• 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.

• 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.

• [19] 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• [77] On 15 November 2006, SIS allowed an interview with current operations officers for the first time.

• [17] Inter-War period[edit] A young Englishman, member of the Secret Intelligence Service, in Yatung, Tibet, photographed by Ernst Schäfer in 1939 After the war, resources
  were significantly reduced but during the 1920s, SIS established a close operational relationship with the diplomatic service.

• [57] 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.

• [77] On 27 September 2004, it was reported that British spies across the Balkans, including an SIS 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.

• 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.

• [50] 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.

• [29] Second World War[edit] 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.

• [4] 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.

• [5] 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.

• [40] 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).

• “[63] Towards the end of the invasion, SIS officers operating out of Baghdad International Airport with Special Air Service (SAS) protection, began to re-establish a station
  in Baghdad and began gathering intelligence, in particular on WMDs.

• The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 (Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with
  the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligence in support of the UK’s national security.

• [71] 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 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.

• [8] Unlike its main sister agencies, 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.

• The exposure of the agents across the three capitals markedly undermined the British intelligence operations in the area, including SIS efforts to capture The Hague’s most
  wanted men, which riled many local intelligence agencies in the Balkans, some of which are suspected of continuing ties to alleged war criminals.

• 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.

• [41] Cold War[edit] 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.

• 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’.

• 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.

• 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”.

• [35][36] 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• [62] 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.

• In August 1919, Cumming created the new passport control department, providing diplomatic cover for agents abroad.

• [18] 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”.

• Most of its results came from military and commercial intelligence collected through networks in neutral countries, occupied territories, and Russia.

• • Section N to exploit the contents of foreign diplomatic bags • Section D to conduct political covert actions and paramilitary operations in time of war.

• 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.

• Sources said SAS soldiers have been told that the mission could be the most important in the regiment’s 75-year history.

• [5][14][15] First World War[edit] The service’s performance during the First World War was mixed, because it was unable to establish a network in Germany itself.

• [68] 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.

• [43] Operation Gold: the Berlin tunnel in 1956 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.

• [63][64] Claims by former weapons inspector Scott Ritter suggest that similar propaganda campaigns against Iraq date back well into the 1990s.

• In the months after the invasion, they also began gathering political intelligence; predicting what would happen in post-Baathist Iraq.

• 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.

• [5] The name “MI6” (meaning Military Intelligence, Section 6) originated as a convenient label during the Second World War, when SIS was known by many names.

• 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).

• [32] 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.

• [65] 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.

• SIS is one of the British intelligence agencies and the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (“C”) is directly accountable to the Foreign Secretary.

• 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.”

• [18] Circulating Sections established intelligence requirements and passed the intelligence back to its consumer departments, mainly the War Office and Admiralty.

• The bureau was split into naval and army sections which, over time, specialised in foreign espionage and internal counter-espionage activities, respectively.

• [74] 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.

• [72] 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• [53] During the mid-1990s the British intelligence community was subjected to a comprehensive costing review by the government.

• [46] 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.

• [6] That year the Intelligence Services Act 1994 (ISA) was introduced to Parliament, to place the organisation on a statutory footing for the first time.

• 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.

• [52] 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).

• Examples include a thwarted operation to overthrow the Bolshevik government[20] in 1918 by SIS agents Sidney George Reilly[21] and Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart,[22] as well as
  more orthodox espionage efforts within early Soviet Russia headed by Captain George Hill.

• 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.

• Liaison was undertaken by SIS officer Wilfred Dunderdale, and reports included advance 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.

• 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.

• The demonstration represented a vital basis for the later British continuation and effort.

• [58] During the United States invasion of Afghanistan, the SIS established a presence in Kabul following its fall to the coalition.

• [60] 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.

 

