British head of intelligence (1890?1968)
Major General
Sir Stewart Graham Menzies
,
KCB
,
KCMG
,
DSO
,
MC
(
; 30 January 1890 ? 29 May 1968)
[1]
was Chief of
MI6
, the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), from 1939 to 1952, during and after the
Second World War
.
[2]
Early life, family
[
edit
]
Stewart Graham Menzies was born in England in 1890 into a wealthy family as the second son of John Graham Menzies and
Susannah West Wilson
, daughter of ship-owner
Arthur Wilson
of
Tranby Croft
.
[3]
His grandfather, Graham Menzies, was a
whisky
distiller
who helped establish a
cartel
and made huge profits. His parents became friends of
King Edward VII
.
[4]
Menzies was a nephew of Scottish Liberal Party politician and member of the House of Commons
Robert Stewart Menzies
. But Menzies' father was dissolute, never established a worthwhile career, and wasted his share of the family fortune; he died of
tuberculosis
in 1911 in his early 50s, leaving only a minimal estate.
[5]
Menzies was educated at
Eton College
, becoming president of the student society Pop, and left in 1909. He excelled in sports, hunting and cross-country running. He won prizes for his studies of languages, and was considered an all-around excellent student.
[6]
Early military career
[
edit
]
Life Guards
[
edit
]
From Eton he joined the
Grenadier Guards
as a
second lieutenant
.
[7]
After a year with this regiment, he transferred to the
Second Life Guards
. He was promoted to lieutenant and appointed
adjutant
by 1913.
[8]
[9]
First World War action
[
edit
]
During the
First World War
Menzies served in Belgium. He was wounded at
Zandvoorde
in October 1914, and fought gallantly in the
First Battle of Ypres
in November 1914. Menzies was promoted to
captain
on 14 November, and received the
DSO
in person from
King George V
on 2 December.
[10]
Menzies' regiment was decimated during fighting in 1915, suffering very heavy casualties in the
Second Battle of Ypres
. Menzies was seriously injured in a
gas attack
in 1915, and was
honourably discharged
from active combat service.
[11]
Intelligence service
[
edit
]
He then joined the
counterintelligence
section of Field Marshal
Douglas Haig
, the British commander. In late 1917, he reported to senior British leadership that Haig's intelligence chief Brigadier
John Charteris
was fudging intelligence estimates, which soon led to Charteris' removal. This whistle-blowing was apparently done very discreetly. Menzies was promoted to brevet major before the end of the war.
[12]
Following the end of the war, Menzies entered MI6 (also known as SIS). He was a member of the British delegation to the 1919
Versailles Peace Conference
. Soon after the war, Menzies was promoted to
lieutenant-colonel
of the Imperial General Staff, General Staff Officer, first grade. Within MI6, he became assistant director for special intelligence. Admiral
Hugh Sinclair
became director-general of MI6 in 1924, and he made Menzies his deputy by 1929, with Menzies being promoted to full
colonel
soon afterwards.
[13]
In 1924, Menzies was allegedly involved?alongside
Sidney Reilly
[14]
and
Desmond Morton
[15]
?in the forging of the
Zinoviev letter
.
[14]
This forgery is considered to have been instrumental in the
Conservative Party
's victory in the
United Kingdom general election of 1924
, which ended the country's first
Labour
government.
[16]
Chief of MI6
[
edit
]
In 1939, when Admiral Sinclair died, Menzies was appointed Chief of
Secret Intelligence Service
(the SIS). He expanded wartime intelligence and counterintelligence departments and supervised
codebreaking
efforts at
Bletchley Park
.
[17]
Second World War
[
edit
]
When the
Second World War
began, SIS expanded greatly. Menzies insisted on wartime control of codebreaking, and this gave him immense power and influence, which he used judiciously. By distributing the
Ultra
material collected by the
Government Code & Cypher School
, MI6 became an important branch of the government for the first time. Extensive breaches of
Nazi
Enigma
signals
gave Menzies and his team enormous insight into
Adolf Hitler
's strategy, and this was kept a closely held secret, not only during the war, but until as late as 1974. (
Frederick Winterbotham
's 1974 book
The Ultra Secret
lifted the cloak of secrecy at last.) The Nazis had suspicions, but believed Enigma to be unbreakable, and never knew during the war that the Allies were reading a high proportion of their
wireless
traffic.
