Frederick Allan Rowley
Frederick Allan Rowley was the Director and Co-ordinator of Intelligence (Northern Ireland) (DCI) in 1972-3.[1]
Rowley joined the Foreign Office in 1948 after service in the armed forces. According to intelligence writers Jonathan Bloch and Patrick Fitzgerald he was an MI6 officer.[2]
Rowley became vice-consul in Addis Ababa in 1949.[2] He returned to the Foreign Office in 1950. In 1953, he became second secretary in Rangoon. In 1955 he joined the Office of the Commissioner-General in Singapore. He returned to the Foreign Office in 1957. In 1960, he was seconded to the Australian Department of Defence in Melbourne. According to Bloch and Fitzgerald he 'resigned' from the Foreign Office in 1965 and 'rejoined' in 1967, the inverted commas presumably suggesting that he was working for MI6 under non-official cover during this period. On his return, he became counsellor (Foreign Affairs) in Kuala Lumpur. He Returned to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1971.[2]
Northern Ireland
Rowley was seconded to the Northern Ireland Office in 1972.[2]
According to Christopher Andrew's authorised history of MI5, no sufficiently senior MI5 officer was willing to accept the post of Director and Co-ordinator of Intelligence when the post was created by Northern Ireland Secretary William Whitelaw in 1972:
- The first DCI, appointed on 31 October, thus came from outside MI5. His Security Service successor remembers him as 'the right man really to establish the post': 'He was there for a year and he did it in tremendous style.. He lived like a king, he entertained like a king, he used to drink with Willie [Whitelaw] all night.'[3]
Rowley would seem to have been the first DCI referred to here. His MI5 successor was probably Denis Payne.
On 25 April 1973, Rowley and British Ambassador Sir Arthur Galsworthy had a secret meeting in Glencairn, Galsworthy's Dublin residence, with Patrick Donegan, the Irish Minister for Defence, and his Departmental Secretary.[1]
Senior MI6 Officer
Bloch and Fitzgerald list Rowley as "Counsellor FCO Divisional Head, MI6" from 1973, and "Deputy Chief, MI6" from 1976. He retired in 1979.[2]
External resources
- NameBase ROWLEY FREDERICK ALLAN
- Allan Rowley, The Times, 12 October 2014.
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Ronan Fanning, Co-operating on the Border against a common enemy, independent.ie, 4 January 2004.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Jonathan Bloch and Patrick Fitzgerald, British Intelligence and Covert Action, Brandon/Junction, 1983, p.259.
- ↑ Christopher Andrew, Defence of the Realm, The Authorized History of MI5, Allen Lane, 2009, p.621.
