The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), more commonly known as MI6 (originally Military Intelligence Section 6), or the Secret Service, is the United Kingdom external security agency.

SIS has conduct of the United Kingdom's espionage activities overseas, as opposed to MI5 which is charged with internal security within the UK. It was founded (along with MI5) as part of the Secret Service Bureau in 1909. Its first director was Sir Mansfield Smith-Cumming, who, often dropping the "Smith", used his initial "C" as a code name which was also used by all subsequent directors of SIS (compare with "M" in the James Bond stories). Espionage is the practice of obtaining secrets (spying) from rivals or enemies for military, political, or economic advantage. ... Current MI5 headquarters in Thames House, London MI5—officially called the Security Service—is one of the British secret service agencies. ... Sir George Mansfield Smith-Cumming (born 1859-died 1923) was the first director of what would become MI6. ... A code name or cryptonym is a word or name used clandestinely to refer to another name or word. ... M - the title and code letter for James Bonds boss and fictional head of the British Secret Intelligence Service MI6. ... James Bond, also known as 007 (pronounced double-oh seven), is a fictional British spy introduced by writer Ian Fleming in 1953. ...

The acronym SIS can also denote the "Slovenská informačná služba" (Slovak Information Service), an intelligence service of Slovakia.

World War I

The organisation's first significant test came with the First World War, during which it had mixed success. SIS was unable to penetrate Germany itself, but had some significant successes in military and commercial intelligence; this was achieved mostly by means of agent networks in neutral countries, occupied territories, and Russia. WWI redirects here. ...

After the war, SIS resources were greatly reduced and its consumers, such as the War Office and Admiralty, were given partial control of its operational activities through the appointment of consumer liaisons or 'Circulating' sections. The Circulating Sections set requirements for the operational 'Group' sections and passed SIS product back to their home departments. This relationship was termed the '1921 arrangement' and provided the basic internal structure of the agency that still prevails today. The War Office was a government agency in both the United Kingdom and the United States. ... Old Admiralty House, Whitehall, London, Thomas Ripley, architect, 1723-26, was not admired by his contemporaries and earned him some scathing couplets from Alexander Pope The Admiralty was historically the authority in the United Kingdom responsible for the command of the Royal Navy. ...

During the 1920s it began to operate mainly through a system of sometimes grudging cooperation with the diplomatic service. Most embassies acquired a "Passport Control Officer" who was in fact the SIS head for that country. This gave SIS's operatives a degree of cover and diplomatic immunity, but the system probably lasted too long and was an open secret by the 1930s. In the immediate post-war years and throughout most of the 1920s, SIS was preoccupied with Communism, and Communist Russia in particular. Sidney Reilly was loosely associated with SIS until his capture, and SIS sponsored and supported both his and Boris Savinkov's attempts to bring down the Communist regime, in addition to running more orthodox espionage efforts within Russia. Diplomatic immunity is a form of legal immunity and a policy held between governments, which ensures that diplomats are given safe passage and are considered not susceptible to lawsuit or prosecution under the host countrys laws (although they can be expelled). ... This article is about communism as a form of society built around a gift economy, as an ideology that advocates that form of society, and as a popular movement. ... Sidney Reilly (1874?-1925) was a Russian-born adventurer who worked for British SIS for a time. ... Boris Viktorovich Savinkov (1879-1925), a famous writer and terrorist, one of the leaders of the Fighting Organisation of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, was responsible for the most spectacular assassinations of imperial officials in 1904 and 1905. ...

Cumming died (in his office) in 1923 and was replaced as "C" by Admiral Hugh 'Quex' Sinclair, whom historians agree to have been far less effective as a director. He was not incompetent, but he did not have the advantage of Cumming's force of personality, and was unable to command the respect and obedience of his men as effectively as Cumming had. Admiral Sir Hugh Sinclair (1873-November 4, 1939), nicknamed Quex, was the Director of British Naval Intelligence during the First World War and helped to set up the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) before the Second World War. ...

