After graduating from Somerville College, University of Oxford in 1969,[1] Bennett began her career in the Foreign Office in 1972 as a research assistant in what was then called the Historical Branch.
[2] She held a number of roles within the wider FCO, and in 1995 was appointed to the newly-created position of Chief Historian.
[6][7] In researching the origins of the letter, Bennett had full access to British government sources, and also drew upon Russian archival records.
[8] Bennett retired from the civil service in 2005, and was succeeded as chief historian by Patrick Salmon.
[9] Since 2005, Bennett has published three monographs, Churchill's Man of Mystery: Desmond Morton and the World of Intelligence (2006),[10] Six Moments of Crisis: Inside British Foreign Policy (2013),[11][12] and The Zinoviev Letter: The Conspiracy that Never Dies (2018).