SIS is dead – you read it first in Lobster – but the funeral has not been announced. Established in 1909, it will not make its centenary.
SIS once offered a global brand operating in a market that had been previously divided along the lines of accepted cartels (market fixing). Its market-share, however, has been under threat for years from surviving members of the cartel; and they have all been under threat from new, sophisticated arrivals. Anything that damages the brand – supposedly offering alternative worlds and values – kills it. Those who lobbed the missile at its HQ in September – and the guilty are just as likely to be ‘competitor’ (including internal and/or ‘friendly’), as ‘enemy’, even if the attack was out-sourced to an individual or terrorist organisation – knew exactly what they were doing. No national intelligence agency, including SIS, defines its product since this changes according to local markets. It is the ‘branding’, targeted overseas at both the status quo and the aspirant status quo, that (some) people buy into. The ‘purchase’ brands them for life – they need to be sure of it. The missile attack told them.
The attack happened at a time when it is a given that: a) people are much more consumerist in their attitudes to public services, including the intelligence services; and b) when there is no popular culture to reinforce HMG and all its parts – Mr Putin is not going to declare war, even if Russian undergraduates are hacking into our computers. Aware of this, the SIS seek to impress us with its ‘relevance’ overseas – protecting us from terrorism, drug cartels and the rest, a job better done by the police – as well as internally. For this reason, the public is told:
‘…..fraud investigators from the Benefit Agency are being taught how to use surveillance techniques by former SAS and MI6 officers. The company, AMA Associates, a security agency, has coached nearly 1000 government fraud officers on a Professionalism in Security (PINS) course accredited by Portsmouth university…….’ (1)
Abroad, conscious of its poor image, HMG beefs up its propaganda machine. So it is announced that the Medialink Consultancy has been appointed to run the London Radio Service, an international English Language news service.
‘The Foreign Office’s purpose is to project a realistic and proactive image of the UK around the world on a sustained basis.’ (2)
Simultaneously, World Television wins a three year contract to transmit British Satellite News to a ‘potential audience of three billion in 91 countries’. (3) There is no suggestion, of course, how these ‘news organisations’ will present the story that 35 out of 54 companies banned from contracting with the World Bank for violating its fraud and corruption guidelines are British. (4) And certainly no mention that SIS sought to blow up the head of a sovereign state, killing innocent civilians in the process. (5)
HMG is also beefing up its administrative machine over seas. Therefore, the UK company Opinion Research is commissioned by the British Council to conduct a ten country study on how ‘Britain is perceived in the Balkans following the recent conflict in the former Republic of Yugoslavia’. (6) The Council regards the research as central to ‘winning the peace’ in the Balkans. It will be carried out in Serbia, Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Bosnia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary and Russia.
‘The British Council, which has an office in each country, seeks to promote the UK’s reputation throughout the region by building people-to-people relationships.’ (7)
Presumably the ‘British Council’ will soon be reopening its office in Iraq. I would bet they even have an idea of the day, month and year (and that was before Saddam Hussein decided to back the Euro).
Washington is also beefing up its propaganda machine. So we have a representative of the grassroots lobbying company Legislative Demographic Services, writing:
‘……. we can begin to think of values and issues, especially those surrounding the globalisation of American views…………..The message of Seattle/Washington is this: It is time for public affairs professionals to use the tools they possess to build allies for globalisation both for capitalism and American values…..’ (8)
Meantime, GJW, a privately owned British lobbying company is sold to Washington based BSMG. One of its subsidiaries is GJW Democratic Development Services which
‘helps to organise and run elections in the emerging democracies of the world. This involves devising electoral law, compiling electoral registers, defining electoral boundaries and ensuring the smooth running of the electoral process.’
This illustrates another problem for SIS’s brand: SIS favours ‘stability’, and all the despotic evil that that implies, rather than electoral law. The Americans are repositioning and forgot to tell them.
Consultancies
The most detailed reference to links between some consultancies and espionage was made by a former founding CIA officer, Miles Copeland, in his book The Game of Nations written over twenty years ago. In this, he wrote:
‘…..When I arrived in Washington (July 1955), I found waiting for me letters from the US Ambassador to Cairo and Gemal Abdul Nasser ……, plus copies of correspondence between Herbert Hoover (then under secretary of state) and my boss Jim Allen of Booz Allen and Hamilton ………..’.
