 |
Officially, British secret services are commanded by the Prime Minister, but in fact, there's the Government Cabinet (???) who has the lead (or one of the six secretaries). The coordination of the units is done by Joint Intelligence Organization (JIO). The first official, but secret, service was the MI-6 (Military Intelligence, Department 6) called SIS (Secret Intelligence Service). SIS built a big credit in the 1st and 2nd world war, although their "branch" SOE had several blow-ups. After the war, the SIS was losing its position mainly due to the infiltration by Russian agents (K.Philby was even a candidate for the director). The SIS got its position back in the 60s, after several personal changes. The NID (Naval Intelligence Division) is a part of SIS. It was known during the First World War (mainly through R.Hall), but in later decades the service was done smaller and smaller.
The MI-5 (MI department 5), is the counterintelligence. It's working very close with the Scotland Yard and Special Branch and is aimed on watching activities in Great Britain itself. MI-5 and MI-6 were renamed to DI-5 and DI-6, but the old names are used everywhere. MI-5 works similar to the FBI. It has no executive forces and is not allowed to arrest - that is done by the Special Branch.
Special Branch, or S4, was founded in 1883 by the London Metropolitan Police to fight the Irish terrorists in the city. The office had no more than 20 employees, but their number grew on over 1,600. It's the only service with executive forces, which are missed by all other services. S4 continued to watch the terrorists till now and it is responsible for backing up the elections.
Contra actions are done by PSB (Police Special Branch) as a part of Scotland Yard.
The GCHQ (Government Communication Head-Quarters) is responsible for backing up the communication between British government and their offices. The surveillance information gained all over the world is exchanged with the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand since 1947.
The NCIS (National Criminal Intelligence Service) is aimed on fighting corruption and crime in the business. It's small, but it does involve only the best.
The last is DIS (Defense Intelligence Staff), a military intelligence, with the counter departments.
Recommended books:
[ United States of America, USA ] < entries > no entry
