60 Fun Facts About MI6

MI6 is the common name of which British organisation?

The name MI6 was a convenient label from the Second World War era that stuck in popular culture; the service itself has used the SIS title since around 1920.

What kind of work is MI6 primarily responsible for?

Unlike MI5 and GCHQ, the law only lets SIS operate against people outside the British Islands.

By what single letter is the chief of MI6 traditionally known?

Ian Fleming borrowed the idea for James Bond's boss but changed the letter to M.

To which cabinet minister is the chief of MI6 directly accountable?

MI6 sits under the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, whereas MI5 answers to the Home Secretary.

In which year was the Secret Service Bureau, the ancestor of MI6, founded?

It was a joint Admiralty and War Office initiative aimed largely at Imperial Germany, and its naval section became the foreign-intelligence arm.

Who was the first director of the service?

He usually dropped the Smith from his name and became known simply as Cumming.

What colour of ink did the first chief use to sign his initial, a habit that became a tradition?

Every subsequent chief has signed as C to keep the anonymity, and the tradition still holds.

The existence of MI6 was not officially acknowledged by the British government until which year?

The Intelligence Services Act of that year put the service on a statutory footing for the first time.

On the bank of which river does MI6's headquarters stand?

The building at Vauxhall Cross sits on the south bank next to Vauxhall Bridge.

What is the street address usually given for the SIS headquarters?

All four addresses have housed the service at some point; the others were earlier homes going back to 1911.

Which architect designed the MI6 headquarters at Vauxhall Cross, opened in 1994?

Margaret Thatcher's government approved the purchase in December 1987, and the final bill came to more than £150 million.

What was MI6's Lambeth headquarters called before its mid-1990s move to the riverside?

Century House on Westminster Bridge Road in Lambeth housed the service from 1966 until the move.

In September 2000 the MI6 building was hit by what kind of weapon?

The Russian-built RPG-22 struck the eighth floor and did only superficial damage; police blamed the Real IRA.

Which James Bond film was the first that MI6 allowed to film its actual headquarters building?

The pre-credits sequence has a briefcase bomb blow out an exterior wall of the building.

In which Bond film is the MI6 building blown up via a cyber attack that ignites a gas line?

After the blast, operations in the film move to a secret underground facility.

Which forged document did MI6 leak to the Daily Mail days before the 1924 general election?

Supposedly from the head of the Comintern, it helped sink Ramsay MacDonald's Labour government; whether MI6 knew it was fake is still unclear.

In which neutral city was MI6's main European office during the First World War?

From there it coordinated espionage in Germany and occupied Belgium, since it never managed to build a network inside Germany itself.

Which adventurer, later called the 'Ace of Spies', did MI6 send to Russia in 1918 to plot against the Bolsheviks?

Despite the Irish-sounding name he was a Russian-Jewish adventurer whose official job was merely to keep Russia in the war.

What cover job did Cumming create in 1919 to give MI6 officers diplomatic immunity abroad?

The passport control department became the standard cover for MI6 stations in embassies between the wars.

In November 1939 the SS kidnapped two MI6 officers at a cafe in which Dutch border town?

The men thought they were meeting anti-Hitler generals; the fiasco made Britain wary of any German resistance contacts for the rest of the war.

What was the codename for intelligence gained from breaking German Enigma messages?

Distributing this material made MI6 an important branch of government for the first time.

Which ally's intelligence supplied 48 percent of the reports British secret services got from Europe in WWII?

A joint 2005 report unveiled the figure; Polish networks also helped airlift a captured V-2 rocket to Britain.

Which Soviet double agent in MI6 tipped off Moscow about would-be defector Konstantin Volkov?

He had joined SIS in 1940 after being vetted by a friend who was also secretly working for Moscow.

Which MI6 officer, turned by the Soviets in Korean War internment, betrayed the Berlin tunnel?

He was jailed in 1961 but escaped in 1966 and was smuggled to the USSR.

What was the codename of the Berlin tunnel project to tap Soviet communications?

Because Blake had betrayed it, the tunnel was blown from the outset.

The 1956 death of which frogman forced MI6 chief John Sinclair to resign?

Crabb vanished while diving near a visiting Soviet cruiser in Portsmouth harbour.

MI6 helped the CIA overthrow which country's prime minister, Mohammed Mossadeq, in 1953?

The coup restored the Shah's power and remains one of the service's most cited covert political actions.

Which GRU colonel supplied rocketry manuals that helped identify Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962?

He photographed several thousand documents over two years before being caught.

Across which country's border did MI6 exfiltrate KGB officer Oleg Gordievsky from the USSR in 1985?

He had been run as an MI6 source for the better part of a decade.

Which Polish defector exposed the MI6 officer who betrayed the Berlin tunnel to the Soviets?

MI6 had run three moles inside the Polish UB from 1958; the CIA paid it $20 million to expand the operation.

Which Afghan resistance commander did MI6 support against the Soviets in the 1980s?

