MI6
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The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 (
Formed in 1909 as the foreign section of the Secret Service Bureau, the section grew greatly during the First World War officially adopting its current name around 1920.[4] The name "MI6" originated as a convenient label during the Second World War, when SIS was known by many names. It is still commonly used today.[4] The existence of SIS was not officially acknowledged until 1994.[5] That year the Intelligence Services Act 1994 (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 and the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament.[6]
The stated priority roles of SIS are
Since 1994, SIS headquarters have been in the SIS Building in London, on the South Bank of the River Thames.[11]
Structure and mission
The main mission of SIS is to collect Britain's
SIS officers and agents engage in operations and missions all around the world. The SIS regularly cooperates and work with MI5 and GCHQ regarding domestic and cyber intelligence.[13] SIS have three primary tasks:[12]
- Counter Terrorism– preventing terrorism and extremism in the UK, against national interests within the realm or overseas, and supporting the UK's allies
- Espionage – protecting the national security
- Cyber – using cyber technology and digital expertise to reduce threats.
The impact and success in these situations helps to prevent hostile influence, keep the UK's defences on alert to reduce serious and organised crime, and to detect violations of international law.[14]
Organisation
Governance and oversight
SIS is governed under
Under these rules, SIS is accountable to the government of the time and the SIS carry out their work in accordance to the government's foreign policy. The Prime Minister is ultimately responsible for intelligence and security, with day-to-day ministerial responsibility with the Foreign Secretary, to whom the SIS report directly. The Foreign Secretary appoints the head of SIS, to oversee SIS daily management and work. [17]
Command and control over SIS is done through by four government entities: the Central Intelligence Machinery, the Ministerial Committee on the Intelligence Services, the Permanent Secretaries' Committee on the Intelligence Services, and the Joint Intelligence Committee.[18]
The Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) assesses the intelligence gathered by the GCHQ, MI5, and SIS and presents it to the cabinet ministers, who in turn, enable the government's policies to help achieve national security and defence.[19] The JIC also reports the intelligence analysis, based on SIS gatherings, to the Cabinet Office itself.[20]
Budget
The agenies SIS, GCHQ and MI5 are funded through a government financial account under the
A comprehensive spending review is provided for additional resources and funds for the SIA to support significant expansion of the agencies' counter-terrorism capabilities. A further £85 million was funded for the SIA between the period 2005 and 2008 and its budget has, ever since, increased due to external and internal threats threatning the country's defence.
In 2020, a Parliamentary statement indicated the combined British intelligence services spending to have a budget of £3.44 billion. With some $1.09 billion being further allocated to staff pay and agents with a further £636 million allocated to capital spending.[21]
Legislation
The following legislation regulates the SIS:[22]
Oversight is undertaken by Parliament through the following organisations:[19]
- Investigatory Powers Commissioner's Office (IPCO)
- Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT)
- Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC)
History and development
Foundation
The service derived from the Secret Service Bureau, which was founded on 1 October 1909.