Along with the rest of the intelligence community and the wider government, SIS switched focus in the 1930s to Nazi Germany. Again its success was rather modest; although it did acquire several quite reliable sources within the Government and also the German Admiralty, its information was probably less comprehensive than that provided by the rival network of Robert Vansittart, the permanent undersecretary at the Foreign Office. Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, commonly refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the firm control of the totalitarian and fascist ideology of the Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as dictator. ... Robert Gilbert Vansittart (1881 - 1957) was a signficant British diplomat. ... The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) is the United Kingdom government department responsible for promoting the interests of the United Kingdom abroad. ...

'Quex' Sinclair died in 1939 and was replaced as "C" by Lt. Col. Stewart Menzies. Menzies was another run-of-the-mill chief; by common opinion, SIS did not have a head of Cumming's calibre until Dick White, in the post-war era. Sir Stewart Graham Menzies (January 30, 1890 - May 29, 1968) was the Chief of MI6, British Secret Intelligence Service, during and after the World War II. Stewart Graham Menzies was born in London into a wealthy family. ...

World War II

During the Second World War, SIS was overshadowed in intelligence terms by several other initiatives, including the massive cryptanalytic effort undertaken by the Government Code and Cypher School (GC & CS), the bureau responsible for interception and decryption of foreign communications at Bletchley Park; the extensive "double-cross" system run by MI5 to feed misleading intelligence to the Germans; and the work of the Photographic Reconnaissance Unit. It was also affected by the inflammatory activities of the Special Operations Executive, which tended to increase the danger to its own agents. Its most famous operation of the war was a spectacular failure known as the Venlo incident (after the Dutch town where much of the action took place), in which SIS was thoroughly duped by agents of the German secret service, the Abwehr, posing as high-ranking Army officers involved in a plot to depose Hitler. After a series of meetings between SIS agents and the 'conspirators' at which SS plans to abduct the SIS team were shelved due to the presence of Dutch police, a meeting took place without a police presence, and two SIS agents were duly abducted by the SS. This failure tarnished the service's reputation considerably. Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km (over 11 miles) into the air, August 9, 1945 after the Allied atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. ... For the Game Boy Advance cheat device, see CodeBreaker (Game Boy) Cryptanalysis (from the Greek kryptós, hidden, and analýein, to loosen or to untie) is the study of methods for obtaining the meaning of encrypted information without access to the secret information which is normally required to do so. ... The Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) (previously named the Government Code and Cipher School (GC&CS)) is the main British intelligence service providing signals intelligence (SIGINT). ... During World War II, British cryptographers at Bletchley Park broke a large number of Axis codes and ciphers, including the German Enigma machine. ... Current MI5 headquarters in Thames House, London MI5—officially called the Security Service—is one of the British secret service agencies. ... The Special Operations Executive (SOE), often called the Baker Street Irregulars after Sherlock Holmess fictional group of spies, was a World War II organisation initiated by Winston Churchill and Hugh Dalton in July 1940 as a mechanism for conducting warfare by means other than direct military engagement. ... The Venlo Incident in 1939 was a Gestapo-engineered capture of two British SIS agents in the early months of World War II, on November 9, 1939. ... The Abwehr was the common name for the German military foreign information and counterintelligence department, during both World War I and World War II. Abwehr is a German word, which is commonly translated to the English defence. The head of the Abwehr during World War II was Admiral Wilhelm Canaris. ...

During the Second World War SIS first began to be referred to as 'MI6' when, under a reorganization of military intelligence at the War Office, the War Office circulating section acquired the Military designation MI6 (within SIS it was termed Section VI). Despite difficulties at the outset of the war, SIS recovered and began to run substantial and successful operations both in the occupied Continent and in the Middle East and Far East where it operated under the cover name 'Interservice Liaison Department' (ISLD). One of SIS' main functions throughout the war was to operate the secure wireless system that carried the ULTRA intercepts of Axis Enigma communications broken by the Government Codes and Cipher School (GC&CS). Ultra (sometimes capitalised ULTRA) was the name used by the British for intelligence resulting from decryption of German communications in World War II. The term eventually became the standard designation in both Britain and the United States for all intelligence from high-level cryptanalytic sources. ... In the history of cryptography, the Enigma was a portable cipher machine used to encrypt and decrypt secret messages. ...

