Spy Queen - Stella Rimington

20/10/2009

As MI5 celebrates its centenary, the former Director-General shares a secret or two...

by Adam Forrest

Dame Stella Rimington, Director-General of MI5 from 1992 to 1996, knows a thing or two about secrets. In 1983 she became head of MI5’s F2 division, which handles domestic subversion and is responsible for monitoring trade unions – a job that brought her to the attention of Downing Street during the miners’ strike. Not only was Rimington the first female DG, she was the first to go public and openly pose for photographs. As the ‘Service’ celebrates its centenary with the release of an official history, the ex-spy chief speaks frankly to The Big Issue about running agents, trade union subversion and dodgy dossiers. 

What do you think of MI5 allowing historian Christopher Andrew access to the archives to write an official history of the Security Service?
It’s a very good move. It was a decision taken by my successor, and it was quite brave at the time – to let an outsider have free range with the records. But the result is extremely interesting and authoritative. When I came in there was a concerted strategy of greater openness. I think this book was designed to introduce the work of the Service to the public. And it’s got some great stories.

The book reveals the extent to which British trade union leaders and left-wing campaigners were suspected of being subversives during the Cold War. Were too many files opened on them?
In the 1970s, I think my predecessors had been rather too free and easy with the definition of subversion, and some files had been opened that we decided, when we looked at them later, were not really justified. During the miners’ strike [1984-85], we were extremely careful that when we were supplying regular information to government, we were only supplying information on the activities of subversive organisations like The Communist Party of Great Britain or the militant tendencies within the unions. Sometimes, government was slightly more keen on us supplying information than we were on giving it to them.

But there was reason to believe Arthur Scargill and the National Union of Mineworkers were receiving help from overseas?
There certainly was finance coming from Moscow during that period, and there was finance and general support coming from Colonel Gaddafi and Libya. So there were external influences. It wasn’t only a strike by a union looking for better conditions, it was sponsored by those external to the country with malign aims. That was why it was legitimate for the Security Service to take a close interest.

You joined MI5 in 1969, after secret Soviet operative Kim Philby and the Cambridge spy ring had been uncovered. How much paranoia lingered about enemy double-agents?
When I joined there was still a sense that the KGB was nine foot tall. The devastating effect of the Cambridge spies had a big influence. It turns out the Soviets had been incredibly bad at running these guys. Although they had well-placed sources, they didn’t exploit them as fully as they could have done, and they had mishandled their agents very badly. Nevertheless, the impression was that it was an absolutely brilliant intelligence coup by what must be a brilliant intelligence agency.

How dangerous was some of the work you were doing?
Running agents is absolutely vital intelligence work. Strangely enough, when I joined, it was the kind of work women were excluded from. I was the first woman who went on the training course for that kind of work. My first case was not a brilliant beginning. A guy from eastern Europe, who had come to meet a British intelligence officer, was not overly thrilled he was to give information to a woman. But the anxieties about women doing the work broke down very quickly. You have to be tough, but nowadays the skills we talk about as female – soft skills like sympathy and understanding – are just the skills you need to deal with sources, who are often in a very dangerous position.

In 1992 you became not only the first female head of MI5, but also the first publicly-named director-general. Was the sudden exposure difficult to deal with?
It was a decision taken by government. I was told by my predecessor that they were going to announce my name. I’ve always been a proponent of greater openness, but the way it was done meant there was huge furore. There was vast media excitement about the head of a secret service going public, and the fact it was a woman in charge doubled it. The Sunday Times did a number on my private life, so we had to move house. It was a period of difficulty, particularly for my younger daughter. It was a time the IRA was still active. We ended up effectively living underground, covertly.

Did the infamous ‘dodgy’ dossier released before the invasion of Iraq damage the credibility of the intelligence services?
I think a lot of that falls on government. There’s been enough written to show the kind of pressure put on the intelligence machine to produce the dossier. I’ve always thought putting that kind of intelligence into the public domain is a bad idea because it’s continually changing. What you believe one day is not what you believe the next day because you have more information. All the caveats were omitted and the dossier was presented as fact. It damaged MI6 and the relationship between government and the intelligence services.

You were openly critical of some of the Labour government’s moves on security – 42-day detention and ID cards. Did ministers overreact to 9/11 and then the 7/7 bombings?
I did feel some of the things the government suggested were going over the top, and I was heartened that the Lords turned back the legislation (on 42-day detention). It’s a careful balance between civil liberties and security. The original reason given for ID cards was counter-terrorism, but that quickly dropped away and other reasons such as theft of identity and all sorts of other things were given. On the whole, I am pleased we seem to be withdrawing from some of the more extreme protections suggested. We wait to see, if another ghastly terrorist action happens, whether these things will come back again.

In the official history Christopher Andrew states MI5 was slow to recognise the threat of al-Qaeda and Islamic terrorism. Is that fair?
I feel that’s the historian looking back with the benefit of hindsight, whereas intelligence officers have to look forward with the often very small amounts of information they’ve got at the time. You sometimes have very, very little to go on at the beginning. I don’t criticise many of Christopher Andrew’s judgements, but that’s one of them, where he’s writing as a historian, which I think may well be disagreed with by members of the current Service.

The release of your memoirs in 2001 proved controversial – someone in Whitehall sent the first draft in a taxi to the offices of The Sun. Did you feel betrayed?
The fuss was created by some people in the Ministry of Defence, who at the time were trying to stop some SAS soldiers from writing books which gave away operational details, and they saw my book in the same light. So they conducted what became almost an undermining operation, including sending the first draft to The Sun, in an effort to stop it from being published. I knew it hadn’t come from the Service. I dealt with all the legal issues in the proper way, and it was published. I was cross and rather upset about it at the time.

You’ve now written five spy novels. What are the potential pitfalls for someone with your experience turning to fiction?
I have to submit novels to my former Service for clearance. They read them carefully and if they think I’m giving away anything that’s too close to the techniques they’re currently using, they ask me to change it. Another pitfall is that a typical intelligence officer’s day might be spent at the desk or in meetings. So you have to blend action with the background work, which probably means my characters having a more active life than the average MI5 officer – rushing from one drama to the next.

The latest book, Present Danger, examines present-day dissident Republicans - how much was based on your work in Northern Ireland?
I like to keep up-to-date on the current issues. It’s clear that one of the main threats in Northern Ireland at the moment is the actions of dissident groups, particularly on the Republican side, who haven’t accepted the war is over. When I was working in that particular area, there were some Americans involved, particularly people who were designing home-made weapons. And in an earlier period there was a lot of financial support coming out of America for the IRA. So that comes out of my past; my imagination working on how it might be now.

You’ve described MI5 as a “family”. Do you still feel loyal to the Service?
I do still feel loyalty. Effectively you’re either an insider or an outsider in the secret world, but if you’ve worked there for 27 years you are still part of it.
There’s never going to be total openness, but there shouldn’t be or the Service wouldn’t be very effective in doing its' job. There’s always going to be secrecy.

Stella Rimington’s novel Present Danger is out now (Quercus, £14.99)