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.[4][24][25]
First World War
The service's performance during the
Inter-war period
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
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 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.[4]
In the immediate post-war years under
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-espionagereports 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 (SOE) during the Second World War.[31][38]
In 1924, MI6 intervened in the general election of that year by leaking the so-called Zinoviev letter to the Daily Mail, which published it on its front page on 25 October 1924.[39] The letter-which was a forgery-was supposedly from Grigory Zinoviev, the chief of the Comintern, ordering British Communists to take over the Labour Party. The Zinoviv letter, which was written in English, came into possession of the MI6 resident at the British Embassy in Riga on 9 October 1924 who forwarded it to London.[40] The Zinoviev letter played a key role in the defeat of the minority Labour government of Ramsay MacDonald and the victory of the Conservatives under Stanley Baldwin in the general election of 29 October 1924.[39] It has been established the MI6 leaked the Zinoviev letter to the Daily Mail, but it remains unclear if MI6 was aware that the letter was a forgery at the time.[41]
With the emergence of
MI6 assisted the Gestapo, 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".[46] In 1936, in a sign that he lacked confidence in his own agents, Sinclair founded the semi-autonomous Z section under Claude Dansey for economic intelligence about Germany.[47] Working alongside the Z section was the British Industrial Secret Service headed by a Canadian businessman living in London, William Stephenson that recruited British businessmen active in Germany for intelligence about German industrial production.[47] For intelligence on German military plans, MI6 largely depended upon Czechoslovak military intelligence from 1937 onward as Paul Thümmel, aka "Agent A-54", a senior officer in the German intelligence service, the Abwehr, had been bribed into working for Czechoslovakia.[47] Thus most of what MI6 knew about German plans during both the Sudetenland crisis and the Danzig crisis came from the Czechoslovak military intelligence, which continued to run Thümmel even after the dissolution of Czecho-Slovakia in March 1939 and a government-in-exile was set up.[47] Sir Nevile Henderson, the British ambassador to Germany from 1937 to 1939, was actively hostile towards MI6 running agents out of the British embassy in Berlin as he made it clear his belief that espionage against Germany would hamper the "general settlement" he was seeking with the Reich.[47] The focus on collecting intelligence on German aircraft production led MI6 to be confused about the wider strategic question of what were the aims of German foreign policy. On 18 September 1938, a memo entitled "What Shall We Do?" written by Malcolm Woollcombe, the chief of the Political Intelligence, declared that the best way of resolving the Sudetenland crisis was for the Sudetenland to be peacefully annexed to Germany.[48] The report concluded that allowing the Sudetenland to be annexed would allow Britain to finally discover "what really legitimate grievances Germany has and what surgical operations are necessary to recify them".[48]
In January 1939, MI6 played a major role in the "Dutch War Scare" when it reported to London that Germany was about to invade the Netherlands with the aim of using the Dutch airfields to launch a strategic bombing campaign that would achieve a "knock out blow" by destroying London along with the rest of Britain's cities.[48] The intelligence behind the "Dutch War Scare" was false, intended to achieve a change in British foreign policy and had its desired effect on the Chamberlain government.[49] The Deuxième Bureau had manufactured the story as a way to force Britain to make a stronger commitment to defend France.[50] The "limited liability" rearmament policy pursued by the Chamberlain government had intentionally starved the British Army of funds to rule out the "continental commitment" (i.e. Britain sending a large expeditionary force) from ever being made again, with the majority of military spending being devoted the RAF and the Royal Navy. As such, Britain simply did not possess the military force to save the Netherlands, leading to urgent requests being made to Paris to ask if France would be willing to assist with the defence of the Netherlands.[51] In response, the French replied that Britain would need to do more for France if the British wanted the French to do something for them.[50] On 6 February 1939 in a beginning of a shift in British foreign policy, Prime Minister Chamberlain announced in the House of Commons that "any threat to the vital interest of France" would lead to a British declaration of war.[52] One of MI6’s most successful operations before the war started in April 1939 when an Australian businessman living in London, Sidney Cotton, who was already engaged in aerial photographic espionage for the Deuxième Bureau was recruited to fly missions over Germany.[53] Under the cover story that he was a sales agent for a dummy corporation, the Aeronautical Research and Sales Corporation, Cotton flew over Germany, Italy and the Italian colony of Libya in his Lockheed 12A aircraft, taking numerous high-quality aerial photographs of German and Italian military bases that proved immensely useful for Britain during the war.[53]
On 26 and 27 July 1939,
Second World War
Sinclair died on 4 November 1939, after an illness, and was replaced as C by Lt Col. Stewart Menzies (Horse Guards), who had been with the service since the end of World War I.[57] On 9 November 1939, MI6 was embarrassed by the Venlo incident. The Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, was unenthusiastic about the prospect of war, and clung to the hope all through the Phoney War that the Wehrmacht generals would overthrow Hitler, after which the war would end.[58] Two MI6 officers, Sigismund Payne Best and Henry Stevens had been dispatched to a café in Venlo almost on the German border to meet a representative of the Wehrmacht generals, but the meeting proved to be an ambush as instead a party of the Sicherheitsdienst officers crossed over the border.[59] The SS shot and killed a Dutch intelligence officer, Dirk Klop, who assisted with settling up the meeting and kidnapped Best and Stevens at gunpoint. The Venlo incident made the British government wary for the rest of the war with any more contact with the Wehrmacht generals.[59]
During the
- The Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), the bureau responsible for interception and decryption of foreign communications at Bletchley Park. (See above.)
