Latest news with #spymaster
Yahoo
04-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Dame Stella Rimington, the first female director general of MI5, has died
Dame Stella Rimington, who was the first female director general of MI5, has died, her family has announced. She died "surrounded by her beloved family and dogs and determinedly held on to the life she loved until her last breath". Dame Stella, who was also an author, was 90. She is widely credited as the inspiration for Dame Judi Dench's M in the James Bond films. Ms Rimington was appointed director general of MI5 in 1992, taking over the following year and holding the position until she retired from the service in 1996. As the first publicly-named "spymaster", she did much to bring the service out of the shadows and explain its role to the public, including releasing historical files to the National Archives. Her appointment - announced in a brief, two-line statement with no accompanying picture - caused a media sensation, not least because she was the first woman to head any of the agencies, for which she was ill-prepared. Born Stella Whitehouse in 1935 in South Norwood, south London, she attended Edinburgh University and married diplomat John Rimington in 1963. The couple moved to India two years later when he was posted to New Delhi, and soon after, she began her 29-year career in MI5. She worked in a variety of roles, "including counter-subversion and counter-terrorism", the agency said on its website. During her time as director general, "the service took on the lead role in the fight against Irish republican terrorism," it said. In 1993, MI5 published a short booklet which, for the first time, put some facts into the public domain, while she appeared alongside then home secretary Michael Howard in an official photocall to launch it. A further step towards greater openness followed when, despite much official hand-wringing, she was given permission to deliver the prestigious BBC Dimbleby lecture on the role of the security services in a democracy. She was made a dame in the 1996 New Year's Honours list. Five years after retiring, to the fury of many of her former colleagues, her autobiography, Open Secret, was published. She later wrote a number of novels set in the world of intelligence and counter-terrorism. This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the latest version. You can receive breaking news alerts on a smartphone or tablet via the Sky News app. You can also follow us on WhatsApp and subscribe to our YouTube channel to keep up with the latest news.
New York Times
01-07-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Winning the Cold War With le Carré and Cosmopolitan Magazine
THE CIA BOOK CLUB: The Secret Mission to Win the Cold War With Forbidden Literature, by Charlie English The Central Intelligence Agency's Cold War ledger is notoriously blotted with ink of dubious shades — from exploding cigars, poisoned toothpaste, clandestine LSD experiments and the targeting of elected leaders who leaned too far left for Washington's tastes. Yet amid these grim escapades, the agency waged another, more edifying campaign: smuggling books and articles into the Eastern Bloc, thereby arming local dissidents not with weapons but with ideas. It's a story as fascinating as it is undersung. In 'The CIA Book Club,' the former Guardian journalist Charlie English delivers a riveting account centered on Poland in the turbulent 1980s, when the 'war of ideas' could exact real casualties. At the heart of the story is George Minden, a Romanian aristocrat turned spymaster and head of the C.I.A.'s book program — someone who, as English notes, could have wandered out of a John le Carré novel. Minden was genuinely convinced that a paperback in the right hands could help crack the cement of totalitarian thinking. His aim was to avoid blatant propaganda (the C.I.A.'s default mode) and not merely send books with a pro-capitalist message. In his view, 'all books — political and literary — accomplish the political task of making the ideological isolation of Eastern Europe difficult and thus frustrate one of the communists' main political objectives.' This was spycraft as soulcraft. As the trade union Solidarity established itself as the nerve center of Polish resistance, Minden's longstanding book-running efforts morphed into an operation code-named QRHELPFUL, launched in 1983. It helped the families of prisoners and refugees, sneaked in radios and printing equipment, and fueled a global propaganda push. As one underground Solidarity member put it, 'The printing presses we got from the West during martial law might be compared to machine guns or tanks during war.' Illicit text might be concealed in Tampax boxes or diapers or stashed in the ceilings of train toilets. The logistics mastermind was Miroslaw Chojecki, a nuclear physicist turned underground publisher — Solidarity's 'minister for smuggling.' At the movement's peak, demand for banned books grew so intense that Polish dissidents invented 'flying libraries': samizdat stuffed into rucksacks and passed hand-to-hand, rarely touching the ground for long. Printing presses sometimes lurked behind trapdoors, ready to spring into action at a moment's notice. And the agency's reading list? Nothing if not eclectic: '1984,' 'Animal Farm,' 'Brave New World,' issues of The New York Review of Books — but also le Carré's spy novels, stacks of Cosmopolitan magazines and the Whitney Museum's 'Three Hundred Years of American Painting.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Fox News
28-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Fox News
From Southern Belle to Spymaster; Uncovering the Tale of Elizabeth Van Lew
History is packed with untold stories, and tragically, most remain that way. For quite some time, the life of Elizabeth Van Lew–a Southern belle turned revolutionary spymaster–was among them, until FOX Business correspondent Gerri Willis discovered her story while searching for something to inspire young women during the COVID lockdown. Today, Gerri reveals how, after five years of painstaking research, she uncovered a fascinating tale full of danger, political intrigue, and courage — one she is proud to present in her book, Lincoln's Lady Spymaster: The Untold Story of the Abolitionist Southern Belle Who Helped Win the Civil War . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit
Fox News
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Fox News
One Bad A** American Woman
Gerri Willis, anchor and personal finance reporter for FOX Business, has dedicated recent years to researching remarkable American women whom her younger colleagues can admire. In her exploration, she discovered Elizabeth Van Lew, a young spymaster for the Union Army during the Civil War. Gerri and Kennedy discuss her new book, Lincoln's Lady Spymaster, sharing the inspiration behind her decision to share this story and what's next! Follow Kennedy on Twitter: @KennedyNation Kennedy Now Available on YouTube: Follow on TikTok: Join Kennedy for Happy Hour on Fridays! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit
