The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 (
Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign
intelligence service
An intelligence agency is a government agency responsible for the collection, analysis, and exploitation of information in support of law enforcement, national security, military, public safety, and foreign policy objectives.
Means of informatio ...
of the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of
human intelligence
Human intelligence is the intellectual capability of humans, which is marked by complex cognitive feats and high levels of motivation and self-awareness. High intelligence is associated with better outcomes in life.
Through intelligence, humans ...
in support of the UK's national security. SIS is one of the
British intelligence agencies
The Government of the United Kingdom maintains intelligence agencies within three government departments, the Foreign Office, the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence. These agencies are responsible for collecting and analysing foreign and do ...
and the
Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service
The chief of the Secret Intelligence Service serves as the head of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, also commonly known as MI6), which is part of the United Kingdom intelligence community. The chief is appointed by the foreign secretary, to ...
("C") is directly accountable to the
Foreign Secretary.
Formed in 1909 as the foreign section of the Secret Service Bureau, the section grew greatly during the
First World War
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 ...
officially adopting its current name around 1920.
The name "MI6" (meaning
Military Intelligence, Section 6) originated as a convenient label during the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
, when SIS was known by many names. It is still commonly used today.
The existence of SIS was not officially acknowledged until 1994. That year the
Intelligence Services Act 1994
The Intelligence Services Act 1994 (c. 13) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
The Act, sometimes abbreviated as ISA, is introduced by the long title which states:
An Act to make provision about the Secret Intelligence Service ...
(ISA) was introduced to Parliament, to place the organisation on a statutory footing for the first time. It provides the legal basis for its operations. Today, SIS is subject to public oversight by the
Investigatory Powers Tribunal
In the United Kingdom, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) is a judicial body, independent of the British government, which hears complaints about surveillance by public bodies—in fact, "the only Tribunal to whom complaints about the Intel ...
and the
Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament
The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament (ISC) is a statutory joint committee of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, appointed to oversee the work of the UK intelligence community.
The committee was established in 1994 by the ...
.
The stated priority roles of SIS are
counter-terrorism
Counterterrorism (also spelled counter-terrorism), also known as anti-terrorism, incorporates the practices, military tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, law enforcement, business, and intelligence agencies use to combat or ...
,
counter-proliferation
Counterproliferation refers to diplomatic, intelligence, and military efforts to combat the proliferation of weapons, including both weapons of mass destruction (WMD), long-range missiles, and certain conventional weapons. Nonproliferation and ar ...
, providing intelligence in support of
cyber security
Computer security, cybersecurity (cyber security), or information technology security (IT security) is the protection of computer systems and networks from attack by malicious actors that may result in unauthorized information disclosure, the ...
, and supporting stability overseas to disrupt terrorism and other criminal activities. Unlike its main sister agencies,
Security Service (MI5) and
Government Communications Headquarters
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 Uni ...
(GCHQ), SIS works exclusively in foreign intelligence gathering; the ISA allows it to carry out operations only against persons outside the
British Islands
The British Islands is a term within the law of the United Kingdom which refers collectively to the following four polities:
* the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (formerly the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland) ...
. Some of SIS's actions since the 2000s have attracted significant controversy, such as its alleged complicity in acts of
enhanced interrogation techniques and
extraordinary rendition
Extraordinary rendition is a euphemism for state-sponsored forcible abduction in another jurisdiction and transfer to a third state. The phrase usually refers to a United States-led program used during the War on Terror, which had the purpos ...
.
Since 1994, SIS headquarters have been in the
SIS Building
The SIS Building or MI6 Building at Vauxhall Cross houses the headquarters of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, MI6), the United Kingdom's foreign intelligence agency. It is located at 85 Albert Embankment in Vauxhall, a south western pa ...
in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, 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 dow ...
, on the
South Bank of the
River Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...
.
History and development
Foundation
The service derived from the Secret Service Bureau, which was founded on 1 October 1909.
The Bureau was a joint initiative of the
Admiralty
Admiralty most often refers to:
*Admiralty, Hong Kong
*Admiralty (United Kingdom), military department in command of the Royal Navy from 1707 to 1964
*The rank of admiral
*Admiralty law
Admiralty can also refer to:
Buildings
* Admiralty, Traf ...
and 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 ...
to control secret intelligence operations in the UK and overseas, particularly concentrating on the activities of the
Imperial German government. The bureau was split into naval and army sections which, over time, specialised in foreign espionage and internal counter-espionage activities, respectively. This specialisation was because the Admiralty wanted to know the maritime strength of the
Imperial German Navy
The Imperial German Navy or the Imperial Navy () was the navy of the German Empire, which existed between 1871 and 1919. It grew out of the small Prussian Navy (from 1867 the North German Federal Navy), which was mainly for coast defence. Kaise ...
. This specialisation was formalised before 1914. During the
First World War
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 ...
in 1916, the two sections underwent administrative changes so that the foreign section became the section MI1(c) of the
Directorate of Military Intelligence.
Its first director was
Captain Sir Mansfield George Smith-Cumming, who often dropped the ''Smith'' in routine communication. He typically signed correspondence with his initial ''C'' in green ink. This usage evolved as a
code name, and has been adhered to by all subsequent directors of SIS when signing documents to retain anonymity.
First World War
The service's performance during the
First World War
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 ...
was mixed, because it was unable to establish a network in Germany itself. Most of its results came from military and commercial intelligence collected through networks in neutral countries, occupied territories, and Russia. During the war, MI6 had its main European office in
Rotterdam
Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"Ne ...
from where it coordinated espionage in Germany and occupied Belgium.
Inter-War period
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After the war, resources were significantly reduced but during the 1920s, SIS established a close operational relationship with the diplomatic service. In August 1919, Cumming created the new passport control department, providing diplomatic cover for agents abroad. The post of ''Passport Control Officer'' provided operatives with
diplomatic immunity
Diplomatic immunity is a principle of international law by which certain foreign government officials are recognized as having legal immunity from the jurisdiction of another country. .
["C": The Secret Life of Sir Stewart Graham Menzies, Spymaster to Winston Churchill, Anthony Cave Brown, Collier, 1989]
Circulating Sections established intelligence requirements and passed the intelligence back to its consumer departments, mainly 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
Admiralty
Admiralty most often refers to:
*Admiralty, Hong Kong
*Admiralty (United Kingdom), military department in command of the Royal Navy from 1707 to 1964
*The rank of admiral
*Admiralty law
Admiralty can also refer to:
Buildings
* Admiralty, Traf ...
.
The debate over the future structure of British Intelligence continued at length after the end of hostilities but
Cumming managed to engineer the return of the Service to Foreign Office control. At this time, the organisation was known in
Whitehall
Whitehall is a road and area in the City of Westminster, Central London. The road forms the first part of the A3212 road from Trafalgar Square to Chelsea. It is the main thoroughfare running south from Trafalgar Square towards Parliament Sq ...
by a variety of titles including the ''Foreign Intelligence Service'', the ''Secret Service'', ''MI1(c)'', the ''Special Intelligence Service'' and even ''C's organisation''. Around 1920, it began increasingly to be referred to as the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), a title that it has continued to use to the present day and which was enshrined in statute in the Intelligence Services Act 1994. During the Second World War, the name MI6 was used as a flag of convenience, the name by which it is frequently known in popular culture since.
In the immediate post-war years under
Sir Mansfield George Smith-Cumming and throughout most of the 1920s, SIS was focused on Communism, in particular, Russian Bolshevism. Examples include a
thwarted operation to overthrow the
Bolshevik government Under the leadership of Russian communist Vladimir Lenin, the Bolshevik Party seized power in the Russian Republic during a coup known as the October Revolution. Overthrowing the pre-existing Provisional Government, the Bolsheviks established a new ...
in 1918 by SIS agents
Sidney George Reilly and
Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart, as well as more orthodox espionage efforts within early Soviet Russia headed by Captain George Hill.
Smith-Cumming died suddenly at his home on 14 June 1923, shortly before he was due to retire, and was replaced as ''C'' by Admiral Sir
Hugh "Quex" Sinclair. Sinclair created the following sections:
* A central foreign counter-espionage Circulating Section, Section V, to liaise with the Security Service to collate
counter-espionage
Counterintelligence is an activity aimed at protecting an agency's intelligence program from an opposition's intelligence service. It includes gathering information and conducting activities to prevent espionage, sabotage, assassinations or ot ...
reports from overseas stations.
* An economic intelligence section, Section VII, to deal with trade, industry and contraband.
* A clandestine radio communications organisation, Section VIII, to communicate with operatives and agents overseas.
* Section N to exploit the contents of foreign
diplomatic bags
* Section D to conduct political covert actions and paramilitary operations in time of war. Section D would organise the Home Defence Scheme resistance organisation in the UK and come to be the foundation of the
Special Operations Executive
The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a secret British World War II organisation. It was officially formed on 22 July 1940 under Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton, from the amalgamation of three existing secret organisations. Its pu ...
(SOE) during the Second World War.
With the emergence of
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
as a threat following the ascendence of the
Nazis
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...
, in the early 1930s attention was shifted in that direction.
MI6 assisted the
Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one orga ...
, the Nazi secret police, with "the exchange of information about communism" as late as October 1937, well into the Nazi era; the head of the British agency's Berlin station,
Frank Foley, was still able to describe his relationship with the Gestapo's so-called communism expert as "cordial".
Sinclair died in 1939, after an illness, and was replaced as ''C'' by Lt Col.
Stewart Menzies
Major General Sir Stewart Graham Menzies, (; 30 January 1890 – 29 May 1968) was Chief of MI6, the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), from 1939 to 1952, during and after the Second World War.
Early life, family
Stewart Graham Menzies wa ...
(Horse Guards), who had been with the service since the end of World War I.
On 26 and 27 July 1939, in
Pyry near
Warsaw
Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...
, British
military intelligence
Military intelligence is a military discipline that uses information collection and analysis approaches to provide guidance and direction to assist commanders in their decisions. This aim is achieved by providing an assessment of data from a ...
representatives including
Dilly Knox
Alfred Dillwyn "Dilly" Knox, CMG (23 July 1884 – 27 February 1943) was a British classics scholar and papyrologist at King's College, Cambridge and a codebreaker. As a member of the Room 40 codebreaking unit he helped decrypt the Zimm ...
,
Alastair Denniston
Commander Alexander "Alastair" Guthrie Denniston (1 December 1881 – 1 January 1961) was a Scottish codebreaker in Room 40, deputy head of the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) and hockey player. Denniston was appointed operational he ...
and Humphrey Sandwith were introduced by their allied Polish counterparts into their
Enigma-decryption techniques and equipment, including
Zygalski sheets
The method of Zygalski sheets was a cryptologic technique used by the Polish Cipher Bureau before and during World War II, and during the war also by British cryptologists at Bletchley Park, to decrypt messages enciphered on German Enigma mac ...
and the cryptologic "
Bomba", and were promised future delivery of a reverse-engineered, Polish-built duplicate Enigma machine. The demonstration represented a vital basis for the later British continuation and effort. During the war, British cryptologists decrypted a vast number of messages enciphered on Enigma. The intelligence gleaned from this source, codenamed "
Ultra
adopted by British military intelligence in June 1941 for wartime signals intelligence obtained by breaking high-level encrypted enemy radio and teleprinter communications at the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park. ' ...
" by the British, was a substantial aid to the
Allied war effort.
Second World War
During the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
the
human intelligence
Human intelligence is the intellectual capability of humans, which is marked by complex cognitive feats and high levels of motivation and self-awareness. High intelligence is associated with better outcomes in life.
Through intelligence, humans ...
work of the service was complemented by several other initiatives:
* The
cryptanalytic
Cryptanalysis (from the Greek ''kryptós'', "hidden", and ''analýein'', "to analyze") refers to the process of analyzing information systems in order to understand hidden aspects of the systems. Cryptanalysis is used to breach cryptographic s ...
effort undertaken by the
Government Code and Cypher School
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 Uni ...
(GC&CS), the bureau responsible for interception and decryption of foreign communications 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 followin ...
. (See above.)
* The extensive
'double-cross' system run by
MI5
The Security Service, also known as MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), G ...
to feed misleading intelligence to the
Germans
, native_name_lang = de
, region1 =
, pop1 = 72,650,269
, region2 =
, pop2 = 534,000
, region3 =
, pop3 = 157,000
3,322,405
, region4 =
, pop4 = ...
.
*
Imagery intelligence activities conducted by the RAF Photographic Reconnaissance Unit (now
JARIC
The Defence Intelligence Fusion Centre (DIFC) is based at RAF Wyton in Cambridgeshire. Largely created from the staff of the National Imagery Exploitation Centre (formerly known as the Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence Centre (JARIC)) and th ...
, The National Imagery Exploitation Centre).
GC&CS was the source of
Ultra
adopted by British military intelligence in June 1941 for wartime signals intelligence obtained by breaking high-level encrypted enemy radio and teleprinter communications at the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park. ' ...
intelligence, which was very useful.
The chief of SIS,
Stewart Menzies
Major General Sir Stewart Graham Menzies, (; 30 January 1890 – 29 May 1968) was Chief of MI6, the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), from 1939 to 1952, during and after the Second World War.
Early life, family
Stewart Graham Menzies wa ...
, insisted on wartime control of codebreaking, and this gave him immense power and influence, which he used judiciously. By distributing the
Ultra
adopted by British military intelligence in June 1941 for wartime signals intelligence obtained by breaking high-level encrypted enemy radio and teleprinter communications at the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park. ' ...
material collected by the
Government Code & Cypher School
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 Uni ...
, MI6 became, for the first time, an important branch of the government. Extensive breaches of Nazi
Enigma
Enigma may refer to:
*Riddle, someone or something that is mysterious or puzzling
Biology
*ENIGMA, a class of gene in the LIM domain
Computing and technology
* Enigma (company), a New York-based data-technology startup
* Enigma machine, a family ...
signals gave Menzies and his team enormous insight into
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
's strategy, and this was kept a closely held secret.
The British intelligence services signed a special agreement with their allied Polish counterparts 1940. In July 2005, the British and Polish governments jointly produced a two-volume study of bilateral intelligence cooperation in the War, which revealed information that had until then been officially secret. The ''Report of the Anglo-Polish Historical Committee'' was written by leading historians and experts who had been granted unprecedented access to British intelligence archives, and concluded that 48 percent of all reports received by British secret services from continental Europe in 1939–45 had come from Polish sources.
This was facilitated by the fact that occupied Poland had a tradition of insurgency organisations passed down through generations, with networks in emigre Polish communities in Germany and France. A major part of Polish resistance activity was clandestine and involved cellular intelligence networks; while Nazi Germany used Poles as forced labourers across the continent, putting them in a unique position to spy on the enemy. Liaison was undertaken by SIS officer
Wilfred Dunderdale
Commander Wilfred Albert "Biffy" Dunderdale, (24 December 1899 – 13 November 1990) was a British spy and intelligence officer.John Bruce Lockhart, "Dunderdale, Wilfred Albert (1899-1990)", rev., ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxfo ...
, and reports included advance warning of the
Afrikakorps
The Afrika Korps or German Africa Corps (, }; DAK) was the German expeditionary force in Africa during the North African Campaign of World War II. First sent as a holding force to shore up the Italian defense of its African colonies, the ...
' departure for Libya, awareness of the readiness of Vichy French units to fight against the Allies or switch sides in
Operation Torch, and advance warning both of
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...
and
Operation Edelweiss
The Battle of the Caucasus is a name given to a series of Axis and Soviet operations in the Caucasus area on the Eastern Front of World War II. On 25 July 1942, German troops captured Rostov-on-Don, Russia, opening the Caucasus region of t ...
, the German Caucasus campaign.
Polish-sourced reporting on German secret weapons began in 1941, and
Operation Wildhorn enabled a British special operations flight to airlift a
V-2 Rocket
The V-2 (german: Vergeltungswaffe 2, lit=Retaliation Weapon 2), with the technical name ''Aggregat 4'' (A-4), was the world’s first long-range guided ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was develop ...
that had been captured by the Polish resistance. Polish secret agent
Jan Karski
Jan Karski (24 June 1914 – 13 July 2000) was a Polish soldier, resistance-fighter, and diplomat during World War II. He is known for having acted as a courier in 1940–1943 to the Polish government-in-exile and to Poland's Western Allies ab ...
delivered the British the first Allied intelligence on the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...
. Via a female Polish agent, the British also had a channel to the anti-Nazi chief of the
Abwehr, Admiral
Wilhelm Canaris
Wilhelm Franz Canaris (1 January 1887 – 9 April 1945) was a German admiral and the chief of the ''Abwehr'' (the German military-intelligence service) from 1935 to 1944. Canaris was initially a supporter of Adolf Hitler, and the Nazi re ...
.
1939 saw the most significant failure of the service during the war, known as the
Venlo incident for the Dutch town where much of the operation took place. Agents of the German army secret service, the ''
Abwehr'', and the counter-espionage section of the ''
Sicherheitsdienst
' (, ''Security Service''), full title ' (Security Service of the '' Reichsführer-SS''), or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Established in 1931, the SD was the first Nazi intelligence organization ...
'' (SD), posed as high-ranking officers involved in a plot to depose
Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
. In a series of meetings between SIS agents and the 'conspirators',
SS plans to abduct the SIS team were shelved due to the presence of Dutch police. On the night of 8–9 November, a meeting took place without police presence. There, the two SIS agents were duly abducted by the SS.
In 1940, journalist and Soviet agent
Kim Philby
Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby (1 January 191211 May 1988) was a British intelligence officer and a double agent for the Soviet Union. In 1963 he was revealed to be a member of the Cambridge Five, a spy ring which had divulged British secr ...
applied for a vacancy in Section D of SIS, and was vetted by his friend and fellow Soviet agent
Guy Burgess
Guy Francis de Moncy Burgess (16 April 1911 – 30 August 1963) was a British diplomat and Soviet agent, and a member of the Cambridge Five spy ring that operated from the mid-1930s to the early years of the Cold War era. His defection in 1951 ...
. When Section D was absorbed by
Special Operations Executive
The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a secret British World War II organisation. It was officially formed on 22 July 1940 under Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton, from the amalgamation of three existing secret organisations. Its pu ...
(SOE) in summer of 1940, Philby was appointed as an instructor in
black propaganda
Black propaganda is a form of propaganda intended to create the impression that it was created by those it is supposed to discredit. Black propaganda contrasts with gray propaganda, which does not identify its source, as well as white propagan ...
at the SOE's training establishment in
Beaulieu, Hampshire
Beaulieu ( ) is a small village located on the southeastern edge of the New Forest national park in Hampshire, England, and home to both Palace House and the British National Motor Museum.
History
The name Beaulieu comes etymological ...
.
In May 1940, MI6 set up
British Security Co-ordination
British Security Co-ordination (BSC) was a covert organisation set up in New York City by the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) in May 1940 upon the authorisation of the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill.
Its purpose was to investigate ...
(BSC), on the authorisation of Prime Minister
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...
over the objections of Stewart Menzies. This was a covert organisation based in New York City, headed by
William Stephenson
Sir William Samuel Stephenson (23 January 1897 – 31 January 1989), born William Samuel Clouston Stanger, was a Canadian soldier, fighter pilot, businessman and spymaster who served as the senior representative of the British Security Coord ...
intended to investigate enemy activities, prevent sabotage against British interests in the Americas, and mobilise pro-British opinion in the Americas. BSC also founded
Camp X
Camp X was the unofficial name of the secret Special Training School No. 103, a Second World War British paramilitary installation for training covert agents in the methods required for success in clandestine operations. It was located on the ...
in Canada to train clandestine operators and to establish (in 1942) a telecommunications relay station, code name Hydra, operated by engineer
Benjamin deForest Bayly.
In early 1944 MI6 re-established Section IX, its prewar anti-Soviet section, and Philby took a position there. He was able to alert the
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union.
...
about all British intelligence on the Soviets—including what the American
OSS had shared with the British about the Soviets.
Despite these difficulties the service nevertheless conducted substantial and successful operations in both occupied Europe and in the Middle East and Far East where it operated under the cover name Inter-Services Liaison Department (ISLD).
Cold War
In August 1945 Soviet intelligence officer
Konstantin Volkov tried to defect to the UK, offering the names of all Soviet agents working inside British intelligence. Philby received the memo on Volkov's offer and alerted the Soviets, so they could arrest him.
[ In 1946, SIS absorbed the "rump" remnant of the ]Special Operations Executive
The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a secret British World War II organisation. It was officially formed on 22 July 1940 under Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton, from the amalgamation of three existing secret organisations. Its pu ...
(SOE), dispersing the latter's personnel and equipment between its operational divisions or "controllerates" and new Directorates for Training and Development and for War Planning. The 1921 arrangement was streamlined with the geographical, operational units redesignated "Production Sections", sorted regionally under Controllers, all under a Director of Production. The Circulating Sections were renamed "Requirements Sections" and placed under a Directorate of Requirements.
SIS operations against the USSR
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 nationa ...
were extensively compromised by the presence of an agent working for the Soviet Union, Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby, in the post-war Counter-Espionage Section, R5. SIS suffered further embarrassment when it turned out that an officer involved in both the Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
and Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
tunnel operations had been turned as a Soviet agent during internment by the Chinese during the Korean War
, date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...
. This agent, George Blake
George Blake ( Behar; 11 November 1922 – 26 December 2020) was a spy with Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and worked as a double agent for the Soviet Union. He became a communist and decided to work for the MGB while a pri ...
, returned from his internment to be treated as something of a hero by his contemporaries in "the office". His security authorisation was restored, and in 1953 he was posted to the Vienna Station where the original Vienna tunnels had been running for years. After compromising these to his Soviet controllers, he was subsequently assigned to the British team involved on Operation Gold
Operation Gold (also known as Operation Stopwatch by the British) was a joint operation conducted by the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the British MI6 Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) in the 1950s to tap into landline communic ...
, the Berlin tunnel, and which was, consequently, blown from the outset. In 1956, SIS Director John Sinclair had to resign after the botched affair of the death of Lionel Crabb.
SIS activities included a range of covert political actions, including the overthrow of Mohammed Mossadeq
Mohammad Mosaddegh ( fa, محمد مصدق, ; 16 June 1882 – 5 March 1967) was an Iranian politician, author, and lawyer who served as the 35th Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953, after appointment by the 16th Majlis. He was a member of ...
in Iran in the 1953 Iranian coup d'état
The 1953 Iranian coup d'état, known in Iran as the 28 Mordad coup d'état ( fa, کودتای ۲۸ مرداد), was the overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in favor of strengthening the monarchical rule of ...
(in collaboration with the US Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
).
Despite earlier Soviet penetration, SIS began to recover as a result of improved vetting and security, and a series of successful penetrations. From 1958, SIS had three moles in the Polish UB, the most successful of which was codenamed NODDY. The CIA described the information SIS received from these Poles as "some of the most valuable intelligence ever collected", and rewarded SIS with $20 million to expand their Polish operation. In 1961 Polish defector Michael Goleniewski exposed George Blake
George Blake ( Behar; 11 November 1922 – 26 December 2020) was a spy with Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and worked as a double agent for the Soviet Union. He became a communist and decided to work for the MGB while a pri ...
as a Soviet agent. Blake was identified, arrested, tried for espionage and sent to prison. He escaped and was exfil
In military tactics, extraction (also exfiltration or exfil) is the process of removing personnel when it is considered imperative that they be immediately relocated out of a hostile environment and taken to an area either occupied or controlle ...
trated to the USSR in 1966.
Also, in the GRU
The Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, rus, Гла́вное управле́ние Генера́льного шта́ба Вооружённых сил Росси́йской Федера́ци ...
, they recruited Colonel Oleg Penkovsky. Penkovsky ran for two years as a considerable success, providing several thousand photographed documents, including Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army ( Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, afte ...
rocketry manuals that allowed US National Photographic Interpretation Center
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is a combat support agency within the United States Department of Defense whose primary mission is collecting, analyzing, and distributing geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) in support of national ...
(NPIC) analysts to recognise the deployment pattern of Soviet SS4 MRBMs and SS5 IRBMs in Cuba in October 1962. SIS operations against the USSR continued to gain pace through the remainder of the Cold War, arguably peaking with the recruitment in the 1970s of Oleg Gordievsky
Oleg Antonovich Gordievsky, CMG (; born 10 October 1938) is a former colonel of the KGB who became KGB resident-designate (''rezident'') and bureau chief in London, and was a double agent, providing information to the British Secret Intelli ...
who SIS ran for the better part of a decade, then successfully exfiltrated from the USSR across the Finnish border in 1985.
During the Soviet–Afghan War
The Soviet–Afghan War was a protracted armed conflict fought in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989. It saw extensive fighting between the Soviet Union and the Afghan mujahideen (alongside smaller groups of anti-Sovie ...
, SIS supported the Islamic resistance group commanded by Ahmad Shah Massoud and he became a key ally in the fight against the Soviets. An annual mission of two SIS officers, as well as military instructors, were sent to Massoud and his fighters. Through them, weapons and supplies, radios and vital intelligence on Soviet battle plans were all sent to the Afghan resistance. SIS also helped to retrieve crashed Soviet helicopters from Afghanistan.
The real scale and impact of SIS activities during the second half of the Cold War remains unknown, however, because the bulk of their most successful targeting operations against Soviet officials were the result of "Third Country" operations recruiting Soviet sources travelling abroad in Asia and Africa. These included the defection to the SIS Tehran
Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...
station in 1982 of KGB
The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
officer Vladimir Kuzichkin, the son of a senior Politburo member and a member of the KGB's internal Second Chief Directorate who provided SIS and the British government with warning of the mobilisation of the KGB's Alpha Force during the 1991 August Coup
File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phili ...
which briefly toppled Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
After the Cold War
The end of the Cold War led to a reshuffle of existing priorities. The Soviet Bloc ceased to swallow the lion's share of operational priorities, although the stability and intentions of a weakened but still nuclear-capable Federal Russia constituted a significant concern. Instead, functional rather than geographical intelligence requirements came to the fore such as counter-proliferation
Counterproliferation refers to diplomatic, intelligence, and military efforts to combat the proliferation of weapons, including both weapons of mass destruction (WMD), long-range missiles, and certain conventional weapons. Nonproliferation and ar ...
(via the agency's Production and Targeting, Counter-Proliferation Section) which had been a sphere of activity since the discovery of Pakistani physics students studying nuclear-weapons related subjects in 1974; counter-terrorism (via two joint sections run in collaboration with the Security Service, one for Irish republicanism
Irish republicanism ( ga, poblachtánachas Éireannach) is the political movement for the unity and independence of Ireland under a republic. Irish republicans view British rule in any part of Ireland as inherently illegitimate.
The develop ...
and one for international terrorism); counter-narcotics and serious crime (originally set up under the Western Hemisphere
The Western Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth that lies west of the prime meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and east of the antimeridian. The other half is called the Eastern Hemisphere. Politically, the te ...
controllerate in 1989); and a 'global issues' section looking at matters such as the environment and other public welfare issues. In the mid-1990s these were consolidated into a new post of Controller, Global and Functional.
During the transition, then-C Sir Colin McColl
Sir Colin Hugh Verel McColl, (born 6 September 1932) was Head of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) from 1989 to 1994.
Career
Educated at Shrewsbury School and at The Queen's College, Oxford, McColl joined the diplomatic service in 1 ...
embraced a new, albeit limited, policy of openness towards the press and public, with 'public affairs' falling into the brief of Director, Counter-Intelligence and Security (renamed Director, Security and Public Affairs). McColl's policies were part and parcel with a wider 'open government initiative' developed from 1993 by the government of John Major. As part of this, SIS operations, and those of the national signals intelligence 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 Uni ...
, were placed on a statutory footing through the 1994 Intelligence Services Act. Although the Act provided procedures for authorisations and warrants, this essentially enshrined mechanisms that had been in place at least since 1953 (for authorisations) and 1985 (under the Interception of Communications Act, for warrants). Under this Act, since 1994, SIS and GCHQ activities have been subject to scrutiny by Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee
The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament (ISC) is a statutory joint committee of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, appointed to oversee the work of the UK intelligence community.
The committee was established in 1994 by the ...
.