- The extensive 'double-cross' system run by MI5 to feed misleading intelligence to the Germans.
- JARIC, The National Imagery Exploitation Centre).
GC&CS was the source of Ultra intelligence, which was very useful.[60]
The chief of SIS,
In 1940, the British intelligence services entered into a special agreement with their Polish counterparts. This collaboration between the two nations played a significant role in shaping the course of World War II. In July 2005, the governments of the United Kingdom and Poland jointly produced a comprehensive two-volume study that shed light on their bilateral intelligence cooperation during the war. This study, which unveiled information that had been classified as secret until that point, was known as the Report of the Anglo-Polish Historical Committee.[62]
The report was authored by leading historians and experts who were granted unprecedented access to the archives of British intelligence. One of the most remarkable findings was that 48 percent of all reports received by British secret services from continental Europe during the years 1939–45 had originated from Polish sources. This significant contribution from the Polish intelligence was made possible by the fact that occupied Poland had a long-standing tradition of insurgency organizations, which had been passed down through generations. These organizations maintained networks in emigrant Polish communities in Germany and France.[62]
A substantial part of the Polish resistance activity was clandestine and involved the establishment of cellular intelligence networks. The occupation of Poland by Nazi Germany also placed the Polish people in a unique position to gather intelligence on the enemy, as they were often used as forced laborers across the continent. This proximity to key locations and military installations allowed them to provide valuable insights to the British intelligence services.[63]
The liaison between the British and Polish intelligence was facilitated by SIS (Secret Intelligence Service) officer
Polish-sourced reporting on German secret weapons began in 1941, and Operation Wildhorn enabled a British special operations flight to airlift a captured V-2 Rocket with the assistance of the Polish resistance. Notably, Polish secret agent Jan Karski played a crucial role in delivering the first Allied intelligence on the Holocaust, providing the British with harrowing information about Nazi atrocities. Moreover, through a female Polish agent, the British established a channel of communication with the anti-Nazi chief of the Abwehr, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris. This alliance allowed for the exchange of critical intelligence information and further strengthened the cooperation between the British and Polish intelligence services during this pivotal period in history.[64]
1939 saw the most significant failure of the service during the war, known as the
In 1940, journalist and Soviet agent Kim Philby applied for a vacancy in Section D of SIS, and was vetted by his friend and fellow Soviet agent Guy Burgess. When Section D was absorbed by Special Operations Executive (SOE) in summer of 1940, Philby was appointed as an instructor in black propaganda at the SOE's training establishment in Beaulieu, Hampshire.[66]
In May 1940, MI6 set up British Security Co-ordination (BSC), on the authorisation of Prime Minister Winston Churchill over the objections of Stewart Menzies.[67][68] This was a covert organisation based in New York City, headed by William Stephenson intended to investigate enemy activities, prevent sabotage against British interests in the Americas, and mobilise pro-British opinion in the Americas.[69][70] BSC also founded Camp X in Canada to train clandestine operators and to establish (in 1942) a telecommunications relay station, code name Hydra, operated by engineer Benjamin deForest Bayly.[71]
SIS operations in Asia were hindered by the fact that Europeans tended to stick out in Asia along with an inability to recruit Asian agents.[72] The SOE had more success in both recruiting agents in Asia and in sending agents into the Japanese-occupied areas in China and southeast Asia, which caused tensions with MI6 who were jealous of the ability of the upstart SOE to do what they could not.[72] SOE was more open to recruiting from within the Commonwealth, recruiting Chinese-Canadians and Australian-Chinese, to operate behind the Japanese lines under the grounds Asian agents would less likely to be arrested by the Kempeitai , the much feared Japanese military police. In 1944, about 90% of the human intelligence in Burma came from the SOE while 70% of the human intelligence in Malaya, Thailand and French Indochina came from the SOE.[73] General William Slim, the GOC of the 14th Army, complained about the low quality of SIS intelligence in late 1943 as he stated that the intelligence he received from MI6 was "far from being complete or accurate".