Female spies of MI6
ft.com
ft.com
When I worked as a secretary, I was amazed at how unguarded men are in front of women in the workplace, particularly those of us in lower status roles. They seemed to think we had no capacity for thought or language, and were safe background decor for any conversation. I really worry that foreign service clerical staff are treated appropriately.
Turns out one of the security guards came to get his hair cut and was moaning about how tired his arms were from unloading the vans and putting it all in the vault.
When a talkative barber asked him [Archelaus, king of Macedonia], ‘How should I cut your hair?’ he said, ‘In silence!’
— Plutarch
There have not been enough "HN moments" recently but here we are ... following a thread on spies, we perfectly segue into a quote from Plutarch, that is not only on point and unforced, but in the orignal Greek.
You have restored my lost faith in social media, my recently-signed-up friend - long may you enjoy our weird corner of the internet. We have cookies.
But we block 'em.
The other thing is that decades of motorcycling without ear plugs has rooted my hearing, so talking to people with thick accents (I'd say 50% of hairdressers here are immigrants) can't be tiring, which is the opposite of why I actually enjoy getting my hair cut. There's a nice Korean lady I sometimes see who chats away merrily, but I feel like an arsehole having to ask her to repeat herself the whole time.
Aussie?
In any case, you may not have good hearing, but at least you have good hair!
"The gearbox is totally f&^ked! Oh, sorry Cheryl, didn't see you there. I mean it's rooted."
I like to talk to people I'm friends with, so far that has not included any of my hairdressers, so I sit there in silence, answering when spoken to and being generally friendly, but not initiating any conversation.
After the cut we often used to go out for a meal and then we'd chat for hours.
The cut was a business transaction, the meal was between friends.
My girlfriend always finds a way to start conversations with ever driver but I rarely ever do unless I’m in some peppy mood.
The pressure to talk to barbers seems much higher though.
WHAT? I am paying for a service. I expect that service to be completed well. And it typically is. The service I am paying for does not include nor warrant "small talk", why should it?
> has zero downside
Incorrect. I have to pretend to be interested in whatever inane topic they want to discuss, or ones I don't have any interest in or care about. I have to use my brain power on a useless distraction.
> a meaningful conversation
I don't want a meaningful conversation from a haircut. Nor do I want it while shopping, or a mechanics shop, or any other random ass place where I am trying to get errands done. Service, money, done. Nothing else needed. Not everyone wants to deal with -you- or your fake ass pleasantries. I don't want to deal with someone pretending to know me, or like me, or be nice because _its literally their job_. I want to pay for my services and go away.
I worked in an amazon building where we got free energy drinks but no one else did... the head of IT for the building loved red bull sugar free. I'd roll down there to get something fixed and bring one for him and I knew what the others wanted. He'd waddle over from behind his desk and see what I needed as soon as I set the drinks on the table. He was a manager, never did anything for anyone else but the EAs in bulk. People complained verbally, he'd just say "he filed a ticket yesterday". I'd sit around sipping a drink while he told me about working on paul allen's yacht's AV system even tho I was missing a meeting. You gotta know who to be nice to. His stories were good too.
Another guy loved me forever cause I walked in to IT on my first day looking for a mac when they didn't give them by default... before talking to me he was like "WTF is this thing how do I quit" and I said "escape : wq" and he's like wtf how do you know that and I was like "it's that or emacs"... instant first person service from then on.
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/magazine/gerard-de-villie...
I think there are 6 books available in English.
Elsewhere there’s been news stories about British MPs complaining that the security and intelligence services have too high a media profile … so perhaps there’s some ‘push and pull’ going on behind the scenes.
Likely true. I can only really talk for GCHQ, but they have certainly made a significant effort in recruitment for years, growing up near a GCHQ ground station we had a visit during my final year pre-university to try and sell us on working there. I'm fairly sure that GCHQ was also at my university's careers fair.
The security services (MI5, MI6, GCHQ) really don't pay very well in the UK as they are on the same civil service pay scale as the rest of government. I'm hardly surprised they struggle to hire against private companies.
Is Rebecca still working there?
