MI6

What is MI6

MI6, properly known as the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), is the UK's external intelligence agency - that is, it is responsible for protecting and promoting British interests and security overseas. One of the methods it does this by is espionage.

Although the "MI" in MI6's informal title stands for "Military Intelligence", the SIS is a Crown Service that is formally responsible to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

The employer of the world's most famous fictional spy, James Bond, MI6 is a highly secretive organisation, whose work remains shrouded in mystery - much more so than its domestic security counterpart MI5.

Background

MI6 has its origins in the Secret Service Bureau, founded in 1909 to control the UK's intelligence activities. Originally split into naval and army sections, these branches rapidly came to focus on overseas and domestic security respectively. This division was formalised with the separation of the Secret Intelligence Service in 1911. The "MI" designations were introduced in 1916, with the organisations' transfer to the Directorate of Military Intelligence.

In the run-up to and during the First World War, MI6's attention was focused on the German threat, but it was largely unsuccessful in infiltrating that country. It had more success in penetrating Russia: when the Bolshevik threat became apparent, MI6 provided funding to the Kerensky government. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, an MI6 agent, Sidney Reilly, was involved in a plot to assassinate Lenin.

After the Russian Revolution, the threat posed by communism became a central focus for MI6 - leading it on occasion into sensitive political areas. The most notorious episode of this period was the "Zinoviev Letter" affair of 1924 - a letter from the head of the Comintern urging British socialists to revolt was leaked to the press, resulting in Labour losing the general election. The letter was later found to have been the work of anti-socialist elements within MI5 and MI6. In 1926, MI6 head Admiral Hugh Sinclair became convinced that the USSR was funding Sinn Fein, although the telegrams he based this view on were later found to be forged.

In the 1930s, MI6's attention switched to Nazi Germany. It has been alleged that a number of intelligence figures at this time were sympathetic to Hitler, in their opposition to the USSR. It was also during this period, however, that Soviet infiltration of British intelligence reached its peak: Kim Philby, one of the "Cambridge Five" unmasked as spies in the 1950s was recruited by the USSR in the 1930s, and was appointed as head of MI6s' Soviet affairs section in 1944.

During the Second World War, MI6 was eclipsed by a proliferation of new intelligence agencies, notably the Special Operations Executive. Its reputation had been tarnished by the capture of two agents by the Gestapo in the Venlo incident of 1939.

After the war, MI6 returned to countering the international influence of the USSR and its allies. It played a key role in the overthrow of Mohammed Mussadeq in Iran in 1951, and was active in counter-insurgency campaigns in Malaya, Borneo, Kenya and Cyprus. The Service was also involved in an unsuccessful 1955 plot to assassinate Ho Chi Minh, and worked with the CIA to overthrow Patrice Lumumba in the Congo.

Nevertheless, MI6 remained resistant to the widely-circulating notion that Philby was a Soviet agent - until he fled to the USSR in 1963, and confessed in his 1968 memoir that he had been a spy for over 30 years. Anthony Blunt, the "fourth man", was not exposed until 1979.

Until 1994, successive governments continued to deny the existence of MI6 and its fellow intelligence agencies. A series of Acts in the 1990s increased the accountability of MI6 to Parliament: the Intelligence Services Act 1994 subjected it to scrutiny from the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee.

In the late 1990s, MI6 waged a media battle with a sacked former officer, Richard Tomlinson. In 1999, a list of MI6 agents produced by Tomlinson was published, and in 2001, his memoirs were published. A number of factual errors are evident in "The Big Breach", however.

The events of September 11 2001, and the emergence of international terrorism as a major concern for Western governments, has no doubt been reflected in the priorities of MI6 today.

Controversies

Every state in history has maintained its secret intelligence services, but their existence is always problematic for open democratic states, particularly in the age of mass media. The openness required in democratic societies is necessarily at odds with the secrecy of intelligence agencies. As such, revelations about their work has often been a cause of public scandal.

The damage done to MI6's professional credibility by the "Cambridge Five" affair was significant. It seriously compromised the willingness of other intelligence agencies, notably the USA's, to co-operate with the UK and regard it as a safe ally. The deal struck with Anthony Blunt, whereby he received immunity from prosecution and retained his position as Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures, was also widely condemned.

The SIS did not escape the harm done by the "Spycatcher" affair of 1987, moreover, when it was alleged that it had plotted to assassinate Egypt's President Nasser.

The image of James Bond, however, has done much to win public affection for the spies and to surround their work with an aura of glamour. Nevertheless, despite extensive efforts to open itself up and diversify its membership in recent years, large sections of the public continue to regard the intelligence services as Oxbridge-dominated, upper and upper-middle class, white and politically conservative.

Little is known, however, about MI6's work and its methods. Although it works within the framework set by the Joint Intelligence Committee and is formally answerable to the Foreign Secretary, successive revelations suggest that it has historically operated with considerable freedom and little scrutiny.

This changed somewhat with the appointment of John Scarlett as the new head of MI6 in July 2004: Sir John was a recognised public figure, following his involvement in the Hutton inquiry of late 2003. His public profile stood in stark contrast to that of his predecessor, Sir Richard Dearlove - of whom no publicly available photograph exists since his graduation from university.

The head of MI6, or Chief of SIS, is known as 'C' after the first Chief, Mansfield Cumming who always signed himself 'C'. The present 'C' is Sir John Sawers, appointed 1st November 2009. Sir John was previously the UK Permanent Representative to the UN in New York.

Statistics

SIS, the Security Service and GCHQ are funded through a single budget called the Single Intelligence Account (SIA). The SIA for the financial year 2010/2011 is around £2.3 billion.

Source: SIS - 2010

Quotes

"The first Chief, Mansfield Cummings, used to pay the salaries of SIS officials out of his private income, dispensed in cash from a desk drawer. I'm glad to say that, even after the Chancellor's statement last week, I'm not in the same position........

"Our agents are the true heroes of our work. They have their own motivations and hopes. Many of them show extraordinary courage and idealism, striving in their own countries for the freedoms that we in Britain take for granted.

"Our agents are working today in some of the most dangerous and exposed places, bravely and to hugely valuable effect, and we owe a debt to countless more whose service is over. Agents take serious risks and make sacrifices to help our country. In return we give them a solemn pledge: that we shall keep their role secret."

Taken from The Chief's Speech - 28th October 2010..(believed to be the first public speech given by a serving Chief of British Secret Intelligence Service.)