Guest post from Mike Murtagh.

I left this story out of Spying On The Kremlin because it was too short, in my opinion, but I hope it gives you a smile! There are several such anecdotes that failed to make the cut for the final manuscript that was submitted to Pen & Sword, not generally on grounds of lack of quality. It was usually because I either thought they might be too short to take up a whole page or I didn’t think they were intrinsically interesting or I didn’t think they necessarily represented any sort of turning point or stage in my personal development.

When I joined the FCO from the RAF, it was straight from 5 years working in classified areas, in conjunction with FCO colleagues, in what was deemed a hard and hostile intelligence environment in Moscow. Earlier in my RAF career, I’d been taught the Russian language to Linguist level to work against the Warsaw Pact on SIGINT (Signals Intelligence) duties in Berlin.

I was posted initially to China/Hong Kong Dept, then to Counter-Proliferation Dept and finally to the Overseas Security Dept in the FCO. As part of my job there, I had to liaise closely with the Security Agencies, the Security Service and Secret Intelligence Service – better known as MI5 and MI6. Actually, that was also true to perhaps a lesser extent in my previous Depts.

I had entertained ideas of joining one of the Agencies and had, in fact, applied unsuccessfully to join the Security Service in its first open competition. When I broached the possibility of applying for SIS, friends in the organisation said that I was too old to be a Desk Officer, much to my disappointment. While in the FCO, I also enquired about a possible secondment to GCHQ but the FCO refused to pay for me to work there. Whether in the RAF or FCO, I was always trying to find the more interesting posting possibilities for which to apply!

Obviously, MI6 interests and FCO Overseas Security interests overlapped to a certain extent. As a result, we were required to work in consultation and co-operation with MI6 Desk Officers, as and when necessary.

One day, I was required to discuss a matter in person, rather than over the ’Batphone’, which was our secure phone line, with one of my MI6 contacts, so I walked along the Embankment and over Vauxhall Bridge to their HQ on the South Bank. Not for nothing is it sometimes referred to as ‘The Mighty Wurlitzer’! Check out the photo of it and you’ll get the idea!

Anyway, my contact and I conducted and concluded our business and she walked me to the lifts. As we walked, our conversation turned away from business to office gossip. I had a bit of slightly spicy gossip to impart. As we reached the lifts, I grabbed her arm and looked around us in a conspiratorial way as I asked, ‘Can you keep a secret?’ She just rolled her eyes and I had to laugh!

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