During the mid-1990s the British intelligence community was subjected to a comprehensive costing review by the government. As part of broader defence cut-backs SIS had its resources cut back twenty-five percent across the board and senior management was reduced by forty percent. As a consequence of these cuts, the Requirements division (formerly the Circulating Sections of the 1921 Arrangement) were deprived of any representation on the board of directors. At the same time, the Middle East and Africa controllerates were pared back and amalgamated. According to the findings of Lord Butler of Brockwell's ''Review of Weapons of Mass Destruction'', the reduction of operational capabilities in the Middle East and of the Requirements division's ability to challenge the quality of the information the Middle East Controllerate was providing weakened the Joint Intelligence Committee's estimates of Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...
's non-conventional weapons programmes. These weaknesses were major contributors to the UK's erroneous assessments of Iraq's 'weapons of mass destruction' prior to the 2003 invasion of that country.
On one occasion in 1998, MI6 believed it might be able to obtain 'actionable intelligence' which could help the CIA capture Osama Bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda. But given that this might result in his being transferred or rendered to the United States, MI6 decided it had to ask for ministerial approval before passing the intelligence on (in case he faced the death penalty or mistreatment). This was approved by a minister 'provided the CIA gave assurances regarding humane treatment'. In the end, not enough intelligence came through to make it worthwhile going ahead.
In 2001, it became clear that working with Ahmad Shah Massoud and his forces was the best option for going after Bin Laden; the priority for MI6 was developing intelligence coverage. The first real sources were being established, although no one penetrated the upper tier of the Al Qaeda leadership itself. As the year progressed, plans were drawn up and slowly worked their way up to the White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...
on 4 September 2001-which involved increasing dramatically support for Massoud. MI6 were involved in these plans.
War on Terror
During the Global War on Terror, SIS accepted information from the CIA that was obtained through torture
Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. definitions of tortur ...
, including the extraordinary rendition
Extraordinary rendition is a euphemism for state-sponsored forcible abduction in another jurisdiction and transfer to a third state. The phrase usually refers to a United States-led program used during the War on Terror, which had the purpos ...
programme. Craig Murray
Craig John Murray (born 17 October 1958) is a Scottish author, human rights campaigner, journalist, and former diplomat for the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Between 2002 and 2004, he was the British ambassador to Uzbekistan during ...
, a UK ambassador to Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( uz, Ozbekiston Respublikasi, italic=yes / ; russian: Республика Узбекистан), is a doubly landlocked co ...
, had written several memos critical of the UK's acceptance of this information; he was then sacked from his job.
Following the September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...
, on 28 September the British Foreign Secretary approved the deployment of MI6 officers to Afghanistan and the wider region, utilising people involved with the mujahadeen in the 1980s and who had language skills and regional expertise. At the end of the month, a handful of MI6 officers with a budget of $7 million landed in northeast Afghanistan, where they met with General Mohammed Fahim
Mohammad Qasim Fahim ( prs, محمد فهیم, also known as "Marshal Fahim"; 1957 – 9 March 2014) was a politician in Afghanistan who served as Vice President from June 2002 until December 2004 and from November 2009 until his death. Betwee ...
of the Northern Alliance
The Northern Alliance, officially known as the United Islamic National Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan ( prs, جبهه متحد اسلامی ملی برای نجات افغانستان ''Jabha-yi Muttahid-i Islāmi-yi Millī barāyi Nijāt ...
and began working with other contacts in the north and south to build alliances, secure support, and to bribe as many Taliban
The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalist, militant Islamist, jihadist, and Pasht ...
commanders as they could to change sides or leave the fight.
During the United States invasion of Afghanistan
In late 2001, the United States and its close allies invaded Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban government. The invasion's aims were to dismantle al-Qaeda, which had executed the September 11 attacks, and to deny it a safe base of operatio ...
, the SIS established a presence in Kabul
Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into 22 municipal districts. Acco ...
following its fall to the coalition. MI6 members and the British Special Boat Service
The Special Boat Service (SBS) is the special forces unit of the United Kingdom's Royal Navy. The SBS can trace its origins back to the Second World War when the Army Special Boat Section was formed in 1940. After the Second World War, the Roya ...
took part in the Battle of Tora Bora
The Battle of Tora Bora was a military engagement that took place in the cave complex of Tora Bora, eastern Afghanistan, from December 6–17, 2001, during the opening stages of the United States invasion of Afghanistan. It was launched by the ...
. After members of the 22nd Special Air Service (SAS) Regiment returned to the UK in mid-December 2001, members of both territorial SAS regiments remained in the country to provide close protection to SIS members.
In mid-December, MI6 officers who had been deployed to the region began to interview prisoners held by the Northern Alliance. In January 2002, they began interviewing prisoners held by the Americans. On 10 January 2002, an MI6 officer conducted his first interview of a detainee held by the Americans. He reported back to London that there were aspects of how the detainee had been handled by the US military before the interview that did not seem consistent with the Geneva Conventions
upright=1.15, Original document in single pages, 1864
The Geneva Conventions are four treaties, and three additional protocols, that establish international legal standards for humanitarian treatment in war. The singular term ''Geneva Conve ...
. Two days after the interview, he was sent instructions, copied to all MI5 and MI6 officers in Afghanistan, about how to solve concerns over mistreatment, referring to signs of abuse: "Given that they are not within our custody or control, the law does not require you to intervene to protect this." It went on to say that the Americans had to understand that the UK did not condone such mistreatment and that a complaint should be made to a senior US official if there was any coercion by the US in conjunction with an MI6 interview.
In the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one month, including 26 ...
, it is alleged, although not confirmed, that some SIS members conducted Operation Mass Appeal, which was a campaign to plant stories about Iraq's WMDs in the media. The operation was exposed in ''The Sunday Times'' in December 2003. Claims by former weapons inspector Scott Ritter
William Scott Ritter Jr. (born July 15, 1961) is an American author and pundit and a former United States Marine Corps intelligence officer and United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) weapons inspector. He served as a junior military analyst d ...
suggest that similar propaganda campaigns against Iraq date back well into the 1990s. Ritter says that SIS recruited him in 1997 to help with the propaganda effort, saying "the aim was to convince the public that Iraq was a far greater threat than it actually was." Towards the end of the invasion, SIS officers operating out of Baghdad International Airport with Special Air Service (SAS) protection, began to re-establish a station in Baghdad and began gathering intelligence, in particular on WMDs. After it became clear that Iraq did not possess any WMDs, MI6 officially withdrew pre-invasion intelligence about them. In the months after the invasion, they also began gathering political intelligence; predicting what would happen in post-Baathist Iraq. MI6 personnel in the country never exceeded 50; in early 2004, apart from supporting Task Force Black in hunting down former senior Ba'athist party members, MI6 also made an effort to target "transnational terrorism"/jihadist networks that led to the SAS carrying out Operation Aston in February 2004: They conducted a raid on a house in Baghdad that was part of a "jihadist pipeline" that ran from Iran to Iraq that US and UK intelligence agencies were tracking suspects on – the raid captured members of Pakistan based terrorist group.[Urban, Mark, ''Task Force Black: The Explosive True Story of the Secret Special Forces War in Iraq '', St. Martin's Griffin, 2012 , pp.10–11, p.13, p.15, p.18–19, p.50-55, p.56-57, p.67-68, p.95-96, p.101, p.249]
Shortly before the Second Battle of Fallujah
The Second Battle of Fallujah, codenamed Operation al-Fajr ( ar, الفجر, ) and Operation Phantom Fury, was an American-led offensive of the Iraq War that lasted roughly 6 weeks, starting 7th November, 2004. Marking the highest point of the ...
, MI6 personnel visited JSOCs TSF (Temporary Screening Facility) at Balad Air Base
Balad Air Base ( ar, قاعدة بلد الجوية) , is an Iraqi Air Force base located near Balad, Iraq, Balad in the Sunni Triangle north of Baghdad, Iraq.
Built in the early 1980s, it was originally named Al-Bakr Air Base. In 2003 the base ...
to question a suspected insurgent. Afterwards, they raised concerns about the poor detention conditions there. As a result, the British government informed JSOC in Iraq that prisoners captured by British special forces would only be turned over to JSOC if there was an undertaking not to send them to Balad. In spring 2005, the SAS detachment operating in Basra and southern Iraq, known as Operation Hathor, escorted MI6 case officers into Basra so they could meet their sources and handlers. MI6 provided information that enabled the detachment to carry out surveillance operations. MI6 were also involved in resolving the Basra prison incident
The Basra prison incident was an event involving British troops in Basra, Iraq.
Main incident
On 19 September 2005, two undercover British Special Air Service (SAS) soldiers dressed in traditional Arab garments and headdresses opened fire on a ...
; the SIS played a central role in the British withdrawal from Basra in 2007.
In Afghanistan, MI6 worked closely with the military, delivering tactical information and working in small cells alongside Special Forces, surveillance teams, and GCHQ to track individuals from the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
The first MI6 knew of the US carrying out the mission that killed Osama Bin Laden on 2 May 2011 was after it happened, when its chief called his American counterpart for an explanation. In July 2011 it was reported that SIS had closed several of its stations, particularly in Iraq, where it had several outposts in the south of the country in the region of Basra. The closures have allowed the service to focus its attention on Pakistan and Afghanistan, which are its principal stations. On 12 July 2011, MI6 intelligence officers, along with other intelligence agencies, tracked two British-Afghans to a hotel in Herat
Herāt (; Persian: ) is an oasis city and the third-largest city of Afghanistan. In 2020, it had an estimated population of 574,276, and serves as the capital of Herat Province, situated south of the Paropamisus Mountains (''Selseleh-ye Safē ...
, Afghanistan, who were discovered to be trying to establish contact with the Taliban or al-Qaeda to learn bomb-making skills; operators from the SAS captured them and they are believed to be the first Britons to be captured alive in Afghanistan since 2001.