Booz Allen remains one of the global management consultants.
Copeland also made the link with the public affairs industry:
‘I resigned from the State Department in 1957 and set up my government relations consulting office in Beirut. At about this time, the other major oil companies were establishing special government relations offices…….. We received dozens of requests from American companies in the Middle East for studies of trends we could expect…….. other consulting firms in our line of work had the same experience and we were in a position to know that virtually all American companies which had major investments in the area were making studies of their own back home and were badgering the State Department for relevant information.’
In the UK, as Stephen Dorril notes in his recent book, former British intelligence officers have also been ‘encouraged to set up consultancies’. This could happen when they retire, or at an earlier stage. For example, David Shayler was found employment in one of the London-based management consultancies when he first left MI5. (9)
In the lobbying industry, one of the most influential was Major General Nigel Gribbon, who is now in his eighties. The General ended his career at ACOS (Intelligence), SHAPE 1970-72. Retiring the following year, he became managing director of Partnerplan Public Affairs. He then went to Sallingbury’s (the company name no longer exists; what remains of the company is no longer British owned) which, I understand, specialised in defence lobbying. The General, of course, could have had no involvement in espionage. It is reasonable to suppose however that he was not naive about such matters.
The global public affairs marketplace has developed at such a fast pace with issues rapidly being exported from one part of the world to another, that SIS cannot compete. It does not help that ownership of most of the public affairs companies has passed to the conglomerates who are in business overseas with local capitalists – hitherto prime SIS candidates as Agents or Sources. These nurture initiatives on the front line because the arrival of the Internet means events move too swiftly for the top to control the agenda. Historically, SIS favoured such arms-length ventures, even if it had no formal connections with them. Today it cannot afford them, nor do their commercial agendas necessarily mirror HMG’s.
Commerce has its own programme – it is what capitalism is all about. Take, for example, Batey Burn, at one time a British-owned government relations consultancy in China. Established by two former political private secretaries to Edward Heath who were also employees of Arthur Anderson & Co., the company was sold last year to Washington based APCO. The Americans are not just plugged into the top, but are sweeping up support staff too. So, for example, you have the US-owned Hill & Knowlton Brussels team. Appointments to that team this year include the assistant to the then Vice President of the European Parliament’s Technological Development and Energy Committee; as well as a Japanese national who was formerly with the Japanese Embassy in Vienna as ‘special economic assistant on assignment from the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs’. (10)
HMG – of which SIS forms a part – is outmanoeuvred not only because it does not have the money to compete but also because, in losing control of the consultancies, it loses control of one of the levers of patronage, essential in the placing of and/or rewarding of foreign agents on international quangos.
Another interesting consultancy is Strategic Profile International (SPI) which has offices in Carlton Terrace Gardens. One of SPI’s clients is the British-Libya Business Group. I apologise if neither SPI nor its clients have anything to do with espionage. (Joke I heard in Geneva: Q. Why are SIS Consultancies opening up in Carlton Terrace Gardens? A. Because they cannot all fit into Buckingham Gate.)
Of course, the reputation/product that many of these consultancies provide is often patchy and not all of them adequately protect their huge data bases. But then, the same could be said for SIS. There is one big difference: those who screw up in the private sector usually get the sack.
The SIS official line on these consultancies is that they offer no threat since SIS provides ‘pure’ analysis. Their second is that their diplomats and agents maintain the contact-stream on alternative circuits e.g. cocktail parties. Their third is that SIS is plugged into various national /international Think Tanks where they have the benefit of modern triangular relationships: i.e. Think Tank/client/ client consultancies. Or should that be quadruple relationships – with the Stasi joining in the fun? (11) In addition, all the Stasi reports noted in The Times were identical to those produced by lobbyists in the 1980s. There are two differences: a) the lobbyists would probably have been cheaper; b) lobbyists have no duty to the (British) state – many lobbyists are foreign nationals – so their staff cannot be blackmailed.
It is not all bad news for SIS. Smart organisations travel light: why have staff on the payroll when you can sub-contract, particularly if you are subcontracting to former employees? Two consultancies that fit this profile are the specialist boutiques established by former senior SIS diplomat and international relations guru Geoffrey Hancock and former SIS Whitehall civil servant David Bickford (Middle East Consultants and David Bickford Associates respectively).
