Generation of spies put at risk
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Your support makes all the difference.A WHOLE generation of spies has been identified in the list posted on the Internet in one of the gravest breaches of security suffered by Britain's intelligence services.
Some will be in danger because of the revelations. Although the world's intelligence agencies probably knew most of the names already, criminal or terrorist groups will have been able to build up a fairly comprehensive view of the MI6 structure. Anyone who has had close links with these people, either personally or professionally, may also be at risk.
About 90 per cent of the names disclosed are from the official Diplomatic Service List. The names of the current and previous heads of the organisation - referred to by their colleagues as "C" - are already known. Eight of the names were disclosed last September when Richard Tomlinson left computer files at a Geneva Internet cafe. They included several departmental heads.
While the Foreign Office said that it was pure "fantasy" that some of the named people worked for MI6, it appears that many do - thus "blowing" the cover of many MI6 officers.
Some are serving in sensitive postings abroad, including embassies in Moscow, Washington and Belgrade. A few names are not on the Diplomatic Service List but are undoubtedly MI6 officers. Their absence from the list suggests they are deep-cover officers, and their naming will be particularly painful for the service. They will almost certainly have to be brought home.
One senior named official worked during the late Eighties, trying to counter the growing influence of the Irish-American lobby, which was trying to encourage equal opportunity policies in American firms operating in Ulster.
One officer was known as an Iraqi expert attached to a British embassy in the Middle East. Another was in Belgrade during the war in Bosnia. One is well-known in London as one of the "official" faces of MI6.
About a third of those identified are from the top echelon of the service in the days when Tomlinson was a serving officer. Many are now retired or in private employment. Some are or were well-known in their local communities. Some were working in the most senior posts and were either publicly identified or so well-known that it made no sense to regard their identities as secret anyway.
Others are misidentified, according to British officials. However, it is clear to anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the organisation that many of the names are correct.
For anyone with time to spare, it is not just the names that matter but their jobs and postings, which were also included on the list.
By cross-referring to their posts in various embassies, a picture of the MI6 structure abroad can be built up, including the location of stations, the number of people in each and the cover jobs used.
That can be used to iden- tify other figures - perhaps wrongly in some cases - who will also be regarded as guilty by association.
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