By 2012, MI6 had reorganised after 9/11 and reshuffled its staff, opening new stations overseas, with Islamabad
Islamabad (; ur, , ) is the capital city of Pakistan. It is the country's ninth-most populous city, with a population of over 1.2 million people, and is federally administered by the Pakistani government as part of the Islamabad Capital ...
becoming the largest station. MI6's increase in funding was not as large as that for MI5, and it still struggled to recruit at the required rate; former members were rehired to help out. MI6 maintained intelligence coverage of suspects as they moved from the UK overseas, particularity to Pakistan.
In October 2013, SIS appealed for reinforcements and extra staff from other intelligence agencies amid growing concern about a terrorist threat from Afghanistan and that the country would become an "intelligence vacuum" after British troops withdraw at the end of 2014.
In March 2016, it was reported that MI6 had been involved in the Libyan Civil War
Demographics of Libya is the demography of Libya, specifically covering population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, and religious affiliations, as well as other aspects of the Libyan population. The ...
since January of that year, having been escorted by the SAS to meet with Libyan officials to discuss the supplying of weapons and training for the Syrian Army and the militias fighting against ISIS
Isis (; ''Ēse''; ; Meroitic: ''Wos'' 'a''or ''Wusa''; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎, romanized: ʾs) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion whose worship spread throughout the Greco-Roman world. Isis was first mentioned in the Old Kin ...
. In April 2016, it was revealed that MI6 teams with members of the Special Reconnaissance Regiment
The Special Reconnaissance Regiment (SRR) is a special reconnaissance unit of the British Army. It was established on 6 April 2005 and is part of the United Kingdom Special Forces (UKSF).
The regiment conducts a wide range of classified activitie ...
seconded to them had been deployed to Yemen to train Yemeni forces fighting AQAP, as well as identifying targets for drone strikes. In November 2016, ''The Independent'' reported that MI6, MI5 and GCHQ supplied the SAS and other British special forces a list of 200 British jihadists to kill or capture before they attempt to return to the UK. The jihadists are senior members of ISIS who pose a direct threat to the UK. Sources said SAS soldiers have been told that the mission could be the most important in the regiment's 75-year history.
Other activities
On 6 May 2004 it was announced that Sir Richard Dearlove was to be replaced as head of SIS by John Scarlett
Sir John McLeod Scarlett (born 18 August 1948) is a British senior intelligence officer. He was Chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) from 2004 to 2009. Prior to this appointment, he had chaired the Joint Intelligence Commit ...
, former chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee. Scarlett was an unusually high-profile appointment to the job, and gave evidence at the Hutton Inquiry
The Hutton Inquiry was a 2003 judicial inquiry in the UK chaired by Lord Hutton, who was appointed by the Labour government to investigate the controversial circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly, a biological warfare expert and ...
.
SIS has been active in the Balkans
The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...
, playing a vital role in hunting down people wanted by the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague. British intelligence operations in the Balkans are thought to have played a vital role in the handover of the former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milošević to The Hague; SIS was also heavily involved in the hunt for Radovan Karadžić
Radovan Karadžić ( sr-cyr, Радован Караџић, ; born 19 June 1945) is a Bosnian Serb politician, psychiatrist and poet. He was convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes by the International Criminal Tr ...
and General Ratko Mladic, who are linked to a vast range of war crimes including the murder of Srebrenica's surrendering male population and organising the Siege of Sarajevo
The Siege of Sarajevo ( sh, Opsada Sarajeva) was a prolonged blockade of Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, during the Bosnian War. After it was initially besieged by the forces of the Yugoslav People's Army, the city was then be ...
.
On 27 September 2004, it was reported that British spies across the Balkans, including an SIS officer in Belgrade and another spy in Sarajevo
Sarajevo ( ; cyrl, Сарајево, ; ''see names in other languages'') is the capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 275,524 in its administrative limits. The Sarajevo metropolitan area including Sarajevo ...
, were moved or forced to withdraw after they were publicly identified in a number of media reports planted by disgruntled local intelligence services – particularly in Croatia and Serbia. A third individual was branded a British spy in the Balkans and left the office of the High Representative in Bosnia, whilst a further two British intelligence officers working in Zagreb
Zagreb ( , , , ) is the capital and largest city of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb stands near the international border between Croatia and Slov ...
, remained in place despite their cover being blown in the local press. The exposure of the agents across the three capitals markedly undermined the British intelligence operations in the area, including SIS efforts to capture The Hague's most wanted men, which riled many local intelligence agencies in the Balkans, some of which are suspected of continuing ties to alleged war criminals. They were riled due to MI6 operating "not so much a spy network as a network of influence within Balkan security services and the media," said the director of the International Crisis Group in Serbia and Bosnia, which caused some of them to be "upset". In Serbia, the SIS station chief was forced to leave his post in August 2004 after a campaign against him led by the country's DB intelligence agency, where his work investigating the 2003 assassination of the reformist prime minister Zoran Djindjic
Zoran ( sr-Cyrl, Зоран) is a common South Slavic name, the masculine form of Zora, which means ''dawn, daybreak''. The name is especially common in Serbia, North Macedonia, Croatia and a little in Slovenia.
Notable people with this given na ...
won him few friends.
On 15 November 2006, SIS allowed an interview with current operations officers for the first time. The interview was on the Colin Murray
Colin Murray (born Luke Wright on 10 March 1977) is a Northern Irish radio and television presenter. In 2010, he became host of BBC Television's '' Match of the Day 2'' on BBC Two, while still anchoring shows on BBC Radio 5 Live, including '' 5 ...
Show on BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It specialises in modern popular music and current chart hits throughout the day. The station provides alternative genres at night, including electronica, dance, ...
. The two officers (one male and one female) had their voices disguised for security reasons. The officers compared their real experience with the fictional portrayal of SIS in the James Bond films. While denying that there ever existed a "licence to kill
''Licence to Kill'' is a 1989 spy film, the sixteenth in the ''James Bond'' series produced by Eon Productions, and the second and final film to star Timothy Dalton as the MI6 agent James Bond. It sees Bond suspended from MI6 as he pursues t ...
" and reiterating that SIS operated under British law, the officers confirmed that there is a ' Q'-like figure who is head of the technology department, and that their director is referred to as 'C'. The officers described the lifestyle as quite glamorous and very varied, with plenty of overseas travel and adventure, and described their role primarily as intelligence gatherers, developing relationships with potential sources.
Sir John Sawers
Sir Robert John Sawers FRUSI (born 26 July 1955) is a British intelligence officer, diplomat and civil servant. He was Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), a position he held from November 2009 until November 2014. He was previousl ...
became head of the SIS in November 2009, the first outsider to head SIS in more than 40 years. Sawers came from the Diplomatic Service, previously having been the British Permanent Representative to the United Nations.
On 7 June 2011, John Sawers received Romania's President Traian Băsescu
Traian Băsescu (; born 4 November 1951) is a conservative Romanian politician who served as President of Romania from 2004 to 2014. Prior to his presidency, Băsescu served as Romanian Minister of Transport on multiple occasions between 1991 ...
and George-Cristian Malor, the head of the Serviciul Roman de Informatii (SRI) at SIS headquarters.
Libyan Civil War
Five years before the Libyan Civil War
Demographics of Libya is the demography of Libya, specifically covering population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, and religious affiliations, as well as other aspects of the Libyan population. The ...
, a UK Special Forces
The United Kingdom Special Forces (UKSF) is a directorate comprising the Special Air Service, the Special Boat Service, the Special Reconnaissance Regiment, the Special Forces Support Group, 18 (UKSF) Signal Regiment and the Joint Special Forces ...
unit was formed called E Squadron which was composed of selected members of the 22nd SAS Regiment, the SBS and the SRR. It was tasked by the Director Special Forces
Director Special Forces (DSF) is the senior British Armed Forces officer responsible for Special Forces. The post is a senior role within the Ministry of Defence (MoD). As Director, the incumbent is responsible for the provision of United Kingdo ...
to support MI6's operations (akin to the CIA's SAC – a covert paramilitary unit for SIS). It was not a formal squadron within the establishment of any individual UK Special Forces unit, but at the disposal of both the Director Special Forces and the SIS; previously, SIS relied primarily on contractor personnel. The Squadron carried out missions that required 'maximum discretion' in places that were 'off the radar or considered dangerous'; the Squadron's members often operated in plain clothes, with the full range of national support, such as false identities at its disposal. In early March 2011, during the Libyan Civil War, a covert operation in Libya involving E Squadron went wrong: The aim of the mission was to cement SIS's contacts with the rebels by flying in two SIS officers in a Chinook helicopter
The Boeing CH-47 Chinook is a tandem rotor helicopter developed by American rotorcraft company Vertol and manufactured by Boeing Vertol. The Chinook is a heavy-lift helicopter that is among the heaviest lifting Western helicopters. Its name ...
to meet a Libyan Intermediary in a town near Benghazi, who had promised to fix them up a meeting with the NTC. A team consisting of six E Squadron members (all from the SAS) and two SIS officers were flown into Libya by an RAF Special Forces Flight Chinook; the Squadron's members were carrying bags containing arms, ammunition, explosives, computers, maps and passports from at least four nationalities. Despite technical backup, the team landed in Libya without any prior agreement with the rebel leadership, and the plan failed as soon as the team landed. The locals became suspicious they were foreign mercenaries or spies and the team was detained by rebel forces and taken to a military base in Benghazi. They were then hauled before a senior rebel leader; the team told him that they were in the country to determine the rebels' needs and to offer assistance, but the discovery of British troops on the ground enraged the rebels who were fearful that Gaddafi would use such evidence to destroy the credibility of the NTC. Negotiations between senior rebel leaders and British officials in London finally led to their release and they were allowed to board HMS Cumberland.
