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SECRET

INTELLIGENCE SERVICE

The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6, is the


foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert
overseas collection and analysis of human intelligence (HUMINT) in support of
the UK's national security. SIS is a member of the country's intelligence
community and its Chief is directly accountable to the Secretary of State for
Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.

Formed in 1909 as a section of the Secret Service Bureau specialising in


foreign intelligence, the section experienced dramatic growth during World War I
and officially adopted its current name around 1920. The name "MI6" (meaning
Military Intelligence, Section 6) originated as a flag of convenience during World
War II, 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 (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 Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee.The stated
priority roles of SIS are counter-terrorism, counter-proliferation, providing
intelligence in support of cyber security, and supporting stability overseas to
disrupt terrorism and other criminal activities. Unlike its main sister agencies, the
Security Service (MI5) and Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ),
SIS works exclusively in foreign intelligence gathering; the ISA allows it to carry
out operations only against persons outside the British Islands. Some of SIS's
actions since the 2000s have attracted significant controversy, such as its alleged
complicity in acts of torture and extraordinary rendition.Since 1994, SIS has been
headquartered in the SIS Building in London, on the South Bank of the River
Thames.
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 and the War
Office 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. This specialisation was formalised before 1914. During
the First World War 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 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.

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 diplomatic immunity.Circulating Sections established intelligence
requirements and passed the intelligence back to its consumer departments, mainly
the War Office and Admiralty.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.

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 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 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 (SOE) during the Second World War.With the
emergence of Germany as a threat following the ascendence of the Nazis, in the
early 1930s attention was shifted in that direction.

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".Sinclair died in 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.On 26 and 27 July 1939, in Pyry near Warsaw, British military
intelligence representatives including Dilly Knox, Alastair Denniston and
Humphrey Sandwith were introduced by their allied Polish counterparts into their
Enigma-decryption techniques and equipment, including Zygalski sheets 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" by the British, was a substantial aid
to the Allied war effort.

Second World War


During the Second World War the human intelligence work of the service
was complemented by several other initiatives:The cryptanalytic effort undertaken
by the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), the bureau responsible for
interception and decryption of foreign communications at Bletchley Park.The
extensive 'double-cross' system run by MI5 to feed misleading intelligence to the
Germans.Imagery intelligence activities conducted by the RAF Photographic
Reconnaissance Unit (now JARIC, The National Imagery Exploitation Centre).

GC&CS was the source of Ultra intelligence, which was very useful.

The chief of SIS, Stewart Menzies, insisted on wartime control of


codebreaking, and this gave him immense power and influence, which he used
judiciously. By distributing the Ultra material collected by the Government Code
& Cypher School, MI6 became, for the first time, an important branch of the
government. Extensive breaches of Nazi Enigma signals gave Menzies and his
team enormous insight into Adolf Hitler'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.[31]
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, and
reports included advanced warning of the Afrikakorps' 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 and Operation Edelweiss, 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 that had
been captured by the Polish resistance. Polish secret agent Jan Karski delivered the
British the first Allied intelligence on the Holocaust. Via a female Polish agent, the
British also had a channel to the anti-Nazi chief of the Abwehr, Admiral Wilhelm
Canaris.

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 (SD), posed as high-ranking officers involved in a
plot to depose Hitler. 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 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.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.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.[36][37] 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.

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.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 (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 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 and Berlin tunnel operations had been turned as a Soviet agent during
internment by the Chinese during the Korean War. This agent, George Blake,
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, the Berlin
tunnel, and which was, consequently, blown from the outset. In 1956, SIS Director
John Alexander 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 in Iran in the 1953 Iranian coup d'état (in
collaboration with the US Central Intelligence Agency).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.[45] 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 as a Soviet agent. Blake was identified, arrested, tried for espionage
and sent to prison. He escaped and was exfiltrated to the USSR in 1966.

Also, in the GRU, they recruited Colonel Oleg Penkovsky. Penkovsky ran
for two years as a considerable success, providing several thousand photographed
documents, including Red Army rocketry manuals that allowed US National
Photographic Interpretation Center (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
whom SIS ran for the better part of a decade, then successfully exfiltrated from the
USSR across the Finnish border in 1985.

SIS were heavily involved in the Soviet–Afghan War – which turned out to
be most extensive covert operation since the Second World War.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 station in 1982 of KGB 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 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 (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 and one
for international terrorism); counter-narcotics and serious crime (originally set up
under the Western Hemisphere 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 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, 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.

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.

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 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, including the extraordinary rendition
programme. Craig Murray, a UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, 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, 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 of the Northern Alliance and began working
with other contacts in the north and south to build alliances, secure support, and to
bribe as many Taliban commanders as they could to change sides or leave the
fight.During the United States invasion of Afghanistan, the SIS established a
presence in Kabul following its fall to the coalition.MI6 members and the British
Special Boat Service took part in the Battle of Tora Bora.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. 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, 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 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 agents 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.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.

