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telligence overseas to support the govern-ment’s security, defence, foreign and eco-nomic policies. GCHQ brings intelligenceand technology together to counter sophis-ticated threats such as terrorism and cyberattacks.

Anyone who wishes to be employed byany of the above intelligence services needseek no more than to visit their websites.Unlike the early days, word of mouth rec-ommendation or class status are no longercriteria for making it onto their payroll. Allthree are equal opportunity providers, havea good regard for gender and do not dis-criminate against those that are physicallychallenged. Positions are publicly adver-tised and demand a certain level of discre-tion from potential candidates who facerigorous interviews and vetting.

e Home Secretary oversees the work

e use of intelligence and undercoverwork is a vast and intriguing topic. Forsome of us, the world of spies is best leftalone or taboo, while for others it may bea source of excitement, an obsession, oreven a necessity. For many, the UK intelli-gence services have been well described bycinema and television screens, radio docu-mentaries, novels, the press and of coursewhistleblowers. It’s one thing to fantasiseabout a career and lifestyle as an under-cover agent and quite another to livethrough the experience and be able to tellit. Many people share their stories and ex-perience on the Internet, through docu-mentaries and books. How is undercoverwork organised in the UK? What is thehistory behind it? Where is the influencefelt and made visible in society?

Did you know that three organisationsofficially make up the core of the UK in-telligence services? e GovernmentCommunications Headquarters(GCHQ), Security Service (MI5), andSecret Intelligence Service (SIS, aka MI6)collectively employ more than an esti-mated 10,000 people to assure protectionfor the UK and its citizens. Each agencyholds an individual mandate: MI5 is thecountry’s domestic counter-intelligenceand security agency, while MI6 gathers in-

Spooks & spies

Mansfield Cumming.October 1909

Diary entry: “went to the office andremained all day, but saw no one,nor was there anything to do there.”

A New Statesmanjournalist,David Rose,was introduced to the work of MI6over lavish tea and luncheoninvitations at the Ritz. He becamethe primary contact to sourceinformation for his paper untilsuddenly MI5 cut him off withoutwarning. The excuse was that hispress articles turned out to beunhelpful to the ‘Office’. David hassince delivered analytical accountsabout the relationship between theSecret Intelligence Service (SIS),aka MI6, and the fourth estate, i.e. media and the press in thepublic domain.

Espionage is an intriguing topicbecause it raises many questionsthat lead to assumptions, confusionand controversy. Fiction and non-fiction thrillers reflecting warhistory and espionage are todaycomplemented with accounts ofterrorism and cyber attack.

Keith Jeffrey was appointed bythe Secret Intelligence Service in2005 to write the first officialhistory of the British IntelligenceService ‘MI6: The History of the SecretIntelligence Service, 1909-1949,’published in 2010.

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of MI5 while MI6 is accountable to theauthority of the Foreign andCommonwealth Office (FCO). e formerwas co-founded by a military man withlinguistic talent, Vernon Kell. He took re-sponsibility from the War Office in 1909and carried out an undercover operationwith only 16 staff. Kell mastermindedOperation Double Cross, which disman-tled a Germany spy network using decep-tion methods that remain outstanding inwarfare history.

Scare stories about German spies moti-vated the formation of the MI6, also in1909, under the leadership of MansfieldCummings. He set his own base and ac-commodation in Ashley Mansions inVauxhall Bridge Road and later, in 1910,setup a bogus shippers and exporters ad-dress introducing the first import/exportespionage cover.

Cummings and Kell worked closely withmilitary intelligence during the outbreak ofthe First World War. at same year,Cummings was caught in a major road ac-cident to which he lost his son and hisfoot. He had a reputation for interruptingmeetings in his office by suddenly stabbinghis artificial leg with a knife. It was alsosaid that he used this as a method to testthe nerves of potential MI6 recruits.

MI5 faltered under budget cuts after theFirst World War, but resurfaced to countercommunist and fascist subversion in theUK during the 1930s. e Security Servicewas involved in preventing enemy espi-onage, intercepting German communica-tions and feeding misinformation back toGermany during the Second World War.Subversion and Soviet espionage becamethe priority during the Cold War with thefocus later moving to Northern Irelandand Libya until the 9/11 terrorist attackson the US, which prompted the agency to introduce major changes in the way itoperated.

Espionage and public entertainmentA total of 25 James Bond films have beenreleased since Dr No in 1963. Spectre,grossed US$879 million globally in 2015,short of Skyfall’s US$1 billion only threeyears earlier in 2012 proving espionage re-lated entertainment a lucrative business.

A number of real-life spies are believedto have provided the inspiration to Bond’screator, Ian Fleming. Agent Zigzag, akaEddie Chapman, the safe-cracking crimi-nal turned double agent, is said to have in-spired the fiction of James Bond. He wasconverted from a Nazi spy to an MI5agent and carried out acts of sabotage inBritain on behalf of the Germans.Chapman was known for blowing opensafes and jumping out of Nazi planes.

Juan Pujol Garcia had the Germans be-lieve that he was a Spanish businessmanconnected to a network of spies that sup-plied him with badly needed informationabout the UK. In reality, he was workingwith MI5 under the alias Garbo and sup-plied the Germans with disinformation.Forest Yeo-omas alias White Rabbit,took on the identities of his enemies,jumped from trains, strangled guards andused disguises to evade detection.

Among award-winning spy novels outside John LeCarré’s league is MickHerron’s Slow Horses(2010), Gold Daggeraward-winner Dead Lions(2013) and Real Tigers(2016), which is claimed toread like an episode of‘Spooks’ written by Ricky Gervais.e spy world is great from a distance andquite the career if you can manage it. iswriter prefers to take it on for bedtimereading, which is a guaranteed not-so-badexperience.

Nightingale Jennings is a journalist and media researcher. She can be contacted at nightingale2016@icloud.com.

Stella Remington was thefirst female head of any intelligenceagency in the world.

The Fusion Cell is a joint industryand government analytical team thatexamines, analyses and providesfeedback on cyber informationfrom a wide variety of data sources.It was established by the UKnational computer emergencyresponse team in 2014.

Manfield Cumming was the first ‘C’ (or fictionally called ‘M’ ofMI6) and famously used greenink, a custom upheld throughoutthe history of the service.