On 16 November 2011 SIS warned the national transitional council in Benghazi after discovering details of planned strikes, said foreign secretary William Hague
William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...
. 'The agencies obtained firm intelligence, were able to warn the NTC of the threat, and the attacks were prevented,' he said. In a rare speech on the intelligence agencies, he praised the key role played by SIS and GCHQ in bringing Gaddafi's 42-year dictatorship to an end, describing them as 'vital assets' with a 'fundamental and indispensable role' in keeping the nation safe. 'They worked to identify key political figures, develop contacts with the emerging opposition and provide political and military intelligence. 'Most importantly, they saved lives,' he said. The speech follows criticism that SIS had been too close to the Libyan regime and was involved in the extraordinary rendition of anti-Gaddafi activists. Mr Hague also defended controversial proposals for secrecy in civil courts in cases involving intelligence material.
In February 2013 Channel Four
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service in ...
News reported on evidence of SIS spying on opponents of the Gaddafi regime and handing the information to the regime in Libya. The files looked at contained "a memorandum of understanding, dating from October 2002, detailing a two-day meeting in Libya between Gaddafi's external intelligence agency and two senior heads of SIS and one from MI5 outlining joint plans for "intelligence exchange, counter-terrorism and mutual co-operation".
2015 onwards
In February 2015, ''The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was f ...
'' reported that MI6 contacted their counterparts in the South African intelligence services to seek assistance in an effort to recruit a North Korean "asset" to spy on North Korea's nuclear programme. MI6 had contacted the man who had inside information on North Korea's nuclear programme, he considered the offer and wanted to arrange another meeting, but a year passed without MI6 hearing from him, which prompted them to request South African assistance when they learnt he would be travelling through South Africa. It is not known whether the North Korean man ever agreed to work for MI6.
In July 2020, it was revealed that intelligence officials from a number of repressive regimes received training from senior officials of MI6 and MI5
The Security Service, also known as MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), G ...
in last two days. In 2019, an 11-day International Intelligence Directors Course was attended by top intelligence officers from 26 countries, including Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...
, the United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia ( The Middle East). It is located at t ...
, Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...
, Jordan
Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...
, Oman
Oman ( ; ar, عُمَان ' ), officially the Sultanate of Oman ( ar, سلْطنةُ عُمان ), is an Arabian country located in southwestern Asia. It is situated on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, and spans the mouth of ...
, Nigeria
Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...
, Cameroon
Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (french: République du Cameroun, links=no), is a country in west-central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; the C ...
, Algeria
)
, image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg
, map_caption =
, image_map2 =
, capital = Algiers
, coordinates =
, largest_city = capital
, relig ...
, Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
and others. A British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
academic, Matthew Hedges questioned the UK's training programme for allowing officials of the UAE, where he was detained on false charges and faced psychological torture
Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. definitions of tortur ...
.
Cover name
MI6 is known sometimes to use Government Communications Bureau as a cover name, for example, when sponsoring research.
Personnel awards
MI6 personnel are recognised annually by King Charles III
Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms. He was the longest-serving heir apparent and Prince of Wales and, at age 73, became the oldest person to a ...
(formerly the Prince of Wales) at the Prince of Wales's Intelligence Community Awards at St James's Palace or Clarence House
Clarence House is a royal residence on The Mall in the City of Westminster, London. It was built in 1825–1827, adjacent to St James's Palace, for the Duke of Clarence, the future king William IV.
Over the years, it has undergone much exten ...
alongside members of the Security Service (MI5), and 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 Uni ...
. Awards and citations are given to teams within the agencies as well as individuals.
Centenary and art exhibition
The year 2009 was the centenary of the Secret Intelligence Service. An official history of the first forty years was commissioned to mark the occasion and was published in 2010. To further mark the centenary, the Secret Intelligence Service invited artist James Hart Dyke to become artist in residence
Artist-in-residence, or artist residencies, encompass a wide spectrum of artistic programs which involve a collaboration between artists and hosting organisations, institutions, or communities. They are programs which provide artists with space a ...
.
''A year with MI6''
''A year with MI6'' was a public art exhibition, showing a collection of paintings and drawings by artist James Hart Dyke to mark the centenary of the British Secret Intelligence Service. The project saw Hart Dyke working closely with the SIS for a year, both in the United Kingdom and abroad. The Service allowed Hart Dyke access to enable him to undertake the project, sending him on hostile environment courses to allow him to work in dangerous parts of the world, and admitting him into their Vauxhall Cross headquarters. The sensitivity of SIS work required Hart Dyke to maintain secrecy, and his access was carefully controlled.
The works were exhibited publicly to promote understanding of the SIS's work, and why their operations must be secret. The exhibition ran from 15 to 26 February 2011 at the Mount Street Galleries, Mayfair, London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, 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 dow ...
. More than 40 original oil paintings and many sketches and studies were exhibited after being screened for security; the content and meaning of some of the paintings was intentionally left ambiguous.
Notable people
* Cambridge Five
The Cambridge Spy Ring was a ring of spies in the United Kingdom that passed information to the Soviet Union during World War II and was active from the 1930s until at least into the early 1950s. None of the known members were ever prosecuted ...
, a Cold War Soviet spy ring
** Anthony Blunt (cryptonym: Johnson), MI5 officer and Soviet agent
** Guy Burgess
Guy Francis de Moncy Burgess (16 April 1911 – 30 August 1963) was a British diplomat and Soviet agent, and a member of the Cambridge Five spy ring that operated from the mid-1930s to the early years of the Cold War era. His defection in 1951 ...
(cryptonym: Hicks), SIS officer and Soviet agent
** John Cairncross
John Cairncross (25 July 1913 – 8 October 1995) was a British civil servant who became an intelligence officer and spy during the Second World War. As a Soviet double agent, he passed to the Soviet Union the raw Tunny decryptions that influ ...
(cryptonym: Liszt), SIS officer and Soviet agent
** Donald Maclean (cryptonym: Homer), SIS officer and Soviet agent
** Kim Philby
Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby (1 January 191211 May 1988) was a British intelligence officer and a double agent for the Soviet Union. In 1963 he was revealed to be a member of the Cambridge Five, a spy ring which had divulged British secr ...
(cryptonym: Stanley), SIS officer and Soviet agent
* David Cornwell (known as John le Carré), author, former SIS officer
* Andrew Fulton, chairman of the Scottish Conservative Party
* Charles Cumming, author
* Paul Dukes, SIS officer and author
* Ian Fleming, author of James Bond
The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have ...
novels, former NID officer
* Graham Greene
Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading English novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquir ...
, author, former SIS officer
* Bill Hudson, SIS agent
* Ralph Izzard
Ralph William Burdick Izzard, OBE (27 August 1910 – 2 December 1992) was an English journalist, author, adventurer and, during World War II, a British Naval Intelligence officer.''The Independent''Obituary – Ralph Izzard, 14 December 1 ...
, journalist, author, former NID officer
* Horst Kopkow Horst Kopkow (29 November 1910, Ortelsburg, East Prussia, Germany (now Szczytno, Poland) – 13 October 1996, Gelsenkirchen, Germany) was a Nazi German SS major who worked for German Security police and, after the war, was concealed by Briti ...
, SS officer who worked for SIS after the Second World War
* W. Somerset Maugham
William Somerset Maugham ( ; 25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965) was an English writer, known for his plays, novels and short stories. Born in Paris, where he spent his first ten years, Maugham was schooled in England and went to a German un ...
, playwright, novelist, short-story writer, SIS agent in Switzerland and Russia before the October Revolution of 1917 in the Russian Empire
* Daphne Park, clandestine senior controller, former head of station in Léopoldville.
* Duško Popov
Duško Popov ( sr-Cyrl, Душко Попов; 10 July 1912 – 10 August 1981) was a Serbian double agent who served as part of the MI6 and Abwehr during World War II. He passed off disinformation to Germany as part of the Double-Cross ...
, a Second World War double agent; he was the key for operations in Nazi Germany and, as an MI6 agent, he was the inspiration for Ian Fleming's James Bond
* William Stephenson
Sir William Samuel Stephenson (23 January 1897 – 31 January 1989), born William Samuel Clouston Stanger, was a Canadian soldier, fighter pilot, businessman and spymaster who served as the senior representative of the British Security Coord ...
, head of the British Security Co-ordination during WWII
* Amy Elizabeth Thorpe
Amy Elizabeth Thorpe, also known as Betty Pack, Betty Thorpe, Elizabeth Pack, and Amy Brousse; (November 22, 1910 – December 1, 1963) was an American spy, codenamed Cynthia, who worked for British Security Coordination (BSC) which was set up in ...
, glamourous seductress who gathered information from diplomats during World War II.
* Richard Tomlinson
Richard John Charles Tomlinson (born 13 January 1963) is a former officer of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). He argued that he was subjected to unfair dismissal from MI6 in 1995, and attempted to take his former employer to a ...
, author, former SIS officer
* Valentine Vivian, Vice-Chief of SIS and head of counter-espionage
Counterintelligence is an activity aimed at protecting an agency's intelligence program from an opposition's intelligence service. It includes gathering information and conducting activities to prevent espionage, sabotage, assassinations or ot ...
, Section V
* Gareth Williams, seconded to SIS from GCHQ, died under suspicious circumstances.
