The intelligence lobby before the intelligence lobby: MI5 Director General Stella Rimington and the hunt for the new legitimacy

ABSTRACT In 1991 John Major’s government broke with precedent and named the incoming head of MI5, Stella Rimington. In so doing, Major gave Rimington a public profile, and a platform. She used both to establish a new narrative concerning MI5 its work and its importance in a post-Soviet world, in effect seeking renewed legitimacy. Rimington’s significance, mirroring that of women in intelligence in general, remains under-studied. This article examines her decision to embrace her public profile, how she utilised it, and the press reaction. It argues that she proved an early and effective advocate for intelligence, securing in important quarters the legitimacy she sought.


Introduction
It is frequently observed that successive British governments considered intelligence to be a topic unfit for public debate.Austen Chamberlain declared in Parliament in 1924 that 'it is of the essence of a Secret Service that it must be secret'. 1In his autobiography, former Prime Minister Harold Wilson included a splendidly short chapter on 'the Prime Minister and National Security', which notes that Prime Minister's answers from the dispatch box on matters of security 'may be regarded as uniformly uninformative', before concluding the roughly page-long discourse by noting that there was 'no further information that can usefully or properly be added before bringing this chapter to an end'. 2 Similarly, the agencies eschewed the spotlight.For the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), as R. Gerald Hughes notes, 'secrecy was at once an article of faith and a matter of policy'. 3But not withstanding government desire or service ethos the secrecy surrounding British intelligence was never absolute.A steady trickle of accounts and insight intermittently flowed from the archives, the desks of retired officers, whistle-blowers and traitors, and from journalists' confidential sources.The agencies and their political masters also had an eye to the management of intelligence history and the perception of the intelligence agencies, periodically co-opting or cooperating with friendly reporters and authors to pen appropriate copy. 4Parliamentarians occasionally complained that members of the press had better access to the heads of agency than they did. 5evertheless, given the limits of the agencies' capacity to control their own image, or of successive governments' willingness to support open and frank discussion about secret service and its function in a democracy, the facts of intelligence work were frequently subsumed by fiction or skewed by the lurid details that accompanied the scandals that inevitably shadow espionage. 6The services occasionally leaned into the myths surrounding their work.The former Director SIS, or 'C', Colin McColl once described James Bond as the 'best recruiting sergeant in the world'. 7But, as the Cold War neared its end in the late 1980s, the accumulated weight of controversies combined with a renewed willingness to question the legitimacy of the secret state presented a potent challenge to its traditional opacity.The changing global security architecture was producing radical changes in intelligence agencies in the early 1990s, the decision to name her as the incoming DG.It then examines how she utilised her platform to communicate her case for both the necessity of MI5 in the 1990s, but also its democratic legitimacy.It pays particular attention to the Dimbleby lecture in 1994, where she made her case directly and publicly.It examines how the media reacted to her appointment and her engagements, illustrating that at the outset it was concerned with trivia, frequently extremely gendered, and laden with assumptions about intelligence work derived from fiction.However, the persistence and quality of her engagement led to an evolution of her public image, and by extension that of her service; by her retirement she was, in sections of the press, a shorthand for authority and competence.Building upon Lashmar's idea of the emerging 'intelligence lobby', it argues that she was an effective advocate for intelligence in a democratic society before years before the amorphous 'lobby' he describes.However, openness had its limits, particularly the omission of technology from her characterisation of intelligence work.And though she dispelled some myths about intelligence work, she left others in place, particularly those that framed intelligence as human and analogue.This at a point where intelligence work was on the cusp of a digital revolution.

Major, Rimington, and a slightly less secret service
By the late 1980s the movement towards a increased openness concerning the secret state had gathered considerable momentum.Some revelations flowed in the wake of significant events.For instance, the fallout from the Falklands War and the ensuing Franks Report cast light on the central intelligence machinery. 14A variety of legal challenges had rendered the existence of British intelligence in a form of legal Neverland implausible. 15MI5 was placed on the statute books in 1989 with the Security Service Act; SIS and GCHQ followed in 1994 with the Intelligence Services Act, which also established an oversight committee of Parliamentarians, the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), which would scrutinise the agencies and publish reports.But openness was also driven by principle.A report of the Security Commission had recommended avowal of the Secret Intelligence Service in 1981. 16Indeed, the idea that British intelligence should be less secret had achieved a relatively broad level of consensus by the time Stella Rimington was appointed.In Parliament, key figures in John Major's government drove changes to the laws on official secrecy.Notable among them was William Waldegrave who pushed into law his Open Government Initiative, enabling the transfer of intelligence related material to the national archives under the '30 year rule'. 17But he was not alone: officials recall Douglas Hurd, then Foreign Secretary, as supporting greater openness. 18hey were joined by the Lord Chancellor James Mackay.Observing the period, Peter Hennessy wrote that a case could be made 'for Major as the most open-government minded of all [the then] eleven postwar British premiers . . .'. 19 As the 80s yielded to the 90s, change was afoot, and it was welcomed by many.