Two SIS officers were sent to him each year, and the service also helped recover crashed Soviet helicopters.

Where does MI6 run its intensive six-month training course for new officers?

The 1780s fort at Gosport hosts the Intelligence Officer's New Entry Course, which teaches dead drops, surveillance and secret writing.

What is the name of the special forces unit that supports MI6 operations, formerly known as The Increment?

Its members are drawn from the SAS, SBS and Special Reconnaissance Regiment.

What nickname for MI6 was popularised by John le Carre's novels?

The novelist, himself a former SIS officer, set his fictional headquarters at Cambridge Circus.

What was the real name of the spy novelist John le Carre, a former MI6 officer?

Leo Marks offered a rival origin for the nickname involving a building once owned by Bertram Mills's travelling show.

Which wartime organisation, focused on sabotage, was absorbed by MI6 in 1946?

Its rump remnant was dispersed among SIS controllerates and new directorates for training and war planning.

Who became the first woman to serve as chief of MI6, taking over in 2025?

MI5 had female directors-general decades earlier, but SIS waited until its 18th chief.

Which MI6 chief was appointed in 2004 straight from chairing the Joint Intelligence Committee?

He had given evidence at the Hutton Inquiry into the death of weapons expert David Kelly.

Which parliamentary body has scrutinised MI6 and GCHQ since the mid-1990s Act that put them on a statutory footing?

The Act enshrined authorisation and warrant procedures that had informally existed since the 1950s.

Which Australian businessman flew photo-espionage missions over Germany for MI6 in 1939?

His cover was that of a sales agent for a dummy company, and his images proved invaluable once war began.

In 1940 MI6 set up British Security Co-ordination, headed by William Stephenson, where?

BSC founded Camp X in Canada to train clandestine operators.

Which fellow Soviet agent vetted the future traitor's application to join MI6's Section D in 1940?

The applicant then taught black propaganda at the SOE training school at Beaulieu before moving into counter-espionage.

By 2012, which overseas city had become MI6's largest station?

After 9/11 the service reshuffled its staff and closed several Iraqi outposts to focus on Pakistan and Afghanistan.

To mark its centenary, MI6 invited which artist to spend a year with the service?

The resulting exhibition of over 40 oil paintings was shown in Mayfair in 2011 after being screened for security.

In Operation Embarrass (1947-48), MI6 bombed five ships in which country to stop them carrying Jewish refugees?

The service even invented a fake Palestinian group to claim responsibility for the attacks.

What was the codename of the Czechoslovak-run Abwehr officer whom MI6 relied on for German plans before the war?

Paul Thummel had been bribed into working for Czechoslovakia, whose exiles kept running him after March 1939.

At which London address was MI6 based before moving to Century House in 1964?

Century House was a 22-storey block near Lambeth North whose occupant was officially a secret, though The Guardian revealed it.

Which prime minister approved the purchase of the Vauxhall Cross building for MI6 in 1988?

The National Audit Office later put the final cost at just over £135 million.

Who officially opened the MI6 headquarters at Vauxhall Cross on 14 July 1994?

Prince Philip accompanied her; the building had been completed that April.

What legend surrounds Mansfield Cumming's 1914 car crash in France, in which his son died?

Hospital records show both his legs were injured but the amputation came later under surgeons.

How many of Cumming's case officers did the IRA assassinate on Bloody Sunday, 21 November 1920?

The Dublin District Special Branch had been set up that year with some 20 army officers trained in London.

From which city did Kim Philby vanish on 23 January 1963 before surfacing in Moscow?

He had been working there as a correspondent for The Observer and The Economist as cover.

What was the title of Kim Philby's memoir, published in Britain in 1968?

It did not appear in the Soviet Union until 1980; his OBE had been annulled in 1965.

Which Labour MP used parliamentary privilege in 1955 to ask about Philby's 'third man activities'?

The question followed revelations in The New York Times; Philby was publicly exonerated soon after.

Which country did Kim Philby warn Stalin would be struck by Japan instead of the USSR?

His warning of Operation Barbarossa was ignored as a provocation, but the second tip let Stalin move divisions west.

Richard Moore, MI6 chief from 2020 to 2025, earlier served as UK ambassador to which country?

He held the post from 2014 to 2017, having grown up partly in Libya and Russia as a child.

In which year was Richard Moore recruited to MI6 as an intelligence officer?

He had applied to be a BBC World Service journalist after university but was turned down.

Philby spent his early career in Spain covering which conflict as a correspondent?

He was awarded a medal by Franco after a Republican shell killed three fellow correspondents in his car.

Which Soviet defector's 1961 revelations to the CIA eventually pointed the finger at Philby?

The KGB major defected from his diplomatic post in Helsinki and offered up Soviet agents inside Western intelligence.

What was the codename of Philby's Madrid controller Alexander Orlov, who defected but kept quiet about him?

Stalin respected Orlov's bargain to protect his family, and Philby's cover survived.