To take David Bickford (formerly Chief Legal Counsel, Foreign Office/SIS/MI5) as an example, his consultancy specialises in international tax harmonisation, countering transnational organised crime and money laundering. This type of consultancy has the ability to move in and out of markets rapidly, as well as offering ‘rainy’ day knowledge and contacts, to know who/what is going on, even if this is not immediately useful. Men like Bickford continue to exercise real power – as the countries that did not make it on to the OECD’s listing of offshore financial centres will testify – and continue to maintain the standard of the SIS brand.
Other consultancies, however, do not. Take, for instance, Aims Ltd ‘which has close links to British Intelligence and the SAS’. (12) The terrible details in that article require no repetition but Aims’ claims are worth considering:
‘……… said it could also provide intelligence experts to gather information on Kurdish rebels in each of the European Union countries. For £57,000 per month, information would be provided on their sources of funds, public relations and their connections with various governments……..’
As a former lobbyist, I have an idea what £57,000 per month buys. We are talking here about tracking the European Kurdish Diaspora; their contacts with friendly politicians in some of the national parliaments, ditto journalists; we are talking about the committees these politicians sit on and therefore their colleagues whom they are lobbying – and that’s before you have taken a look at the European Parliament and all the intergroups which duck and dive, collapse, reemerge; and before you have followed the European politicians across the pond to America; and, because you cannot ringfence such a brief to the EU, before you have tracked them into the international quangos. And that is just the elected representatives, not the bureaucrats.
Do you know how many cigars and dinners that means? Considerably more than £57,000. Unless, of course, you are accessing existing information compiled by national intelligence agencies, in which case all you are doing is checking it; and, in which case also, the (British) taxpayer has subsidised the loathsome alleged activities of the company.
The image of the intelligence services, rightly or wrongly, is also tied into the image of some of the sons of its former officers, even if they (the sons) have no connection with espionage. Take, for example, Alan Parker, the founder of the secretive City PR consultancy Brunswick. While Alan Parker has no connection with espionage, he is the son of Peter Parker of BR, who is a former SIS officer. Brunswick’s many activities include the donation
‘…….of a key employee to The Treasury to help work on the controversial Financial Services and Markets Bill. The legislation will regulate activities in The City…….’. (13)
SIS, of course, has never had anything to do with the City. Nor, at any time, has it tried to interfere with other legislation……
Legislation
The bad news first. The Government’s reneging on its promise to legislate for the arms industry – which could not have been ring-fenced to hardware but would have had to include software and other diversity e.g. insurance issues [The City], lobbying, use of the SAS, construction projects etc – has certainly let SIS off the hook. So has refusal to consider legislation regulating the ‘consultancy’ field. These include military/mercenary consultancies – HMG has refused to sign up to a new UN convention on mercenaries and private security companies, despite the fact that other EU national parliaments have introduced legislation – and the lobbying industry, all of which would have unraveled into the intelligence services.
Moreover, the lobbying and private security industries are: a) ‘mainstream’ these days; b) following mergers and acquisitions, increasingly owned by conglomerates; and c) no longer complementary to SIS but, increasingly, are its competitor. Commercial enterprises need one-stop security shops, which also offer political intelligence and crisis public relations. Their insurers (which own or have an association with the large private security and lobbying companies) demand it. (14)
The lack of regulation, quite apart from other ethical considerations, also means that these companies can be sold to the highest bidder. Such sales proceed even if the consultancies are privy to information which could impact on our national security or other interests: e.g. IES, a high tech security and surveillance company with contracts with the House of Commons, Royal Courts of Justice and Metropolitan Police, sold to a foreign national. (15) Meanwhile, such is the idiocy, the Intelligence and Security Annual Report, 1998/99 says:
‘…one of the biggest difficulties facing GCHQ is that many applicants fail to meet the nationality criteria. As nearly all the work of the linguists entails access to extremely sensitive material ……….’
Other legislative bad news includes the watering down of the Human Rights Act, and the dilution of proposed Freedom of Information legislation. Privacy law – e.g. interception of e-mails (uniting, in wonderful alliance, multinationals with civil liberty groups) – also shores up the secret state; not forgetting the totally discredited Official Secrets Act. Finally, little consideration has been given to the implications for civil rights if the post office is privatised: i.e. what happens to the Post Office’s full time security division which operates on instructions from M15 and Special Branch?