The intelligence agencies were by no means passive observers in this.They were closely involved in the process of crafting the acts, and were by and large supportive of the move to avowal and the associated legal framework which clarified for them and the public their powers and their roles.Entrants to MI5 recall their puzzlement at elements of their training, which included how to negotiate their way out of trouble with local police forces who disturbed them on operations to enter properties to search them or plant devices. 20It became, they recalled, more of a potent issue as they progressed through their career through the 1980s, undertaking many risky operations against PIRA, that the operations they were conducting had no real foundation in law. 21To many, the organisation felt, if not antiquated, at least behind the times.So increasingly officers pushed for change, for modernisation, including legislation, and to a more considered approach to contacts with the media. 22Indeed, in MI5, dedicated officers briefed trusted journalists in significant detail on big operations. 23Similarly, SIS was considering its future.Its budget was slashed following the fall of the Berlin Wall.What exactly intelligence was for, without the existential threat of the USSR, was a not infrequent topic of conversation: Colin McColl was reportedly asked by a colleague in Whitehall, 'Are you still here?'. 24Determined that he was, and would remain, he sought to ensure his service was adapting to the new environment.He established an advisory panel within the service to examine issues including avowal and oversight.As a member of the panel recalled, he wished to get ahead of the curve, judging that engaging with these matters would stand the service in good stead with parliamentarians. 25Like their counterparts in MI5, the younger generation of spooks were far more willing to embrace moves toward legislation, and a degree of oversight. 26And, again, mirroring their colleagues across the river, SIS devoted more time and effort to engaging with the press with the objective, as an officer recalled, of educating them away from popular misconceptions, and 'to challenge [the] assumptions of chattering classes'. 27bove them, in government, John Major was an ally to those advocating for legislation, oversight, and a change of culture.In 1994 he addressed the staff of MI5 at their renovated headquarters at Thames House.He remarked on the evolution of the Service, praising the officers for their contributions to British security in the face of evolving threats. 28But a considerable portion of his remarks also dwelt on the Service's new profile.This applied within government: Staples of MI5's corporate identity were going, he noted: 'no longer will the notepaper be headed "Box 500".Instead -and I dread to think how many committees must have laboured over this -the paper will be headed "The Security Service"'. 29But it also applied with the public at large.The Service had 'a role that is now more widely recognised thanks to greater openness', declared the Prime Minister.'For far too long', he noted, 'the image of the Service was damaged by needless secrecy, which encouraged the fantasists to believe every lurid tale and to neglect real achievements'. 30'Stella has of course played a leading role in promoting greater openness about the work of the Service'; the transition to being a more outward facing organisation, Major glowed, 'has owed much to Stella Rimington's contribution'. 31imington's journey to this point started with her recruitment to MI5 in 1969.Over the course of her career she worked, in secret, on a variety of issues and areas relating to the key threats of the high-Cold War. 32She frequently broke new ground: the first woman to lead MI5; before then the first woman to head a Service branch, Branch FX, counter-terrorism; before then she was the first woman to be trained as an agent handler in the service. 33She became DG in 1992 and stayed in post until 1996.Despite cutting her teeth at the height of tensions with the USSR she was no relic of the Cold War. 34Under her leadership MI5 took on a major new role, that of leading operations against Irish related terrorism, establishing itself as an organisation with a clear purpose for the post-Cold War world.Expanding and securing the organisation's role in the turbulent post-Cold War world was one aspect of her legacy.Another, as John Major underlined in 1994, was her role in creating a more public profile for the agency.Here, again, she broke new ground.As the MI5's website notes, she 'instituted a policy of greater public openness that included the beginning of an ongoing programme of releasing historical Service files to the National Archives'. 35Later, in 2001, she published her autobiography, Open Secret, something no DG had done since Percy Sillitoe published his in 1955.And, breaking the norm that has been established in 1909 when Vernon Kell took charge of the Home Branch of the Secret Service Bureau, she was the first DG to be officially named and acknowledged by the government of the day.
Her emergence as a public figure belied the years she had spent in the shadows.And despite steadily climb through MI5 -displaying, as her colleague and successor Sir Stephen Lander noted, confidence, ease of manner, and decisiveness 36 -there was little indication that she would embrace a public profile.Spooks seldom crave the limelight.Her journey to becoming a public figure is reasonably well documented, particularly by Christopher Andrew in his authorised history of the Security Service, Defence of the Realm.It was not her preference or decision.In fact, the decision to publicise the appointment was made by the Home Secretary and his advisers, Rimington's predecessor as DG, Sir Patrick Walker, and approved by the Prime Minister, John Major. 37The then Home Secretary Kenneth Baker announced her appointment on 16 December 1991. 38Rimington was among the last to know, objected, but eventually accepted the decision as 'fait accompli'. 39But from then on, as was apparent in the praise subsequently heaped on her by the Prime Minister, she embraced the opportunities afforded by her new profile.Her conversion to openness was timely, but, for the service which she led, it was also deft.
