bout de papier, Vol. 18, No. 4 (2001-2002) — Winter 2001/2002, pp. 25–26
OPEN SECRET: THE AUTO-
BIOGRAPHY OF THE FORMER
DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF MIS by Stella
Rimington, Random House of Canada
(2001), 296 pp, $48.50
I never met Stella Rimington. We have a number of things in common but we are of a different generation. She was born in 1935 and I in 1918. However, having read her delightful book, I very much wish we had met. Even more to the point I wish she had been responsible for the British Security Service (MI 5) when I headed the R.C.M.P. Security Service. Not because I had any difficulties with, or disliked any of her male British predecessors, with whom I did a good deal of usually amicable business, but simply because I think she would have been a refreshing change at a time when different approaches were needed to the arcane, little understood business of countering espionage, terrorism and subversion and the closely related problems of maintaining national security.
She comes across strongly as intelligent and completely without pomp. She clearly is a tough-minded, very determined person who handled her unusual responsibilities as bout de papier Vol. head of MI5 with admirable aplomb and, most importantly, with a well-developed, delightful sense of humour. That she suffered from being a woman not only in the then male- dominated mindset of British intelligence and security affairs, but also during earlier aspects of her life in the United Kingdom, is regrettable but not surprising.
I was surprised when her appointment was announced that British ministers chose to appoint a woman to the job. Certainly it was to their credit that they did so, and while Canadians tend to regard themselves as more liberal in their approach to such problems, obviously the British were ahead of us in this particular respect. On this score I recall that Sir Dick White who, in the late 1950s, was one of Stella Rimington’s predecessors as Director-General of MI5 and subsequently (and more unusually) also head of MI6, replied to a letter I had sent him in the early 1990s after I learned he had been stricken with terminal cancer. He replied, “I remember you and Norman Robertson very well. From what I knew of the further developments of your former interests I realize that you have been ahead of the rest of us in limiting secrecy and becoming accountable. So with my greetings and thanks I send you my warmest congratulations”. (bout de papier Vol. 12 No. 4). Dick died shortly after sending his letter.
Given my background I was most interested in what Stella had to say abut MI5, and her stewardship of that agency and the problems entailed. What she wrote on that score was neither new nor particularly startling and, whatever the original manuscript of the book might have contained, it seems to me unlikely to have justified the extraordinary problems she had to face in getting the British authorities to agree to its publication.
I faced no such difficulties in publishing my autobiography, since at that time (1998) there were no government rules prohibiting publication of such a book. All of the previously classified information contained in my autobiography, moreover, already had been made public either by the “Commission Concerning Certain Activities of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police” created in 1981 or under the provisions of the Canadian Access to Information Act, including all of the relevant minutes of cabinet and cabinet committees. Ironically the release of this material engendered little or no public interest in the information per se. Luckily a great deal of formerly highly classified KGB archival information also became public when I was writing Closely Guarded, following the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
I found very interesting and entertaining what she revealed about her early years. Her father and mother and her brother Brian, her marriage to John Rimington, her two daughters, and the eventual sad, long drawn-out breakdown of the relationship with her husband. Indeed, I found these and some other parts of her memoirs had a melancholy air about them vaguely reminiscent of Vita Sackville-West’s writing (but certainly not her life). An outré thought which served to whet my interest in these parts of her story.
Although apparently not intended as such, her book is a welcome addition to recent security and intelligence history. But more important in my view is the valuable insights it provides into the unusual problems facing extremely capable women, such as Stella Rimington, doing such work in so-called developed societies. I found it a good read and I believe that the book will appeal to a wide readership.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 18, No. 4 (2001-2002) — Winter 2001/2002, pp. 25–26. Read the rest of this issue →
