Sir John Alexander Sinclair, (29 May 1897 – 22 March 1977) was a British Army general who was head of the

Secret Intelligence Service The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...

(SIS) from 1953 to 1956.

Career

Sinclair was the second son of a Church of England priest, John Sinclair. He was educated at

West Downs School West Downs School, Romsey Road, Winchester, Hampshire, was an English independent preparatory school, which was established in 1897 and closed in 1988. History Founding The school was founded by Lionel Helbert (1870–1919), with help from h ...

, Winchester, and the Naval Colleges at

Osborne Osborne may refer to: * Osborne (name) Places Australia * Osborne, South Australia (disambiguation), places associated with the suburb in the Adelaide metropolitan area * Osborne, New South Wales, a rural community in the Riverina region Can ...

and Dartmouth. He served 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 ...

during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

but had to leave the Navy due to ill health. At the end of the war he transferred to the

army An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

and after training at Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, was commissioned into the Royal Field Artillery. In 1938 he was appointed an instructor at the Staff College, Camberley. By 1941 he was Deputy Director of Operations at the

War Office The War Office was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (MoD). This article contains text from ...

and then in 1942 he became Commander

Royal Artillery The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery (RA) and colloquially known as "The Gunners", is one of two regiments that make up the artillery arm of the British Army. The Royal Regiment of Artillery comprises t ...

for 1st Division. In 1944 he was appointed Director of Military Intelligence at the

. In 1946, while still in the army, he started working for the SIS. Following his retirement from the military in 1952 as a

Major-General Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of a ...

, Sinclair was appointed head of the SIS, taking up the post in 1953. He led the Service through the transition from its wartime operations, directing operations in the emerging Cold War environment in a "practical and responsible fashion", "instead of accommodating the risk-takers". He also introduced reforms to recruitment and conditions of service designed to introduce a professional career structure within SIS suited to post-war conditions. His personal integrity was recognised not just by colleagues, but also by opponents. Sir John's retirement coincided with a failed frogman mission to investigate the ''Ordzhonikidze'' that had brought the leader of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...

, and Prime Minister

Nikolai Bulganin Nikolai Alexandrovich Bulganin (russian: Никола́й Алекса́ндрович Булга́нин; – 24 February 1975) was a Soviet politician who served as Minister of Defense (1953–1955) and Premier of the Soviet Union (1955–19 ...

on a diplomatic mission to Britain, resulting in the death of frogman

Lionel Crabb Lieutenant-Commander Lionel Kenneth Phillip Crabb, (28 January 1909 – presumed dead 19 April 1956), known as Buster Crabb, was a Royal Navy frogman and diver who vanished during a reconnaissance mission for MI6 around a Soviet cruiser bert ...

. The Prime Minister had not approved this mission and some accounts incorrectly claimed that Sir John had been forced to resign. The "Authorized History of MI5" confirms that the decision that the head of that service should succeed Sir John at his planned retirement date in 1956 had been taken by the Prime Minister in 1954.

References

SINCLAIR, Maj.-Gen. Sir John
''Who Was Who'', A & C Black, 1920–2016 (online edition, Oxford University Press, 2014)

Bibliography

External links

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, - {{DEFAULTSORT:Sinclair, John 1897 births 1977 deaths Graduates of Britannia Royal Naval College People educated at West Downs School Royal Navy personnel of World War I Graduates of the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich Royal Artillery officers British Army generals of World War II War Office personnel in World War II Cold War MI6 chiefs Graduates of the Staff College, Camberley Knights Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George Companions of the Order of the Bath Officers of the Order of the British Empire People educated at the Royal Naval College, Osborne Foreign recipients of the Legion of Merit Commanders of the Order of the Crown (Belgium) British Army major generals Military personnel from London Academics of the Staff College, Camberley