British intelligence during the Cold War existed in something of a twilight zone, being both very secret and widely reported.The names of previous DGs were common currency, not infrequently reported in the press, likewise the various C's.But the culture of secrecy bred myths and mistrust.The myths loomed, quite naturally, in the public mind, but they also manifested within Whitehall where, traditionally and historically, mention of the intelligence services by name was bordering on taboo.(Documents referred to 'Box 500', or 'our Friends'.)What exactly intelligence was for and what the intelligence agencies did remained opaque for many.Fiction carried some of the load.But what everyone knew, within and without government, was that scandal seemed to stalk British intelligence.Indeed, over the 1970s, 80s, and on into the 1990s, the reputation of MI5 had been called into question not infrequently in Parliament.MPs and Peers noted and debated scandals that included, to name a few, the Spycatcher affair, that generated calls within Parliament for greater accountability 40 ; the alleged interference of MI5 in democratic politics, the so called Wilson Plot, later documented in The Pencourt File 41 ; and surveillance of left wing political figures and activists campaigning against nuclear weapons. 42A subtext to many of these scandals, and a long held view among some on the Labour benches, was the (damning) judgement, stated by Lord Jenkins of Putney, in January 1986, that 'the record suggests that the security services judge the Conservative Party to be virtually synonymous with the state and the Labour Party to be naturally subversive'. 43ispelling or dampening such views in government was a priority for a service that wanted not only to survive but also to increase its responsibilities in an age without an overarching, powerful subversive adversary.Rimington observed that she could utilise the increased openness that her public appointment had afforded her as a lever to help jettison many of the more corrosive and unhelpful misapprehensions or anachronisms, in government and for the public at large.So, with like-minded colleagues, she set about garnering support and reassuring relevant parties that MI5 had not gone rogue, and was still necessary.Crucial to this was gaining the confidence of the Parliamentarians on the newly formed Intelligence and Security Committee.She courted and reassured the Committee on both the competence and the respectability of her service. 44Indeed, the ISC's first Annual Report, published in 1996 concerning matters relating to 1995, betrays a high level of confidence in MI5, recommending that it undertake some responsibility for countering organised crime in the UK, in addition to its traditional areas of work. 45Likewise, by her retirement, she had tempered some of the suspicion of the Labour party, at least among those on the shadow front bench. 46Jack Straw, then Shadow Home Secretary, noted in the Commons Labour's support for expanding the MI5's responsibilities, describing it as 'plainly sensible, given the reduction in its other tasks, for its skills and resources to be used'. 47imington also used her profile to offer the public a clearer understanding of MI5's work.Andrew, in his authorised history, describes her approach as progressive.First, she introduced MI5 more formally to the public by publishing a booklet on the Service and its work, presenting it to the press, and taking their questions. 48Then, she began interacting more frequently with the media, giving offthe-record briefings. 49After a year or so she concluded that the 'continuing, controlled contact with senior editors and others is helping to shape a better informed and more considered attitude to the Service in the more responsible quarters of the media'. 50By 1994 she had graduated from briefings and off-the-record lunches to offering a more direct line to the British public.Most notably, she addressed the British public with her BBC Dimbleby Lecture, addressing 'Security and Democracy: Is there a conflict'. 51In post, she became a public figure in a way previously unimaginable for British spy chiefs.This prompted some raised eyebrows from colleagues.Some thought her too intent on courting the press and publicity, including subsequent DG, Eliza Manningham-Buller who noted in an interview that she was 'struck by Rimington's concern for what she called the Service's "shop window"'. 52er sustained public engagement rendered her one of the best-known intelligence figures in the UK.For many years her name would be one of the few associated with the contemporary world of British intelligence that was neither fictional, published in relation to an age-old scandal or controversy, nor male.Frequently, she was literally the face of British intelligence.Articles and commentary on security matters featured her photograph, even if they were concerned with SIS or GCHQ.Her very newness made her an object of fascination to the British press, which diligently engaged with her briefings and her messages about the modern MI5 and the openness agenda, but which also tended to sensationalise and trivialise.Nevertheless, she persisted throughout her career and beyond to demystify the work of her service, and to remove it from the realms of fantasy and fiction.(Even in her own fiction, penned in retirement, the protagonist, Liz Carlyle, is clearly framed to be the antithesis of Bond in many ways, being both scrupulous about legal process and abstemious in her personal tastes.)As she noted in her autobiography, Open Secret, excessive secrecy harms the position of our vital security services rather than protecting it.Being more open is a risk that has to be taken in the 21 st century, if the support and understanding of the public are to be obtained. 53

Breaking the mould
