Stella Rimington, First Woman to Lead British Intelligence Agency, Dies at 90

New York Times

6 days ago

Dame Stella Rimington, the first woman to lead MI5, Britain's domestic intelligence service, and the spy chief widely regarded as the inspiration for the character 'M' in the James Bond movies, died on Sunday. She was 90.
The Security Service announced her death in a statement on Monday without specifying the cause of death. In her nearly 30-year career in MI5, she rose from a part-time typist to the first woman to lead the agency. She also became the agency's first director general to be publicly named and photographed, as part of an effort she made to demystify the secret services.
'As the first avowed female head of any intelligence agency in the world, Dame Stella broke through longstanding barriers and was a visible example of the importance of diversity in leadership,' Sir Ken McCallum, the current MI5 director general, said in a statement.
Ms. Rimington began her career at MI5 as a clerk, working for the Security Service on a part-time basis in 1965 in India. Her husband, John Rimington, worked as a civil servant in the British High Commission in New Delhi, according to her autobiography and official website. He survives her, as do their two daughters and five grandchildren.
She became a full-time staff member in 1969, returning to Britain to begin her career. She worked across the major branches of the Security Service, including countersubversion, counterespionage and counterterrorism, according to the agency. In 1992, she was named director general of MI5, becoming the first woman to hold the position.
Her appointment was also the first time a leader of Britain's security services had been named and photographed. Within a year of her appointment, MI5 published a public brochure for the first time, broadly explaining how the agency employed tactics like eavesdropping and telephone tapping but giving little operational detail, according to a BBC article from the time.
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