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The first woman to become Director General of MI5. Educated at Edinburgh University and Liverpool University. Joined MI5 full time in 1969. Rimington worked in all the main fields of the Service's responsibilities, counter-subversion, counter-espionage and counter-terrorism. In charge of 'counter-subversion' F Branch in 1983, Rimington spied on Patricia Hewitt and Harriet Harman, then running the National Council for Civil Liberties. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the miners who were striking in an attempt to stop pit closures were all MI5 targets, but Rimington claims only those who wanted to bring down Thatcher's government. What is slightly difficult to see is how MI5's 'clear thinkers' were able to tell these categories apart, until they had all been thoroughly burgled, infiltrated and bugged.
One of its most damaging MI5 fiasco's of recent times came in 1982. Michael Bettaney, a former agent-runner in Northern Ireland, was by then serving in the MI5's K4 section, which carried out surveillance on Soviet bloc espionage in Britain. An unstable alcoholic, he was caught trying to tell the KGB about his colleagues' operations. In prison, awaiting trial, he managed to give the IRA the names of most of the intelligence officers and agents in Northern Ireland. Two years earlier, one of Bettaney's top agents, an IRA infiltrator, met Rimington in London and warned her of Bettaney's volatility and drinking. It would appear that Rimington took no serious action as Bettaney's access to secrets was not restricted. When, however Bettaney was arrested, Rimington managed to evade criticism. Some of Rimington's intelligence service critics allege that, instead, she tried to shift blame for his treachery on to two more junior colleagues, both of them women, claiming that they had tipped him over the edge by somehow 'offending' him.
When groups such as Islamic Jihad were attacking non-Israeli targets in the wake of Israel's invasion of the Lebanon in 1982, a small unit known as G7 was established as a 'joint section' by MI5 and the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6. The Islamic fundamentalist groups, though based abroad (normally SIS territory), had supporters and an infrastructure in Britain, the province of MI5. Osama Bin-Laden's Al-Qa'ida network is typical of this pattern, the fax claiming responsibility for the attacks on US embassies in 1998 came from a shop in north London. Against the protests of G7's staff, Rimington disbanded it in 1994. The consequence, intelligence sources say, was that some known and previously monitored operatives disappeared from view: 'When it became clear just how great the threat posed by Bin-Laden was, we were in a difficult position. Scrapping G7 was a very foolish move. Instead of having a cadre of experienced case officers, we were virtually starting from scratch.' Strangely, the disbanding of G7 does not appear in Rimington's autobiography.
Rimington's memoirs fail to mention in any detail the defection to Britain in 1992 of Vasili Mitrokhin, the former KGB chief archivist who arrived with vast files containing details of almost 70 years of Soviet espionage against the West. This was unquestionably the most important event in counter-espionage during Rimington's period as Director. Mitrokhin's book, co-written with Professor Christopher Andrew led to the prosecution of Michael Smith, the Soviet agent who worked for Thorn EMI. In 1999, Mitrokhin's book also triggered the exposure of Melita Norwood, the octogenarian former low-level Soviet agent. Rimington ignores the difficult questions that arise from the non-discovery or non-prosecution of this agent.
She became Director General of MI5 in 1992 and led the Service's counter-espionage work in the closing days of the Cold War. As Director General, she personally threatened former officers with the removal of their pensions if they disclosed events from the distant past, citing the Official Secrets Act. A distinguished former ambassador to Moscow, who had been at MI5 earlier in his career, was even ordered not to appear on Desert Island Discs. However, her attitude was to change dramatically when it came to own memoirs. Rimington claims, more or less singlehandedly, to have transformed a sexist male bastion into one of political correctness. This account is bitterly disputed by some of her female colleagues, who say they remember a woman principally devoted to her own personal advancement, who did little to foster other women's careers. While probably more than half of MI5's staff are women, there are still very few in senior grades. Rimington's genius lay in her understanding of 'office politics'. She claims to have helped foster a new style of MI5 officer, quite different from when she first entered the service. The modern version was younger, well travelled, spoke foreign languages, the new breed are committee orientated, comfortable with ministers and above all, safe. In other words, Rimington had rid MI5 of its experienced, but difficult old Intelligence and Security officers and replaced them with politically correct civil service clones. To quote a journalist 'Suave, non-sexist, good at presentation, but not very effective at preventing murderous atrocities'.
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