The Big Breach - Index of

The Big Breach; From Top Secret to Maximum SecurityCompliments of http://www.192.com`What do you know?' Fish retorted, looking at me disparagingly as if Iwas an innocent schoolboy learning for the first time the facts oflife.I never heard anything more about the plan, but then I would not haveexpected to. An indoctrination list would have been formed, probablyconsisting only of the Chief, C/CEE, P4 and MODA/SO. Even Fish himselfwould probably have been excluded from detailed planning at an earlystage. A submission would have been put up to the Foreign Secretary toseek political clearance, then MODA/SO and the increment would havetaken over the detail of the operational planning. If the plan wasdeveloped further, it clearly did not come to fruition, as Milosevicremained very much alive and in power for many years.As the war in Bosnia intensified and threatened to destabilisesoutheastern Europe, urgent demands were placed on MI6 for moreintelligence. In mid-1992, the only officers in the FRY (FormerRepublic of Yugoslavia) were a one-man station in Zagreb, and twoofficers in Belgrade. A few other stations, notably Athens and Geneva,were producing some reasonable CX on the region from refugees andvisitors, but there were still gaping holes in the intelligencecoverage. MI6 urgently needed many more officers on the ground, but washampered by lack of financial and personnel resources and by coverconsiderations. The FCO had no embassies in Bosnia, Montenegro, Kosovoor Macedonia, so officers could not be inserted there under diplomaticcover. A more flexible approach was needed.Colin McColl came up with an imaginative solution to fill quickly theholes in intelligence coverage, that was at first met sniffily by mostsenior officers. He proposed setting up, in each newly independentregion of the disintegrating Yugoslavia, `shoe-box' stations of oneofficer armed with a laptop computer, encryption software and abriefcase-sized portable satellite facsimile machine. The shoe-boxofficer would be declared to the local secret police and would rely onthis liaison for protection rather than the physical security of anembassy and diplomatic immunity. The shoe-box officers would not havethe usual benefits of comfortable, free housing, car allowance or homeleave of normal postings, so they would serve only for six months andbe paid a generous hardship allowance.The first shoe-box officer was sent to Tirana, the Albanian capital, inSeptember 1992. Rupert Boxton was an ageing former parachute regimentofficer who had just returned from a three-year posting in thebackwater of Namibia. He was regarded as `a bit thick' and wasn'tsuited to administrative Head Office jobs. His task in Tirana wasneither easy nor pleasant. Though the Albanian leader, PresidentBerisha, was keen to improve relations with MI6, his secret police werestuck in the closed mind-set of the days of Albanian communistisolationism. They did not trust Boxton, did not want him in Tirana andrefused to give him any worthwhile intelligence or targeting leads. Inany case, the German BND (Bundesnachtrichtdienst) had got in first andbuilt a strong relationship with the Albanians. MI6's attempts tobelatedly muscle in went nowhere. Boxton was withdrawn after just a fewmonths and forced into early retirement by personnel department.page- 99 - To purchase the original limited edition hardback version of this bookplease call 08000 192 192 or go to http://www.192.com