This is a different world and I didn't realize how different until I went away to college.
This will lead to family suspecting their mother of cheating or crime.n
Generally not with the proper cover story. Stuff like working as a civilian purchasing agent for the military or other government agency provides an element of truth and can be strongly consistent with the realities of the true job. Travel for purchasing deals vs espionage, etc look the same for the family. Even better is if they actually are involved with the purchasing deals since it makes for a more solid cover.
The Financial Times article is, of course, intended to promote the service to women and it really doesn't hide that fact. You can bet that MI6 reviewed the article before it went to publication and everything in there was vetted a thousand times. It wouldn't shock me if small, fake biographical details were added into the article to obscure who these people really are. We don't know. The fact is, though, that since this piece is probably meant to advertise the service and-- given where it was printed-- it's probably directed at Oxbridge women. That is, women who have more job mobility than most. MI6 wants women to know that they won't be viewed as honey pots and that they can have a family. So the article is probably going to be an accurate representation at some level: since these particular women can leave if they want to, you don't want to misrepresent what they're getting into if you intend to keep them.
The article is a recruiting piece targeting well-educated females; but the same (Oxbridge) females can earn six digits in finance and stay safe, instead of earning 22k and getting shot in Kandahar or stabbed in Najaf. One wonders if that combination of compensation and dangerous job spec attracts reckless or idealists personalities.
Anyone interested in the history of the British SIS can be referred to K. Jefferey's (2010) "MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909-1949" (London: Bloomsbury), which is detailed but of course suffers from selection bias due to the nature of the topic and the fact that the book was commissioned (if I recall correctly) by the organization it describes.
I always found that the pay scale for the security services is the same as the rest of the civil service really hard to justify. Why would I go work at GCHQ if I could make many multiples more, as a starting salary, in the private sector?
Other possibilities: Perhaps the headline pay is low but there’s a ton of special allowances and other benefits that make the whole package competitive. Perhaps, like academics, there’s some gifted people who are a much better personality fit for the civil service rather than FANG culture?
Sure but if you take a student loan in the U.K. starting pay in the civil service wouldn’t even put you above the repayment threshold. I get that there are levels, but unless you have support or a partner the starting pay really isn’t enough especially if you’re in London. Cheltenham or Manchester - maybe.
Really, this isn't about targeting a specific level of education, it's about targeting a specific class.
A key thing to appreciate is that the women in this article, including Rebecca, are not spies. They are civil servants [1] working in a very sensitive area of government. None of them are undercover, or sneaking into Russian bases. It's a sensible precaution for them to keep quiet about what they do, but it's not like their ability to do their job depends on absolute secrecy.
By way of comparison, the US equivalent of Rebecca, who is the deputy to the chief of the service, would be the deputy director of the CIA. The identity of that person is not only public, he has a wikipedia page [2]!
[1] Well, diplomatic servants, but that's basically an alternative flavour of civil servant that exists for historical reasons
While you're right that these folks aren't undercover in the sense that their identities are known, that those identities are linked to an intelligence gathering agency is not known. A lot does happen out in the open and it always has. Being a member of the diplomatic service gives them protection when they're operating in a foreign country. You operate out of an embassy and if you're arrested they usually trade you back to your home country, because diplomatic immunity.
Most spies don't go into forbidden places and physically dig up secrets themselves. It's infinitely easier to get to know someone who already knows those secrets and persuade them to tell.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Five
Or Aldrich Ames:
https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/aldrich-ames
Someone who manages spies is an intelligence officer.
Had her children ever accidentally found out at near any time in their lives, they may have never been able to trust their mother again - severing what arguably should be one of the strongest bonds one can have.
Would you (rhetorically) find it reasonable that she, or anybody with children, is required to live with that thought in the back of their mind? In an occupation she’s otherwise taken an oath (highly presumably) to devote her allegiance to?
I’m not sure. It definitely seems like a question with a hard answer.
That's a real stretch. Anyone with the maturity to understand that information should also have the maturity to delineate between lies for inconsequential things in the sake of national security vs personal lies affecting their lives.