In his authorised history, Andrew uncovered a note in which Rimington outlines her desire to change perceptions of the organisation that she now led: ' . . .Our detractors who accuse us of being conservative, old fashioned, Cold War warriors are a very long way from the truth.We would like to see such myths blown away'. 54Initially, taking on this task had to occur amidst the hubbub surrounding her naming.'Unprecedented' was an adjective frequently employed in the wake of her appointment.But the process itself went some way to supporting her objective.There was broad consensus that it had set a precedent, that times had changed.Richard Norton-Taylor remarked in the Guardian, 'it would have been inconceivable had Mrs Thatcher still been prime minister.For her, secrecy was an important tool of Government, and essential as far as the security and intelligence services were concerned'. 55Others commented on the distinction between Rimington and the chiefs of MI5's sister services, SIS and GCHQ, one speculating that they refused to publish their photographs because they wanted to send a message that they took secrecy seriously. 56Others, sceptical, like Niall Ferguson commentating in The Telegraph, suggested Major implemented his reforms merely to 'pay lip service to open government'. 57But, elsewhere the changes were applauded.Jonathan Aitken described the announcement as 'a small, refreshing blast on the trumpet of freedom of information'. 58Michael Evans in The Times noted that naming of the DG of MI5 was a step 'in line with its changed status' as a statutory agency, avowed by the 1989 act. 59By and large, the traditionalists, some of whom longed for the return of a past where secrets could, apparently, be kept, seemed out of step.Few seriously disputed that it was a clear, broadly welcome, break with the past.Major and his allies in pursuing greater openness had crossed the Rubicon, and retreating from this position would be difficult. 60qually newsworthy, though, for the press was that a woman was now DG.This alone made her fascinating, well worthy of being doorstepped or surreptitiously photographed. 61The broadsheetsthe Times, Independent, Guardian, Telegraph -each carried an article on 17 December 1991 noting the appointment that were variations on the theme of 'Woman to be head of MI5 spycatchers'. 62The Daily Telegraph, in a piece titled 'mum's the word at MI5', noted that the decision to name the head of service was 'daring, but 'more daring still, the Government has given the job to a woman'. 63Each also carried a brief biographical vignette: that she had married, but was now separated from John Rimington; that she had served for 22 years in MI5 in a variety of roles; that she would receive a salary of £77,500.The Times noted that 'the choice of a woman was being presented as the latest example of the prime minister's desire to enhance the role of women in society'. 64And, of course, the fact that a woman was for the first time heading one of Britain's intelligence agencies was newsworthy. 65But the prominence given to this detail overshadowed in volume and prominence any discussion of the challenges that she would face in the role, or the evolving nature of security in the 1990s.The tone of the reporting was frequently primed for an audience that was unaware of the history of women working at a senior (or, indeed, any) level in the intelligence services, and whose perspective of security work was coloured by rumours, scandals, and fiction.The response to her appointment suggested that she was indeed correct in her diagnosis that preconceptions needed to be challenged if MI5 was to be given a fair hearing.
Rimington enjoyed considerable latitude in making her case, as well as attention.Others in the service enjoyed no such freedom.Indeed, she 'disapproved of all other members of the Service, past or present, making public appearances and vetoed a BBC invitation to her predecessor, Sir Patrick Walker, to appear on Desert Island Discs.' 66 To the press, and through them the public she was the primary, visible manifestation of Major's policy of openness in matters of intelligence, the exception to the still largely veiled secret state.This, with the support of colleagues, allowed her considerable scope to seek the new legitimacy that MI5 required given that the collapse of the Soviet Union had robbed it of its decades-long enemy.She worked to develop relations with the press, and with the public in direct engagement events.She argued that MI5 was a legitimate, indeed vital organisation for the maintenance of British security because the threats that Britons faced at home and abroad were evolving.The service was legally accountable.The legal framework was not perfect, but was an adequate solution to the challenge of maintaining secret services in a democratic society.In so doing, she established herself as a powerful advocate of her service, fighting for its prerogatives publicly in ways that other service chiefs and, indeed, most Whitehall mandarins could not.

Making the case
During her time in post as DG three moments stand out as marked changes in how MI5 engaged with the public.The first was the decision to name her as DG.The second was the decision to engage more directly with the media, including, initially, the decision to allow the press to photograph her, taken contrary to the advice of her security officials.(Her initial appointment had not been accompanied with a photograph.The Times skewered the decision, accompanying a piece on the development of the security services with a picture of Vadim Bakatin, the Chief of the KGB, noting that it was not a picture of Mrs Rimington because the government would not supply one. 67) This was one instance of her taking greater control of her own, and by extension the Service's, public image.But it was only an element of her decision to engage more directly with the press, as mediators of MI5's work to the British public, which included the publication of booklets about MI5's work, and briefings both on and off the record. 68The third was her first major public engagement, 12 June 1994, delivering the Richard Dimbleby lecture on the subject of 'Security and Democracy is there a conflict?',this on national television, BBC1. 69o use Manningham-Buller's phrase, the speech went a long way towards curating's MI5's 'shop window'.However, it was also important as an intervention against its detractors.By 1994 MI5 was not as secret as it had been.But its public profile remained largely defined by three things: scandals, Cold War counterespionage, and fiction.This was illustrated with characteristic directness by the veteran investigative journalist Richard Ingrams.Following the announcement that the 1994 lecture was to be delivered by the DG he noted that it was 'hard to see what purpose will be served'.Mrs Rimington, he went on, 'provided over a discredited organisation -a spy system which . . .had failed to catch a single spy during the course of the Cold War and which had in Northern Ireland been involved in any number of scandals and cover-ups'. 70Rimington 'may think that by coming out into the open she can reassure us that all is now well.I doubt it'. 71Many on the British left may, like Ingrams, have been cynical about the organisation's capability, its mission, or the integrity of its officers.But although elements of the cynicism were clearly well founded, it was also based in something of an information vacuum about the bulk of MI5's Cold War work.Much of what the commentariat had was the record of public scandal or failure, with the background filled by fiction.
