Kenneth Flower, GLM (1914 - 2 September 1987) was a Rhodesian police officer and

intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can b ...

chief.

Biography

Flower was born in Cornwall, England. After war service in

British Somaliland British Somaliland, officially the Somaliland Protectorate ( so, Dhulka Maxmiyada Soomaalida ee Biritishka), was a British Empire, British protectorate in present-day Somaliland. During its existence, the territory was bordered by Italian Soma ...

and

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...

he returned to Rhodesia in 1948, rapidly rising in the hierarchy of the BSAP. He studied the Mau Mau insurgency in

Kenya ) , national_anthem = "Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi , ...

and applied his knowledge in the disturbances in British Nyasaland during the late 1950s. Flower was appointed Deputy Commissioner of the BSAP in March 1961 and subsequently served as the first head of

Rhodesia Rhodesia (, ), officially from 1970 the Republic of Rhodesia, was an unrecognised state in Southern Africa from 1965 to 1979, equivalent in territory to modern Zimbabwe. Rhodesia was the ''de facto'' successor state to the British colony of S ...

's and later

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozam ...

Central Intelligence Organisation The Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) is the national intelligence agency of Zimbabwe. It was conceived as the external intelligence-gathering arm of the British South Africa Police Special Branch in the early 1960s, under the Southern Rh ...

. The organisation had been set up by him under Prime Minister

Winston Field Winston Joseph Field (6 June 1904 – 17 March 1969) was a Rhodesian politician who served as the seventh Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia. Field was a former Dominion Party MP who founded the Rhodesian Front political party with Ian Smith. ...

in 1963 though the original initiative for such an agency had come from Field's predecessor Sir

Edgar Whitehead Sir Edgar Cuthbert Fremantle Whitehead, (8 February 1905 – 22 September 1971) was a Rhodesian politician. He was a longstanding member of the Southern Rhodesian Legislative Assembly, although his career was interrupted by other posts and by ...

. Flower saw himself as non-political, though with a bias against the 'cowboy element' in the Rhodesian Front, as he dubbed it. Ken Flower has been tied to the creation of

RENAMO RENAMO (from the Portuguese , ) is a Mozambican political party and militant group. The party was founded with the active sponsorship of the Rhodesian Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) in May 1977 from anti-communist dissidents oppose ...

, a tribally-based guerrilla organization in

Mozambique Mozambique (), officially the Republic of Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique or , ; ny, Mozambiki; sw, Msumbiji; ts, Muzambhiki), is a country located in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi ...

.Alao, Abiodun. ''Brothers at War: dissidence and rebellion in Southern Africa'', 1994. Page 45. In 1980, when

Robert Mugabe Robert Gabriel Mugabe (; ; 21 February 1924 – 6 September 2019) was a Zimbabwean revolutionary and politician who served as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe from 1980 to 1987 and then as President from 1987 to 2017. He served as Leader of the ...

became the first Prime Minister of the state of

, he kept Flower as CIO boss as well as other top officials in his predominantly black, first administration.Matthews, Robert O. ''Civil Wars in Africa: Roots and resolution'', 1999. Page 226. Flower wrote ''Serving Secretly: An Intelligence Chief on Record, Rhodesia into Zimbabwe 1964-1981'', published in 1987.

Controversy

ZANU militant Fay Chung claims in March 1975 Flower ordered the assassination of

Herbert Chitepo Herbert Wiltshire Pfumaindini Chitepo (15 June 1923 – 18 March 1975) led the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) until he was assassinated in March 1975. Although his murderer remains unidentified, the Rhodesian author Peter Stiff says tha ...

, then leader of the

Zimbabwe African National Union The Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) was a militant organisation that fought against white minority rule in Rhodesia, formed as a split from the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU). ZANU split in 1975 into wings loyal to Robert Muga ...

.Fay Chung and Preben (INT) Kaarsholm. ''Re-living the Second Chimurenga: Memories from the liberation struggle in Zimbabwe'', 2006. Page 95. There are allegations that after

Ian Smith Ian Douglas Smith (8 April 1919 – 20 November 2007) was a Rhodesian politician, farmer, and fighter pilot who served as Prime Minister of Rhodesia (known as Southern Rhodesia until October 1964 and now known as Zimbabwe) from 1964 to ...

unilaterally declared Rhodesia independent, Flower maintained his allegiance to the British government and spied on the Smith administration for

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

.Preston, Matthew. ''Ending Civil War: Rhodesia and Lebanon in Perspective'', 2004. Page 134. In 2011 the BBC Radio 4 programme Documents featured testimony from

Lord Owen David Anthony Llewellyn Owen, Baron Owen, (born 2 July 1938) is a British politician and physician who served as Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs as a Labour Party MP under James Callaghan from 1977 to 1979, and later ...

that Flower had been an

mole for Britain during his tenure as head of Rhodesian CIO and that his disclosure of Rhodesian plans had enabled Mugabe to survive assassination and become the first prime minister of Zimbabwe, following independence.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Flower, Ken 1914 births 1987 deaths White Rhodesian people Zimbabwean spies British South Africa Police officers Rhodesian politicians Zimbabwean politicians British emigrants People of Cornish descent British emigrants to Rhodesia