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, 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 becoming the largest station. MI6's uptick in
funding was not as large as that for MI5, but it still struggled to recruit fast enough;
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 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.In April 2016, it was revealed that MI6
teams with members of the Special Reconnaissance Regiment 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, former chairman of the Joint Intelligence
Committee. Scarlett was an unusually high-profile appointment to the job, and
gave evidence at the Hutton Inquiry.SIS has been active in the Balkans, 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 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.On 27 September 2004, it was reported that British spies
across the Balkans, including a SIS was chief officer in Belgrade and another spy
in 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, remained in place
despite their cover being blown in the local press. The exposure of the agents
across the three capitals has 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 country's DB intelligence agency, where his work investigating the
2003 assassination of the reformist prime minister Zoran Djindjic 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 Show on BBC
Radio 1. 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" 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 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 and George-Cristian Malor, the head of the Serviciul Roman de Informatii
(SRI) at SIS headquarters.

Five years before the Libyan Civil War, a UK 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
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 agents in a Chinook helicopter 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. '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 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".In February 2015, The Daily Telegraph 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 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, the
United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Jordan, Oman, Nigeria, Cameroon, Algeria,
Afghanistan and others. A British academic, Matthew Hedges questioned the UK’s
training program for allowing officials of the UAE, where he was detained on false
charges and faced psychological torture.
Cover Name,Centenary and Art Exhibition
MI6 is known sometimes to use Government Communications Bureau as a
cover name, for example, when sponsoring research.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.

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.[88] 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.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, 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

Charles Cumming, author

Paul Dukes, SIS officer and author

Frederick Forsyth, author, journalist, and alleged MI6 agent

Ian Fleming, author of James Bond novels, former NID officer

Graham Greene, author, former SIS officer

Bill Hudson, SIS agent, thought to be one of the figures on whom James Bond was
based.

Ralph Izzard, journalist, author, former NID officer

Horst Kopkow, SS officer who worked for SIS after the Second World War

William Stephenson, head of the British Security Co-ordination during WWII

Richard Tomlinson, author, former SIS officer

Valentine Vivian, Vice-Chief of SIS and head of counter-espionage, Section V

Gareth Williams, seconded to SIS from GCHQ, died under suspicious


circumstances.

Krystyna Skarbek, agent

Aggie MacKenzie, TV presenter and journalist who spent two years working for
MI6

Sidney Reilly, Ace of Spies, worked for SIS and others

Buildings
SIS Headquarters
Since 1995, SIS headquarters has been at 85 Vauxhall Cross, along the
Albert Embankment in Vauxhall on the south bank of the River Thames by
Vauxhall Bridge, London. Previous headquarters have been Century House, 100
Westminster Bridge Road, Lambeth (1966–1995), 54 Broadway, off Victoria
Street, London (1924–1966) and 2 Whitehall Court (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.[94]
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's government
approved the purchase of the new building for SIS.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. 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, The World Is Not
Enough, Die Another Day, Skyfall, and Spectre. 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.[96] In Spectre, the evil head of crime organisation
SPECTRE, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, traps Agent 007 James Bond alongside the film's
Bond girl Madeleine Swann 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 anti-tank rocket launcher. Striking the eighth floor, the
missile caused only superficial damage. The Metropolitan Police Anti-Terrorist
Branch attributed responsibility to the Real IRA.

Other Buildings
Most other buildings are held or nominally occupied by the Foreign &
Commonwealth Office. They include:

- Hanslope Park: on the outskirts of Milton Keynes housing Her Majesty's


Government Communications Centre, which supports the Foreign &
Commonwealth Office and the British intelligence community.

- Fort Monckton: a former fort dating from the 1780s, rebuilt in the 1880s, is now
the field operations training centre for SIS.

- 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.

The Circus
MI6 is nicknamed The Circus. Some say this was coined by John le Carré
(former SIS officer David Cornwell) in his espionage novels and named after a
fictional building on Cambridge Circus. Leo Marks explains in his World War II
memoir Between Silk and Cyanide that the name arose because a section of the
Special Operations Executive was housed in a building at 1 Dorset Square,
London, which had formerly belonged to the directors of Bertram Mills circus.

Chiefs
1909–1923: Sir Mansfield Smith-Cumming, KCMG CB

1923–1939: Admiral Sir Hugh Sinclair, KCB

1939–1952: Major General Sir Stewart Menzies, KCB KCMG DSO MC


1953–1956: Sir John Alexander Sinclair, KCMG CB OBE

1956–1968: Sir Richard White, KCMG KBE

1968–1973: Sir John Rennie, KCMG

1973–1978: Sir Maurice Oldfield, GCMG CBE

1979–1982: Sir Dick Franks, KCMG

1982–1985: Sir Colin Figures, KCMG OBE

1985–1989: Sir Christopher Curwen, KCMG

1989–1994: Sir Colin McColl, KCMG

1994–1999: Sir David Spedding, KCMG CVO OBE

1999–2004: Sir Richard Dearlove, KCMG OBE

2004–2009: Sir John Scarlett, KCMG OBE

2009–2014: Sir John Sawers, KCMG

2014–2020: Sir Alex Younger, KCMG

2020–: Richard Moore, CMG

The End!

Thank you,
Balasoiu Vlad
12B

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