John Clibborn
Senior British Secret Intelligence Service officer; MI6 Head of Station in Washington (1941–2017)
John Clibborn (John Donovan Nelson dalla Rosa Clibborn, 24 November 1941 – 16 December 2017) was a senior officer of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, or MI6). According to his Daily Telegraph obituary, he was Head of Station in Washington during the years in which the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union collapsed, and played a key role in maintaining the intelligence relationship between Britain and the United States.[1]
Early life and education
Clibborn was born in Oxford on 24 November 1941. Because his father was posted abroad, he spent his childhood moving between countries. He was educated at Worth prep school and then at Downside, both Benedictine schools. In 1960 he won a scholarship to read Classics at Oriel College, Oxford, where he was awarded a congratulatory First in both Mods and Greats. After Oxford he taught at a prep school for a year.[1]
SIS career
Clibborn joined MI6 in 1966. His first overseas posting was to Nicosia, before the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus, and he was involved in trying to bring the two Cypriot communities together. Postings to Bonn and Brussels followed. The Telegraph says that his main work, based in London, was on Africa. He knew many leaders of the independence movements in Angola and Mozambique, and of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.[1]
His first posting to Washington, as Head of Station, began in 1988, when he was nominally a Counsellor at the British Embassy. He oversaw the exchange of intelligence between London and Washington at the time of the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev. In 1991 he returned to London as head of technology, a post he jokingly called "Q". He was then posted to Washington again from 1993 to 1995. The Telegraph says that he worked with people at the highest levels of the White House, the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).[1]
Oleg Gordievsky, the KGB officer who became an MI6 agent and was exfiltrated to Britain in 1985, was a frequent visitor to the Clibborns' house.[1]
After leaving Washington, Clibborn sat on the board of directors of SIS while working ostensibly at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London, before retiring in 2011. He then worked as a careers manager, helping former diplomats find work in business.[1]
Honours
Clibborn was appointed CMG in 1997. The CIA recognised his work in Washington with its Seal Medallion, which was presented to him in 1995 by George Tenet, then deputy director of the CIA.[1]
Family
Clibborn's father, Donovan Clibborn CMG, worked in intelligence at Bletchley Park and on General Montgomery's staff in the Western Desert. He then joined the Foreign Office and finished his career as ambassador to El Salvador. Clibborn's mother, Margaret (née Nelson), was descended from an Italian noble family from Parma. Clibborn married Juliet Pagden in 1968. She survived him, as did their son and two daughters.[1]
Cryptome listing
The anonymous list of alleged MI6 officers published by Cryptome on 13 May 1999 includes the entry "John Donovan Nelson Clibborn: 66 Nicosia, 72 Bonn, 72 Brussels, 88 Washington; dob 1941; CMG."[2] The postings listed match those in the Telegraph obituary. See Cryptome MI6 lists.