MI5 reveals secrets and tools of real-life James Bonds throughout its history

Britain’s spy agency MI5 is revealing some secrets.

In collaboration with host The National Archives and prepared over several years by the agency’s own archivists, “MI5: Official Secrets” is giving the public the chance to see equipment and methods used by real-life James Bonds and their colleagues over the agency’s 115-year history.

Ken McCallum, director general of MI5, said the agency wanted to be more transparent.

While TV fiction showed the dramatic side to spying, real intelligence work was about “ordinary human beings together doing extraordinary things”, he said at an event this week launching the exhibition.

One of the featured items is a 110-year-old lemon, used as evidence against German spy Karl Muller, who was executed by firing squad in 1915 at the Tower of London. Muller used lemon juice to write secret messages during World War I.