Sir Brian John Maynard Tovey (15 April 1926 – 23 December 2015) was a British intelligence analyst who was director of the British

signals intelligence Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is intelligence-gathering by interception of ''signals'', whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly used in communication ( ...

agency,

GCHQ Government Communications Headquarters, commonly known as GCHQ, is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the Unit ...

, a post he held from 1978 to 1983.

Career

Born in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, Tovey was educated at

St Edward's School, Oxford St Edward's School is a public school (English independent day and boarding school) in Oxford, England. It is known informally as 'Teddies'. Approximately sixty pupils live in each of its thirteen houses. The school is a member of the Rugby G ...

St Edmund Hall, Oxford St Edmund Hall (sometimes known as The Hall or informally as Teddy Hall) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. The college claims to be "the oldest surviving academic society to house and educate undergraduates in any university ...

and the

School of Oriental and African Studies SOAS University of London (; the School of Oriental and African Studies) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury ar ...

, where he studied modern Chinese. After national service in the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

, Tovey joined

in 1950. He was thus the first GCHQ director not to have worked at

Bletchley Park Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes ( Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years following ...

. He was knighted in 1980. Tovey's tenure as director at GCHQ was not an easy one: industrial action in 1981 led later to the banning of

trades unions A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...

from GCHQ. The decision was also taken to inaugurate the controversial

Zircon Zircon () is a mineral belonging to the group of nesosilicates and is a source of the metal zirconium. Its chemical name is zirconium(IV) silicate, and its corresponding chemical formula is Zr SiO4. An empirical formula showing some of the r ...

project. Following his retirement from GCHQ, Tovey became a consultant advising firms including

Plessey The Plessey Company plc was a British electronics, defence and telecommunications company. It originated in 1917, growing and diversifying into electronics. It expanded after World War II by acquisition of companies and formed overseas compani ...

on dealing with Government departments. He served during this time as the chair of the Joint Electronics and Telecommunications Security Export Control Committee (JETSECC) of the Federation of the Electronics Industry. Later he was the founding chairman of the UK

Mind Sports Olympiad The Mind Sports Olympiad (MSO) is an annual international multi-disciplined competition and festival for games of mental skill and mind sports. The inaugural event was held in 1997 in London with £100,000 prize fund''Mind Sports Olympiad Supp ...

, and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Learning Skills Foundation and Trustee of the

Naval and Military Club The Naval and Military Club, known informally as The In & Out, is a private members' club located in St James's Square, London. It was founded in 1862 for gentlemen of the British Armed Forces. It now also accepts female members, and members ...

. Tovey maintained an interest in Italian art of the 13th to 17th centuries. He worked on a biography of the life and times of

Filippo Baldinucci Filippo Baldinucci (3 June 1625 – 10 January 1696) was an Italian art historian and biographer. Life Baldinucci is considered among the most significant Florentine biographers/historians of the artists and the arts of the Baroque period ...

. It is alleged that while he was Director of GCHQ, Tovey shared this interest with the head of the French SDECE,

Alexandre de Marenches Count Alexandre de Marenches (7 June 19212 June 1995) was a French military officer, a director of the SDECE French external intelligence services (6 November 1970 – 12 June 1981), special advisor to US President Ronald Reagan, and a member o ...

, and as a result GCHQ gained valuable intelligence on the war in Afghanistan.John K. Cooley, ''Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism'', Pluto Press, 1999

References

Directors of the Government Communications Headquarters 1926 births 2015 deaths People educated at St Edward's School, Oxford Alumni of St Edmund Hall, Oxford Alumni of SOAS University of London Burials in Oxfordshire 20th-century Royal Navy personnel Military personnel from London {{crypto-bio-stub