[74] In late 1944-early 1945, Slim attempted to have the 14th Army take over all intelligence operations in Burma with both SIS and SOE agents to be subordinate to the 14th Army under the grounds the Army was more capable of running intelligence operations in southeast Asia than MI6.[75] Menzies who fiercely defended the prerogatives of MI6 was able to block this proposal despite the way it was universally accepted by officers serving in the China-Burma-India theater that SIS was unsuitable to operating in that part of the world.[76] MI6 was able to keep operating in Asia by making the argument that the SOE was only a temporary organisation that was to be disbanded after the war ended while MI6 was the permanent intelligence service that would continue after the war, and that to exclude MI6 from Asia would weaken British intelligence in the post-war world.[77]
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 about all British intelligence on the Soviets—including what the American OSS had shared with the British about the Soviets.[78]
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).[79]
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.[78] In 1946, SIS absorbed the "rump" remnant of the Special Operations Executive (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.[80] 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.[81]
Following the Second World War, tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors attempted to reach Palestine as part of the
SIS operations against the
SIS activities included a range of covert political actions, including the overthrow of
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
Within the
During the
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
After the Cold War
The end of the
During the transition, then-C Sir
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'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.[93]
On one occasion in 1998, MI6 believed it might be able to obtain 'actionable intelligence' which could help the CIA capture
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 on 4 September 2001-which involved increasing dramatically support for Massoud. MI6 were involved in these plans.[95]
War on Terror
During the
Following the
During the United States invasion of Afghanistan, the SIS established a presence in Kabul following its fall to the coalition.[98] MI6 members and the British Special Boat Service took part in the Battle of Tora Bora.[99] 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.[100]
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.[101]
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.[101]
Prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, allegations were made 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.[102][103] Claims by former weapons inspector Scott Ritter suggest that similar propaganda campaigns against Iraq dated back to 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."[102]
Towards the end of the invasion, SIS officers operating out of Baghdad International Airport with
Shortly before the Second Battle of Fallujah, MI6 personnel visited JSOCs TSF (Temporary Screening Facility) at Balad Air 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 SIS played a central role in the British withdrawal from Basra in 2007.[104]
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.[105]
The first MI6 knew of the US carrying out the
By 2012, MI6 had reorganised after 9/11 and reshuffled its staff, opening new stations overseas, with Islamabad 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.[110]
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.[111]
In March 2016, it was reported that MI6 had been involved in the
Other activities
On 6 May 2004 it was announced that Sir Richard Dearlove was to be replaced as head of SIS by John Scarlett, former chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee. Scarlett was an unusually high-profile appointment to the job, and gave evidence at the Hutton Inquiry.[115]
On September 27, 2004, news emerged of a significant incident involving British intelligence officers in the Balkans. It was reported that several British spies operating in the region, including SIS officers stationed in Belgrade and Sarajevo, were either relocated or compelled to withdraw from their posts. This development was a consequence of their public identification in various media reports, a situation that arose due to the actions of disgruntled local intelligence services, especially in Croatia and Serbia. Two British intelligence officers stationed in Zagreb managed to maintain their positions despite having their covers exposed in the local press. This revelation of the agents' identities in the three capital cities significantly undermined British intelligence operations.[116]
The primary focus of British intelligence activities in the Balkans included efforts by the SIS to capture individuals sought by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague, most notably, alleged war criminals.[116]
