Eliza Manningham-Buller
Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller is a former head of the Security Service.
She joined the MI5 in the early 1970s, when women were marginalised and confined to transcribing telephone intercepts.[1]
Contents
Soviet section
- During the early 1980s, only five people knew that Oleg Gordievsky, the deputy head of the KGB at the Soviet embassy in London, was actually a double agent. One of this exclusive group was MI5's senior officer dealing with Soviet affairs, Eliza Manningham-Buller.
- As Gordievsky recently acknowledged, Manningham-Buller's ability to keep a secret saved his life.
- Despite the fact that two of her assistants shared an office with Michael Bettany, a traitor working for the KGB, Gordievsky's crucial role was never mentioned. [2]
Middle East section
In 1988, she became head of MI5's Middle East section and was posted to Washington as liason with the USA.[3]
IRA in Britain
Between 1992 and 1993 she worked closely with Stephen Lander in countering IRA terrorism on the British mainland.[4]
Operations Director
Manningham-Buller subsequently became principle operations director, with responsibility for mail interception, telephone tapping and covert searches.
When Stella Rimington announced her retirement as head of MI5 in 1995, Manningham Buller formed an alliance with Stephen Lander. The pair blocked the succession of Rimington's deputy Julian Hansen by threatening to resign. The Cabinet Office was told only that Hansen had withdrawn his application. [5]
Deputy Director-General
A year after Lander became director-general, Manningham-Buller succeeded Hansen as his deputy.
- Nicknamed 'Bullying Manner', the fifty-one-year-old deputy director-general is regarded as a formidable administrator who does not suffer fools gladly. She is unpopular with staff, and lacks Rimington's foresight and insight.[6]
Director General
According to Mark Hollingsworth and Nick Fielding, Manningham-Buller gave a background briefing to a prominent Sunday newspaper, soon after her appointment.[7]
July 7 2007 bombings
According to The Guardian Manningham-Buller "told senior MPs there was no imminent terrorist threat to London or the rest of the country less than 24 hours before the July 7 suicide bombings."
- Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller gave the assurance at a private meeting of Labour whips at the Commons on the morning of July 6 2005, the Guardian has learned from a number of those present.
- The whips are said to have been confident, on leaving the meeting, that they could brief fellow MPs that the security situation was under control, and are said to have been deeply alarmed by the following day's events.[8]
Notes
- ↑ Defending the Realm: MI5 and the Shayler Affair, by Mark Hollingsworth and Nick Fielding, Andre Deutsch, 1999, p.238.
- ↑ Eliza Manningham-Buller: Life in the shadows, by Andrew Walker, BBC News, 7 October 2002.
- ↑ Defending the Realm: MI5 and the Shayler Affair, by Mark Hollingsworth and Nick Fielding, Andre Deutsch, 1999, p.238.
- ↑ Defending the Realm: MI5 and the Shayler Affair, by Mark Hollingsworth and Nick Fielding, Andre Deutsch, 1999, p.238.
- ↑ Defending the Realm: MI5 and the Shayler Affair, by Mark Hollingsworth and Nick Fielding, Andre Deutsch, 1999,, p.237-8
- ↑ Hollingsworth & Fielding, Op. cit.
- ↑ Mark Hollingsworth and Nick Fielding, Defending the Realm: Inside MI5 and The War On Terrorism, Andre Deutsch, 2003, p.15.
- ↑ MI5 told MPs on eve of 7/7: no imminent terror threat, by Ian Cobain, David Hencke, and Richard Norton-Taylor.
