The British Intelligence Community:

Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Security Service (MI5),

Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and other entities
A overview of entities under the command and control of the Central Intelligence Machinery, the Ministerial
Committee on the Intelligence Services, the Permanent Secretaries' Committee on the Intelligence Services,
and the Joint Intelligence Committee.

J. Knight (Author) and

K. Lee Lerner (Author and Contributing Editor)
kleelerner@alumni.harvard.edu

Draft Copy
Government Information Quarterly (Elsevier 2005)
and
Lerner, K. Lee and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner, Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Security, Thomson, 2004;
See endnotes for publication and citation information.

Overview

The intelligence community of the United Kingdom is both older and more complicated
than that of the United States. MI5, or the Security Service, and MI6, the Secret
Intelligence Service, are the most well known components of the British intelligence
structure, but these are just two parts of a vast intelligence apparatus. Communications
intelligence is the responsibility of the Government Communications Headquarters
(GCHQ), which works closely with the Communications Electronics Security Group,
while a number of agencies manage military intelligence under the aegis of the Ministry
of Defense. London's Metropolitan Police, or Scotland Yard, has its own Special Branch
concerned with intelligence.

The "MI" by which the two principal British security services are known (MI5, or Security
Service, and MI6, or Secret Intelligence Service) refers to their common origins in
military intelligence. Both can trace their roots to the Secret Service Bureau, created in
1909 after a report by Parliament's Committee on Imperial Defense concluded that "an
extensive system of German espionage exists in this country..." Working with the War
Office, Admiralty, and various operatives and agents overseas, the bureau had both a
Home Section and a Foreign Section--precursors, respectively, of MI5 and MI6.

Command and control operates through no less than four entities: the Central
Intelligence Machinery, the Ministerial Committee on the Intelligence Services, the
Permanent Secretaries' Committee on the Intelligence Services, and the Joint
Intelligence Committee.

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The principal oversight committee for British intelligence is the Central Intelligence
Machinery, based in the Prime Minister's Cabinet Office. Roughly analogous, in various
ways, to the U.S. National Security Council, Intelligence Community, and intelligence
committees in both houses of Congress, it oversees the coordination of security and
intelligence agencies. The Central Intelligence Machinery acts as a mechanism for
assessment and accountability, observing and reporting on the performance of specific
agencies. It is also concerned with tasking and the allocation of resources.

Whereas the Central Intelligence Machinery is at the top echelon of command and
control, the Ministerial Committee on the Intelligence Services exercises regular ongoing
oversight of intelligence activities. Through this committee, the Prime Minister, with the
assistance of the Secretary of the Cabinet, exercises authority over the daily operations
of the British intelligence and security communities as a whole. The Home Secretary
oversees MI5, the National Criminal Intelligence Service, and Scotland Yard, while MI6
and GCHQ answer to the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary.

These ministers receive assistance from the Permanent Secretaries' Committee on the
Intelligence Services. Finally, the Joint Intelligence Committee, or JIC, is not unlike
America's National Intelligence Council, which prepares National Intelligence Estimates.
JIC draws up general intelligence needs to be met by GCHQ and MI6.

After the outbreak of World War I, the War Office took over the Home Section,
designated MI5 in 1916. MI5, which might be likened to the U.S. Federal Bureau of
Investigation (although its operatives do not have arrest powers), spent the war years
successfully apprehending a number of German spies and saboteurs in England, and
after the war directed its attention against Communist elements. By the late 1930s,
MI5's focus once again became German and pro-German infiltrators, of which it
captured several. During the Cold War, MI5 returned to the efforts against Communists
that had concerned it in the interwar years, but was less successful in this, due to the
discovery of numerous Soviet moles within its ranks. Today, MI5 is concerned with
counter-terrorism and counter-espionage against groups in Northern Ireland, as well as
terrorist organizations based in the Middle East and other parts of the world.

The Metropolitan Police is better known by a name that refers to the location of its
original headquarters, Scotland Yard, which overlooked a residence formerly owned by
Scottish royalty. Scotland Yard, established in 1829, has a number of intelligence and
surveillance units. Among these is the Scientific Intelligence Unit, which is concerned
with behavioral and DNA analysis relating to unsolved crimes. The unit scored a major
victory in 1986, when it became the first police organization in the world to track down a
rapist and murderer named Colin Pitchfork by use of DNA evidence.

