Analysis: MI6 recruits risk-takers - how else are you to win the spy war?

Published on Wednesday 25 August 2010 18:53

The apparent murder of a British intelligence officer, said to be Gareth Williams, in what appears to be an MI6 service flat in Pimlico, is a tragedy for his family but a serious security problem for the whole of Britain's intelligence community.

Ever since 9/11 and the London bombings, and particularly after the failure to find WMD in Iraq, Britain's intelligence community has been engaged in a process of expansion (budgets tripled, personnel doubled) but also of modernisation.

The three most important agencies, MI5 (the Security Service), MI6 (or SIS, the Secret Intelligence Service) and GCHQ ("Q", Britain's interception centre) have tried to work more closely with each other: pooling intelligence, analysis and expertise.

Indeed the reason Williams was in London will almost certainly have been to update MI6 either about the latest computer technology being employed by GCHQ in the fight against terrorism and organised international crime, or to point to some new finding whose significance needed a personal explanation.

Williams' murder follows the case of former SIS officer Daniel Houghton, who last month pleaded to unlawfully disclosing top-secret material.

There have been other high-profile problems, notably the 2009 posting on Facebook of personal details including his address and a picture of the new "C" or chief of MI6, Sir John Sawers (in his Speedos).

The most likely explanation for Williams' murder is that he was using his time away from Cheltenham to engage in personal activities that exposed himself to danger - activities in a sense unconnected with his professional ones.

If this proves to be true, many observers will be astonished that someone who could even think of putting himself in a reckless position could gain recruitment to GCHQ.

Similarly, that Houghton (who at his trial claimed, not very convincingly, to be acting on the orders of "voices" in his head) could be given a job in intelligence was hardly reassuring.

This is particularly so because, since 2005, new recruitment procedures have been introduced to help ensure that those who work in British intelligence are reliable and trustworthy to the highest degree.

Not only do all the secret services openly advertise (no longer relying on nods and winks from senior dons) but candidates are subjected to at least two in-depth interviews, psychometric testing and developed vetting which goes into their personal and private histories in considerable detail.

Clearly, these processes are not working as well as they should.

This is partly because in order to bring in ethnic minorities and widen the pool of recruits, the agencies are happy, they say, to consider applicants who, for example, have taken drugs in the past.

As long as they are not currently being treated for addiction, manic depression or schizophrenia, and are not bankrupt, they are free to apply.

However, this lets in many people who previously would have been excluded on the grounds of potentially criminal activity, personal failings and untrustworthiness.

At the same time, the old style of recruitment gave us officers like Philby (in MI6), Blunt (in MI5) and Prime (in GCHQ).

Part of the problem is that to be a good officer means you need to be a risk-taker.

Otherwise you'll never collect any secrets or motivate people to risk their lives for Britain.

• Professor Anthony Glees is director of the Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies, University of Buckingham.