This latter point was a concern for many.Douglas Hurd, then Home Secretary, for instance, had noted several years previously when debating the Security Service Act in parliament: I am well aware that it is hampered by the fiction which envelops it.I have nothing against the thriller as an art form, but those who unwittingly get their ideas of the Security Service from Sapper, Le Carré or Deighton will not bring much understanding to the Bill. 72llowing Rimington's appointment,Michael Evans, writing in The Times, on the topic of 'why do we still need spies?' underlined the seeming outdatedness of the whole affair drawing on fictional tropes.'Certainly the whole concept of the spy game -East versus West, good guys against the bad guys -sounds outdated', he noted, 73 'the public is still captivated by the novels of Le Carré, Deighton, and Fleming'. 74Given the purchase of these ideas, 'Mrs Rimington will struggle to revamp the image of the security service'. 75Upon the announcement of the speech, in February 1994, as if to prove the point, many commentators did not miss an opportunity to mention James Bond in any article concerning British intelligence. 76Others satirised the latest battleground of the spy wars: the lecture lectern. 77Rimington's speech was a response to the lingering and enduring cynicism about MI5, but it also sought to insert a dose of realism into the general understanding of intelligence work.The service needed to craft its own story about itself -and, of course, Rimington was confident that it had a good story to tell.
This much is clear from the opening gambit of her public address in 1994: As a nation we have always been fascinated by the so-called 'secret services'.English literature contains a long line of spy fiction from Kipling's Kim through John Buchan to John Le Carré, and many more besides.It is exciting stuff and has led to the creation of many myths -and some lurid speculation -about our work. 78e writers she chose to highlight had known the secret world or military service, but in a very different age: in the empire, during world wars, or the high Cold War. 79(All men too, of course, as were the protagonists of intelligence adventures in their novels, Kim, Hannay, Smiley.)Their fictional escapades, she noted, were instrumental in propagating several myths.These ranged from the minor, how Smiley's work conflated the duties of MI5 and the SIS, to the more significant, how Ian Fleming's Bond sensationalised intelligence, suggesting it was primarily about sex and violence. 80In setting out to 'shed some daylight', she sought to normalise MI5.In the 1990s it was no longer the boys club in which many popular authors had cut their teeth and set their heroes -Fleming had served in Naval intelligence during the Second World War, Le Carré in both MI5 and SIS in the early Cold War -now, Rimington informed her audience, 'about half of us are female and half are under 40'. 81Nor did the day to day life of the intelligence officer feature the swashbuckling character of the earliest recruits when 'staff had to show that they could make notes on their shirt cuff while cantering on horseback'. 82The first step to legitimacy was to dispel myths, to break from the past and from the page.'Fiction', she noted, 'may turn out to be more fun than the reality'. 83MI5's real work may frequently be unexciting, but it was serious, and it remained necessary.
Complementing her critique of spy fiction was the engagement with the various exposes that had, over the years, painted an unflattering portrait of MI5 and how it worked.These, as discussed above, had been staples of parliamentary discussion on intelligence and security.But they also, frequently, featured in sensational (sometimes extremely popular) books. 84Both created a perception that MI5 was a law unto itself.It was an extremely problematic perception for a DG who wished not only to cast a new image of a modern, democratically accountable service, but also to expand its responsibilities.It was also problematic operationally.MI5 needed potential informants to trust that they were not the KGB, but a modern and accountable service.So, directly countering a common preconception, she stressed that the service did not monitor high-profile people on the 'off chance' that they might pose a link; nor had they police powers. 85She took on the fallout from Peter Wright, and the Spycatcher scandal.Wright caught his readers' imaginations with his depiction of the freewheeling security services operating with little oversight, and with scandalous accusations of Service overreach into democratic politics.Rimmington, firmly stated, that under her leadership, 'there is no group of "mavericks" in our Service pursuing some private agenda of their own'. 86Quite the contrary, their work was highly regulated.And this was welcome.Officers of the Security Service believed 'deeply that, as a matter of principle, the very serious step of intruding into people's private lives must be strictly limited to what is unavoidable in the interests of national security and must, of course, be properly authorised'. 87She herself, Rimington reminded the audience, was 'personally responsible under the Act for ensuring that the Service remains independent of any party political influence, and that it does nothing beyond what is permitted under the [1989] Act'. 88Her message was integrity, accountability, legality, seriousness, ordinariness, and a desire for greater openness.Legitimacy, ultimately, required informed consent or forbearance on the part of the British public, and for this they needed to be informed.Key to this was the press: 'if the journalist is to carry out his role successfully, he must have some basic facts at his disposal'. 89he reaction to her presentation was varied.For The Economist the event was worthy of note, but not of analysis.Their two-sentence snippet underlining that this was the 'first-ever television address by a British secret-service chief', and that she had revealed that nearly half of the Service's budget was dedicated to Irish related counter terrorism. 90The Financial Times devoted a section of its front page to the event, but offered a summary rather than any analysis. 91The left-leaning press devoted more column inches, betraying the British left's long-held suspicion of and cynicism towards the security services, and a continued tendency to anchor discussions of intelligence work in fictional waters.The Independent in its editorial offered a broadly positive appraisal, considering the move to put Rimington on television 'inspired'. 