Encounter with MI6

Encounter with MI6.

Relax, you are not going to get a hair raising British spy story. At the outset I should say that I am withholding the names of all persons in this account to avoid the fifty year secrecy rule and protect the innocent—actually, though, I am withholding the names because I just can’t remember them all. They were good friends at the time but that was back in the early sixties and I haven’t seen or heard from any of them since then.

Back in those heady days, just after the discovery of the laser (1960) and the advent of fiber optics (sort of), I became the U. S. Navy member of an international technical information exchange group, TTCP, Tri-Partite Technical Cooperation Program, which consisted of not three but four nations: United States, Great Britain, Canada, and Australia. TTCP still exists but now has five members with the addition of New Zealand. It was our custom each summer to tour one of the four countries, visiting the businesses and labs that were developing these new and wonderful technologies. I was lucky enough to serve long enough to visit all four places. I could write reams about what we saw and what we learned but I am confining this account to just one aspect of our trip to Great Britain. Officially on that trip we visited the big government lab at Malvern, a facility in Edinburgh, and had meetings with scientists from other facilities. Setting all that aside I will discuss only my experience with one of our British colleagues, a member of the famed MI6 service, now known as the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). MI6 corresponds roughly to our CIA, which the British refer to as ‘The Company.’ Their MI5 is very similar to our FBI and is responsible for internal matters. Like the CIA MI6 deals exclusively with external spy affairs.

In those days MI6 occupied what I believe is referred to as an old war department building located in the City and not far from Whitehall and other government offices. The image below, copied from Google Earth, matches what I recall. It’s a sort of flatiron building, the entrance being on the right side about fifty feet up from the corner. This very lovely gentleman, British member of our group, presumably an agent of MI6, was a somewhat shy and very cultured individual. He reminded me a little of John Cleese the comedian in appearance, not behavior. He was tall, had black hair, a receding hairline, and a full black mustache ―very British looking. One day at one of our many meetings he invited me to come to his office at the MI6 headquarters building the next day. At this time I can’t remember the reason for the invitation. It seemed to be purely social. I arrived at about ten in the morning.  After entering the building I was held at the reception desk just inside and issued a visitor’s badge while he was called. He escorted me to his office and we had a good conversation. I presume about technical matters. In the journey down the hallway we passed many doors, all closed, having no marks or signs of any kind. It was eminently clear I would not learn any British secrets in that place.

Old MI6 headquarters

Lunchtime arrived and he suggested a pub he knew of down on the Victoria Embankment, a street and walk that extends from Westminster east to Blackfriars Bridge. We walked the few short blocks to this establishment. It was a sort of secret place, as many excellent places are in London. While seated at the bar one could see through a large window straight out onto the Thames. It was a magnificent view with the river activity right at our feet, so to speak. I ordered my usual bitter ale and a plowman’s plate with some of their special paté and a piece of divine cheese. I recall it as probably the best lunch of my life time.

Part of his hospitality extended to our whole group.  At their home in North London he and his wife prepared a dinner of beef steak, rarely seen in England at that time. After dinner we all attended a theatrical production put on by their daughter’s small college. To get a real flavor of England at midsummer one must remember that London is nearly ten degrees farther north than Buffalo, New York. You might get the idea that being so far north that things might be a bit chilly. Not so! The Gulf Stream gives Jolly Olde a very equitable climate most of the time. Tales tell us that in medieval times when the climate was a bit warmer they even grew grapes. Summer time in England is a time of lots of sunlight and late evening activity. Why go to bed if the sun isn’t even down yet? The show, a musical of sorts, was the legend of Orpheus & Eurydice performed by the students in a very large open air park setting of the college grounds. The performers were all dressed in filmy gauzy costumes. We, the audience, were seated in the middle of the spectacle on folding chairs, nothing but grass all around. It started about 9 pm, the sun was still up, it’s England, you know, very far north as I pointed out. And it was very nearly Midsummer’s Day.  My recollection is that it was still bright when we made our way home after 10:30. The show was indeed very entertaining. The image below taken from Wikipedia conveys a little of the feeling of the myth. It is my considered view that this must be the preferred way of studying mythology. It is also a quintessential English way.

Orpheus and Eurydice

MI6 later moved to new quarters on the South Bank and up the Thames to the neighborhood of the old power plant chimneys. It is such a curious looking building that I could not resist incorporating it into my book The Body at the B and B. London has been built and rebuilt and rebuilt so many times. It is chockablock full of new, and for us Americans, zany architecture. One gets a clue to all of this from the names of structures in Central London―The Shard, The Gherkin, The Cheese Grater, and the Wobbly Bridge. I had occasion to pass one large office building one time that had an entire glass outer structure with all the plumbing pipes and cabling visible from the street―along with all the people scurrying to and fro at their jobs inside. It is, in my view, a whimsical and delightful place. Visit London if you can. Take a few tours. Go to the East End. Try some Saveloy and Jellied Eels.

New MI6 building (SIS)