A critical aspect of the issue was the nature of MI6's operations in the region. Instead of running a traditional spy network, MI6 was perceived as a network of influence within Balkan security services and the media. This approach appeared to unsettle local intelligence agencies, leading to their frustration and resentment. The director of the International Crisis Group in Serbia and Bosnia noted that this approach had seriously irritated some of these agencies. The situation was particularly pronounced in Serbia, where the SIS station chief was compelled to leave his post in August 2004. This forced departure resulted from a campaign against him, orchestrated by the country's DB intelligence agency. The station chief had been engaged in investigating the 2003 assassination of the reformist prime minister, Zoran Djindjic, which had garnered him few allies in the process.[116]
On 15 November 2006, SIS allowed an interview with current operations officers for the first time. The interview was on the
Sir
On 7 June 2011, John Sawers received Romania's President Traian Băsescu and George-Cristian Malor, the head of the Serviciul Roman de Informatii (SRI) at SIS headquarters.[119]
Libyan Civil War
Five years before the
On 16 November 2011 SIS warned the national transitional council in Benghazi after discovering details of planned strikes, said foreign secretary William Hague. '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.[107]
In February 2013
2015 onwards
In February 2015, The Daily Telegraph reported that MI6 contacted their counterparts in the South African intelligence services to ask for help in recruiting 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, so the outcome is unknown.[124]
In July 2020, it was revealed that intelligence officials from a number of
Personnel
Selection and training
SIS agents are often chosen based on merit and skill by authorities at elite universities and military academies. The chosen recruit then must make a his or hers application within the
Training for recruits takes place at Fort Monckton, Portsmouth. The chosen candidates must go through a intense six-month training programme known as the Intelligence Officer's New Entry Course (IONEC). IONEC recruits must learn how to select and handle agents, to operate under an cover identity and use tradecraft skills such as dead drops, surveillance and counter-surveillance techniques, secret writing and code writing. These skills would enable the incoming agents to successfully use these techniques during complex missions and operations.[128][129]
After the training programme ends, recruits will be fully inaugurated as SIS agents. SIS recruits rely on the United Kingdom Special Forces (UKSF) for special operations and basic training, SIS operatives also receive training in firearm use, which includes pistols and submachine guns, although it woud be rare for an SIS agents to use or even carry a firearm in the line of duty.[130][131]
A special programme for recruits, stemming from an ethnic minority or low socio-economic background, a joint SIS, MI5, GCHQ Summer Intelligence Internship is available. If a would be recruit is in his or hers final (or penultimate) year of university (as of the 2023/24 academic year) that recruit will be chosen by academics to be admitted into the internship.[132]
Salary
As of April 2024[update], the salary range for interns and recruits salaries was around £25,000 to £35,000. This would increase about to around £40,000 with the first promotion.[133]
As of April 2024[update], the starting salary for an agent was £31,807 a year, increasing to £34,385 the second year, with further increases thereafter.[133]
As of April 2024[update], salaries for SIS agents range from £33,800 to £42,700 a year.[133]
Awards
MI6 personnel are recognised annually by
Centenary and art exhibition
The year 2009 was the centenary of the Secret Intelligence Service.
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 Secret Intelligence Service.[135] The project saw Dyke working closely with the SIS for a year, both in the United Kingdom and abroad.[136] 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 Dyke to maintain secrecy, and his access was carefully controlled.[135]
The works were exhibited to the public to promote understanding of the SIS's work, and why their operations must remain secret.[137][135] The exhibition ran from 15 to 26 February 2011 at the Mount Street Galleries, Mayfair, London.[135] 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.[135]
Notable people
- Cambridge Five, a Cold War Soviet spy ring
- Anthony Blunt (cryptonym: Johnson), MI5 officer and Soviet agent
- Guy Burgess (cryptonym: Hicks), SIS officer and Soviet agent
- John Cairncross (cryptonym: Liszt), SIS officer and Soviet agent
- Donald Maclean (cryptonym: Homer), SIS officer and Soviet agent
- Kim Philby (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
- Sidney Cotton, Australian pilot who flew spy missions for MI6 before and during the Second World War.