Works Cited

[‘This is a combined budget for all the services – SIS, MI5 and GCHQ; the breakdown is not disclosed.
o Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament “Annual Report 2016–2017” Archived 9 November 2020 at the Wayback Machine, page 77. House of Commons
(20 December 2017). Retrieved 1 June 2018.
o ^ “Financial Statement 2017–18” (PDF). Security and Intelligence Agencies. p. 13. Retrieved 2 April 2020.
o ^ “The Chief”. SIS – MI6. Archived from the original on 15 April 2012. Retrieved 10 November
2014.
o ^ Whitehead, Jennifer (15 July 2016). “Our Chief”. SIS. Retrieved 10 July 2010.
o ^ Jump up to:a b c d e “1920: What’s in a Name”. SIS website. Retrieved 12 April 2017.
o ^ Whitehead, Jennifer (13 October 2005). “MI6 to boost recruitment
prospects with launch of first website”. Brand Republic. Retrieved 10 July 2010.
o ^ “The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament”. Isc.independent.gov.uk. Retrieved 5 November 2017.
o ^ “Our Mission”. SIS website. Retrieved 25 August
2017.
o ^ “Intelligence Services Act 1994: Section 1”, legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives, 1994 c. 13 (s. 1)
o ^ Foster, Peter (5 April 2014). “Tony Blair ‘knew all about CIA secret kidnap programme'”. The Telegraph. Archived from the
original on 10 January 2022. Retrieved 25 August 2017.
o ^ Norton-Taylor, Richard (1 June 2016). “Public need answers in ‘shocking’ MI6 rendition scandal, says senior Tory”. The Guardian. Retrieved 25 August 2017.
o ^ “Queen visits Mi6.”, The
Times, London, 15 July 1994, pg 2
o ^ “SIS Records — War Office Military Intelligence (MI) Sections in the First World War”. Sis.gov.uk. Archived from the original on 20 August 2006.
o ^ MI6 boss Sir John Scarlett still signs letters in green
ink, Matthew Moore, The Daily Telegraph, 27 July 2009
o ^ The usage inspired Ian Fleming in his James Bond novels to use the denominator M for the head of service.
o ^ MI6 (British Secret Intelligence Service), K. Lee Lerner and Hudson Knight
in Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Security Archived 30 May 2010 at the Wayback Machine. Accessed:2007-09-02.
o ^ Ruis, Edwin. Spynest. British and German Espionage from Neutral Holland 1914–1918. Brimscombe: The History Press, 2016.
o ^
Jump up to:a b c “C”: The Secret Life of Sir Stewart Graham Menzies, Spymaster to Winston Churchill, Anthony Cave Brown, Collier, 1989
o ^ Davies (2004), p. 182
o ^ Richard B. Spence, Trust No One: The Secret World Of Sidney Reilly; 2002, Feral
House, ISBN 0-922915-79-2.
o ^ Andrew Cook, Ace of Spies: The True Story of Sidney Reilly; 2004, Tempus Publishing, ISBN 0-7524-2959-0.
o ^ Robert Bruce Lockhart, Memoirs of a British Agent (reprint); 2003, Folio Society, ASIN B000E4QXIK.
o ^
Kitchen, Martin. “Hill, George Alexander”. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/67487. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
o ^ Atkin, Malcolm (2015). Fighting Nazi
Occupation: British Resistance 1939 – 1945. Barnsley: Pen and Sword. pp. Chapter 4. ISBN 978-1-47383-377-7.
o ^ Jeffery 2010, p. 302
o ^ Follett, Ken; Money, Paper (27 December 1987). “The Oldest Boy of British Intelligence”. The New York Times.
Retrieved 1 July 2012.
o ^ Ralph Erskine: The Poles Reveal their Secrets – Alastair Dennistons’s Account of the July 1939 Meeting at Pyry. Cryptologia. Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Taylor & Francis, Philadelphia PA 30.2006,4, p. 294.
o ^
Gordon Welchman, who became head of Hut 6 at Bletchley Park, has written: “Hut 6 Ultra would never have gotten off the ground if we had not learned from the Poles, in the nick of time, the details both of the German military version of the commercial
Enigma machine, and of the operating procedures that were in use.” Gordon Welchman, The Hut Six Story, 1982, p. 289.
o ^ Much of the German cipher traffic was encrypted on the Enigma machine, and the term “Ultra” has often been used almost synonymously