There is, however, some good legislative news: e.g. the Government’s company law reform proposals, many of which emanate from last year’s Turnbull report on business risk. These propose that listed companies (many of which are clients of the intelligence services or their agents) should report on their policies and performance on community, social, ethical and reputation issues. This impacts on the SIS, no matter how arms length it conducts, because it impacts on the balance sheets of (some of) its constituency. (16) In addition, earlier this year the Home Office published proposed revisions of the law on corporate manslaughter making individuals potentially liable (e.g execution of three Telecom engineers in Chechnya). The offence can be committed even if the risk of death/injury is not obvious to the defendant or the defendant did not act with the intention of causing harm. Self-preservation will mean that, if applicable, SIS, rather than primary employer, will have to take responsibility for its agents (e.g. Barzoft, the Observer journalist executed in Iraq) including those recruited by third parties, who are not aware that they are working for SIS.
Sleaze and incompetence
This has done most for SIS branding so rejoice in it! Wherever the public looks, it finds sleaze. This has led to long overdue recognition that it must be in the intelligence service too. (Not to mention false prosecution of businessmen; e.g. arms to Iraq; prosecution of former officers under discredited OSA legislation etc.) To protect itself, SIS messages (public relations) are handed to favoured journalists, academics and former agents. This, too, is a matter for rejoicing because it means that SIS can find no credible third party endorsement in the press (the basis on which public relations is built). Meantime the overseas press goes into ‘branding’ overdrive (e.g. coverage of Mohamed Al Fayed’s belief that SIS murdered his eldest son, and two others in Paris). This ‘branding’ struck a chord across the world, and not just the Muslim one. It means, among other things, that recruitment of foreign agents becomes difficult. As a rule, people do not wish to be associated with the murder of private citizens.
The entire British Establishment image has been branded ‘dirty’. Lloyds of London (long associated with SIS) has been exposed as the cesspit it always has been. Today it is only a minor player in world markets and therefore continues to bring the ‘brand’ down. A by-product is the collapse of a tier of SIS support (some Lloyds Names): no more smart Home Counties’ houses to pop into to impress foreign agents with its quintessential Englishness (essential for branding).
Also under threat are SIS’s finances. Anything can inadvertently trigger closer scrutiny, particularly if it is investment portfolio – e.g. consolidated property holdings both here and overseas – which are queried. (17)
In addition, academia, (public school headteachers and university dons as talent scouts) is not what it was. ‘New’ universities, and ‘meritocratic’ patrons – especially in the Business Schools – are anxious to enhance alumni networks. This does not always mean supporting HMG. Nor are former SIS employees retiring into the now conglomerate-owned publishing industry, previously an essential ‘branding’ controller.
Politics, too, have changed, also making SIS branding difficult. For example, so far as I am aware, the parliamentary clerks (controlling key committees of Westminster and assisting the Whips of both Houses and both Parties) are no longer retired SIS officers. Nor do they now retire into Conservative Central Office, or become Conservative Office agents in the constituencies. In addition, the (mainly Conservative) hereditaries have been booted out of the House of Lords. These clansmen, often representing industry bodies, were institutionalised SIS conduits. That is not to say that now that Biggles has lost his ermine, SIS are no longer represented in the Lords. They are; but they are no longer institutionalised.
SIS’s cause is similarly damaged because it can no longer guarantee retiring officers a job with the British Association of Middle Eastern Weed Exporters. As a rule, commerce wishes to see evidence of negotiating skills and contacts, rather than an institutionalised, dated understanding of foreign affairs.
The EU
This brings us to the European Union where SIS control is slipping not least because of UK hostility to membership. It is therefore unable to capitalise on US/UK dominance of Brussels despite the fact that France and Delors have been routed: Brussels speaks and thinks at political level in English. This has enabled Roman Catholic countries of Eastern Europe seeking entry to find other patrons. These include the Vatican which, anxious about Jewish/Muslim polarisation in the Middle East, is also trying to develop its influence in Islamic countries on the Mediterranean Sea, including their possible long-term entry into the EU. All of this is traditional SIS territory, not least because SIS has depended on despotic governments in the area, rather than democratic arrangements, an essential EU entry requirement.