- Charles Cumming, author
- Paul Dukes, SIS officer and author
- Dick Ellis, SIS officer, author and scholar, deputy to William Stephenson at British Security Co-ordination and credited with setting up the blueprint for Office of Strategic Services
- Ian Fleming, author of James Bond novels, former NID officer
- Graham Greene, author, former SIS officer
- Bill Hudson, SIS agent
- Ralph Izzard, journalist, author, former NID officer
- Horst Kopkow, SS officer who worked for SIS after the Second World War
- W. Somerset Maugham, 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, 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, head of the British Security Co-ordination during WWII
- Amy Elizabeth Thorpe, glamorous seductress who gathered information from diplomats during World War II.
- Richard Tomlinson, author, former SIS officer
- counter-espionage, Section V
- Gareth Williams, seconded to SIS from GCHQ, died under suspicious circumstances.
- Krystyna Skarbek, aka Christine Granville, agent in Poland and Eastern Europe; later Special Operations Executive agent.
- Aggie MacKenzie, 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, Ace of Spies, worked for SIS and others
Buildings
SIS headquarters
Since 1995,
The new building was designed by Sir
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.[142] Rob Humphrey's London: The Rough Guide suggests one of these omitted modifications is a tunnel beneath the Thames to Whitehall. 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.[142]
The setting of the SIS Headquarters was featured in the
On the evening of 20 September 2000,
Other buildings
Most other buildings are held or nominally occupied by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. They include:
- His Majesty's Government Communications Centre, which supports the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the British intelligence community.[146]
- Fort Monckton in Gosport, Hampshire: a former fort dating from the 1780s, rebuilt in the 1880s, is now the field operations training centre for SIS.[147]
- Special Forces Club: a private club in Knightsbridge catering exclusively to members, both current and retired, of the intelligence services in Britain and abroad, along with the Special Air Service (SAS).[148]
The Circus
MI6 is nicknamed The Circus. Some say this was coined by
Chiefs
- 1909–1923: Sir KCMG CB
- 1923–1939: Admiral Sir Hugh Sinclair, KCB
- 1939–1952: Major General Sir
- 1953–1956: Sir
- 1956–1968: Sir KCMG KBE
- 1968–1973: Sir KCMG
- 1973–1978: Sir GCMG CBE
- 1979–1982: Sir KCMG
- 1982–1985: Sir KCMG OBE
- 1985–1989: Sir KCMG
- 1989–1994: Sir KCMG
- 1994–1999: Sir
- 1999–2004: Sir KCMG OBE
- 2004–2009: Sir KCMG OBE
- 2009–2014: Sir GCMG
- 2014–2020: Sir KCMG
- 2020–: Sir KCMG
See also
- British intelligence agencies
- List of intelligence agencies
- History of espionage
- British Security Co-ordination, the WWII operation headed by William Stephenson in the Americas, set up by MI6
- Camp X, training facility in Canada for clandestine operators during WWII
References
Citations
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General bibliography
- Aldrich, Richard J. (2006). The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence, London, John Murray, ISBN 1-58567-274-2
- Aldrich, Richard J. and Rory Cormac (2016). The Black Door: Spies, Secret Intelligence and British Prime Ministers, London, Collins, ISBN 978-0-00755544-4
- Atkin, Malcolm (2015). Fighting Nazi Occupation: British Resistance 1939–1945. Barnsley: Pen and Sword. ISBN 978-1-47383-377-7.
- Bennett, Gill (2018). The Zinoviev Letter The Conspiracy that Never Dies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780191080098.
- Bethell, N. (1984). The Great Betrayal: the Untold Story of Kim Philby's Biggest Coup, London, Hodder & Stoughton, ISBN 978-0-34035701-9.
- Borovik, G. (1994). The Philby Files, London, Little and Brown. ISBN 978-0316102841.
- Bower, Tom. (1995). The Perfect English Spy: Sir Dick White and the Secret War, 1939–90, London, Heinemann, ISBN 978-0-74932332-5.