[18]
Menzies kept Prime Minister
Winston Churchill
supplied daily with important Ultra decrypts, and the two worked together to ensure that financial resources were devoted toward research and upgrading technology at Bletchley Park, to keep pace with Nazi coding refinements, as well as directing talented workers to the massive effort, which employed nearly 10,000 workers by 1945. Bletchley's efforts were decisive in the battle against Nazi
submarine warfare
, which was severely threatening trans-Atlantic shipping, particularly in the first half of 1943. Britain, which was cut off from Europe after mid-1940, was almost completely dependent on North American supplies for survival. The access to Ultra was also vitally important in the battle for
Normandy
, leading up to
D-Day
in June 1944, and afterward.
[19]
Menzies has been suspected as being involved with the assassination, on 24 December 1942, of
Francois Darlan
, the
Vichy
military commander who defected to the Allies in
Algeria
. British historian David Reynolds noted in his book,
In Command of History
, that Menzies?who rarely left London during the war?was in
Algiers
around the period he was killed, making SOE (
Special Operations Executive
) involvement seem likely.
[20]
Menzies, who was promoted to
major-general
in January 1944, also supported efforts to contact anti-
Nazi
resistance
, including
Wilhelm Canaris
, the anti-Hitler head of
Abwehr
, in Germany. Prime Minister
Winston Churchill
was kept informed of these efforts throughout the war, and information from and about the Nazi resistance was exploited tactically. Menzies coordinated his operations with Special Operations Executive (SOE) (although he reputedly considered them "amateurs"),
British Security Coordination
(BSC),
Office of Strategic Services
(OSS) and the
Free French Forces
. He was awarded the
Order of the Yugoslav Crown
.
[21]
After the Second World War
[
edit
]
After the war, Menzies reorganised the SIS for the
Cold War
. He absorbed most of SOE. He was sometimes at odds with the
Labour
governments. He also had to weather a scandal inside SIS after revelations that SIS officer
Kim Philby
was a Soviet spy.
[17]
Nonetheless, Menzies deserved some of the blame for Soviet agents having penetrated MI6, according to
Anthony Cave Brown
in his book
C: The Secret Life of Sir Stewart Graham Menzies, Spymaster to Winston Churchill
. Menzies was already the head of the service when Kim Philby joined in 1941. Cave Brown insists that Menzies's primary criteria were whether the applicants were upper-class former officers and recommended by another government department, or else were known to him personally. In his
New York Times
review of Brown's book, novelist
Ken Follett
makes this conclusion: "Mr Philby outwitted Menzies because Mr Philby was intelligent and professional and cool, where Menzies was an amiable upper-class sportsman who was out of his depth. And British intelligence, except for the code breakers, was like Menzies?amateur, anti-intellectual and wholly outclassed."
[22]
After 43 continuous years of service in the British Army, Menzies retired to Bridges Court in
Luckington
in rural
Wiltshire
at 62 in mid-1952. His success at SIS was not limited to adeptness at bureaucratic intrigue, a virtual necessity in his position; Menzies' efforts as chief had a major role in winning the Second World War, and certainly earned Churchill's trust, as evidenced by nearly 1,500 meetings with the prime minister during its duration.
[23]
Marriages
[
edit
]
Menzies' first marriage was in 1918 to Lady Avice Ela Muriel Sackville, younger daughter of
Gilbert Sackville, 8th Earl De La Warr
and Lady Muriel Agnes Brassey, daughter of
Thomas Brassey, 1st Earl Brassey
. They were divorced in 1931.
[24]
He next married Pamela Thetis Garton (nee Beckett) (d. 13 March 1951), on 13 December 1932, fourth daughter of Rupert Evelyn Beckett by his wife Muriel Helen Florence Paget, daughter of Lord Berkeley Charles Sydney Paget, himself a younger son of
the 2nd Marquess of Anglesey
. Garton was an invalid for many years, suffering from clinical depression and
anorexia nervosa
. She had Menzies' only child, a daughter, Fiona, in 1934.
[25]
His third marriage was in 1952 to Audrey Clara Lilian Latham (b. 1899), formerly wife of
Sir Henry Birkin, 2nd Bt.
,
Lord Edward Hay
, and Niall Chaplin, and daughter of
Sir Thomas Paul Latham, 1st Bt.
[26]
Stewart and Audrey were both over age 50 at the time of their marriage, her fourth. Each had separate estates (his in
Wiltshire
, west of London, hers in
Essex
, east of London), and they for the most part lived separately, but they met in London for dinner each Wednesday.
[27]
Anthony Cave Brown
also reported that Menzies had a long-standing affair with one of his secretaries, which he ended upon retirement (and presumably remarriage) in 1952; the secretary apparently tried to kill herself at that time.
[27]
Menzies died on 29 May 1968.