"Between a duty to family & country,"
The logic goes that duties to country are inclusive of duties to family because without a stable country your family is less protected. That's what they say. Whether you agree or not is another matter. Not agreeing means that job likely wasn't for you anyways.
This is all to say, it's highly doubtful that this had the impact to their relationship that you're imagining here.
It's just proof that not all the people are up for this job.
I remeber when my brother spilled the beans on a "family secret" to some close family friends in front of my mother...good that was just a silly thing. Now imagine that could get her fired or worse, cause someone's death.
I wonder if she(or the remaining parent) would find it sensible to share that as well with the children.
> It's just proof that not all the people are up for this job.
It's understood that family members will know to some extent. If nothing else, this is so that they know to be wary of security threats many people would otherwise ignore. She's almost certainly not sharing details of operations, she's instead sharing with her daughters why things are the way they are in their household.
I've said in other comments, this is another world and the concerns here are different. It's not like it is in the movies.
Again, that family members will know to some extent is understood, which is why she felt comfortable admitting it in the interview, otherwise she would have lost her job and the article would have been kiboshed by the security services.
So you likely never had to handle top secret information and couldn't spy his way out of a paper bag, has just declared that one of the most successful spies is a failure.
So typical.
> [...] working at MI6 is a distinctly strange experience. You cannot tell anyone beyond close family who your employer is, and even they are not allowed to know anything about your day-to-day activities.
For me, I'd recommend watching "The Night Manager" some time. Specifically, Olivia Colman's role as Angela Burr. Hugh Laurie and Tom Hiddleston certainly broke a few preconceptions for me, but she was the one I thought deserved some accolades for her character and how she portrayed it.
I’m sure there may be dangerous jobs but these days much of that can be done from friendly countries or even the office.
[edit] list of roles from MI6 site: https://www.sis.gov.uk/intelligence-officers.html
Often times that handler was on a diplomatic visa and they'd have a KGB tail, so one part of tradecraft was learning to lose a tail so they could go dark and meet up with their contact or pick up documents/photo negatives at a dropsite.
There were plenty of US walk-ins as well who walked into the Soviet embassy in Washington. They seem to have typically been motivated by financial goals.
According to the Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War_espionage#Known_spies...) on Cold War spying, it doesn't look like there are cases of spies being sought out and turned within the Soviet Union. Although, it does mention that some came over to the US when they were Soviet officials assigned to posts outside the USSR, so it's possible they were sought out then.
Now that there are business cases to be in China and Russia, we might have non-offical cover agents in those countries without any links to the embassy, but obviously that's just speculation.
Then build a relationship with them.
I was nearly involved with SIS in some capacity and the amount of background probing was enough to make me scared for ever being closer than I have to be.
I can say with confidence that if you've been in the apparatus then you wouldn't even want to say anything. There's a lot of brainwashing that happens too (you could see the outcome of the Snowden revelations for example) so people would be very defensive of the concept of giving out info they have and extremely likely to be motivated in hunting down "leakers".
watching spy documentaries/movies on netflix, youtube
Was this not always a risk of that trade? Despite your gut level reaction, there are plenty of foreigners in those countries, via various channels and means — not just diplomatic.
Besides, why would a British agent have to appear stereotypically British? Why would they have to declare/present themselves as British? Wouldn’t faking all these things be core competencies of the trade?
Doug London https://youtu.be/aV9HdJtPbZA
Jim Lawler https://youtu.be/AFnfTDbcPOA
That's funny, isn't it? Your prejudice here is very much the norm, which is why not all British spies look like Daniel Craig.
I was unable to find where this was answered in the article. It also reads like the author relied mostly on novels, movies, and such instead on a the interview.
Women spies have been around just as much, if not longer - Virginia Hall, Mata Hari, Jane Whorwood, Elizabeth Van Lew, Anne Dawson, Violette Szabo. Going even further back consider the Japanese kunoichi (sp?), Empress Wei of China had a whole cadre of female spies. There are plenty of evidence of female spies in Ancient Greece, and in the Roman empire. There are Biblical stories of female spies.
Indeed there are novels & movies that depict female spies in a sexual way (and just as many depicting men as simple fighting machines) but pretending that women where not allowed to be spies is a disservice to women.