Cold War

In 1946 SIS absorbed the 'rump' remnant of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), dispersing the latter's personnel and equipment between its operational divisions or 'controllerates' and new Directorates for Training and Development and for War Planning. The 1921 arrangement was streamlined with the geographical, operational units redesignated 'Production Sections', sorted regionally under Controllers, all under a Director of Production. The Circulating Sections were renamed 'Requirements Sections' and placed under a Directorate of Requirements. The Special Operations Executive (SOE), often called the Baker Street Irregulars after Sherlock Holmess fictional group of spies, was a World War II organisation initiated by Winston Churchill and Hugh Dalton in July 1940 as a mechanism for conducting warfare by means other than direct military engagement. ...

SIS operations against the USSR were extensively compromised by the fact that the post-war Counter-Espionage Section, R5, was headed for two years by the penetration agent Harold Adrian Russell 'Kim' Philby. Although Philby's damage was mitigated for several years by his transfer as Head of Station in Turkey, he later returned and was the SIS intelligence liaison officer at the Embassy in Washington DC. In this capacity he compromised a programme of joint US-UK paramilitary operations in Enver Hoxha's Albania (although it has been shown that these operations were further compromised 'on the ground' by poor security discipline amongst the Albanian emigres recruited to undertake the operations). Philby was eased out of office and quietly retired in 1953 after the defection of his friends and fellow members of the 'Cambridge spy ring' Donald Duart Maclean and Guy Burgess. Harold Adrian Russell Kim Philby also H. A. R. Philby (January 1, 1912 – May 11, 1988) was a high ranking member of British intelligence who led a lifelong career as a spy for the Soviet Union. ... ... Enver Hoxha (1908-1985) Enver Hoxha, (IPA , October 16, 1908–April 11, 1985) was the leader of Albania from the end of World War II until his death in 1985, as the First Secretary of the communist Albanian Party of Labour. ... Donald Duart Maclean (1913-1983) was one of the Cambridge Five, members of MI5 who acted as spies for Russia in the Second World War. ... Guy Francis De Moncy Burgess (1911-1963) was a flamboyant, homosexual, British-born intelligence officer and double agent who worked for the Soviet Union, was part of the Cambridge Five spy ring within the MI5. ...

SIS suffered further embarrassment when it turned out that an officer involved in both the Vienna and Berlin tunnel operations had been turned as a Soviet agent during internment by the Chinese during the Korean War. George Blake returned from his internment to be treated as something of a hero by his contemporaries in 'the office'. His security authorisation was restored, and in 1953 he was posted to the Vienna Station where the original Vienna tunnels had been running for years. After compromising these to his Soviet controllers, he was subsequently assigned to the British team involved on Operation Gold, the Berlin tunnel, and which was, consequently, blown from the outset. Blake was eventually identified, arrested and faced trial in court for espionage and was sent to prison - only to be busted out and escape to the USSR in 1964. The Korean War (Korean: 한국전쟁/韓國戰爭), from June 25, 1950 to July 27, 1953, was a conflict between North Korea and South Korea. ... George Blake (born Georg Behar, November 11, 1922) is a British spy who was actually a double agent for the Soviets. ... == Operation Gold was a joint operation conducted by the American CIA and the British Secret Intelligence Service to tap into landline communication of the Soviet Army headquarters in Berlin using a tunnel into the Soviet-occupied zone. ...