Scotland Yard formed the world's first antiterrorism unit in 1883, when it established the
Special Irish Branch in response to bombings in London committed by the Irish Fenian
movement. The office later became known as the Special Branch. Providing protective
services for Queen Victoria and later monarchs, the Special Branch performed a
function akin to that of the U.S. Secret Service. The Special Branch also assists MI5
with a number of activities that include surveillance, arrest (a power that Special Branch
officers possess), and testimony at trial. This last duty helps preserve the cover of MI5
officers, who are rarely allowed to testify in public to minimize risk of exposure.

In addition to its other responsibilities, Scotland Yard operates the National Identification
Service, which includes the National Criminal Record Office and National Fingerprint
Collection. Despite these efforts at gathering criminal intelligence, in the 1980s the
Home Secretary's office recognized the need for better coordination of these
intelligence-gathering efforts, and in April, 1992, established the National Criminal
Intelligence Service (NCIS).

Directed toward criminal organizations operating within the country, NCIS is one of
Europe's first national criminal intelligence services. Its staff of some 500 personnel has
backgrounds in police, customs, and excise work. Its areas of interest range from
organized crime, drug trafficking, and money laundering to child molestation and football
hooliganism.
MI6

MI6 (formerly the Secret Service Bureau Foreign Section) gained its present designation
in 1921. From it would emerge the precursor to GCHQ in 1919. Analogous to the U.S.
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), MI6 directed its efforts toward more or less the same
threats targeted by MI5: Germans during the world wars, and Communists during the
interwar and postwar periods. In World War II, MI6 sponsored aerial reconnaissance
efforts that would later be taken over by the Royal Air Force (RAF).

Through GCHQ, MI6 enjoyed a number of successes during World War II, most notable
among them being the Ultra program to break German Enigma ciphers. Like MI5,
however, MI6 in the early Cold War experienced embarrassment with the exposure of
Soviet spy rings operating in its midst. Yet MI6 also scored a victory by cultivating a
Soviet mole in Oleg Penkovsky, who went on to work with both MI6 and CIA. Whereas
MI5 established an atmosphere of openness in the post-Cold War era, MI6, which
continues to operate extensively abroad, remains highly secretive.

In 1909, a parliamentary study found evidence of widespread German infiltration, and

noted that there was "no organization… for accurately identifying its extent and
objectives." As a result, the British government established the Secret Service Bureau.
The latter was divided into a Home Section under Captain Mansfield Cumming, and a
Foreign Section directed by Captain Vernon Kell. The two came to be known,
respectively, as "C" and "K". After World War I broke out, the Foreign Section became
MI1(c), and in 1921 the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), or MI6. Directors of SIS have
thenceforth been known by the designation "C" after Cumming, who remained the head
of SIS/MI6 until 1923. (The "K" designation, on the other hand, seems to have ended
with Kell, first director-general of MI5.)

During the World War I, MI6 conducted intelligence operations involving both Germany
and Russia, and its operatives and agents included both the author W. Somerset
Maugham and the legendary spy Sidney Reilly. In 1919, MI6 took charge over the
Government Code & Cypher School (GC&CS), formed from the remains of the British
Admiralty's Room 40, along with a smaller War Office program. GC&CS soon proved
successful at breaking ciphers used by the new Bolshevik government. MI6 efforts
against both Russia and Germany in the 1930s uncovered evidence of Nazi-Soviet
cooperation in the development of weapons technology, but during this era, MI6 also
suffered a number of failures, leaving the British government unprepared for such
moves as Hitler's reoccupation of the Rhineland in 1935.

A new era began for MI6 in November 1939 when, just three months after the outbreak
of war, Colonel Stewart Menzies became the new "C". In that same month, MI6 suffered
a major setback when the Germans captured two of its officers in Holland, and obtained
considerable information from them under interrogation. Yet, MI6 excelled in its
cryptanalytic efforts against the Germans through GCCS, which in 1942 became the
Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). Operating from Bletchley Park
outside London, GCHQ successfully broke German ciphers on the Enigma machine--the
single greatest cryptanalytic success of the war.

