Open Secret; The Autobiography of the Former Director-General of M15
Paul Postle (Photography) London: Hutchinson, 2001. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. xviii, 296, [6] pages. Illustrations. Signed by the author on the title page. Includes 46 illustrations (35 of which are from the author's collection). Some page discoloration. Small white marks on fore-edge and on the rear endpaper. Some wear and creasing to dust jacket edges. Dame Stella Rimington DCB (born 13 May 1935) is a British author and former Director General of MI5, a position she held from 1992 to 1996. She was the first female DG of MI5, and the first DG whose name was publicized on appointment. In 1993, Rimington became the first DG of MI5 to pose openly for cameras at the launch of a brochure outlining the organization's activities. In July 2004, her first novel, At Risk, about a female intelligence officer, Liz Carlyle, was published. Her other novels are Secret Asset, Illegal Action, Dead Line, Present Danger, Rip Tide, The Geneva Trap and Close Call. Her novels are part of a tradition of "insider" spy fiction written by former spies, especially in MI5, going back to John Bingham, & John Le Carré. Stella Rimington was educated at Nottingham Girls' High School, and Edinburgh and Liverpool Universities. In 1959 she started work in the Worcestershire County Archives, moving in 1962 to the India Office Library in London, as Assistant Keeper responsible for manuscripts relating to the period of the British rule in India. In 1965 she joined the Security Service (MI5) part-time, while she was in India accompanying her husband on a posting to the British High Commission in New Delhi. On her return to the UK she joined MI5 as a full-time employee. During her career in MI5, which lasted from 1969 to 1996, Stella Rimington worked in all the main fields of the Service's responsibilities - counter-subversion, counterespionage and counterterrorism - and became successively Director of all three branches. She was appointed Director-General of MI5 in 1992. During her time as DG she pursued a policy of greater openness for MI5, giving the 1994 Dimbleby Lecture on BBC TV and publishing a booklet about the Service. Condition: Good / Good.
Keywords: MI5, Espionage, Spies, Director General, Intelligence Service, Terrorism, Cold War, Privacy, Secrecy, Georgi Markov, Michael Howard, Louis Freeh, John Major
ISBN: 0091793602
[Book #79125]
Price: $75.00