Despite these setbacks, SIS began to recover in the early 1960s as a result of improved vetting and security, and a series of successful penetrations, one of the Polish security establishment codenamed NODDY and the other the GRU Colonel Oleg Penkovsky. Penkovsky ran for two years as a considerable success, providing several thousand photographed documents, including Red Army rocketry manuals that allowed US National Photographic Interpretation Centre (NPIC) analysts to recognise the deployment pattern of Soviet SS4 MRBMs and SS5 IRBMs in Cuba in October, 1962. SIS operations against the USSR continued to gain pace through the remainder of the Cold War, arguably peaking with the recruitment in the 1970s of Oleg Sergeivich Gordievsky whom SIS ran for the better part of a decade then successfully exfiltrated from the heart of Moscow in 1984. The real scale and impact of SIS activities during the second half of the Cold War remains unknown, however, because the bulk of their most successful targeting operations against Soviet officials were the result of 'Third Country' operations recruiting Soviet sources travelling abroad in Asia and Africa. These included the son of a senior Politburo member and a member of the KGB's internal Second Chief Directorate who provided SIS and the UK government with warning of the mobilisation of the KGB's Alpha Force during the 1991 August Coup which, briefly, toppled Soviet premiere Mikhail Gorbachev. GRU is the English transliteration of the Russian acronym ГРУ, which stands for Гла́вное Разве́дывательное Управле́ние (Glavnoe Razvedyvatelnoe Upravlenie), meaning Chief Intelligence Directorate. ... Oleg Penkovsky was a colonel for Soviet military intelligence (GRU) in the late 1950s and early 1960s. ... MRBM stands from Medium Range Ballistic Missiles such as the SS1. ... An intermediate-range ballistic missile, or IRBM, is a ballistic missile with a range of 2750-5500 km or 1719-3437 miles. ... The Cold War was the open yet restricted rivalry that developed after World War II between the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union and its allies. ... Politburo is short for Political Bureau. ... The Committee for State Security, or KGB, (Russian: Комите́т Госуда́рственной Безопа́сности; Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti  listen?), was the name of the main Soviet Security Agency and intelligence agency, as well as the main secret police agency from March 13, 1954 to November 6, 1991. ... Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachyov (Gorbachev)   listen? (Russian: ; pronunciation: ) (born March 2, 1931), was leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991. ...

SIS activities included a range of covert political action successes, including the overthrow of an increasingly pro-Soviet Mohammed Mossadeq in Iran in 1953 (in collaboration with the US Central Intelligence Agency), the again collaborative toppling of Patrice Lumumba in the Congo in 1961, and the triggering of an internal conflict between Lebanese paramilitary groups in the second half of the 1980s that effectively distracted them from further hostage takings of Westerners in the region. Mohammed Mossadegh (Persian: محمد مصدق‎) (May 19, 1882 - March 4, 1967) was prime minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953. ... The CIA Seal The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is one of the American foreign intelligence agencies, responsible for obtaining and analyzing information about foreign governments, corporations, and individuals, and reporting such information to the various branches of the U.S. Government. ... Patrice Lumumba Patrice Emery Lumumba (July 2, 1925 - January, 1961) was an African nationalist leader and the first Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo when it declared its independence in June 1960. ...

A number of "intelligence operatives" (spies) have left MI6. Usually they have either found new employment in the civilian world or defected to a friendly country. In the late '90s a spy called Richard Tomlinson was dismissed and later wrote a fascinating story of his experiences. Although MI6 tried to prevent its publication, the book can be read online for free.^[1] Spy and secret agent redirect here; for alternate use, see Spy (disambiguation) and Secret agent (disambiguation). ... A defector is generally a person who gives up allegiance to a certain country in exchange for allegiance to another. ... Richard Tomlinson is a MI6 officer who was imprisoned in 1997 for attempting to publish a book about his career. ...

End of Cold War to present

Since 1994, SIS activities have been subject to scrutiny by Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee. The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative institution in the United Kingdom and British overseas territories (it alone has parliamentary sovereignty). ... The Intelligence and Security Committee is a unique committee, as it is not a committee of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. ...

On May 6, 2004, it was announced that Sir Richard Dearlove was to be replaced as head of the SIS by John Scarlett, formerly chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee. Scarlett is an unusually high profile appointment to the job, and a well known figure on television screens in the United Kingdom due to his evidence at the Hutton Inquiry. Of his predecessor, Dearlove, no photos exist in the public domain more recent than one taken for his university graduation. May 6 is the 126th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (127th in leap years). ... 2004 is a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Sir Richard Dearlove is a career intelligence officer and, until May 6, 2004, head of Britains Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). ... John McLeod Scarlett (born August 18, 1948) is head of the British Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6. ... The Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) was founded in 1936 as a sub-committee of the Chiefs of Staff. ... Lord Hutton led the inquiry that concluded that Dr. David Kelly had taken his own life. ...