92But it also reminded its readers that British intelligence was still too secretive and that it was now up to Parliament to reinforce the DG's reassurances.It pulled no punches in its commentary: both Rupert Allason (more widely known as Nigel West) and the Weasel in their columns offered harsh appraisals.'It was all a terrible disappointment to those brought up on James Bond and John le Carré . . .They don't even kill anyone any more, apparently', lamented the Weasel. 93Both were critical of the delivery, with more than a hint of sexism.The former opened his column by congratulating the DG on 'your graduation from the Lady Di School of Media Presentation'. 94The latter noting that 'It's not so much that she didn't say anything, it's more the way she didn't say it.With her shoulder-padded jacket, and her plodding delivery, she resembled the manager of a local DSS office giving a pep talk to new recruits'. 95But Allason was also critical of MI5's growing role in the post-Cold War British security architecture. 96The veteran commentator on British intelligence detected an organisation infringing in delicate matters to which it was not well suited, particularly in Northern Ireland.This was a bureaucratic power grab: 'Does MI5 really need to be involved at all?'. 97The entire affair was political, but not in the sense intended by Rimington, rather it constituted another skirmish in a Whitehall bureaucratic battle: 'So mightn't your TV disclosure be interpreted as yet another case of "Minister, we're doing frightfully well . . .I wish I could tell you how well, but it's so secret"?'. 98The Guardian carried a clutch of articles, stretching out over a week after the address, much of which was critical.For instance, almost a week after the lecture John Naughton 'wondered why the BBC should give MI5 a platform to launder its squalid image', going on to note that 'until Mrs Rimington and her monkeys are exposed to proper parliamentary scrutiny then everything she says on the subject [of oversight and accountability] out to be taken with a barrowload of salt'. 99he right-leaning press varied in its coverage.Writing in The Telegraph, Auberon Waugh suggested that the entire ploy of televising a speech by the MI5 DG was a plot managed by a far more secretive and sinister organisation -one then managed by Rimington's husband -the Health and Safety Executive. 100But it also carried the story on its front page, offering a direct and positive assessment of the speech, its significance, and the trajectory of MI5's development. 101The Times offered a serious and superficial assessment.One element of its coverage was its editorial.It underlined the significance of the event, paying tribute to Rimington, noting she 'deserves additional credit for using the lecture so intelligently to address the complex questions which the reform of the security services has raised'. 102Echoing the lecture, it noted that dispelling the mythology, the 'sinister image of the intelligence world perpetuated by John le Carré's novel and Peter Wright's lurid allegations' was the right thing to do. 103She was right to underline that the secret state could not work completely in the light and that trust between the service and the public was vital.Concluding, The Times noted that Rimington's remarks should be a foundation stone of that new compact between the public and its most secret servants'. 104But contrasting this measured assessment was an article exploring Rimington's fashion choices, 'spycatcher with a secret style'.It included several fashion commentators' thoughts on the DG's ensemble, and analyses of her choices.Clearly, the novelty of a woman DG had not yet dissipated by this point, contrasting with the clear implication generally conveyed by the newspaper that she was a serious professional doing a necessary job managing real threats.Nevertheless, despite the sexism of focusing so heavily on clothes rather than the substance of her talk, the Times offers what from a particular perspective amounted to an endorsement for its target readership: 'Her style choices uncannily resemble those of that other iron lady, Baroness Thatcher'. 105id Rimington succeed in changing the tone and establishing a new legitimacy?Not immediately, nor fully.By the point of her retirement, however, the narrative surrounding MI5 had evolved.And Rimington continued to encourage its evolution.She maintained what would have been from the perspective of her predecessors an intolerable public profile. 106The Dimbleby lecture was not her only public lecture in post.She also addressed the police in the annual James Smart lecture, also in 1994.In a discourse that dwelt on the importance of the cooperation between the police and MI5 (something she also stressed in an address to the English Speaking Union, in October 1995) she returned to the themes of regulation, legislation, and accountability. 107Three principles guided its work, she noted: the rule of law, proportionality and respect for individual liberties, and appropriate authorisation for intrusion.'And it goes without saying', she reminded the audience, 'that we wholeheartedly support the mechanisms for independent oversight'. 108These themes remained consistent in her public statements and discussions during her tenure and following her retirement.As noted above, it was a point stressed in her autobiography.In more recent interviews, she returned to the theme, stressing in one, that 'you have to believe that for all its weaknesses, our democratic system is worth protecting'. 109here remained an element of continuity in how she, and intelligence work, were portrayed.Fiction and legacy scandals remained too tempting for many editors.Her picture was placed, for instance, in features on fictional intelligence work.In 1995, it starred alongside those of Sean Connery's Bond, Michael Caine's Harry Palmer, the double-agent George Blake, and Christine Keeler in The Telegraph, to mark the release of the latest in the Bond franchise, Goldeneye.The piece purports to discuss spying, but does little to disaggregate the factual from the fictional. 110evertheless there was an increase in the sophistication of the discussion of intelligence within the British media.The sensational stories were more frequently supplemented by more coverage of substantive security issues.The DG featured in reportage on MI5's turf wars with the police, controversies over unprevented terrorist attacks, discussion of proposed legislative changes, the work of the newly established oversight, the ISC, and the evolving world of digital espionage. 111This was largely enabled by the increased volume of accurate and substantive data available from official sources on intelligence and security matters.The tenor of the coverage indicates that her efforts to establish a new legitimacy for MI5 had achieved some success, though perhaps stopped short of being fully transformative.