SIS’s European initiative went pear-shaped with its loss of control of its spiritual home, the Conservative Party. Other developments in the Conservative Party have embarrassed SIS’s ‘branding’: the Party that was once sold abroad by British diplomats as HMG’s political wing is now home to some xenophobes and/or Little Englanders. This is hardly likely to endear it to SIS’s overseas constituency.
In addition, some activities/relationships appear to be a mockery of what was – e.g. the famed London political salon of Carla Powell, wife of Sir Charles; or the fact that William Hague’s sister-in-law works for the Prince of Wales. At one time, the whole point of political salons was intrigue and espionage – something with which, I understand, Lady Powell has no connection. As for William Hague’s sister-in-law, this, at one time, would have automatically locked the leader of the Conservative Party into the Crown and SIS, a grouping that no longer exists.
Two of the Party’s former Defence Ministers have not done much for branding either. SIS Asset Jonathan Aitken, who involved female relatives in his shame, has done incalculable damage to SIS, particularly in Muslim countries. Nicholas Soames – ‘There-is-no-such-thing-as-Gulf-War- Syndrome-the-MOD-says-so’ – has done the same locally (Gulf War Veterans) as well as internationally (poisoning of Iraq’s children).
SIS and MPs
Then there is SIS and backbench MPs. Lobbyists, have known about Paddy Ashdown’s SIS background for years: that is why commercial clients pay them to write profiles. A former overseas client of mine whom I bumped into in the pub when Ashdown was made Lib-Dem leader, asked whether his election was ‘deliberate’. It is only the public who are not permitted to know about the background of their elected representatives. Less high-profile former SIS officers in the Commons do little for modern branding either. Take, for example, Mandarin-speaking Sir Ray Whitney MP. He took pride in his declaration that he escorted the Chinese Defence Minister around the House (18) apparently unaware that he is no longer a State representative but a civilian, representing a civilian constituency, which might not have liked the scrubbing out of lawful (Tibetan) protest outside Westminster, even as he was charming the Chinese Defence chief inside. (19)
Then there is ‘ex-foreign office mandarin Ben Chapman MP, ‘torpedoed into a safe Labour seat at the ’97 election’, (20) who is now parliamentary private secretary to Export Credit Guarantee Department Minister Richard Caborn whose department considers funding for construction contracts. Ben Chapman MP (formerly of Ben Chapman Associates) is also Chairman of the Westminster All Party Turkey Group (funded by Turkish business interests) and Chairman of the Westminster All Party China Group. He is assisted by Ian Lindsley, ‘in his own time’. Mr Lindsley is a director of the Burson Marsteller consultancy. He previously managed a PR company based in China. During the 1997 election campaign he worked for the Labour Party’s Business Relations Unit.
Neither China nor Turkey, of course, have anything to do with controversial construction projects. Nor do such projects have anything to do with foreign policy and, er, SIS ….
But, you say, Lord Justice Neill of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, took a look at the Westminster All Party Groups (APGs). He did. And, despite written and oral evidence, he declined to regulate them or suggest minimum democratic improvements, such as a broader witness base. This, at the very least, goes against the spirit of the Turnbull report (see ‘Legislation’ above) which proposes that listed companies (which APGs represent) should report on all community, social, ethical and reputation issues.
Treatment of Dissident Groups
Then there is the cumulative picture of SIS possessed by foreign dissidents. Basically, far too many people know far too much about it; and what they know is unfavourable. This is one of the reasons why some of the dissident groups operating in the UK are not taught how to leave the shadows. Instead, they are filled with paranoia and terror, to keep them in their victim-dependent box.
Take, for example, Iraqi dissident groups (rightly shamed by infighting, infiltration and association with spooks – not that they could avoid the last of those) all of whom, apparently, have succumbed to Saddam Hussein’s belly-dancing spies. (21) Their pooled knowledge, across continents and over decades, of all the Western intelligence agencies, is voluminous. Today, spooks wipe their hands of them and dump them on ‘consultants’ – as the carnival moves on. (22) Everybody wants a share of Iraq. And everybody is likely to get it. Except its 22 million people.