SIS building

The SIS building at Vauxhall Cross, London, seen from Vauxhall Bridge

The SIS headquarters, since 1995, is at Vauxhall Cross, located in Vauxhall in London, on the bank of the River Thames beside Vauxhall Bridge. The Secret Intelligence Service building at Vauxhall Cross, London, seen from Vauxhall Bridge. ... The Secret Intelligence Service building at Vauxhall Cross, London, seen from Vauxhall Bridge. ... This article is about the town of Vauxhall, for Vauxhall the vehicle manufacturer, see Vauxhall Motors. ... St Stevens Tower - The Clock Tower of the Palace of Westminster which contains Big Ben London (see also different names) is the capital city of the United Kingdom and of England. ... Vauxhall Bridge with MI6 building in background Vauxhall Bridge is a steel arched bridge for road and foot traffic, crossing the River Thames in a north-west south-east orientation, between Lambeth Bridge and Grosvenor Bridge, in central London. ... The SIS building at Vauxhall Cross, London, seen from Vauxhall Bridge The SIS building, seen from Millbank The opposite side of the building, seen from Vauxhall Cross The SIS Building, also commonly known as the MI6 Building, is the headquarters of the British Secret Intelligence Service, otherwise known as MI6... This article is about the town of Vauxhall, for Vauxhall the vehicle manufacturer, see Vauxhall Motors. ... There is a separate article on the Vauxhall Parliamentary Constituency For Vauxhall the vehicle manufacturer, see Vauxhall Motors. ... St Stevens Tower - The Clock Tower of the Palace of Westminster which contains Big Ben London (see also different names) is the capital city of the United Kingdom and of England. ... Length 346 km Elevation of the source 110 m Average discharge entering Oxford: 17. ... Vauxhall Bridge with MI6 building in background Vauxhall Bridge is a steel arched bridge for road and foot traffic, crossing the River Thames in a north-west south-east orientation, between Lambeth Bridge and Grosvenor Bridge, in central London. ...

Designed by Terry Farrell, the developer Regalian Properties plc approached the Government in 1987 to see if they had any interest in the proposed building. At the same time MI5 was seeking alternative accommodation and collocation of the two services was studied. In the end this proposal was abandoned due to the lack of buildings of adequate size (existing or proposed) and the security considerations of providing a single target for attacks. In July 1988 Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher approved the purchase of the new building for the SIS. At this stage the government proposed to pay for the building outright in order to maintain secrecy over the intended use of the site. It is important to note that at this time the existence of MI6 was not officially acknowledged. Categories: People stubs ... The Right Honourable Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, PC, FRS (born 13 October 1925), born Margaret Hilda Roberts, is a British stateswoman and was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990, the only woman as of 2005 to serve in that position. ...

The building design was reviewed to incorporate the necessary protection for Britain's foreign intelligence gathering agency. This includes overall increased security, extensive computer suites, technical areas, bomb blast protection, emergency back-up systems and protection against electronic eavesdropping. While the details and cost of construction have been released, about ten years after the original National Audit Office report was written, some of the service's special requirements remain classified. The NAO report Thames House and Vauxhall Cross has certain details omitted, describing in detail the cost and problems of certain modifications but not what these are. Rob Humprey's London: The Rough Guide suggests one of these omitted modifications is a tunnel beneath the Thames to Whitehall. Categories: United Kingdom-related stubs ... Whitehall, London, looking south towards the Houses of Parliament For other places with the same name see Whitehall (disambiguation) Whitehall is a road in London, the capital of the United Kingdom, running two-thirds of the distance from Trafalgar Square towards Parliament Square; the other third constitutes Parliament Street. ...

It has been commented that it is ironic for such a secretive organisation to occupy one of the most high-profile and distinctive buildings in London. The NAO put the final cost at £135.05m for site purchase and the basic building, or £152.6m including the service’s special requirements.