with “Enigma decrypts”. Ultra also encompassed decrypts of the German Lorenz SZ 40 and 42 machines that were used by the German High Command, and decrypts of Hagelin ciphers and other Italian ciphers and codes, as well as of Japanese ciphers and codes
such as Purple and JN-25.
o ^ “GCHQ releases Alan Turing’s secret wartime papers”. 20 April 2012. Archived from the original on 5 May 2013. Retrieved 1 July 2012.
o ^ Winterbotham 1974, pp. 154, 191.
o ^ Jump up to:a b Kochanski, Halik (2014).
The Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War. Harvard University Press. pp. 234–235. ISBN 978-0674068148.
o ^ “Affidavit of Walter Schellenburg”. Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression. Volume VII. USGPO, Washington, 1946/pp.622–629.
Document UK-81. Washington. 1946. Archived from the original on 22 November 2010. Retrieved 6 October 2010.
o ^ “Beaulieu”. Pen & Sword Books. 20 January 2012. Retrieved 1 July 2012.
o ^ Cynewulf Robbins, Ron (1990). “Great Contemporaries: Sir
William Stephenson, “Intrepid””. Sir Winston Churchill. The International Churchill Society. Archived from the original on 25 June 2011. Retrieved 24 March 2017. Churchill launched Stephenson on his spymaster career by appointing him to head the British
Security Co-ordination Service in New York before the United States had entered the Second World War.
o ^ “The Intrepid Life of Sir William Stephenson”. CIA News & Information. Central Intelligence Agency. 2015. Archived from the original on 15
July 2019. Retrieved 24 March 2017.
o ^ William Boyd (19 August 2006), “The Secret Persuaders”, The Guardian, retrieved 30 November 2013
o ^ “Secret Intelligence Activities at Camp X”. Canada. Government of Canada. 1 May 2015. Archived from the
original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 23 March 2017.
o ^ Walters, Eric (2002). Camp X. Toronto: Puffin Canada. p. 229. ISBN 978-0-14-131328-3.
o ^ Jump up to:a b “Kim Philby – new Russian god?”. International News Analysis Today. 20 December
2010. Retrieved 1 July 2012.
o ^ World War II: The Underground War. Library of Congress. 2 October 2007. p. 711. ISBN 9781416553069. Retrieved 1 July 2012.
o ^ Berg, Sanchia (13 December 2008). “Churchill’s secret army lived on”. BBC – Today.
Retrieved 13 March 2009.
o ^ Davies (2004), p. 17
o ^ “Mystery of missing frogman deepens”. BBC News. 9 May 1956. Retrieved 1 July 2012.
o ^ “Licence to kill: When governments choose to assassinate”. BBC. 17 March 2012. Retrieved 1 July 2012.
o ^
Jump up to:a b Shaun McCormack (2003). Inside Britain’s MI6: Military Intelligence 6. The Rosen Publishing Group. p. 28. ISBN 978-0-8239-3812-4.
o ^ “George Blake”. History Learning. Archived from the original on 20 April 2013. Retrieved 1 July
2012.
o ^ “The spy who loved us – Oleg Penkovsky”. Washington Monthly. May 1992. Archived from the original on 28 February 2006. Retrieved 1 July 2012.
o ^ “What every good spy should know”. The Guardian. London. 28 April 2000. Retrieved 1 July
2012.
o ^ Dorril, Stephen (2002). MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service. Simon and Schuster. p. 752. ISBN 9780743217781.
o ^ “The Soviets: Coups and Killings in Kabul”. Time. 22 November 1982. Archived from
the original on 2 August 2008. Retrieved 1 July 2012.
o ^ Davies (2004), p. 354
o ^ “Intelligence Services Act 1994” (PDF). UK Parliament. Retrieved 1 July 2012.
o ^ “Review of Intelligence on weapons of mass destruction” (PDF). London: Committee
led by Lord Butler. Retrieved 1 July 2012.
o ^ Corera, Gordon, MI6: Life and Death in the British Secret Service, W&N , 2012, ISBN 0753828332, 978-0753828335, p.313
o ^ Corera, Gordon, MI6: Life and Death in the British Secret Service, W&N , 2012,
ISBN 0753828332, 978-0753828335, p.313-314
o ^ Dirty Diplomacy, 2007, Craig Murray, Scribner.
o ^ Corera, Gordon, MI6: Life and Death in the British Secret Service, W&N , 2012, ISBN 0753828332, 978-0753828335, p.335