* Krystyna Skarbek
Maria Krystyna Janina Skarbek, (, ; 1 May 1908 – 15 June 1952), also known as Christine Granville, was a Polish agent of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War. She became celebrated for her daring exploi ...
, aka Christine Granville, agent in Poland and Eastern Europe; later Special Operations Executive agent.
* Aggie MacKenzie
Agnes MacKenzie (born 12 October 1955) is a Scottish television personality, cleaner and writer. She is known for presenting the Channel 4 series '' How Clean Is Your House?'' and the ITV daytime series ''Storage Hoarders''.
Career
One of Mac ...
, TV presenter and journalist who spent two years working for MI6
* Meta Ramsay, former SIS Head of Station, member of the House of Lords
* Sidney Reilly
Sidney George Reilly (; – 5 November 1925)—known as "Ace of Spies"—was a Russian-born adventurer and secret agent employed by Scotland Yard's Special Branch and later by the Foreign Section of the British Secret Service Bureau, the pre ...
, ''Ace of Spies'', worked for SIS and others
Buildings
SIS headquarters
Since 1995, SIS headquarters has been at 85 Vauxhall Cross
Vauxhall ( ) is a district in South West London, part of the London Borough of Lambeth, England. Vauxhall was part of Surrey until 1889 when the County of London was created. Named after a medieval manor, "Fox Hall", it became well known for ...
, along the Albert Embankment
Albert may refer to:
Companies
* Albert (supermarket), a supermarket chain in the Czech Republic
* Albert Heijn, a supermarket chain in the Netherlands
* Albert Market, a street market in The Gambia
* Albert Productions, a record label
* Alber ...
in Vauxhall
Vauxhall ( ) is a district in South West London, part of the London Borough of Lambeth, England. Vauxhall was part of Surrey until 1889 when the County of London was created. Named after a medieval manor, "Fox Hall", it became well known for ...
on the south bank of the River Thames
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...
by Vauxhall Bridge
Vauxhall Bridge is a Grade II* listed steel and granite deck arch bridge in central London. It crosses the River Thames in a southeast–northwest direction between Vauxhall on the south bank and Pimlico on the north bank. Opened in 1906, i ...
, London. Previous headquarters have been Century House, 100 Westminster Bridge Road
Westminster Bridge Road is a road in London, England. It runs on an east–west axis and passes through the boroughs of Lambeth and Southwark.
Between 1740 and 1746, the Commissioners of Westminster Bridge bought land from the Archbishop of C ...
, Lambeth (1966–1995), 54 Broadway
54 Broadway sometimes known as Broadway Buildings is an office building in Broadway, London.
History
The building, which has a prominent mansard roof, was completed around 1924, when it became the main operating base for the Secret Intelligence ...
, off Victoria Street, London (1924–1966)[ and 2 ]Whitehall Court
Whitehall Court in the City of Westminster, England, is one contiguous building but consists of two separate constructions. The south end was designed by Thomas Archer and A. Green and constructed as a block of luxury residential apartments in ...
(1911–1922).[ Although SIS operated from Broadway, it made considerable use of the adjoining St. Ermin's Hotel.
The building was designed by Sir Terry Farrell and built by John Laing. The developer Regalian Properties approached the government in 1987 to see if they had any interest in the proposed building. At the same time, MI5 was seeking alternative accommodation and co-location of the two services was studied. In the end, this proposal was abandoned due to the lack of buildings of adequate size (existing or proposed) and the security considerations of providing a single target for attacks. In December 1987, Prime Minister ]Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...
's government approved the purchase of the new building for SIS.[''Thames House and Vauxhall Cross'']
, Report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, 18 February 2000.
The building design was reviewed to incorporate the necessary protection for the UK's foreign intelligence-gathering agency. This includes overall increased security, extensive computer suites, technical areas, bomb blast protection, emergency back-up systems and protection against electronic eavesdropping. While the details and cost of construction have been released, about ten years after the original National Audit Office (NAO) report was written, some of the service's special requirements remain classified. The NAO report ''Thames House and Vauxhall Cross'' has certain details omitted, describing in detail the cost and problems of certain modifications, but not what these are.[ Rob Humphrey's ''London: The Rough Guide'' suggests one of these omitted modifications is a tunnel beneath the Thames to ]Whitehall
Whitehall is a road and area in the City of Westminster, Central London. The road forms the first part of the A3212 road from Trafalgar Square to Chelsea. It is the main thoroughfare running south from Trafalgar Square towards Parliament Sq ...
. The NAO put the final cost at £135.05 million for site purchase and the basic building, or £152.6 million including the service's special requirements.[
The setting of the SIS offices was featured in the James Bond films '']GoldenEye
''GoldenEye'' is a 1995 spy film, the seventeenth in the ''James Bond'' series produced by Eon Productions, and the first to star Pierce Brosnan as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Directed by Martin Campbell, it was the first in the se ...
'', ''The World Is Not Enough
''The World Is Not Enough'' is a 1999 spy film, the nineteenth in the ''James Bond'' series produced by Eon Productions and the third to star Pierce Brosnan as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. It was directed by Michael Apted, from an ...
'', ''Die Another Day
''Die Another Day'' is a 2002 spy film and the twentieth film in the ''James Bond'' series produced by Eon Productions. It was produced by Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, and directed by Lee Tamahori. The fourth and final film st ...
'', ''Skyfall
''Skyfall'' is a 2012 spy film and the twenty-third in the ''James Bond'' series produced by Eon Productions. The film is the third to star Daniel Craig as fictional MI6 agent James Bond and features Javier Bardem as Raoul Silva, the vill ...
'', and ''Spectre
Spectre, specter or the spectre may refer to:
Religion and spirituality
* Vision (spirituality)
* Apparitional experience
* Ghost
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''Spectre'' (1977 film), a made-for-television film produced and writ ...
''. SIS allowed filming of the building itself for the first time in ''The World is Not Enough'' for the pre-credits sequence, where a bomb hidden in a briefcase full of money is detonated inside the building. A ''Daily Telegraph'' article said that the British government opposed the filming, but this was denied by a Foreign Office spokesperson. In ''Skyfall'' the building is once again attacked by an explosion, this time by a cyber attack turning on a gas line and igniting the fumes, after which SIS operations are moved to a secret underground facility. In ''Spectre'', the building has been abandoned and due for demolition. The evil head of crime organisation SPECTRE
Spectre, specter or the spectre may refer to:
Religion and spirituality
* Vision (spirituality)
* Apparitional experience
* Ghost
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''Spectre'' (1977 film), a made-for-television film produced and writ ...
, Ernst Stavro Blofeld
Ernst Stavro Blofeld is a character (arts), fictional character and villain from the James Bond series of novels and films, created by Ian Fleming. A criminal mastermind with aspirations of world domination, he is the archenemy of the Secret In ...
, traps Agent 007 James Bond
The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have ...
alongside the film's Bond girl
A Bond girl is a character who is a love interest or female companion of James Bond in a novel, film or video game. Bond girls occasionally have names that are double entendres or puns, such as Pussy Galore, Plenty O'Toole, Xenia Onatopp, o ...
Madeleine Swann
Madeleine Swann is a character in the James Bond films ''Spectre'' (2015) and ''No Time to Die'' (2021), played by actress Léa Seydoux. She is the only film character to have a child with Bond.
Character biography
Madeline Swann is the daughte ...
inside the remains of the building. Blofeld then detonated bombs planted in the building, demolishing what was left of the building fully, though Bond managed to save Swann and escape before the building exploded.
On the evening of 20 September 2000, the building was attacked using a Russian-built RPG-22
The Soviet RPG-22 ''Netto'' is a one-shot disposable anti-tank rocket launcher first deployed in 1985, based on the RPG-18 rocket launcher, but firing a larger 72.5 mm fin stabilised projectile. The weapon fires an unguided projectile, ca ...
anti-tank rocket launcher. Striking the eighth floor, the missile caused only superficial damage. The Metropolitan Police Anti-Terrorist Branch
The Anti-Terrorist Branch (or SO13 by its designation) was a Specialist Operations (SO) branch of London's Metropolitan Police Service, formed to respond to terrorist activities within the capital and the surrounding areas.
The Anti-Terrorist Bran ...
attributed responsibility to the Real IRA
The Real Irish Republican Army, or Real IRA (RIRA), is a dissident Irish republican paramilitary group that aims to bring about a United Ireland. It formed in 1997 following a split in the Provisional IRA by dissident members, who rejected the ...
.
Other buildings
Most other buildings are held or nominally occupied by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. They include:
*Hanslope Park
Hanslope Park is located about half a mile south-east of the village of Hanslope in the City of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. Once the manorial estate of the village, it is now owned by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Of ...
: on the outskirts of Milton Keynes housing His Majesty's Government Communications Centre, which supports the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the British intelligence community.
* Fort Monckton in Gosport, Hampshire
Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English cities on its south coast, Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire ...
: a former fort dating from the 1780s, rebuilt in the 1880s, is now the field operations training centre for SIS.
*Special Forces Club
The Special Forces Club (SFC) is a private members' club located at 8 Herbert Crescent in Knightsbridge, London. Initially established in 1945 for former personnel of the Special Operations Executive, members of wartime resistance organisations, ...
: a private club in Knightsbridge
Knightsbridge is a residential and retail district in central London, south of Hyde Park. It is identified in the London Plan as one of two international retail centres in London, alongside the West End.
Toponymy
Knightsbridge is an ancien ...
catering exclusively to members, both current and retired, of the intelligence services in Britain and abroad, along with the Special Air Service.