The accession of Stephen Lander to the role of DG offered the British press the opportunity to reflect on Rimington's significance.The evolution of the tone of the coverage in the press compared to that which greeted her appointment is notable.It is perhaps a testament to her success in working to normalise the narrative surrounding intelligence that very little sustained reflection occurred.In contrast to the splash Rimington had made following her announcement in 1991 Lander's appointment was noted in more limited and serious tones.(Although, equally, this served to underline the extent to which gender impacted the original coverage of Rimington: no one felt compelled to emphasise that a man would now lead Britain's spooks.)Fewer articles in the British press focused on the transition; and fewer of those explored it, or him, in depth. 112Exceptions included The Times which offered a reasonably detailed summary of his academic background and his rise through ranks in MI5. 113The Guardian also delved into his career, and the challenges he would face in post. 114Instead, the general thrust focused on matters of relative substance: the controversy over his role in managing counter terrorism operations during the 'death on the rock' controversy in Gibraltar 115 ; the bureaucratic competition between the police and the Security Service 116 ; the Service's new role in countering organised crime 117 ; the continued threat of terrorism and espionage 118 ; and whether or not Britain's arrangements for intelligence oversight were adequate. 119Equally, the inclination to frame discussions of the MI5 through the prism of fiction had dissipated somewhat, compared to 1991.A notable, though telling, exception was David Rose, writing in the Guardian, who wrote that 'Spies sneak in to find Smiley's world changed'. 120The debate, is seems, had matured.Perhaps given the accumulated weight and cultural resonance of spy fiction and spy scandals, as well as the necessary secrecy that still obscured most intelligence work, this was as much as Rimington could have hoped for.

Establishing the new normal
Rimington retired with MI5's future secure.She oversaw several transitions.Some concerned the responsibilities of her service, which expanded.Others concerned its image.Perhaps the most transformational elements in this regard related, first, to the precedent she set concerning the public profile and public engagement of intelligence agencies, particularly intelligence chiefs, and second, the profile of women in British intelligence -or, at least, a particular woman.On the latter point, the nature of the coverage of Rimington as an intelligence chief, rather than as a woman intelligence chief, evolved over her time in office.The legacy, gendered tone pieces remained -Quentin Letts, for instance, commenting on the new bar of choice for Britain's spooks following their change of headquarters, chose to quote the alleged statement of a bar tender who had been shown a picture of the DG: 'She likes to sit at the bar and cradles a malt scotch whisky in those delicate, dammit, attractive hands'. 121But by the time she retired she was far more frequently discussed in complementary terms.Articles carried comments on her bureaucratic savvy.Particular attention was paid to her role in securing a post-Cold War role for MI5 with responsibility for PIRA and for organised crime. 122She had achieved 'a degree of openness that would once have seemed unthinkable', printed the Guardian. 123Writing in The Times at the time of the announcement Michael Evans noted 'In her four-year spell, Mrs Rimington opened up the Security Service more than any of her predecessors and won a key battle to wrest prime responsibility for intelligence gathering against the IRA from Special Branch'. 124The 'housewife spy' moniker that had accompanied her initial outing was nowhere to be seen.There appeared to be a broad acceptance in the media of the message she had set out to underline in her Dimbleby lecture in 1994: intelligence was a serious business managed by serious people.Both the Telegraph and Guardian applauded her qualities and her leadership, each noting that Mr Lander 'has a hard act to follow'. 125n the former point, she had proven the initial sceptics wrong on a key point: intelligence agencies could be more open without jeopardising effectiveness, prompting scandals, or imperilling international relations.Major, Waldegrave, and those who supported letting limited sunlight into the secret world had been correct.Ultimately without trust and legitimacy effectiveness would suffer.And both trust and legitimacy needed nurturing through familiarity, normalisation, and confidence.Through careful management of her public engagements and interactions, Rimington had helped win the argument.Her judgement, expressed in internal MI5 documents, that the service should take greater charge of its own image to prevent it from being crafted for them and caricatured, had been astute, and her remedy, to have a public profile, and to engage directly with parliamentarians, the press, and public, broadly accepted. 126This was widely acknowledged by the press when she retired.For instance, writing in the Times in March 1996, Michael Evans noted that Dame Stella is acknowledged both within the Security Service and outside to have been a highly successful directorgeneral.By adopting a public profile, giving lectures about the service and its aims and publishing brochures, she has helped to remove long-standing suspicions about MI5's role in Whitehall. 127hus, there was no question of her successors not being named and having their photographs appear in the press.Subsequent DGs have been public figures to a greater or lesser extent.Indeed, her successor, Sir Stephen Lander was named as a leading contender for the top job before being officially announced, and his image was published with reports that he was to replace Rimington months before he became DG. 128He adopted a less prominent public profile than his predecessor but continued to pursue policies that brought MI5 out of the shadows, like public recruitment and archival releases. 129He also addressed the public and stressed similar themes to Rimington.In March 2001 he participated in a conference at the Royal United Services Institute, focused on the oversight of security and intelligence; his co-panellists were the MPs Charles Clarke and Tom King, who was also chair of ISC.His speech stressed how MI5 had come a long way, particularly how the legislative and regulatory environment had altered their work; that they had welcomed the principle of parliamentary oversight; and that the benefits of the ISC's work considerably outweighed the costs. 