Stewart Menzies

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Major General Sir Stewart Graham Menzies, KCB, KCMG, DSO, MC (pronounced /ˈmɪŋɪz/) (30 January 1890 – 29 May 1968) was Chief of MI6, British Secret Intelligence Service, during and after World War II.

Born in London into a wealthy family, which was prominent in the Scotch whisky business, Menzies was reputed to be the illegitimate son of the future King Edward VII.[1] He was educated at Eton College, where he became president of the student society Pop, and graduated in 1909. He excelled at hunting and cross country running.[2]. He then joined the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and later the Life Guards (British Army).

During World War I he served in France, was seriously injured in a gas attack in 1915 and was honorably discharged. He joined the counterintelligence section of Field Marshall Douglas Haig, and in late 1917 reported to high British leadership that Haig was fudging intelligence estimates, which soon led to Haig's removal. This whistle-blowing was apparently done very discreetly. Following the end of the war, he entered MI6 (later SIS) and became a deputy of its director-general Hugh Sinclair.[3]

In 1924, Menzies was allegedly involved — alongside Sidney Reilly[4] and Desmond Morton[5] — in the forging of The Zinoviev Letter.[4] This forgery is considered to have been instrumental in the Conservative Party's victory in the United Kingdom general election of 1924, which ended the country's first Labour government.[6]

In 1939, when Admiral Sinclair died, Menzies was appointed Chief of SIS. He expanded wartime intelligence and counterintelligence departments and supervised codebreaking efforts at Bletchley Park. By being responsible for distributing ULTRA material to other arms of the British government, Menzies was able to achieve a position of some power within the British government, which he used to further the power of MI6[citation needed]. Before World War Two, the SIS had been a relatively minor and uninfluential branch of the British government. The chief reason for this was the SIS's consistent inability to produce any useful intelligence. By distributing the ULTRA material collected by the Government Code & Cypher School, for the first time, MI6 became an important branch of the government.

He also supported efforts to contact anti-Nazi resistance, including Wilhelm Canaris, the anti-Nazi head of Abwehr, in Germany but failed to convince Winston Churchill. He also coordinated operations with SOE (although he reputedly considered them "amateurs"), BSC, OSS and the Free French Forces.

After the war, Menzies reorganized the SIS for the Cold War. He absorbed most of SOE. He was sometimes at odds with the Labour governments. He also had to weather a scandal inside SIS after revelations that SIS officers Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, and, eventually, Kim Philby, were actually Soviet spies.

Menzies resigned in 1952, a major-general, and retired to rural Gloucestershire. Often described as master spy chief, in fact Menzies was a master at bureaucratic warfare[citation needed]. Though competent at espionage, his real forte was bureaucratic intrigue.

[edit] Personal life

Menzies was son of John Graham Menzies[7]. According to biographies, his grandfather was a whisky distiller who established a cartel and made huge profits. His parents became friends of King Edward VII, who was rumoured to be Menzies' real father. Menzies was educated at Eton College where his achievements were in sports, and he never went to a university. His social and possibly quasi-royal connections helped him gain his job in intelligence.[8]

His first marriage was in 1918 to Lady Avice Ela Muriel Sackville, younger daughter of Gilbert George Reginald Sackville, 8th Earl De La Warr and Lady Muriel Agnes Brassey, daughter of the 1st Earl Brassey. They were divorced in 1931, when she left him for another man.

His second wife Pamela Thetis Beckett (d. 13 March 1951), fourth daughter of Hon. Rupert Evelyn Beckett by his wife Muriel Helen Florence Paget, daughter of Lord Berkeley Charles Sydney Paget, himself a yr son of the the 2nd Marquess of Anglesey, whom he married in 13 December 1932, was an invalid for many years, suffering from depression, but she bore him his only child, a daughter, Fiona, in 1937.[9]

His third marriage was in 1952 (as her fourth husband) to Audrey Clara Lilian Latham (b. 1899), formerly wife of Sir Henry Birkin, 2nd Bt. (and two other men), and daughter of Sir Thomas Paul Latham, 1st Bt..[10]; according to Follett in a book review, she decided to live separately shortly after their marriage. By his third marriage, he had two stepdaughters Pamela Buxton (later wife of Lord Buxton of Alsa) and Sara Hanbury. Follett also reports that Menzies had a long-standing affair with one of his secretaries, which he ended upon retirement (and presumably re-marriage) in 1952.[11]. Menzies died 29 May 1968.

[edit] Source notes

  1. ^ Ken Follet. "The Oldest Boy of British Intelligence" The New York Times, 27 December 1987.
  2. ^ C: The Life of Stewart Graham Menzies, by Anthony Cave Brown, 1987.
  3. ^ C: The Life of Stewart Graham Menzies, by Anthony Cave Brown, 1987.
  4. ^ a b Page 121, Michael Kettle, Sidney Reilly: The True Story of the World's Greatest Spy; 1986, St. Martin's Press, ISBN 0-312-90321-9.
  5. ^ Zinoviev Letter in SIS forgery (no) Shock, The Poor Mouth.
  6. ^ Telegraph, 5 February 1999.
  7. ^ Darryl Landy. The Peerage database which cites Charles Mosley, editor, Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 107th edition, 3 volumes (Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.A.: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 2003), volume 1, page 1076.
  8. ^ Ken Follett (1987) claims that these same connections helped save his career from many a disaster.
  9. ^ This reference says that a daughter Daphne was born in 1934. She was first married 1929 (div 1930) to James Roy Notter Garton, + 1939, s. of William Garton, of Bursledon, Hampshire. Pamela Beckett was a first cousin once removed of the 6th Marquess of Anglesey and a second cousin of the 7th Marquess. Her elder sister Gwladys, Lady Markham md 2ndly 1928 Hugh Cholmondeley, 3rd Baron Delamere of Vale Royal
  10. ^ Darry Landy. "Audrey Clara Lilian Latham" in The Peerage database. Entry last edited 14 March 2005, and retrieved 15 December 2007.
  11. ^ Ken Follett (1987) on Menzies's marriages and private life. "The book's greatest failure as a biography is that it leaves the reader with no real sense of Menzies as a man. He was married three times. His first wife left him for another man, his second was an invalid for many years, and his third decided to lead a separate life very soon after the wedding. Mr. Brown says almost nothing about what these marriages were like, although such information cannot be more difficult to get than details of secret intelligence operations, and it is just as vital to an understanding of the man. For many years Menzies was having an affair with one of his secretaries. Mr. Brown seems to imply that when he retired he relinquished her love as casually as he dispensed with her secretarial services. At any rate she tried to kill herself."

[edit] Bibliography

Military offices
Preceded by
Sir Hugh Sinclair		 Head of SIS
1939–1952		 Succeeded by
Sir John Sinclair
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart_Menzies"
Personal tools