The Circus
MI6 is nicknamed ''The Circus''. Some say this was coined by John le Carré
David John Moore Cornwell (19 October 193112 December 2020), better known by his pen name John le Carré ( ), was a British and Irish author, best known for his espionage novels, many of which were successfully adapted for film or television. ...
(former SIS officer David Cornwell) in his espionage novels and named after a fictional building on Cambridge Circus. Leo Marks
Leopold Samuel Marks, (24 September 1920 – 15 January 2001) was an English writer, screenwriter, and cryptographer. During the Second World War he headed the codes office supporting resistance agents in occupied Europe for the secret Special ...
explains in his World War II memoir '' Between Silk and Cyanide'' that the name arose because a section of the Special Operations Executive
The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a secret British World War II organisation. It was officially formed on 22 July 1940 under Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton, from the amalgamation of three existing secret organisations. Its pu ...
was housed in a building at 1 Dorset Square
Dorset Square is a garden square in Marylebone, London. All buildings fronting it are terraced houses and listed, in the mainstream (initial) category. It takes up the site of Lord's (MCC's) Old Cricket Ground, which lasted 23 years until the ...
, London, which had formerly belonged to the directors of Bertram Mills
Bertram Wagstaff Mills (August 1873 – 16 April 1938) was a British circus owner originally from Paddington, London, who ran the Bertram Mills Circus. His circus became famous in the UK for its Christmas shows at Olympia in West London televised ...
circus.
Chiefs
* 1909–1923: Sir Mansfield Smith-Cumming
Captain Sir Mansfield George Smith-Cumming (1 April 1859 – 14 June 1923) was a British naval officer who served as the first chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS).
Origins
He was a great-great grandson of the prominent merchant John ...
,
* 1923–1939: Admiral Sir Hugh Sinclair
Admiral Sir Hugh Francis Paget Sinclair, (18 August 1873 – 4 November 1939), known as Quex Sinclair, was a British intelligence officer. He was Director of British Naval Intelligence between 1919 and 1921, and he subsequently helped to set ...
,
* 1939–1952: Major General Sir Stewart Menzies
Major General Sir Stewart Graham Menzies, (; 30 January 1890 – 29 May 1968) was Chief of MI6, the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), from 1939 to 1952, during and after the Second World War.
Early life, family
Stewart Graham Menzies wa ...
,
* 1953–1956: Sir John Sinclair,
* 1956–1968: Sir Richard White,
* 1968–1973: Sir John Rennie,
* 1973–1978: Sir Maurice Oldfield
Sir Maurice Oldfield (16 November 1915 – 11 March 1981) was a British intelligence officer and espionage administrator. He served as the seventh director of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), from 1973 to 1978.
Early life
Oldfield was ...
,
* 1979–1982: Sir Dick Franks,
* 1982–1985: Sir Colin Figures
Sir Colin Frederick Figures (1 July 1925 – 8 December 2006) was Head of the British Secret Intelligence Service (known as MI6) from 1981 to 1985. During this time he had oversight of the supply of human intelligence information, including A ...
,
* 1985–1989: Sir Christopher Curwen
Sir Christopher Keith Curwen, (9 April 1929 – 18 December 2013) was a British Intelligence officer specialising in South East Asia who was Head of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) from 1985 to 1989.
Career
Curwen was educated at Sher ...
,
* 1989–1994: Sir Colin McColl
Sir Colin Hugh Verel McColl, (born 6 September 1932) was Head of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) from 1989 to 1994.
Career
Educated at Shrewsbury School and at The Queen's College, Oxford, McColl joined the diplomatic service in 1 ...
,
* 1994–1999: Sir David Spedding,
* 1999–2004: Sir Richard Dearlove,
* 2004–2009: Sir John Scarlett
Sir John McLeod Scarlett (born 18 August 1948) is a British senior intelligence officer. He was Chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) from 2004 to 2009. Prior to this appointment, he had chaired the Joint Intelligence Commit ...
,
* 2009–2014: Sir John Sawers
Sir Robert John Sawers FRUSI (born 26 July 1955) is a British intelligence officer, diplomat and civil servant. He was Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), a position he held from November 2009 until November 2014. He was previousl ...
,
* 2014–2020: Sir Alex Younger
Sir Alexander William Younger (born 4 July 1963) is a former career British intelligence officer for the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) who served as the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, succeeding Sir John Sawers on his retirement ...
,
* 2020–: Richard Moore,
See also
* British intelligence agencies
The Government of the United Kingdom maintains intelligence agencies within three government departments, the Foreign Office, the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence. These agencies are responsible for collecting and analysing foreign and do ...
* List of intelligence agencies
This is a list of intelligence agencies by country. It includes only currently operational institutions.
An intelligence agency is a government agency responsible for the collection, analysis, and exploitation of information in support of law e ...
* History of espionage
** British Security Co-ordination
British Security Co-ordination (BSC) was a covert organisation set up in New York City by the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) in May 1940 upon the authorisation of the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill.
Its purpose was to investigate ...
, the WWII operation headed by William Stephenson
Sir William Samuel Stephenson (23 January 1897 – 31 January 1989), born William Samuel Clouston Stanger, was a Canadian soldier, fighter pilot, businessman and spymaster who served as the senior representative of the British Security Coord ...
in the Americas, set up by MI6
* Camp X
Camp X was the unofficial name of the secret Special Training School No. 103, a Second World War British paramilitary installation for training covert agents in the methods required for success in clandestine operations. It was located on the ...
, training facility in Canada for clandestine operators during WWII
Explanatory notes
References
Citations
General bibliography
* Aldrich, Richard J. (2006). ''The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence'', London, John Murray,
* Aldrich, Richard J. and Rory Cormac (2016). ''The Black Door: Spies, Secret Intelligence and British Prime Ministers'', London, Collins,
*
* Bethell, N. (1984). ''The Great Betrayal: the Untold Story of Kim Philby's Biggest Coup'', London, Hodder & Stoughton, .
* Borovik, G. (1994). ''The Philby Files'', London, Little and Brown. .
* Bower, Tom. (1995). ''The Perfect English Spy: Sir Dick White and the Secret War, 1939–90'', London, Heinemann, .
* Bristow, Desmond with Bill Bristow (1993). ''A Game of Moles: the Deceptions of an MI6 Officer'', London, Little, Brown, .
* Cave Brown, A. (1987). ''"C": The Secret Life of Sir Stewart Graham Menzies, Spymaster to Winston Churchill'', Macmillan, .
* Cavendish, A. (1990). ''Inside Intelligence'', HarperCollins, .
* Corera, G. (2013). ''The Art of Betrayal: The Secret History of MI6'', Pegasus Books, .
* Cormac, Rory (2018). ''Disrupt and Deny: Spies, Special Forces and the Secret Pursuit of British Foreign Policy'', Oxford University Press.
* Davies, Philip H. J. (2004). ''MI6 and the Machinery of Spying'' London: Frank Cass, (h/b).
* Davies, Philip H. J. (2005). 'The Machinery of Spying Breaks Down' in ''Studies in Intelligence'', Summer 2005 Declassified Edition.
* Deacon, Richard (1985). ''"C": A Biography of Sir Maurice Oldfield'', Macdonald, .
* Dorril, Stephen (2001). ''MI6: Fifty Years of Special Operations'', London: Fourth Estate, .
*
* Hayes, P. (2015). ''Queen of Spies: Daphne Park, Britain's Cold War Spy Master'', Duckworth, .
* Hermiston, R. (2014). ''The Greatest Traitor: the Secret Lives of Agent George Blake'', London, Aurum, .
* Humphreys, Rob (1999). ''London: The Rough Guide'', Rough Guides, .
*
* Judd, Alan (1999). ''The quest for C : Sir Mansfield Cumming and the founding of the British Secret Service''. London: HarperCollins, .
* .
* Read, Anthony, and David Fisher (1984). ''Colonel Z: The Life and Times of a Master of Spies'' (London: Hodder and Stoughton 1984).
* Seeger, Kirsten Olstrup (2008). ''Friendly Fire'' (DK) . A biography of the author's father who was a member of the Danish resistance during the Second World War.
* Smith, Michael (2010). ''SIX: A History of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service Pt 1 Murder and Mayhem 1909–1939'', London: Dialogue, .
* Smiley, Colonel David (1994). ''Irregular Regular''. Norwich: Editions Michael Russell. . An autobiography of a British officer, honorary colonel of the Royal Horse Guards, David de Crespigny Smiley LVO, OBE, MC, who served in the Special Operations Executive
The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a secret British World War II organisation. It was officially formed on 22 July 1940 under Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton, from the amalgamation of three existing secret organisations. Its pu ...
during World War II (Albania, Thailand) and was a MI6 officer after the war (Poland, Malta, Oman, Yemen).
* Tomlinson, Richard; Nick Fielding (2001). ''The Big Breach: From Top Secret to Maximum Security''. Mainstream Publishing. .
* Vilasi, Colonna A. (2013). ''The History of MI-6'', Penguin Group Publishing, UK/USA Release.
* Walton, Calder (2012). ''Empire of Secrets''. London: Harperpress. .
* West, Nigel. (1988). ''The Friends: Britain's Post-war Secret Intelligence Operations'', London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, .
* West, Nigel. (2006). ''At Her Majesty's Secret Service: The Chiefs of Britain's Intelligence Agency, MI6''. London, Greenhill. .
*
External links
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* from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's website
BBC interview with MI6 spy.
BBC's ''The One'' show presenter interviews MI6 spy
{{Authority control
1909 establishments in the United Kingdom
British intelligence agencies
British intelligence services of World War II
Foreign Office during World War II
Government agencies established in 1909
Intelligence services of World War II
Organisations based in the London Borough of Lambeth