MI6: The British Secret Intelligence Service

Would you like to be a secret agent and work undercover？ Do you think the job in reality would be similar to how it’s shown in films？

You might have heard of MI6 through the man known as 007. James Bond doesn’t exist， of course， but what about MI6？

What is MI6？

MI6 is very real. It is an organisation that recruits agents who collect ‘human intelligence’， or information， from countries around the world in order to protect the security of the UK. The official name for MI6 is the Secret Intelligence Service， or SIS.

MI6 started life in 1909 so it’s over a hundred years old. The agency started off in a small office， but it has its present headquarters in a huge building on the banks of the River Thames in London. The building is shown in several James Bond films.

MI6 agents

The first chief of MI6 was Sir Mansfield Cumming. He always signed his name as ‘C’ in green ink. Since then， the chiefs of MI6 have continued the tradition and still sign documents with a green ‘C’.

Secret missions

During the Second World War （1939–1945）， MI6 communicated with agents through coded radio messages broadcast on the BBC. MI6 was also involved in breaking other countries’ codes in order to understand their secret communications. Most of this code-breaking work was done at Bletchley Park， in the south of England， by teams of people who were good at maths， languages or solving puzzles. Modern computers didn’t exist at that time and the code breakers had to use huge noisy machines to help them break the codes.

Activity 1 - Vocabulary

Match the vocabulary with the correct definition and write a–e next to the numbers 1–5.

1 ____ intelligence

2 ____ a code

3 ____ the headquarters

4 ____ a chief

5 ____ a secret agent

6 ____ James Bond

a. the name of a spy in popular books and films

b. a spy; someone who collects secret information for their country

c. secret and valuable information

d. a company or organisation’s main office

e. a leader or manager

f. a secret system of numbers， letters or symbols that makes your message unreadable to anyone who doesn’t know the system

Activity 2 - True or false

Are the sentences true or false？

1. The Secret Intelligence Section is MI6’s real name.

2. The present chief of MI6 signs documents with a ‘C’ in green ink.

3. MI6 sent coded messages to agents during the Second World War.

4. A lot of the code breaking work happened at Bletchley Park.

5. People working at Bletchley Park used powerful computers.

Write about it！

Would you like to be a secret agent？ What would be the best and the worst parts of the job？ Write your ideas below.

Answers

Activity 1

1. c; 2. f; 3. d; 4. e; 5. b; 6. a

Activity 2

1. False; 2. True; 3. True; 4. True; 5. False