Mi-6 The History of British Intelligence

 

We will talk about the famous British secret service MI-6, which was well known for the bond. The unique feature of this legendary service is that it has never formally existed. This secret makes MI6 unique among all the intelligence services in the world. For hundreds of years, British agents have deployed their networks in continental Europe, the Middle East, Asia, America and Russia. They skillfully acted, persuaded, killed, and manipulated key figures in world politics. Officially, however, MI6 remained in the shadows. It was only in 1994 that the British authorities finally recognized the existence of this secret service, and Parliament passed the Intelligence Act.

The Secret Intelligence Service was established in 1909 as part of the foreign Department of the Bureau of the Secret Service, which collaborated with the Admiralty and the War Department. At the beginning of its existence, the service was divided into naval and land units, but later it changed its focus to espionage and counterintelligence. This change in specialization was probably due to the Admiralty's desire to receive information about the naval forces of the German Empire. By 1914, this specialization had become the main task of the Bureau. During the First World War, an administrative reorganization was carried out, and the two departments dealing with external affairs were renamed the Directorate of Intelligence Section 6 - MI6 (Directorate of Military Intelligence Section 6, MI6).

The first director of the SIS service was Captain Sir George Mansfield Smith-Cumming, also known as Smith, who often signed himself simply with the letter "S." This has become a tradition, and all subsequent SIS directors are also designated by this letter. The version that the first victim of British intelligence was Ivan the Terrible In 1963, a group of Russian criminologists discovered the graves of the tsar and his sons, Ivan and Fyodor, in the Archangel Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. The study revealed that the mercury content in the bones of Tsar and Tsarevich Ivan exceeded the norm by 32 times, and arsenic by 3 times. Some experts did claim that mercury was used in medicines at that time, however, traces of the disease should have remained in the body, which was not confirmed by examination. As a result, there was a theory about possible poisoning. Later, new data confirmed this version. In 2000, the remains of Ivan the Terrible's first wife, Anastasia, the mother of Ivan and Fyodor, were analyzed. The test results also showed high concentrations of mercury, arsenic, and lead, reinforcing the earlier theory of poisoning. Agent 007. He exists.

A fresh article from the British newspaper The Guardian caused a real stir. It turned out that it was the 007 cipher that was used in the 16th century by John Dee, an outstanding scientist and diplomat, when sending his reports personally to the Queen. Thus, John Dee can be called the first "007 agent" of his time, which makes his personality even more mysterious and interesting for historians and fans of espionage intrigues. This article sheds light on amazing aspects of Dee's life and work, revealing a new chapter in the history of covert operations and encryption. The two zeros in the cipher are the queen's eyes, meaning information should flow directly to her. Zeros also meant the right to kill. Seven is a lucky number.

Successes

Enigma

One of the most famous operations of the British special services during the Second World War was Operation Enigma. Information about this operation was declassified in the 1970s, after which many books, plays and films began to appear telling how the British decrypted secret German messages. These works allow us to better understand and appreciate the importance and complexity of Operation Enigma in the context of World War II. Gordievsky's Recruitment

One of the significant successes of British intelligence in the 20th century was the recruitment of KGB Colonel Oleg Gordievsky. In 1976, in Copenhagen, he agreed to cooperate with MI6. To this day, it remains a mystery what caused his decision. Gordievsky was not interested in alcohol or money, there was no compromising evidence against him, and attempts to compromise him as a gay man failed. His colleague Mikhail Lyubimov believes that his betrayal was caused by excessive vanity. Gordievsky himself claims that his decision to fight against the USSR was due to the awareness of the scale of Stalin's crimes. Acting as the deputy Soviet resident in London, Gordievsky handed over information about several of our illegal immigrants and secret documents to the British special services. In 1985, he was extradited by a CIA officer who worked for the Soviet side, Aldrich Ames. Gordievsky was called back to his homeland, but he failed to split up. He found himself isolated in his dacha until his British colleagues organized a daring escape from the country for him. On the morning of July 20, 1985, Gordievsky went for a jog from his dacha outside Moscow, successfully escaped persecution, reached Moscow, boarded a train to Leningrad, and then took an electric train to Zelenogorsk. From there, he reached the Finnish border on foot and hid under a rock, awaiting rescue. At the same time, two cars from the British embassy were rushing from Moscow along the Leningrad Highway, transporting the wife and two daughters of the British resident in Moscow. The ambassador's car was under surveillance, but the British managed to evade pursuit. It was terribly hot. A sweaty Gordievsky was placed in the trunk of a car, and there was beer there so that he would not die of thirst. The whole escape took 80 seconds. The cars raced to the Finnish border, where the border guards were waiting for them. The service dog became interested in the contents of the trunk, which smelled of sweat and beer. The resident's wife took her newborn baby and started changing his diapers right on the trunk. The smell became even more intense. The dog was distracted. Thus, Gordievsky crossed the border, finding himself in freedom. In Britain, he was awarded the Order of St. Michael and was elevated to the rank of a super spy.

