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Security Service MI5 - History

In March 1909, the Prime Minister, Mr Asquith, instructed the Committee of Imperial Defence to consider the dangers from German espionage to British naval ports. On 1 October, following the Committee's recommendation, Captain Vernon Kell of the South Staffordshire Regiment and Captain Mansfield Cumming of the Royal Navy jointly established the Secret Service Bureau. To fulfil the Admiralty's requirement for information about Germany's new navy, Kell and Cumming decided to divide their work. Thereafter, 'K' was responsible for counter-espionage within the British Isles while 'C', as Cumming came to be known, was responsible for gathering intelligence overseas.

Between March 1909 and the outbreak of the First World War, more than 30 spies were identified by the Secret Service Bureau and arrested, thereby depriving the German Intelligence Service of its network. At the time, the Bureau had a staff of only ten, including Kell himself. The Bureau was rapidly mobilised as a branch of the War Office. In January 1916, it became part of a new Directorate of Military Intelligence and was then titled MI5.

Wartime legislation increased the responsibilities of MI5 to include the coordination of government policy concerning aliens, vetting and other security measures at munitions factories. MI5 also began to oversee counter-espionage measures throughout the Empire. By the end of the War, during which a further 35 spies were identified and arrested, MI5 had approximately 850 staff. Details of the work of MI5 up to the end of the First World War may be found in the Service's surviving records from this period, which were released for public view by the Public Record Office in November 1997. After the Bolshevik coup d'état of October 1917, MI5 began to work on the threats from Communist subversion within the Armed Services, and sabotage to military installations.

On 15 October 1931 formal responsibility for assessing all threats to the national security of the United Kingdom, apart from those posed by Irish terrorists and anarchists, was passed to MI5. This date marked the formation of the Security Service, although the title MI5 has remained in popular use to this day.

Following Hitler's rise to power, the new Service had to face the threat of subversion from Fascists. However, at the time of the outbreak of the Second World War it was ill-equipped for its many tasks, which included counter-espionage; monitoring of enemy aliens and advising on internment; vetting checks for government departments; visiting firms engaged in war work to advise them on security measures against espionage and sabotage; and dealing with reports by members of the public concerning suspicious activity. In early 1939 the Service's strength stood at only 30 officers and its surveillance section comprised just six men. To make matters worse, in September 1940 many of its records were destroyed by German bombing.

Shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, the Service had moved premises to Wormwood Scrubs Prison, but in late 1940 the majority of staff were evacuated to Blenheim Palace. In early 1941, Sir David Petrie was appointed the first Director General of the Security Service, and was given the resources to rebuild a substantial organisation.

Internment at the outbreak of the War effectively deprived the Germans of all their existing agents. Moreover, when German intelligence records were studied after 1945, it was found that all of the further 200 agents targeted against Britain during the course of the War had been successfully identified and caught. Some of these agents were 'turned' by the Service and became double agents who fed false information to the Germans concerning military strategy throughout the War. This was the famous 'Double Cross' system. This highly effective deception contributed to the success of the Allied Forces landing in Normandy on 'D Day' in June 1944.

In 1952 the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, deputed his personal responsibility for the Security Service to the Home Secretary, Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, who issued a Directive describing the Service's tasks and setting out the role of the Director General. This Directive provided the basis for the Service's work until 1989, when the Security Service Act placed the Service on a statutory footing for the first time.

By the early 1950s, the Service's staff had increased to about 850. These included some 40 Security Liaison Officers overseas who provided advice and assistance to governments in the Commonwealth and Colonies. Following the defeat of Nazi Germany and the advent of the Cold War, the Service turned its attention to the threat from the Soviet Union. It had for some time already been focused on the activities of the Communist Party of Great Britain which, at its peak in the early 1940s, had 55,000 members. In March 1948, the Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, announced that Communists as well as Fascists were to be excluded from work "vital to the security of the state". This was achieved through the setting up of the vetting system, which the Service was charged to support. The cases of Philby, Burgess and MacLean, in particular, showed how effective the Russian Intelligence Service had been before the War in recruiting ideologically-motivated spies in Britain.

In the 1960s, the successful identification of a number of spies - including George Blake, an officer of the Secret Intelligence Service; the Portland spy ring; and John Vassall, an employee at the Admiralty recruited by the KGB in Moscow - illustrated the need for still greater counter-espionage efforts. Lord Denning's report into the Profumo Affair in 1963 revealed publicly for the first time details of the Service's role and responsibilities. This period of its history culminated in the mass expulsion from the UK in 1971 of 105 Soviet personnel, which severely weakened Russian intelligence operations in London.

By the late 1970s, the Service's resources were being redirected from work on subversion into international and Irish terrorism. The Service's counter-terrorist effort had begun in the late 1960s in response to the growing problem of Palestinian terrorism. Major incidents, including the terrorist sieges at the Iranian Embassy in London in 1980 and the Libyan People's Bureau in 1984, tested the Service's developing procedures and links with other agencies. During this period, the Service played a leading role in establishing an effective network for cooperation on terrorism among Western security and intelligence services.

In 1983, Michael Bettaney, a member of the Service who had offered information to the KGB, was detected, charged and subsequently convicted of espionage. Following a Security Commission inquiry, whose findings were critical of aspects of the Service, Sir Antony Duff was appointed as Director General. He initiated the discussions which laid the foundations for the Service as it exists today, strengthened by the legal status conferred upon it by the Security Service Act 1989.

Major changes in the focus of the Service's work took place in the early 1990s with the end of the Cold War. The threat from subversion had diminished, and the threat from espionage, though it persisted, required less of the Service's effort. Terrorism, however, had not abated. In October 1992, responsibility for leading the intelligence effort against Irish republican terrorism on the British mainland was transferred to the Service. In this new work, the Service was able to draw on the experience it had gained in the 1970s and 1980s in running long-term intelligence operations to counter other manifestations of terrorism. Between 1992 and April 1998, the Service's work with the police against Irish republican terrorism resulted in 18 convictions for terrorist-related offences.

Many intended terrorist attacks, including large city-centre bombings, were prevented. Recent years have seen other significant developments. The Service now has a role working alongside other government departments and agencies in efforts to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. And in 1996 the Security Service Act was amended to give the Service the additional function of supporting the police and other law enforcement agencies in the prevention and detection of serious crime.

External oversight of the Service has also increased: in 1994 the Intelligence and Security Committee was established under the Intelligence Services Act, supplementing the oversight measures already in place under the Security Service Act.

Meanwhile, a number of measures have been introduced in order to make more information about the Service publicly available. The aim has been to be as open as possible about the Service, providing a factual context within which its work can be understood, but without damaging its operational effectiveness or putting its staff or agents at risk. The Service's first major step in this area was the publication in 1993 of the first edition of a booklet, which included an address for public correspondence. Revised editions were issued in 1996 and 1998.

Other steps in openness have included public speeches by the Director General, such as the Dimbleby Lecture given in 1994 by the then Director General, Stella Rimington; the recruitment through openly-advertised procedures of all staff employed on general duties; and the release by the Public Record Office in 1997 and 1999 of the Service's World War One and World War Two historical archives.