o ^ Farrell, Theo, Unwinnable:
Britain’s War in Afghanistan, 2001–2014, Bodley Head, 2017 ISBN 1847923461, 978-1847923462, P.82
o ^ Corera, Gordon, MI6: Life and Death in the British Secret Service, W&N , 2012, ISBN 0753828332, 978-0753828335, p.338
o ^ Neville, Leigh, Special
Forces in the War on Terror (General Military), Osprey Publishing, 2015 ISBN 978-1-4728-0790-8, p.75
o ^ Corera, Gordon, MI6: Life and Death in the British Secret Service, W&N , 2012, ISBN 0753828332, 978-0753828335, p.339
o ^ Jump up to:a b Rufford,
Nicholas (28 December 2003). “Revealed: how SIS sold the Iraq war”. The Sunday Times.
o ^ “MI6 ran ‘dubious’ Iraq campaign”. BBC News. 21 November 2003.
o ^ Jump up to:a b Urban, Mark, Task Force Black: The Explosive True Story of the Secret
Special Forces War in Iraq , St. Martin’s Griffin, 2012 ISBN 1250006961 ISBN 978-1250006967, pp.10–11, p.13, p.15, p.18–19, p.50-55, p.56-57, p.67-68, p.95-96, p.101, p.249
o ^ Corera, Gordon, MI6: Life and Death in the British Secret Service,
W&N , 2012, ISBN 0753828332, 978-0753828335, p.399-400
o ^ Corera, Gordon, MI6: Life and Death in the British Secret Service, W&N , 2012, ISBN 0753828332, 978-0753828335, p.351
o ^ Jump up to:a b Radnedge, Aidan. “MI6 thwarted attacks on Libya
rebel forces by Gaddafi regime”. Metro. Retrieved 28 December 2011.
o ^ “‘British Taliban’ arrested in Afghanistan”. The Guardian. 21 July 2011.
o ^ “British couple captured in Afghanistan ‘were planning attacks in UK'”. The Daily Telegraph.
21 July 2011. Archived from the original on 10 January 2022.
o ^ Corera, Gordon, MI6: Life and Death in the British Secret Service, W&N , 2012, ISBN 0753828332, 978-0753828335, p.351-352
o ^ “MI6 demands more spies in Afghanistan to fight terrorism”.
The Daily Telegraph. 20 October 2013. Archived from the original on 10 January 2022.
o ^ “SAS deployed in Libya since start of year, says leaked memo”. The Guardian. 25 March 2016.
o ^ “UK special forces and MI6 involved in Yemen bombing, report
reveals”. The Guardian. 11 April 2016.
o ^ “SAS in Iraq given ‘kill list’ of 200 British jihadis to take out”. The Independent. 6 November 2016.
o ^ “Hutton Inquiry: Day 9: John Scarlett gives evidence”. NFO. Retrieved 1 July 2012.[permanent
dead link]
o ^ Jump up to:a b “MI6 spies exposed by Balkan rivals”. The Telegraph. 27 September 2004. Archived from the original on 10 January 2022.
o ^ Johnston, Philip (16 November 2006). “MI6 licensed to thrill listeners to Radio 1”. The Daily
Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 10 January 2022. Retrieved 1 July 2012.
o ^ Michael Evans (16 June 2009). “Outsider Sir John Sawers appointed new head of MI6”. The Times. Retrieved 16 June 2009.
o ^ “Romanian president meet with
British MI6 head in London”. BBC Monitoring International Reports. 9 June 2011. Retrieved 1 July 2012.
o ^ Stuart, Mark Muller, Storm in the Desert: Britain’s Intervention in Libya and the Arab Spring, Birlinn Ltd, 2017, ISBN 1780274521, ISBN 978-1780274522
o ^
Neville, Leigh, Special Forces in the War on Terror (General Military), Osprey Publishing, 2015 ISBN 978-1472807908, p.296, p.314
o ^ “SAS on ground during Libya crisis”. BBC News. 19 January 2012.
o ^ New evidence of UK complicity in Libya torture
Channel Four News, 8 February 2013
o ^ Alexander, Harriet (23 February 2015). “MI6 tried to recruit North Korean man to spy on nuclear programme”. The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 10 January 2022.
o ^ “Revealed: MI5 and MI6 are
training senior spies from Saudi Arabia, UAE and Egypt”. Daily Maverick. 27 July 2020. Retrieved 27 July 2020.
o ^ Sabbagh, Dan (6 March 2021). “MI5 involvement in drone project revealed in paperwork slip-up”. The Guardian.
o ^ Jump up to:a b
Mayer, Catherine (2016). Charles: the Heart of a King. Ebury Publishing. p. 175. ISBN 978-0-7535-5595-8. Retrieved 24 October 2021.
o ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f g “A year with MI6”. GOV.UK. Retrieved 9 July 2020.
o ^ Cafe, Rebecca (4 August 2011).
“What do artists-in-residence do?”. BBC News. Retrieved 9 July 2020.
o ^ “A brush with the secret world of MI6 spies”. BBC News. Retrieved 9 July 2020.
o ^ Jump up to:a b c Alan Judd (24 September 2000). “One in the eye for the Vauxhall Trollop”.
The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 10 January 2022. Retrieved 9 November 2014.
o ^ Norton-Taylor, Richard (31 March 2015). “Sir Mansfield Cumming, first MI6 chief, commemorated with blue plaque”. The Guardian. Retrieved 31 March
2015.
o ^ “This Luxury Hotel in London Was Once a Secret Spy Base”. Smithsonian. 18 April 2017. Retrieved 5 July 2018.
o ^ “www.lindner-schmidlin.com”. Archived from the original on 8 October 2007.
o ^ Jump up to:a b c Thames House and Vauxhall
Cross Archived 7 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine, Report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, 18 February 2000.
o ^ “Bond is backed… by the government”. The Guardian. London. 27 April 1999. Retrieved 29 December 2007.
o ^ “Spectre”. Movie
locations. Archived from the original on 28 November 2016. Retrieved 3 January 2015.
o ^ “‘Rocket’ theory over MI6 blast”. BBC. 21 September 2000. Retrieved 1 July 2012.
o ^ Ian Cobain and Richard Norton-Taylor (18 April 2012). “Sins of colonialists
lay concealed for decades in secret archive”. The Guardian. London. Retrieved 25 June 2012.
o ^ Richard Tomlinson (2001). The Big Breach: From Top Secret to Maximum Security. Mainstream Publishing. ISBN 978-1-903813-01-0.
o ^ Brian Lett (30 September
2016). “28 – Did the SOE refuse to die?”. SOE’s Mastermind: The Authorised Biography of Major General Sir Colin Gubbins KCMG, DSO, MC. Pen and Sword Military. pp. 256–257. ISBN 9781473863835. OCLC 953834421. Retrieved 18 September 2019.
o ^ Marks,
Leo (2007). Between Silk and Cyanide. The History Press. p. 21. ISBN 978-0750948357.
o Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament “Annual Report 2016–2017” Archived 9 November 2020 at the Wayback Machine, page 77. House of Commons (20 December
2017). Retrieved 1 June 2018.
o ^ “Financial Statement 2017–18” (PDF). Security and Intelligence Agencies. p. 13. Retrieved 2 April 2020.
o ^ “The Chief”. SIS – MI6. Archived from the original on 15 April 2012. Retrieved 10 November 2014.
o ^
Whitehead, Jennifer (15 July 2016). “Our Chief”. SIS. Retrieved 10 July 2010.
o ^ Jump up to:a b c d e “1920: What’s in a Name”. SIS website. Retrieved 12 April 2017.
o ^ Whitehead, Jennifer (13 October 2005). “MI6 to boost recruitment prospects
with launch of first website”. Brand Republic. Retrieved 10 July 2010.
o ^ “The Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament”. Isc.independent.gov.uk. Retrieved 5 November 2017.
o ^ “Our Mission”. SIS website. Retrieved 25 August 2017.
o ^
“Intelligence Services Act 1994: Section 1”, legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives, 1994 c. 13 (s. 1)
o ^ Foster, Peter (5 April 2014). “Tony Blair ‘knew all about CIA secret kidnap programme'”. The Telegraph. Archived from the original on
10 January 2022. Retrieved 25 August 2017.
o ^ Norton-Taylor, Richard (1 June 2016). “Public need answers in ‘shocking’ MI6 rendition scandal, says senior Tory”. The Guardian. Retrieved 25 August 2017.
o ^ “Queen visits Mi6.”, The Times, London,
15 July 1994, pg 2
o ^ “SIS Records — War Office Military Intelligence (MI) Sections in the First World War”. Sis.gov.uk. Archived from the original on 20 August 2006.
o ^ MI6 boss Sir John Scarlett still signs letters in green ink, Matthew Moore,
The Daily Telegraph, 27 July 2009
o ^ The usage inspired Ian Fleming in his James Bond novels to use the denominator M for the head of service.
o ^ MI6 (British Secret Intelligence Service), K. Lee Lerner and Hudson Knight in Encyclopedia of Espionage,
