• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 2686 0

’ ‘This is not correct,’ noted Cumming in his characteristic green ink. ‘My appointment in 1909 was “Chief of the Secret Service” & I have always been so styled in official papers. I have never authorised any change in my title.’ By late 1922, although the name ‘MI1(c)’ was still widely employed (and was used right up to the beginning of the Second World War), ‘SIS’ had also been employed for some time. In February 1920 a report from Geneva about Bolshevik conspirators was marked as being circulated from ‘S.I.S.’. (A report in the same file, circulated the previous month, was marked ‘M.I.1.c’, suggesting that there might have been a change in practice at this time.) The abbreviation also occurred abroad. An intelligence summary from ‘S.I.S. (Constantinople Branch)’, for example, appears on a document from December 1920.22 But whether ‘S.I.S.’ stood for Special or Secret Intelligence Service is not clear, though Cumming’s evident irritation with the former (first expressed in April 1919) might suggest both that ‘Special’ was quite commonly used and that ‘Secret’ might therefore have been more readily adopted by colleagues and subordinates. Although the title Secret Intelligence Service was suggested for the amalgamated intelligence organisation proposed by the War Office at the end of 1919, there is no evidence of it being used generally at that time.

The SIS appreciation defined the term ‘Secret Service’ as ‘the gathering of information by means of individuals secretly paid for the purpose, that is to say, through “spies”’. But the anonymous writer went on to complain that ‘the words “spy” and “secret service” have acquired a limited and unpleasant meaning through public misconception due to sensational literature’, and that the terms ‘agent’ and ‘special intelligence’ were to be preferred. The paper contended that the class of ‘agent’ employed was, ‘as a general rule, high socially and morally – anyhow, infinitely higher than the uninitiated would ever expect’, and that there was ‘nothing in the duties of an S.I.S. Representative which can call for censure, or cause a gentleman to think twice before enlisting in the service’. These views were clearly aspirational (and perhaps part of a necessary seizing of the moral high ground by intelligence officers themselves), a fact reinforced by the improbable assertions that ‘no agent is recruited for the purpose of betraying his own country or ideals’, that ‘an individual’s vices are not played upon in order to obtain a hold upon him’, and that ‘certain conventions such as the Red Cross, religious bodies, etc are not used for the purpose of cover or agents’, all of which (though not specifically the Red Cross) had been done (or contemplated) during the 1914 – 18 war.

SIS’s relations with government were succinctly outlined. It reported to the three armed service ministries, the Foreign, Home, Colonial and India Offices and the Department of Overseas Trade. Marking a significant change, it was noted that under Lloyd George’s government ‘copies of more important reports were also circulated to the Prime Minister and certain members of the Cabinet’. This had now been ‘discontinued’ under a ruling from the Foreign Secretary, confirmed by the Prime Minister, ‘whereby he decided to receive his advice and information through constitutional channels’, that is to say from the particular government department concerned. Close relations with the armed forces departments were secured by each service intelligence staff having ‘a separate liaison section actually forming part of the S.I.S. H.Q. staff’. Although relations were naturally also very close with the Foreign Office, it was felt that both the functions and limitations of ‘the S.I.S. work’ were ‘not as fully realised’ by other civil departments. Partly this was a result of the necessary secrecy under which SIS operated, but this could sometimes be taken too far. One (unspecified) department ‘authorised to receive reports’ had considered them all so secret ‘that they were immediately placed in a locked box after being read by one individual