[17]
Fictional depictions
[
edit
]
Stewart Menzies is a character in the 2014 film
The Imitation Game
and is portrayed by
Mark Strong
.
[28]
Stewart Menzies is also a character in the 2021 film
Munich ? The Edge of War
and is portrayed by
Richard Dillane
.
[29]
Honours and awards
[
edit
]
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
"Menzies, Maj.-Gen. Sir Stewart Graham, (30 January 1890 ? 29 May 1968)"
.
Who's Who & Who Was Who
. 2007.
doi
:
10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u51894
.
ISBN
978-0-19-954089-1
. Retrieved
5 August
2021
.
- ^
"Obituary: Sir Stewart Menzies".
The Times
. 31 May 1968. p. 14.
- ^
Mosley, Charles
, ed. (2003).
Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knighthood
(107 ed.). Burke's Peerage & Gentry. p. 1076.
ISBN
0-9711966-2-1
.
- ^
Ken Follett
.
"The Oldest Boy of British Intelligence"
The New York Times
, 27 December 1987.
- ^
C: The Secret Life of Sir Stewart Graham Menzies, Spymaster to Winston Churchill
, by
Anthony Cave Brown
, 1987.
- ^
C: The Life of Sir Stewart Menzies
, by
Anthony Cave Brown
, 1987.
- ^
"No. 28276"
.
The London Gazette
. 3 August 1909. p. 5907.
- ^
C: The Secret Life of Sir Stewart Graham Menzies, Spymaster to Winston Churchill
, by
Anthony Cave Brown
, 1987, Macmillan, New York,
ISBN
0-02-517390-1
, pp. 41?55
- ^
^
London Gazette: no. 28743, p. 5573, 5 August 1913. Retrieved on 13 July 2010
- ^
C: The Secret Life of Sir Stewart Graham Menzies, Spymaster to Winston Churchill
, by
Anthony Cave Brown
, 1987, Macmillan, New York,
ISBN
0-02-517390-1
, pp. 60?81
- ^
Bennett, Richard (2001).
Espionage: Spies and Secrets
. Diane Publishing Company.
ISBN
978-0756766399
.
- ^
C: The Secret Life of Sir Stewart Graham Menzies, Spymaster to Winston Churchill
, by
Anthony Cave Brown
, 1987, Macmillan, New York,
ISBN
0-02-517390-1
, pp. 82?98
- ^
C: The Secret Life of Sir Stewart Graham Menzies
, by
Anthony Cave Brown
, 1987.
- ^
a
b
Page 121, Michael Kettle,
Sidney Reilly: The True Story of the World's Greatest Spy
, 1986, St. Martin's Press,
ISBN
0-312-90321-9
.
- ^
Zinoviev Letter in SIS forgery (no) Shock
, The Poor Mouth.
- ^
Telegraph
, 5 February 1999.
- ^
a
b
c
Bennett, Richard (2001).
Espionage: Spies and Secrets
. Diane Publishing Company.
ISBN
978-0756766399
.
- ^
Hinsley, F. H.
; Stripp, Alan, eds. (1993) [1992],
Codebreakers: The inside story of Bletchley Park
, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 92,
ISBN
978-0-19-280132-6
- ^
Bodyguard of Lies
, by
Anthony Cave Brown
, 1975
- ^
Reynolds, David (2012).
In Command of History
. Random House.
ISBN
978-0307824806
.
- ^
a
b
Acovi?, Dragomir (2012).
Slava i ?ast: Odlikovanja među Srbima, Srbi među odlikovanjima
. Belgrade: Slu?beni Glasnik. p. 592.
- ^
Follett, Ken (27 December 1987).
"THE OLDEST BOY OF BRITISH INTELLIGENCE"
.
The New York Times
. New York
. Retrieved
24 March
2017
.
- ^
C: The Secret Life of Sir Stewart Graham Menzies, Spymaster to Winston Churchill
, by
Anthony Cave Brown
, 1987
- ^
Mosley, Charles, editor. Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 107th edition, 3 volumes. Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.A.: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 2003.
- ^
Lundy, Darryl.
"Person Page ? 24503"
. The Peerage.
[
unreliable source
]
says that a daughter Daphne was born in 1934. Pamela was
first married 1929 (div 1930)
to James Roy Notter Garton, + 1939, s. of William Garton, of Bursledon, Hampshire. Pamela Beckett was a first cousin once removed of the
6th Marquess of Anglesey
and a second cousin of the 7th Marquess. Her elder sister
Gwladys, Lady Markham
married 2ndly 1928
Hugh Cholmondeley, 3rd Baron Delamere
of Vale Royal.