Intelligence, and Security Archived 30 May 2010 at the Wayback Machine. Accessed:2007-09-02.
o ^ Ruis, Edwin. Spynest. British and German Espionage from Neutral Holland 1914–1918. Brimscombe: The History Press, 2016.
o ^ Jump up to:a b c “C”:
The Secret Life of Sir Stewart Graham Menzies, Spymaster to Winston Churchill, Anthony Cave Brown, Collier, 1989
o ^ Davies (2004), p. 182
o ^ Richard B. Spence, Trust No One: The Secret World Of Sidney Reilly; 2002, Feral House, ISBN 0-922915-79-2.
o ^
Andrew Cook, Ace of Spies: The True Story of Sidney Reilly; 2004, Tempus Publishing, ISBN 0-7524-2959-0.
o ^ Robert Bruce Lockhart, Memoirs of a British Agent (reprint); 2003, Folio Society, ASIN B000E4QXIK.
o ^ Kitchen, Martin. “Hill, George
Alexander”. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/67487. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
o ^ Atkin, Malcolm (2015). Fighting Nazi Occupation: British Resistance
1939 – 1945. Barnsley: Pen and Sword. pp. Chapter 4. ISBN 978-1-47383-377-7.
o ^ Jeffery 2010, p. 302
o ^ Follett, Ken; Money, Paper (27 December 1987). “The Oldest Boy of British Intelligence”. The New York Times. Retrieved 1 July 2012.
o ^
Ralph Erskine: The Poles Reveal their Secrets – Alastair Dennistons’s Account of the July 1939 Meeting at Pyry. Cryptologia. Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Taylor & Francis, Philadelphia PA 30.2006,4, p. 294.
o ^ Gordon Welchman, who became
head of Hut 6 at Bletchley Park, has written: “Hut 6 Ultra would never have gotten off the ground if we had not learned from the Poles, in the nick of time, the details both of the German military version of the commercial Enigma machine, and of the
operating procedures that were in use.” Gordon Welchman, The Hut Six Story, 1982, p. 289.
o ^ Much of the German cipher traffic was encrypted on the Enigma machine, and the term “Ultra” has often been used almost synonymously with “Enigma decrypts”.
Ultra also encompassed decrypts of the German Lorenz SZ 40 and 42 machines that were used by the German High Command, and decrypts of Hagelin ciphers and other Italian ciphers and codes, as well as of Japanese ciphers and codes such as Purple and
JN-25.
o ^ “GCHQ releases Alan Turing’s secret wartime papers”. 20 April 2012. Archived from the original on 5 May 2013. Retrieved 1 July 2012.
o ^ Winterbotham 1974, pp. 154, 191.
o ^ Jump up to:a b Kochanski, Halik (2014). The Eagle Unbowed:
Poland and the Poles in the Second World War. Harvard University Press. pp. 234–235. ISBN 978-0674068148.
o ^ “Affidavit of Walter Schellenburg”. Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression. Volume VII. USGPO, Washington, 1946/pp.622–629. Document UK-81. Washington.
1946. Archived from the original on 22 November 2010. Retrieved 6 October 2010.
o ^ “Beaulieu”. Pen & Sword Books. 20 January 2012. Retrieved 1 July 2012.
o ^ Cynewulf Robbins, Ron (1990). “Great Contemporaries: Sir William Stephenson, “Intrepid””.
Sir Winston Churchill. The International Churchill Society. Archived from the original on 25 June 2011. Retrieved 24 March 2017. Churchill launched Stephenson on his spymaster career by appointing him to head the British Security Co-ordination Service
in New York before the United States had entered the Second World War.
o ^ “The Intrepid Life of Sir William Stephenson”. CIA News & Information. Central Intelligence Agency. 2015. Archived from the original on 15 July 2019. Retrieved 24 March 2017.
o ^
William Boyd (19 August 2006), “The Secret Persuaders”, The Guardian, retrieved 30 November 2013
o ^ “Secret Intelligence Activities at Camp X”. Canada. Government of Canada. 1 May 2015. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved
23 March 2017.
o ^ Walters, Eric (2002). Camp X. Toronto: Puffin Canada. p. 229. ISBN 978-0-14-131328-3.
o ^ Jump up to:a b “Kim Philby – new Russian god?”. International News Analysis Today. 20 December 2010. Retrieved 1 July 2012.