Conclusion
The public knows what SIS has known for even longer: people are no longer buying into its ‘brand’. If it wants a role in our country, and expects us to pay for it, then, like all service industries, it has to provide a product that we want, not the product it is prepared to offer. This has to be provided in a cost efficient manner and leads to the only conclusion possible: UK plc has too many policing agencies; merger (always a sign of a maturing sector) is the answer. The SIS is banking on ‘take-over’ rather than ‘merger’. Merger allows the policing agencies to market units as a package and, if as seems likely, they are buying-in skill-sets when need arises, to add those skill-sets to a sophisticated packaging system. Merger also allows for the dumping of the corrupt, dated, incompetent and institutionalised. As importantly, the savings in combining infrastructures can be invested in the improved policing that the public requires. This will not at a stroke address other fundamental problems, such as conflicts of interest inherent in the system – e.g. the intelligence services combining the role of agent, while commissioning agents’ services, while being advocates for individual agents, while being a commissioner of services – but it will be a start.
In the meantime, the public confronts SIS with its past, as told by individuals, be they former officers or private citizens. It is a supreme irony that while SIS’s former Legal Counsellor, David Bickford, becomes a ‘consultant’ ensuring that other countries uphold the law, officers within his own Service did not. Bickford, of course, was not aware of any illegality. It is how the British civil service works. The missile attack last September has forced SIS to cancel its centenary celebrations so that it can walk away from its past. When it regroups – in whatever guise – the public has to make sure that it has elected a government who will control it, even as it has tried to control us.
Corinne Souza is currently writing The Spy and a Lobbyist. Her businessman father was a decorated Commonwealth Agent who served SIS for nearly twenty years. The book covers the impact that SIS had on two generations of the same family 1958-1994. Souza sought the protection of Parliament when she refused to work for SIS, and had the unconditional assistance of the late Bob Cryer MP, who specialised in lobbying issues. Accused of causing ’embarrassment to HMG’, Souza has no doubt that had it not been for Bob Cryer’s fury and unfailing protection, SIS would have cancelled family pension arrangements agreed many years earlier. At a later stage, she also had the kind assistance of a senior member of the House of Lords. The Foreign Office finally gave her permission to have a lawyer in 1994, eight years after her father’s death. The book contains ‘The Lawrence Rules’, in memory of her father, to assist families and private citizens in their dealings with the SIS whether these be on a voluntary basis or under duress.
Notes
- Sunday Times 13 August 2000
- PR Week, 26 May 2000
- PR Week September 29 2000
- Private Eye 6 June 2000
- On David Shayler’s account of SIS involvement in a plan to assassinate Gaddafi see Mark Hollingsworth, Defending the Realm (London, Andre Deutsch, 1999, pp.149-51)
- Where the European Commission slots in – with Neil Kinnock’s son Stephen as the link between the EC and the British Council – is not explained.
- Public Affairs NewsLetter, August 1999
- Impact, May 2000
- He has never named the consultancy. But then, despite joint MI5/SIS vilification, Shayler has never been in the business of ‘naming names’.
- Public Affairs NewsLetter February 2000
- There is no reason to suppose, incidentally, that the Stasi’s Chatham House spy was their only Think Tank Spy.
- Sunday Times, 31 October 1999
- Observer 25 June 2000
- Sunday Business 5 November 2000 made the point that European-owned private security industry is making in-roads into the USA.
- Sunday Times, 30 July 2000
- The Punch story, in issue 117, October 2000, about Sir John Browne of BP, Prime Minister Blair and the Russian oil money comes to mind – unless the retired SIS officer that sits on BP’s board forgot to check out the latest news from Russia with his former SIS colleagues.
- It was interesting, incidentally, that in an otherwise excellent article about the independent housing trust that runs the Dolphin Square apartments in London, the Evening Standard, 3 November 2000, made no mention of the fact that historically, and possibly today, some of those apartments belonged to SIS.
- Register of Members’ Interests, January 2000
- One way, incidentally, that the public could be informed about former employers, is if MPs were forced to declare their pensions in the Register – an astonishing omission.
- Tribune 7 July 2000
- Reference to a ridiculous SIS-planted story claiming Saddam Hussein had sent belly-dancing assassins to London to murder Iraqi dissidents. See p.15 – ed.
- ‘US dollars are awarded to New Age management consultants in the West who know little about Iraq’, Guardian 23 August 2000.