- Bristow, Desmond with Bill Bristow (1993). A Game of Moles: the Deceptions of an MI6 Officer, London, Little, Brown, ISBN 978-031690335-6.
- Cave Brown, A. (1987). "C": The Secret Life of Sir Stewart Graham Menzies, Spymaster to Winston Churchill, Macmillan, ISBN 978-0-02049131-6.
- Cavendish, A. (1990). Inside Intelligence, HarperCollins, ISBN 978-0-00215742-1.
- Corera, G. (2013). The Art of Betrayal: The Secret History of MI6, Pegasus Books, ISBN 978-1-45327159-9.
- 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, ISBN 0-7146-8363-9(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, ISBN 978-0-35610400-3.
- ISBN 1-85702-701-9.
- Fink, Jesse (2023). The Eagle in the Mirror. Edinburgh: Black & White Publishing. ISBN 9781785305108.
- Hastings, Max (2015). The Secret War: Spies, Codes and Guerrillas 1939–1945. London: William Collins. ISBN 978-0-00-750374-2.
- Hayes, P. (2015). Queen of Spies: Daphne Park, Britain's Cold War Spy Master, Duckworth, ISBN 978-0-71565043-1.
- Hermiston, R. (2014). The Greatest Traitor: the Secret Lives of Agent George Blake, London, Aurum, ISBN 978-1-78131046-5.
- Humphrey, Rob (1999). London: The Rough Guide, Rough Guides, ISBN 1-85828-404-X.
- ISBN 978-0-7475-9183-2.
- Judd, Alan (1999). The quest for C : Sir Mansfield Cumming and the founding of the British Secret Service. London: HarperCollins, ISBN 0-00-255901-3.
- Morris, Benny (2022). Sidney Reilly Master Spy. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300248265.
- Polmar, Norman; Allen, Thomas (1998). The Spy Book The Encyclopedia of Espionage. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-375-70249-0.
- Quinlan, Kevin; Walton, Calder (2011). "Missed Opportunities? Intelligence and the British Road to War". In Frank McDonough (ed.). The Origins of the Second World War. London: Continuum. pp. 205–222.
- Quinlan, Kevin (2014). The Secret War Between the Wars: MI5 in the 1920s and the 1930s. Bowyer. ISBN 978-1-84383-938-5..
- Read, Anthony, and David Fisher (1984). Colonel Z: The Life and Times of a Master of Spies (London: Hodder and Stoughton 1984).
- Aldrich, Richard (2000). Intelligence and the War Against Japan Britain, America and the Politics of Secret Service. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521641869.
- Ridley, Norman (2022). The Venlo Sting MI6's Deadly Fiasco. Barnsley: Casemate. ISBN 9781636242088.
- Seeger, Kirsten Olstrup (2008). Friendly Fire (DK) ISBN 978-87-7799-193-6. 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, ISBN 978-1-906447-00-7.
- Smiley, Colonel David (1994). Irregular Regular. Norwich: Editions Michael Russell. ISBN 0-85955-202-0. 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 Executiveduring 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. ISBN 1-903813-01-8.
- Vilasi, Colonna A. (2013). The History of MI-6, Penguin Group Publishing, UK/USA Release.
- Young, Robert (2011). "A Very English Channel: Britain and French Appeasement". In Frank McDonough (ed.). The Origins of the Second World War. London: Continuum. p. 238-261.
- Walton, Calder (2012). Empire of Secrets. London: Harperpress. ISBN 978-0-00745796-0.
- West, Nigel (1988). The Friends: Britain's Post-war Secret Intelligence Operations, London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, ISBN 978-0-29779430-1.
- West, Nigel (2006). At Her Majesty's Secret Service: The Chiefs of Britain's Intelligence Agency, MI6. London, Greenhill. ISBN 978-1-85367702-1.
- ISBN 978-0-06-014678-8.
External links
- Official website
- "Information about SIS". Archived from the original on 25 August 2007. from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's website
- BBC interview with MI6 spy. BBC's The One show presenter interviews MI6 spy