o ^ World
War II: The Underground War. Library of Congress. 2 October 2007. p. 711. ISBN 9781416553069. Retrieved 1 July 2012.
o ^ Berg, Sanchia (13 December 2008). “Churchill’s secret army lived on”. BBC – Today. Retrieved 13 March 2009.
o ^ Davies (2004),
p. 17
o ^ “Mystery of missing frogman deepens”. BBC News. 9 May 1956. Retrieved 1 July 2012.
o ^ “Licence to kill: When governments choose to assassinate”. BBC. 17 March 2012. Retrieved 1 July 2012.
o ^ Jump up to:a b Shaun McCormack (2003).
Inside Britain’s MI6: Military Intelligence 6. The Rosen Publishing Group. p. 28. ISBN 978-0-8239-3812-4.
o ^ “George Blake”. History Learning. Archived from the original on 20 April 2013. Retrieved 1 July 2012.
o ^ “The spy who loved us – Oleg
Penkovsky”. Washington Monthly. May 1992. Archived from the original on 28 February 2006. Retrieved 1 July 2012.
o ^ “What every good spy should know”. The Guardian. London. 28 April 2000. Retrieved 1 July 2012.
o ^ Dorril, Stephen (2002). MI6:
Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service. Simon and Schuster. p. 752. ISBN 9780743217781.
o ^ “The Soviets: Coups and Killings in Kabul”. Time. 22 November 1982. Archived from the original on 2 August 2008. Retrieved
1 July 2012.
o ^ Davies (2004), p. 354
o ^ “Intelligence Services Act 1994” (PDF). UK Parliament. Retrieved 1 July 2012.
o ^ “Review of Intelligence on weapons of mass destruction” (PDF). London: Committee led by Lord Butler. Retrieved 1 July
2012.
o ^ Corera, Gordon, MI6: Life and Death in the British Secret Service, W&N , 2012, ISBN 0753828332, 978-0753828335, p.313
o ^ Corera, Gordon, MI6: Life and Death in the British Secret Service, W&N , 2012, ISBN 0753828332, 978-0753828335,
p.313-314
o ^ Dirty Diplomacy, 2007, Craig Murray, Scribner.
o ^ Corera, Gordon, MI6: Life and Death in the British Secret Service, W&N , 2012, ISBN 0753828332, 978-0753828335, p.335
o ^ Farrell, Theo, Unwinnable: Britain’s War in Afghanistan,
2001–2014, Bodley Head, 2017 ISBN 1847923461, 978-1847923462, P.82
o ^ Corera, Gordon, MI6: Life and Death in the British Secret Service, W&N , 2012, ISBN 0753828332, 978-0753828335, p.338
o ^ Neville, Leigh, Special Forces in the War on Terror
(General Military), Osprey Publishing, 2015 ISBN 978-1-4728-0790-8, p.75
o ^ Corera, Gordon, MI6: Life and Death in the British Secret Service, W&N , 2012, ISBN 0753828332, 978-0753828335, p.339
o ^ Jump up to:a b Rufford, Nicholas (28 December
2003). “Revealed: how SIS sold the Iraq war”. The Sunday Times.
o ^ “MI6 ran ‘dubious’ Iraq campaign”. BBC News. 21 November 2003.
o ^ Jump up to:a b Urban, Mark, Task Force Black: The Explosive True Story of the Secret Special Forces War in
Iraq , St. Martin’s Griffin, 2012 ISBN 1250006961 ISBN 978-1250006967, pp.10–11, p.13, p.15, p.18–19, p.50-55, p.56-57, p.67-68, p.95-96, p.101, p.249
o ^ Corera, Gordon, MI6: Life and Death in the British Secret Service, W&N , 2012, ISBN 0753828332,
978-0753828335, p.399-400
o ^ Corera, Gordon, MI6: Life and Death in the British Secret Service, W&N , 2012, ISBN 0753828332, 978-0753828335, p.351
o ^ Jump up to:a b Radnedge, Aidan. “MI6 thwarted attacks on Libya rebel forces by Gaddafi regime”.
Metro. Retrieved 28 December 2011.
o ^ “‘British Taliban’ arrested in Afghanistan”. The Guardian. 21 July 2011.
o ^ “British couple captured in Afghanistan ‘were planning attacks in UK'”. The Daily Telegraph. 21 July 2011. Archived from the
original on 10 January 2022.
o ^ Corera, Gordon, MI6: Life and Death in the British Secret Service, W&N , 2012, ISBN 0753828332, 978-0753828335, p.351-352
o ^ “MI6 demands more spies in Afghanistan to fight terrorism”. The Daily Telegraph. 20
October 2013. Archived from the original on 10 January 2022.
o ^ “SAS deployed in Libya since start of year, says leaked memo”. The Guardian. 25 March 2016.
o ^ “UK special forces and MI6 involved in Yemen bombing, report reveals”. The Guardian.