For example here it makes an explicit point:
"The UK’s main adversaries today — China, Russia, Iran and North Korea — are repressive societies with few women in positions of power. For the female spy, this weakness in the enemy is exploitable. Precisely because they are so likely to be overlooked, women have the potential to be the best spies of all."
> pretending that women where not allowed to be spies is a disservice to women.
Where does it say they were not allowed? Mata Hari is explicitly discussed in the article. A lot of examples in MI6 itself are made, but the article talks at length about how their careers were more difficult.
> It also reads like the author relied mostly on novels, movies, and such instead on a the interview.
I think the article is amazing. It literally interviewed three of the top british spies. How can you say that? And the last paragraph is all about all the things that the author could not cover.
(I know this is from TFA, not written by you)
At least Russia and North Korea have women in positions of power, so it seems disingenuous to lump them together with Iran, at the very least. I'm unsure about China now, but there used to be very influential Chinese women.
Also, Russia mastered the art of using women in intelligence (and sure, honeytraps), particularly because the West also tends to overlook them. Or are we going to pretend it's only our enemies that do this, as if the battle for equality was already won on our side?
Also, what spies have is not 'power'. I wonder for example how many women there are in the high ranks of the army, even for the countries you listed and many others.
Agreed that spies do not have "power" in that sense; I was just echoing the words of TFA and showing counterexamples.
Most armies of the world are sexist in any case, why single out the current adversaries of the West? Western armies are traditionally sexist as well. Yes, now there are some high ranking officers and even generals in some of the most modern Western armies -- meaning the general rule is still that sexism is rampant.
> yet the assumption most people have when they meet a woman is definitely not that she is someone powerful or to be wary of
Yes, but this seems to be the rule in many countries which are traditionally aligned with the West.
Kim Il Sung (or his son? memory is hazy) had a special all-female army unit that was his literal harem. I don’t think they value women very much, outside perhaps of nepotism.
This doesn't make it a rule, but it shows there are women with power in North Korea. Because it's such an opaque country to outside observers, who knows how many more are there? Keep in mind the world didn't even know of her existence until relatively recently (about 2014).
I don't think something like this -- a woman being considered to run the country -- would be even thinkable in Iran.
It's possible North Korea had a division made up of former comfort womem at some point, but I've never heard of it and the youngest members left would be in their 80's now.
The first couple of paragraphs talk ad nauseum about how hard it was for women to become spies.
There is no woman in the 24-member Politburo, the highest body of Chinese leadership. None. It had a single woman in the last cycle 2017-2022. The Standing committee, the top echelon with seven members has never had a woman as member. Of 205 members of the Central Committee, only 5% are women.
https://amp.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3196848/abs...
In practice, it lets the ruling party keep power. Winning and election against them isn’t enough- you have to win with at least 50% female candidates.
Just seems like a difficult comparison to make.
> Just seems like a difficult comparison to make
>> China, Russia, Iran and North Korea — are repressive societies with few women in positions of power
but generalizations like this are pretty easy
No promotions for women at China’s party congress? Mimi Lau Published: 2:08pm, 10 Oct, 2022 https://www.scmp.com/news/article/3195409/no-promotions-wome...
Why are women unlikely to win promotion race at China’s Communist Party congress? Female cadres tend to rise through gender pathways in areas such as education and civil affairs, and in mass organisations But they’re rarely assigned to more high-profile portfolios such as economics, finance, industry and technology Mimi Lau Published: 11:00pm, 2 Oct, 2022 https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3194570/why...
--> If that were true, should those spies be paid more than their not-as-good male counterparts ? And if yes, should the gap-salary which would follow, be then gapped by hiring more men as top spy positions despite their lower performances ?
> I have agreed to change their names and omit certain details to protect them
But then "Rebecca" has a one/two bridge walk described in detail and with personal description:
> She is in her mid-fifties, with a round face, angular Cubitts spectacles and searching green-brown eyes.
These things don't match. Either the service didn't care or it's intentionally deceiving - hopefully the latter if you want competence.
I mean that's either the greatest bit of journalist pranking I have read all year or it's true and, well, a bit naff.