- ^
Lundy, Darryl.
"Audrey Clara Lilian Latham"
. The Peerage.
[
unreliable source
]
in
The Peerage
database. Entry last edited 14 March 2005, and retrieved 15 December 2007.
- ^
a
b
Cave Brown
- ^
"The Imitation Game"
. IMDb
. Retrieved
31 October
2021
.
- ^
"Munich ? The Edge of War"
. IMDb
. Retrieved
1 June
2022
.
- ^
"Page 3063 | Supplement 39243, 1 June 1951 | London Gazette | The Gazette"
.
www.thegazette.co.uk
. Retrieved
13 April
2022
.
- ^
"Page 3 | Supplement 35399, 30 December 1941 | London Gazette | The Gazette"
.
www.thegazette.co.uk
. Retrieved
13 April
2022
.
- ^
"Page 5 | Issue 35841, 29 December 1942 | London Gazette | The Gazette"
.
www.thegazette.co.uk
. Retrieved
13 April
2022
.
- ^
"Page 10188 | Issue 28992, 1 December 1914 | London Gazette | The Gazette"
.
www.thegazette.co.uk
. Retrieved
13 April
2022
.
- ^
"Page 6535 | Supplement 29215, 2 July 1915 | London Gazette | The Gazette"
.
www.thegazette.co.uk
. Retrieved
13 April
2022
.
- ^
a
b
c
Medal card of Menzies, S G Corps: Life Guards Rank: Lieutenant Adjutant...
1914?1920.
- ^
a
b
"Record Details for Stewart Graham Menzies (Life Guards)"
.
forces-war-records.co.uk
. Retrieved
13 April
2022
.
- ^
King's Silver Jubilee Medal: United Kingdom Issue Category 4 (vol. I)
. 1935.
- ^
"Record Details for S G Menzies"
.
forces-war-records.co.uk
. Retrieved
13 April
2022
.
- ^
DECORATIONS AND MEDALS: Coronation Medals (Code 50P): The Queen Elizabeth II Coronation...
1953?1956.
- ^
"Page 1593 | Supplement 29943, 13 February 1917 | London Gazette | The Gazette"
.
www.thegazette.co.uk
. Retrieved
13 April
2022
.
- ^
"Page 5452 | Supplement 30110, 1 June 1917 | London Gazette | The Gazette"
.
www.thegazette.co.uk
. Retrieved
13 April
2022
.
- ^
"Page 3097 | Supplement 30568, 8 March 1918 | London Gazette | The Gazette"
.
www.thegazette.co.uk
. Retrieved
13 April
2022
.
- ^
"Page 4441 | Supplement 36200, 5 October 1943 | London Gazette | The Gazette"
.
www.thegazette.co.uk
. Retrieved
13 April
2022
.
- ^
a
b
"Page 324 | Supplement 37853, 14 January 1947 | London Gazette | The Gazette"
.
www.thegazette.co.uk
. Retrieved
13 April
2022
.
- ^
"Page 2922 | Supplement 38288, 11 May 1948 | London Gazette | The Gazette"
.
www.thegazette.co.uk
. Retrieved
13 April
2022
.
- ^
"Page 6061 | Supplement 38459, 16 November 1948 | London Gazette | The Gazette"
.
www.thegazette.co.uk
. Retrieved
13 April
2022
.
- ^
"Page 495 | Supplement 38523, 28 January 1949 | London Gazette | The Gazette"
.
www.thegazette.co.uk
. Retrieved
13 April
2022
.
References
[
edit
]
- Anthony Cave Brown
,
Bodyguard of Lies
, 1975.
- Anthony Cave Brown
,
"C": The Secret Servant: The Life of Sir Stewart Menzies, Spymaster to Winston Churchill
(Macmillan Publishing Co., 1987)
ISBN
0-02-517390-1
- Ken Follett
, "The Oldest Boy of British Intelligence",
The New York Times
, 27 December 1987. Three page review of Brown's biography and Mahl's book.
- Hastings, Max (2015).
The Secret War: Spies, Codes and Guerrillas 1939 -1945
. London: William Collins.
ISBN
978-0-00-750374-2
.
- Thomas E. Mahl,
Desperate Deception: British Covert Operations in the United States, 1939?44
, (Brassey's Inc., 1999)
ISBN
1574882236
.
- Mead, Richard (2007).
Churchill's Lions: A Biographical Guide to the Key British Generals of World War II
. Stroud: Spellmount.
ISBN
978-1-86227-431-0
.
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