The building was featured in the 1999 James Bond film The World Is Not Enough. In the pre-credits sequence, Bond chases a suspect from the building up the Thames following the explosion of cash which was recovered and brought into the building by him. It is later revealed that the money was dipped in urea, in effect a fertiliser bomb. MI6 allowed exterior filming of the building for the first time in tribute to the long-time popularity of the secret agent. James Bond, also known as 007 (pronounced double-oh seven), is a fictional British spy introduced by writer Ian Fleming in 1953. ... This article is for the film The World Is Not Enough, for the video game based upon the film, see The World Is Not Enough (video game). ... Urea is an organic compound of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen, with the formula CON2H4 or (NH2)2CO and the structure shown right: Urea is also known as carbamide, especially in the recommended International Non-proprietary Names (rINN) in use in Europe. ... Fertilizers are chemicals given to plants with the intention of promoting growth; they are usually applied either via the soil or by foliar spraying. ...

On the evening of September 20, 2000, the building was attacked by a Russian-built Mark 22 anti-tank missile. Striking the eighth floor, the missile caused only superficial damage. The Anti-Terrorist branch of the Metropolitan Police attributed responsibility to Irish Republicans, specifically the Real IRA. September 20 is the 263rd day of the year (264th in leap years). ... 2000 is a leap year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... An Anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) is a missile the primary purpose of which is to hit and destroy tanks. ... Metropolitan Police is a generic title for the municipal police force for a major metropolitan area. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...

Directors of the SIS

• Sir Mansfield Smith-Cumming 1909–1923
• Admiral Hugh Sinclair 1923–1939
• Sir Stewart Menzies 1939–1952
• Sir John Sinclair 1953–1956
• Sir Richard White 1956–1968
• Sir John Rennie 1968–1973
• Sir Maurice Oldfield 1973–1978
• Sir Dick Franks 1979–1982
• Sir Colin Figures 1982–1985
• Sir Christopher Curwen 1985–1989
• Sir Colin McColl 1989–1994
• Sir David Spedding 1994–1999
• Sir Richard Dearlove 1999–2004
• John Scarlett 2004–

Sir George Mansfield Smith-Cumming (born 1859-died 1923) was the first director of what would become MI6. ... Admiral Sir Hugh Sinclair (1873-November 4, 1939), nicknamed Quex, was the Director of British Naval Intelligence during the First World War and helped to set up the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) before the Second World War. ... Sir Stewart Graham Menzies (January 30, 1890 - May 29, 1968) was the Chief of MI6, British Secret Intelligence Service, during and after the World War II. Stewart Graham Menzies was born in London into a wealthy family. ... John Sinclair a name of several notable individuals Sir John Sinclair (1734-1835) politician and writer on agriculture and finance. ... Sir Richard White was Head of the British Secret Intelligence Service from 1956 – 1968. ... Sir John Ogilvy Rennie (13 January 1914 - 30 September 1981), was the 6th C ie Director of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) from 1968-1973. ... Sir Maurice Oldfield (1915 - 1981) was a British espionage administrator. ... Sir Dick Franks was Head of the Secret Intelligence Service from 1979 – 1982. ... Sir Colin Figures was Head of the Secret Intelligence Service from 1982 – 1985. ... Sir Christopher Curwen was Head of the Secret Intelligence Service from 1985 – 1989. ... Sir Colin McColl was Head of the Secret Intelligence Service from 1989 – 1994. ... Sir David Spedding was Head of the Secret Intelligence Service from 1994 – 1999. ... Sir Richard Dearlove is a career intelligence officer and, until May 6, 2004, head of Britains Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). ... John McLeod Scarlett (born August 18, 1948) is head of the British Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6. ...

SIS in fiction

Ian Fleming's fictional spy James Bond worked for MI6, and the SIS building itself features in some of the Pierce Brosnan films. Though there are suggestions that Bond was modelled after an actual SIS agent, it is more likely that part of his character is based on that of his creator. Ian Fleming Ian Lancaster Fleming (May 28, 1908–August 12, 1964) is an English author, best remembered for writing the James Bond series of novels as well as the childrens story, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. ... James Bond, also known as 007 (pronounced double-oh seven), is a fictional British spy introduced by writer Ian Fleming in 1953. ... Pierce Brosnan Pierce Brendan Brosnan, OBE (born May 16, 1953) is an Irish film actor and producer. ...

