI5 documents on display include the 1963 confession of Cambridge spy Kim Philby, who denied treachery for years before he was exposed and fled to Moscow.
The exhibition also reveals changing attitudes, not least to women. The exhibition includes a 1945 report by spymaster Maxwell Knight discussing whether women could make good agents.
“It is frequently alleged that women are less discreet than men,” he noted, but declared that it was not so, saying that in “hundreds of cases of ‘loose talk’” most of the offenders were men.
There are admissions of past mistakes. The exhibition notes that MI5 was slow to recognize the threat from fascism in the 1930s, and later spent too much time spying on the small Communist Party of Great Britain. MI5 didn’t need to break into the party’s offices – it had a key, which is on display.
There are only a few items from the past few decades, showing how MI5’s focus has shifted from counterespionage to counterterrorism. Displays include a mortar shell fired by the Irish Republican Army at 10 Downing St. in 1991 while Prime Minister John Major was holding a Cabinet meeting.
MI5 only began releasing records to the UK’s public archives in 1997, generally 50 years after the events have passed. Even now, it controls what to release and what to keep secret.
“It would be a mistake to assume everything is in the exhibition,” said author Ben Macintyre, whose books on the history of intelligence include “Operation Mincemeat” and “Agent Zigzag.” But he said it still marks “a real sea-change in official secrecy.”
“A generation ago, this stuff was totally secret,” he said. “We weren’t even allowed to know that MI5 existed.”

WASHINGTON: New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker held the Senate floor with a marathon speech that lasted all night and into Tuesday afternoon in a feat of endurance to show Democrats’ resistance to President Donald Trump’s sweeping actions.
Booker took to the Senate floor on Monday evening, saying he would remain there as long as he was “physically able.” More than 22 hours later, the 55-year-old senator, a former football tight end, was plainly exhausted but still going. It was a remarkable show of stamina — among the longest in Senate history — as Democrats try to show their frustrated supporters that they are doing everything possible to contest Trump’s agenda.
“These are not normal times in our nation,” Booker said as he launched into his speech. “And they should not be treated as such in the United States Senate. The threats to the American people and American democracy are grave and urgent, and we all must do more to stand against them.”
Booker warns of a ‘looming constitutional crisis’
Pacing, then at times leaning on his podium, Booker railed for hours against cuts to Social Security offices led by Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. He listed the impacts of Trump’s early orders and spoke to concerns that broader cuts to the social safety net could be coming, though Republican lawmakers say the program won’t be touched.
Booker also read what he said were letters from constituents, donning and doffing his reading glasses. One writer was alarmed by the Republican president’s talk of annexing Greenland and Canada and a “looming constitutional crisis.”

Throughout the day Tuesday, Booker got help from Democratic colleagues, who gave him a break from speaking to ask him a question and praise his performance. Booker yielded for questions but made sure to say he would not give up the floor. He read that line from a piece of paper to ensure he did not slip and inadvertently end his speech. He stayed standing to comply with Senate rules.
“Your strength, your fortitude, your clarity has just been nothing short of amazing and all of America is paying attention to what you’re saying,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said as he asked Booker a question on the Senate floor. “All of America needs to know there’s so many problems, the disastrous actions of this administration.”
As Booker stood for hour after hour, he appeared to have nothing more than a couple glasses of water to sustain him. Yet his voice grew strong with emotion as his speech stretched into the afternoon, and House members from the Congressional Black Caucus, including House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, stood on the edge of the Senate floor to support Booker.
“This is a very powerful and principled moment led” by Booker, Jeffries said.
For his part, Booker called on his Democratic colleagues to look to their core values to find the resolve to counter the Republican president.
“Moments like this require us to be more creative or more imaginative, or just more persistent and dogged and determined,” Booker said.
Booker’s cousin and brother, as well as Democratic aides, watched from the chamber’s gallery. Sen. Chris Murphy accompanied Booker on the Senate floor throughout the day and night. Murphy was returning the comradeship that Booker had given to him in 2016 when the Connecticut Democrat held the floor for almost 15 hours to argue for gun control legislation.
His Senate floor speech isn’t the longest, but it’s close
The record for the longest individual speech belongs to Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who filibustered for 24 hours and 18 minutes against the Civil Rights Act of 1957, according to the Senate’s records. As it rolled past 22 hours, Booker’s speech marked the fourth longest in Senate history.
“I don’t have that much gas in the tank,” Booker said, yet anticipation in the Capitol was growing that he could surpass the record held by Thurmond.
Booker already surpassed the longest speech time for a sitting senator — the 21 hours and 19 minutes that Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, had held the floor to contest the Affordable Care Act in 2013. Responding to his record being broken, Cruz posted a meme of Homer Simpson crying on social media.
Throughout his determined performance, Booker repeatedly invoked the civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis of Georgia on Tuesday, arguing that overcoming opponents like Thurmond would require more than just talking.
“You think we got civil rights one day because Strom Thurmond — after filibustering for 24 hours — you think we got civil rights because he came to the floor one day and said, ‘I’ve seen the light,’” Booker said. “No, we got civil rights because people marched for it, sweat for it and John Lewis bled for it.”
Booker’s speech was not a filibuster, which is a speech meant to halt the advance of a specific piece of legislation. Instead, Booker’s performance was a broader critique of Trump’s agenda, meant to hold up the Senate’s business and draw attention to what Democrats are doing to contest the president. Without a majority in either congressional chamber, Democrats have been almost completely locked out of legislative power but are turning to procedural maneuvers to try to thwart Republicans.
Can his speech rally the anti-Trump resistance?
Booker is serving his second term in the Senate. He was an unsuccessful presidential candidate in 2020, when he launched his campaign from the steps of his home in Newark. He dropped out after struggling to gain a foothold in a packed field, falling short of the threshold to meet in a January 2020 debate.
But as Democrats search for a next generation of leadership, frustrated with the old-timers at the top, Booker’s speech could cement his status as a leading figure in the party’s opposition to Trump.
On Tuesday afternoon, tens of thousands of people were watching on Booker’s Senate YouTube page, as well as on other live streams.
Even before taking to the national political stage, Booker was considered a rising star in the Democratic Party in New Jersey, serving as mayor of Newark, the state’s largest city, from 2006 to 2013.
During college, he played tight end for Stanford University’s football team. He became a Rhodes scholar and graduated from Yale Law before starting his career as an attorney for nonprofits.
He was first elected to the US Senate in 2013 during a special election held after the death of incumbent Democrat Frank Lautenberg. He won his first full term in 2014 and reelection in 2020.
As Democratic colleagues made their way to the Senate chamber to help Booker by asking him questions, he also made heartfelt tributes to his fellow senators, recalling their personal backgrounds and shared experiences in the Senate. Booker also called on Americans to respond not just with resistance to Trump’s actions but with kindness and generosity for those in their communities.
Booker said, “I may be afraid — my voice may shake — but I’m going to speak up more.”