130Of particular significance, he noted, was how greater openness and oversight had benefited parliamentary debate on intelligence and security matters, and how supportive the public were of MI5's work. 131June that same year he addressed the Public Records Office's 2001 conference, 'The Missing Dimension', on the topic of 'British intelligence in the 21 st century'.His focus was the state of MI5's archival holdings, its policy on records, retention and release, and the scope of MI5 material in the archives.Echoing elements of his predecessor's emphasis on the opening of the service, he underlined to the conference that all archives to 1945 were to be released, before a further move to release papers from the later 1940s and the origins of the Cold War.'In my view', he noted, 'those records must in due course speak for themselves'. 132Following a similar trajectory, Eliza Manningham-Buller made several public speeches during her time as DG, 2002 to 2007.MI5's website lists five, each broadly focused on the threat of terrorism, each offering insight into the challenges faced by Britain's spies, whilst also, still, working to dispel myths and misconceptions. 133ndeed, she underlined, in the age of al Qaeda it was vital that the public understood the threat, and continued to support MI5. 134 To this end, as she noted in her address at the City of London police headquarters, 'I share the Home Secretary's view that it is important that the Director General of the Security Service in the 21st century should occasionally speak on the record'. 135

Conclusion
Rimington's openness was strategic but bounded.A career intelligence officer, one with a watchful eye on the survival of her service and the wellbeing of her colleagues, she kept many more secrets than she shared.Her search for the new legitimacy was carefully constructed to stress key points.First, that the end of the Cold War did not mean that the security environment was now benign.Threats remained abundant, and intelligence work remained necessary.Second, that intelligence work was compatible with democratic values.Consistent themes of her public engagements include integrity, necessity, proportionality, responsibility, legality, oversight, and accountability.The leadership, she stressed, embodied these values, was competent and trustworthy, and as transparent as reasonably possible.Furthermore, from the perspective of 1990s discourse, the representativeness of MI5 was noteworthy: not so much the service of the retired imperial policeman any more, but young, with a reasonable gender balance..Each element was designed to counter elements of the historically dominant narratives surrounding MI5, those maintained by leaks and scandals, and consistently reinforced by the diet of fiction that the British public consumed, and which the British media frequently employed as a point of reference.If MI5 was to survive and succeed without the overarching threat of the Soviet Union to galvanise its support and temper critics there had to be a general understanding of its purpose and work, and there had to be trust.
Equally interesting were the matters left undiscussed, and the editorial line of the new openness.Rimington reflected in her autobiography on the fear that some of her colleagues in government harboured about her accidentally compromising secrets or relationships though indiscretion. 136It was a position she found absurd.Her public engagements offer limited insights on key matters and issues of relevance to the history and future trajectory of her service, and British intelligence in general.These included many politically delicate issues, like the previous targets of MI5 investigations; controversial issues, like aspects of MI5's operations against PIRA related targets; or emerging threats, including the seeds of the movement that would eventually emerge as al Qaeda -MI5 began receiving reports on bin Laden in 1993, and opened its file on him in 1995, although it did not view transnational Islamist terrorism as a serious potential threat for some years -and, significantly, the increased use, sophistication and importance of technology in intelligence work. 137The omission of technology from the discussion seems almost quaint viewed from the perspective the 2020s.In marked contrast to the 1990s, GCHQ's current public profile is extremely apparent, the discussion of the potential and actual role of technology in intelligence very well developed.But reluctance to discuss the capabilities and operations of the state's technical services was a time-honoured and well-honed reflex at the end of the Cold War.
In retirement, she reflected upon her career, and concluded that one of her singular achievements was 'the demystification of the Service and the creation of a more informed public and media perception'. 138Broadly, this article concludes that she was correct in her assessment of her key achievement.Certainly, the tenor of media coverage of MI5 matured over the course of her leadership, less hysterical, somewhat less sexist.But the absence of technology from the nascent public conversation in the Rimington era raises some questions about some unintended consequences of her approach to openness.Did she, in setting out to dispatch myths about British intelligence, but not engaging with the revolutionary potential of technology, dispel some stereotypes but reinforce others?By omitting the complex and frequently increasingly technological nature of the business did she leave in place a core assumption about the 'traditional' nature of intelligence work -even the work pursued by her young, more gender balanced service -still rooted in the classic le Carré mould of spy vs spy?Perhaps this seminal omission conditioned the national conversation about intelligence and its tendency to swerve the topic of SIGINT and technology, and laid the foundations for the shock felt in some quarters years later following the revelations about the extent of British intelligence's capacity in the digital realm; perhaps not.Nevertheless, Stella Rimington was a pivotal figure in terms of the British secret state's relationship with the public.Her decision to embrace the role thrust upon her of representing MI5 to the media, and to make the case for the need, legitimacy, and decency of intelligence work was instrumental in generating a new, more informed, media discussion of intelligence work.It set precedent for her successors in MI5 and, indeed, for its sister services.All British directors now publicly make the case that their services are necessary and legitimate, and that their work is compatible with democratic values.