Despite the spirit of wartime cooperation with Josef Stalin's Russia, Menzies in 1944
wisely established a section devoted to Soviet espionage and subversion. Less
felicitous was his choice of a section head, Harold (Kim) Philby. In what proved to be a
classic case of the fox guarding the chicken coop, Philby would later be exposed as a
Soviet spy, and he was not alone; among the many Soviet moles exposed in the two
decades after the war were John Cairncross and Charles H. Ellis, both with MI6. Further
misfortunes followed as MI6 attempted unsuccessfully to gain intelligence on a Soviet
ship docked at Portsmouth, an effort that cost the life of a former Navy diver named
Lionel Crabb. Yet, MI6 was not without successes in the immediate postwar years; it
cultivated a relationship with Soviet intelligence officer Oleg Penkovsky, who would
prove a valuable asset to both British and U.S. intelligence.

By the 1970s, MI6 had turned its attention toward a number of areas other than the
Soviet bloc. These included economic espionage, as well as efforts against terrorist
groups in Northern Ireland. In the latter capacity, the agency found itself in a turf war
with MI5, which was already working on the problems in Northern Ireland. MI6 proved
an invaluable asset in the conflict, establishing key links with top Irish Republican Army
(IRA) and Sinn Fein figures. Unfortunately, MI6 suffered another embarrassment when
two brothers claiming to be MI6 operatives conducted a number of bank robberies in
Northern Ireland and claimed that they had been directed to assassinate IRA leaders.

During the 1980s and 1990s, MI6 recovered its standing through successful operations
in the Falklands War, Persian Gulf War, and Balkan wars. It gained new statutory
grounding with the 1994 passage of the Intelligence Services Act, which defined its
responsibilities and functions, as well as those of its chief. The act also set in place a
framework of government oversight for MI6 activities. In 1993, Sir Colin McColl became
the first MI6 director to be publicly identified.

GCHQ

GCHQ grew out of the Government Code and Cypher School (GCCS), established in
November 1919. During the 1920s and 1930s, GCCS had considerable success in its
efforts to decipher German and Soviet transmissions. Once the Germans acquired the
Enigma machine, with its apparently unbreakable ciphers, in the late 1930s, GCCS
greatly stepped up its efforts. In August, 1939, just before war broke out in Europe, it
moved its headquarters to Bletchley Park outside London. There its cryptanalysts
undertook Operation Ultra, the breaking of the Enigma cipher, a project whose details
remained classified until the 1970s.
Renamed the Government Communications Headquarters in 1942 to conceal its
activities, this leading communications intelligence agency of the United Kingdom--quite
similar in function to the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA)--greatly escalated its
efforts in the Cold War. GCHQ is also like NSA, with which it participates in the Echelon
global surveillance network, in its level of secrecy.

GCHQ directorates include the Composite Signals Organization, the Directorate of

Organization and Establishment, the Directorate of Signals Intelligence Plans, the Joint
Technical Language Service, the Directorate of Signals Intelligence Operations and
Requirements.The Directorate of Communications Security works with the
Communications Electronics Security Group, or CESG. Established in 1969, CESG is
the British national technical authority for information security, and works with a number
of government agencies to ensure communications security.

MI5

Best known by its designation as MI5, the Security Service is the leading
counterespionage agency working in the United Kingdom. Its functions are somewhat
akin to those of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation, but MI5 places a
much greater emphasis on intelligence, and its operatives have no arrest powers.
Formed in 1916, MI5 devoted itself to intelligence operations against the Germans in
both world wars, and against Communists in the interwar and postwar periods. During
the early Cold War, MI5 suffered a number of embarrassments involving Soviet moles in
its midst. From the 1970s onward, it devoted increasing attention to terrorist activities,
and in the 1990s, attempted to balance its sensitive security functions with an increased
concern for openness with the British public.

MI5 grew out of the Secret Service Bureau, created in 1909 to protect the British realm
against German infiltrators. At the beginning of World War I, the Home Section of the
bureau came under the control of the War Office, which designated it MI5 in 1916. Over
the course of the war, MI5 assisted in the arrest of several dozen German operatives in
Britain.