11 April 2016.
o ^ “SAS in Iraq given ‘kill list’ of 200 British jihadis to take out”. The Independent. 6 November 2016.
o ^ “Hutton Inquiry: Day 9: John Scarlett gives evidence”. NFO. Retrieved 1 July 2012.[permanent dead link]
o ^ Jump up
to:a b “MI6 spies exposed by Balkan rivals”. The Telegraph. 27 September 2004. Archived from the original on 10 January 2022.
o ^ Johnston, Philip (16 November 2006). “MI6 licensed to thrill listeners to Radio 1”. The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived
from the original on 10 January 2022. Retrieved 1 July 2012.
o ^ Michael Evans (16 June 2009). “Outsider Sir John Sawers appointed new head of MI6”. The Times. Retrieved 16 June 2009.
o ^ “Romanian president meet with British MI6 head in London”.
BBC Monitoring International Reports. 9 June 2011. Retrieved 1 July 2012.
o ^ Stuart, Mark Muller, Storm in the Desert: Britain’s Intervention in Libya and the Arab Spring, Birlinn Ltd, 2017, ISBN 1780274521, ISBN 978-1780274522
o ^ Neville,
Leigh, Special Forces in the War on Terror (General Military), Osprey Publishing, 2015 ISBN 978-1472807908, p.296, p.314
o ^ “SAS on ground during Libya crisis”. BBC News. 19 January 2012.
o ^ New evidence of UK complicity in Libya torture Channel
Four News, 8 February 2013
o ^ Alexander, Harriet (23 February 2015). “MI6 tried to recruit North Korean man to spy on nuclear programme”. The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 10 January 2022.
o ^ “Revealed: MI5 and MI6 are training
senior spies from Saudi Arabia, UAE and Egypt”. Daily Maverick. 27 July 2020. Retrieved 27 July 2020.
o ^ Sabbagh, Dan (6 March 2021). “MI5 involvement in drone project revealed in paperwork slip-up”. The Guardian.
o ^ Jump up to:a b Mayer, Catherine
(2016). Charles: the Heart of a King. Ebury Publishing. p. 175. ISBN 978-0-7535-5595-8. Retrieved 24 October 2021.
o ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f g “A year with MI6”. GOV.UK. Retrieved 9 July 2020.
o ^ Cafe, Rebecca (4 August 2011). “What do artists-in-residence
do?”. BBC News. Retrieved 9 July 2020.
o ^ “A brush with the secret world of MI6 spies”. BBC News. Retrieved 9 July 2020.
o ^ Jump up to:a b c Alan Judd (24 September 2000). “One in the eye for the Vauxhall Trollop”. The Daily Telegraph. Archived
from the original on 10 January 2022. Retrieved 9 November 2014.
o ^ Norton-Taylor, Richard (31 March 2015). “Sir Mansfield Cumming, first MI6 chief, commemorated with blue plaque”. The Guardian. Retrieved 31 March 2015.
o ^ “This Luxury Hotel
in London Was Once a Secret Spy Base”. Smithsonian. 18 April 2017. Retrieved 5 July 2018.
o ^ “www.lindner-schmidlin.com”. Archived from the original on 8 October 2007.
o ^ Jump up to:a b c Thames House and Vauxhall Cross Archived 7 June 2011
at the Wayback Machine, Report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, 18 February 2000.
o ^ “Bond is backed… by the government”. The Guardian. London. 27 April 1999. Retrieved 29 December 2007.
o ^ “Spectre”. Movie locations. Archived from
the original on 28 November 2016. Retrieved 3 January 2015.
o ^ “‘Rocket’ theory over MI6 blast”. BBC. 21 September 2000. Retrieved 1 July 2012.
o ^ Ian Cobain and Richard Norton-Taylor (18 April 2012). “Sins of colonialists lay concealed for
decades in secret archive”. The Guardian. London. Retrieved 25 June 2012.
o ^ Richard Tomlinson (2001). The Big Breach: From Top Secret to Maximum Security. Mainstream Publishing. ISBN 978-1-903813-01-0.
o ^ Brian Lett (30 September 2016). “28
– Did the SOE refuse to die?”. SOE’s Mastermind: The Authorised Biography of Major General Sir Colin Gubbins KCMG, DSO, MC. Pen and Sword Military. pp. 256–257. ISBN 9781473863835. OCLC 953834421. Retrieved 18 September 2019.
o ^ Marks, Leo (2007).
Between Silk and Cyanide. The History Press. p. 21. ISBN 978-0750948357.
Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/rocketjim54/4933824130/’]