A Quartermaster in the British Army is generally a commissioned officer, usually nowadays a Late Entry Officer (a soldier who has achieved the rank of at least Staff Sergeant I think, and then received a commission). Quartermasters are most often the rank of Major, but sometimes I've known them to be Lt Col (Pirbright Army Training Centre has a Lt Col for Quartermaster when I was there).
A Quartermaster is generally in charge of G4 (or J4 in the modern parlance) which is the Logistics staff branch[0].
CQMS (Company Quartermaster Sergeant) is universally a Non-commissioned Officer role. I have only ever seen CQMS of Warrant Officer Class 2 rank. CQMS are responsible for the G4 branch in a company or squadron sized unit.
At a Regimental level you'll often also have an RQMS, universally Warrant Officer Class 1 in my experience but sometimes filled temporarily by a senior WO2. That role was always a bit of a mystery to me, but generally seemed to keep the CQMS's in check and filter a lot of the faff from the QM.
Getting to the point - names...
You'd never call the Quartermaster Q. I'm not sure what would have happened if you did, but I imagine it wouldn't have been pleasant.
You'd always call the CQMS Q, especially if you were Commissioned or SSgt or above. A bold Sgt would get away with it if followed up with a swift sir/ma'am.
The RQMS was RQ, or sir/ma'am to anyone junior.
Add to the mix is the tradition of using "Salutation Surname" (i.e. Mr Brown, Mrs Red) to all Warrant Officers and you have a heady mix of options.
Edging closer to the point - the moniker Q in the books/movie would likely have come about from the abbreviation of CQMS. Which makes sense as Bond, as a 'front line' individual, would almost never actually see the actual Quartermaster, but would interact with his unit's CQMS who would be the one dealing with issuing and accounting for kit.
I believe Bond also had the rank of Commander. It would be customary for that rank to address a CQMS as Q, but never a Quartermaster with that letter.
Q in the movies (the only place he originally appeared) is obviously based on a CQMS someone knew and the Q branch in the books is almost certainly based on the abbreviation Q for the word Quartermaster in the Quartermaster's Stores.
The C comes from that being what the first chief of mi6 used to sign, his surname was Smith-Cumming. Interestingly, he also famously said, after it was discovered that human semen works well as invisible ink, that "Every man his own stylo" - rather appropriate for a man named Cumming.
edit: wiki says that staff under him used that phrase, I'm not 100% sure he coined it or not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansfield_Smith-Cumming
"Eve Fleming's nickname from her son Ian was M and Ian may have used his relationship with her as model for M, fictional head of Head of the Secret Intelligence Service and James Bond's boss."
That doesn't make it true, but it does seem to have some evidence.
I can recommend CFS's book "The Secret War of Charles Fraser-Smith" about his wartime experiences in sourcing and creating items for clandestine operations. Likely of interest to many HN readers.
>We work overseas to help make the uk a safer and more prosperous place
The self reflection on that sentence is pretty low tbh.
Amusing of MI6 to claim they no longer use honeytraps.
The way that they got info about twitters political bias through project veritas was to... Get a cute looking girl to ask the guy nicely...
How many people who are smart and well connected enough to end up being watched by three letter agencies (which is most likely more of HN userbase than they would like to admit) have only experienced relationships, love, or lust that was paid for by some agent in Langley? My guess is that this happens far more than we would care to admit.
Heck there are memes about this kind of thing: https://postimg.cc/62TPMBfN
-Mitch Hedberg
I find this a really odd statement, and certainly not something that follows "per definition"?
For one thing, one point made in the article is that the sources a spy might want to cultivate are often women. Especially places where women are less respected, they might be privy to plenty of private conversations while on the arm of a powerful man, and might be amenable to talking to another woman about it.
And it's certainly not the case that women are only viewed "traditionally" outside western society - China, India, and many other countries have plenty of female doctors, scientists, office workers, etc.
Or so they want you to believe...
Similar to Betteridge's law of headlines ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline... ), this proposed adage states:
"Any time that something is referred to as 'Secret' in a headline, it is not actually secret at all."