The late ITV television series The Sandbaggers (first broadcast in the UK between 1978 and 1980) revolved around the fictional Special Operations Section of MI6, although the internal structure of the organization as portrayed in the series actually resembled the Central Intelligence Agency. The Sandbaggers was the inspiration for the Greg Rucka scripted comic book Queen and Country, also set in SIS. Company logo Independent Television (ITV) is the name given to the original network of British commercial television broadcasters, set up to provide competition to the BBC. In England and Wales the channel was recently rebranded ITV1 by ITVplc who own the regional broadcasting licences for the regions. ... The Sandbaggers is a British television drama series about men and women on the front lines of the Cold War. ... The CIA Seal The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is one of the American foreign intelligence agencies, responsible for obtaining and analyzing information about foreign governments, corporations, and individuals, and reporting such information to the various branches of the U.S. Government. ... Greg Rucka is an American writer of novels and comic books. ... Queen and Country is a comic book published by Oni Press and written by Greg Rucka with various artists illustrating. ...

In the third season of Fox's television drama 24, Jack Bauer visits the MI6 offices in Los Angeles to gather information about a suspected bioterrorism attack plotted by a British ex-agent. Later, the offices were destroyed in a bombing that attempted to destroy the information that Bauer sought. The Fox Broadcasting Company, usually referred to as just Fox, is a television network in the United States. ... 24 is a current U.S. television action/drama series, produced by the Fox Network and syndicated worldwide. ... Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer Jack Bauer is a fictional character played by Kiefer Sutherland as part of the television series, 24. ... This article is about the largest city in California. ... Bioterrorism is terrorism using germ warfare, an intentional human release of a naturally_occurring or human_modified toxin or biological agent. ...

The Alex Rider series is set around a 14-year-old spy for MI6. It is probably the least realistic of the fictional works about MI6. The Alex Rider book series is written by Anthony Horowitz, primarily for young adults. ...

Notes

1. ^  Richard Tomlinson, The Big Breach: From Top Secret to Maximum Security (Moscow: Narodny Variant Publishers, 2001).

See also

• Special Operations Executive
• MI5
• James Bond, fictional character
• Alex Rider
• Richard Tomlinson
• Central Intelligence Agency - US
• Canadian Security and Intelligence Service
• CSE - Communications Security Establishment - Canada's counter-intelligency agency

The Special Operations Executive (SOE), often called the Baker Street Irregulars after Sherlock Holmess fictional group of spies, was a World War II organisation initiated by Winston Churchill and Hugh Dalton in July 1940 as a mechanism for conducting warfare by means other than direct military engagement. ... Current MI5 headquarters in Thames House, London MI5—officially called the Security Service—is one of the British secret service agencies. ... James Bond, also known as 007 (pronounced double-oh seven), is a fictional British spy introduced by writer Ian Fleming in 1953. ... The Alex Rider book series is written by Anthony Horowitz, primarily for young adults. ... Richard Tomlinson is a MI6 officer who was imprisoned in 1997 for attempting to publish a book about his career. ... The CIA Seal The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is one of the American foreign intelligence agencies, responsible for obtaining and analyzing information about foreign governments, corporations, and individuals, and reporting such information to the various branches of the U.S. Government. ... The letters CSIS can stand for several things. ... The CSE badge The Communications Security Establishment or CSE is an intelligence agency of the Canadian government, charged with the duty of keeping track of foreign signals intelligence. ...

External links

• Entry for MI6 on the Federation of American Scientists' Intelligence Resource Program
• Information about MI6 from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's website

The Federation of American Scientists is a non-profit organization dedicated to the proper use of science and technology for the benefit of mankind. ... The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) is the United Kingdom government department responsible for promoting the interests of the United Kingdom abroad. ...

References

• Davies, Philip H.J. (2004). MI6 and the Machinery of Spying London: Frank Cass, ISBN 9780714654577 (h/b)
• Humphreys, Rob (1999) London: The Rough Guide, Rough Guides, ISBN 185828404X
• Richard Tomlinson, The Big Breach - From Top Secret to Maximum Security. Coauthor Nick Fielding, Mainstream Publishing (1 February 2001) ISBN 1903813018