Failures

In 1939, the head of the Gestapo counterintelligence, Walter Schellenberg, subtly deceived the MI6 staff, acting as Captain Schemmel, a representative of the alleged conspirators in the Nazi leadership. Under the guise of an intermediary between the conspirators who allegedly planned to overthrow Hitler and the British agents in The Hague, Schellenberg gave out false information to MI6. In fact, there was no conspiracy, and Schellenberg was simply conducting an intelligence operation to identify British intelligence officers in the Netherlands and lure them into a trap. His audacity reached such heights that he even intended to go to London as a prominent opponent of Hitler. Although his superiors did not allow Schellenberg to carry out his plan, he was still able to arrest two British intelligence officers in The Hague. Thus, MI6 lost the opportunity to use its spy network in Western Europe, as all its agents were extradited and interrogated. Kim Philby

The penetration of the so-called "Cambridge Five" became a catastrophic event and the main failure for the British intelligence MI6. In the 1930s, Arnold Deutsch, a Soviet resident in London, recruited five young men from the highest social circles who studied at Cambridge and subsequently achieved great success. For almost two decades, they have been transmitting strategically important information to Moscow not out of fear, but out of conviction. The leader of the group, Kim Philby, rose to important positions in MI6 and was engaged specifically in the Soviet direction. He was even considered for the opportunity to head the agency. He also remained influential in the formation of the CIA. Anthony Blunt worked as an advisor to King George V. John Kerncross was an employee of MI6. Donald MacLaine and Guy Burgess acted as diplomats in Washington. After the disclosure of the activities of these super-spies, MI6 found itself in crisis. Employees were fired en masse, and paranoia reigned in the organization. However, disillusionment with their leaders and fear of betrayal were reflected in the wonderful novels of spy writers like Graham Greene and John Le Carré.

Richard Sorge. The best Soviet intelligence officer

 

As you know, on the eve of the Great Patriotic War, ciphers, data and information from our intelligence officers about the approximate timing, nature and preparation of Germany for the coming war with the USSR came to Moscow from various points of the world. Perhaps the most famous of the agents was Richard Sorge, a half-Russian German, a staunch communist, an excellent journalist and an excellent intelligence officer. His life is covered with many mysteries and myths, which we will try to understand today.

The future agent, whose fate was connected with the Soviet Union, was born in 1895 in a village near Baku, into the family of a German engineer who worked in the oil fields and the Russian daughter of a worker. One of Richard's relatives worked as secretary to Karl Marx and led the First International, so communist and revolutionary views and traditions were strong in his family. In 1898, his family left for Germany. Before the First World War, life went on as usual: the family lived quite comfortably, Richard studied and did not know worries. But the war came, and Sorge Jr. volunteered for the front. Fighting on the western and eastern fronts, he received ranks and awards, and with them, injuries. In 1917, after one of them, when Richard lay on the battlefield for a long time, he had to undergo a severe operation, which caused one leg to become slightly shorter than the other (this caused him inconvenience throughout his life). At the same time, Sorge, realizing the horrors of the war, recognized himself as a supporter of communism.

Not forgetting about his education after demobilization (in 1918 he became a doctor of law, in 1919 - economics), Richard Sorge became more and more immersed in the party and revolutionary life, which was then very developed in Germany. Joining the Communist Party in 1919, the future intelligence officer was a propagandist, journalist and editor. In 1924, fate and the Comintern sent Sorge to work in Moscow, where he received Soviet citizenship and a job at the Institute of Marxism-Leninism. Richard devoted four years of his life to science and writing articles. At the same time, Sorge broke up with his first wife (upon arrival in the USSR, she became a Soviet agent and left for intelligence work). Russian Russians soon met his future second wife, Ekaterina Maximova, with whom, however, he had to communicate in broken Russian colloquially, and in letters in French: Sorge did not know Russian very well.

In 1929, Richard was recruited by Soviet intelligence and went to work in the Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army. His first major job after legalization in Germany (Sorge was officially a German journalist and represented the German Foreign Ministry) was intelligence in China, where he not only created an excellent network of agents, but also established contacts with American journalists, Chinese Communists and Japanese reporters. They say he even ingratiated himself with Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek and rode motorcycles with him. This type of transport was a scout's real passion. He loved speed and was thus sometimes distracted from his work. Once, however, while living in Japan, Sorge had an accident, carrying valuable information with him. Being in a fainting state, Richard, afraid of being exposed, contacted the assistant, handed him the documents and only then lost consciousness.

In 1932, the intelligence officer, on behalf of the center, returned to Germany, where soon, also on the instructions of his superiors, he carried out his final legalization: he not only became a confidant of the German Foreign Ministry, but also joined the Nazi Party and even established ties with the Gestapo and the intelligence service of the Reich. The Germans trusted Richard Sorge to the end, whom he later managed to trick more than once. In 1933, he was assigned to infiltrate Japan, where he became a correspondent for leading German newspapers (officially). And in 1937, in connection with the repression and reprisals in Soviet intelligence, Richard Sorge himself almost fell under the flywheel: his agency, which he had established with great difficulty, was disbanded, funding was cut, and Ramsay himself (Sorge's agent name) began to be treated very, very suspiciously, not trusting the data he collected. Richard and his associates had to live on earnings from articles and reports. Despite everything, Sorge managed to create such a powerful Soviet intelligence machine in Japan that the intelligence officer himself worked at the German embassy and had close friendly contacts with the German ambassador to Japan, and his agents were embedded in the office of the Japanese Prime Minister himself. That is why Richard received some of the most valuable and accurate information.

It is known that he became one of those who constantly reported on the upcoming German attack on the USSR. However, his information was not trusted. Firstly, because of suspicions about the intelligence officer himself, and secondly, because the data differed from each other. However, this was not the fault of Sorge, who received scattered data, because the highest circles of the Reich did not know exactly about the Fuhrer's plans. One thing is for sure: Ramzai did not and could not convey the exact date of the German attack on the USSR, but only reported that it would take place in the second half of June. The fact that he allegedly named the exact day - June 22, 1941 - is a myth. But Sorge was not just an intelligence officer, but also a scientist, researcher, and even a geopolitician. His assumption of the 1930s is well known that the United States is capable of becoming a world leader in the near future and displacing Britain in the international arena. He and his group also tried to convince the Japanese establishment of the undesirability of war with the USSR, and after the Japanese took a neutral position towards the Soviet Union, he was able to transmit this information to Moscow. Thanks to these data, the leadership was able to calmly remove the well-trained Siberian divisions from the east and transfer them to the defense of the capital.

In the fall of 1941, Sorge's group was exposed. The Japanese leadership arrested the intelligence officers and subjected their work to a thorough investigation. The Germans did not fully believe in the fact that Sorge was working for the USSR, but when they received irrefutable data, they were furious: Hitler demanded that the criminal be handed over to Germany, which, however, did not happen. On November 7, 1944, on the day of the October Revolution, Communist Richard Sorge was hanged. The only person who proved to be completely loyal to the intelligence officer was his Japanese common-law wife, Hanako Ishii. She tried to take Sorge's body for several years, and after permission, she went to identify him and was able to find his remains. After a long search, Hanako bought a plot of land in a Japanese cemetery for a lot of money, where she buried her husband's ashes.

As for the Soviet Union, for many years our country did not recognize the fact that Sorge worked for the USSR. His name turned out to be a myth. And only in 1964, when Khrushchev was shown the film "Who are you, Dr. Sorge?", he instructed him to find information about the intelligence officer and posthumously award him the title of Hero. Since then, the inscription "Hero of the Soviet Union Richard Sorge" has been gaping on the tombstone - fully deserved by a great man, an outstanding intelligence officer, scientist and journalist, who, not being the son of our country, did so much for her that he became one of her Heroes.