Under the direction of Captain Vernon Kell, who served as director-general until 1940,
MI5 in the immediate postwar years directed its efforts toward spies associated with the
new Communist regime in Russia. It uncovered a major Soviet front operation in 1927,
but by the 1930s, had begun to focus once again on German infiltration. MI5, led by Sir
David Petrie in the war years, apprehended numerous German spies, who were
subsequently executed. Also important, it succeeded in turning a number of other Axis
operatives, such that the Nazis remained convinced they had an extensive spy network
in Britain, although in fact the spies were working against Brtish interests.
The postwar years saw some successes, including Operation Engulf, a program of
communications interception directed against the Soviets, French, and Egyptians during
the Suez Crisis in 1956. MI5 also captured several Soviet operatives, but its
achievements were overshadowed by the uncovering of the Cambridge spy ring, whose
members served as Soviet moles while working for the British government. Although
neither Donald Maclean nor Kim Philby actually worked for MI5, both were under
investigation by it when they escaped to the other side of the iron curtain in 1949 and
1963, respectively.

Worse revelations were to come, with the discovery in 1963 that Anthony Blunt, who
had worked for MI5 in the war years, was also a Soviet agent. Eventually it became
apparent that the Soviets had been infiltrating MI5 for most of the postwar period. The
list of suspected Soviet agents included some extremely high officials: Director-General
Sir Roger Hollis (1956-65) and future Director General Sir Michael Hanley (1972-79).
These revelations did little to inspire trust with American intelligence agencies, which
cooperated little with MI5 until after the end of Hanley's tenure.

By the 1960s, MI5 had become increasing concerned with terrorism, both by Palestinian
and Northern Irish groups. Revelations of Soviet infiltration continued even into the
1980s, when former MI5 operative Michael Bettaney was convicted of espionage on
behalf of the KGB. The spy scandals eventually ended, although not so much because
of measures MI5 took to counter infiltration, but because of the Soviet Union's collapse.

During the mid-1980s, MI5 came under intense government scrutiny in the form of an
investigation by Britain's Security Commission. The result of this was the appointment of
Sir Anthony Duff to the director-general's position, and in 1988 Duff took measures to
reform the agency. The Security Service Act of 1989 for the first time conferred legal
status on MI5, which in December 1991 signaled a new era of openness by announcing
the appointment of Stella Rimington as director-general. Rimington became not only its
first female director, but the first MI5 chief named in the media.

In 1993, MI5 further demonstrated its openness by publishing a booklet titled The
Security Service. The latter laid out MI5's six branches of operation, which include
counter-terrorism, counterespionage, counter-subversion, protective security, security
intelligence, and record keeping. Meanwhile, in 1992, MI5 was given chief responsibility
for British intelligence efforts against Irish terrorism, and over the next seven years it
helped bring about 21 convictions for crimes related to terrorism.

Oversight

In addition to the Cabinet-level oversight committees mentioned earlier, the Minister of

Defense controls military intelligence through the Defence Procurement Executive and
the Defense Intelligence Staff (DIS). DIS in turn oversees a number of military
intelligence agencies, most notably the Defense Geographic and Imagery Intelligence
Agency (DGIA) and the Defense Intelligence and Security Center.
DGIA was formed in 2000 from the merger of the RAF's Joint Air Reconnaissance
Intelligence Center (JARIC) and the Military Survey Defense Agency. JARIC was
concerned with aerial reconnaissance and the capture of photographic intelligence, and
the Military Survey with geographic and geospatial support to defense planning. The
Defense Intelligence and Security Center, created in 1996, integrates intelligence and
security training for Britain's military services.

Further Reading

Aldrich, Richard J. The Hidden Hand: Britain, America, and Cold War Secret
Intelligence. Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 2002.

Andrew, Christopher M. Her Majesty's Secret Service: The Making of the British
Intelligence Community. New York: Viking, 1986.

Bamford, James. The Puzzle Palace: A Report on America's Most Secret Agency.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1982.

Dorril, Stephen. MI6: Inside the Cover World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence
Service. New York: Free Press, 2000.

Maer, Lucinda and Oonagh Gay. Official Secrecy. Parliament and Constitution Centre,
2008. Available online at https://fas.org/irp/world/uk/secrecy.pdf. (Last Accessed March
11, 2017)

Pincher, Chapman. The Spycatcher Affair. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988.

Polmar, Norman, and Thomas B. Allen. Spy Book: The Encyclopedia of Espionage.
New York: Random House, 1998.

United Kingdom Intelligence Agencies. Federation of American Scientists.

http://www.fas.org/irp/world/uk/index.html (Last Accessed March 11, 2017).

West, Nigel. Molehunt: Searching for Soviet Spies in MI5. New York: W. Morrow, 1989.

Wright, Peter. Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer.

New York: Viking, 1987.
_______________________
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