MI6 chief 'ran' Matrix Churchill executive: Annika Savill traces the rise of David Spedding, the new 'C'

DAVID SPEDDING, the new head of MI6, probably made his name over arms to Iraq.

As one of the top London- based operatives dealing with the Middle East in the late 1980s, he was involved in 'running' Paul Henderson, then managing director of Matrix Churchill, who provided MI6 with details of Iraq's weapons production before the invasion of Kuwait.

One colleague commented: 'Spedding's work is one of the things that proves that Britain was providing information against Iraq as much as doing things for it.'

At the time, Mr Spedding was head of an MI6 joint operations unit for the Middle East. 'Counsellor on loan to Cabinet Office', was how he was described in the 'Green Book', The Diplomatic Service List. After the Gulf war, he went on to become director of all Middle East operations.

Mr Spedding takes over as 'C' from Sir Colin McColl, who declared last November: 'Secrecy is our absolute stock- in-trade, our most precious asset.' Mr Spedding is known to concur with that view.

Comparisons with what is perceived as the greater openness of the American Central Intelligence Agency, or MI5 - such as the publication of a photograph of its chief, Stella Rimington - are futile.

The pressure from within MI6 to adopt a more public image does not stem from lofty aims of greater openness as expressed by William Waldegrave, minister for open government. It stems from the desire to defend funds in a tightening budgetary climate, that would have been under greater threat had the body still been avowed not to exist.

There is no suggestion that the public will know any more about the future operations of MI6, nor about the personality of the chief, beyond his name.

MI6 agents are trained to commit acts that are frequently technically illegal - including on the soil of friendly countries (though this does not include a licence to kill). It would be difficult to expect MPs to endorse that openly. MI6 officials point out that the service does not set its own agenda, whereas the CIA and MI5 do. 'We are not self- tasking, but respond to customer departments such as the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence,' one said.

Mr Spedding's rise symbolises how the service is in effect skipping almost a generation. Sir Colin McColl - who stayed on an extra two years to oversee its transition - will be 62 this year. Mr Spedding was 51 last Monday.

'There seems to be one underlying feeling among staff about this appointment,' one insider commented. 'That this marks the final end of the old age: the image of the 'gentleman of leisure' spy.'

Mr Spedding takes charge of 2,000 staff and a pounds 150m budget at a time of unease about the future. He will oversee the move into new headquarters at Vauxhall Cross, south London. Nuclear proliferation, drugs with its attendant dirty money, and terrorism are the new areas replacing the Cold War threat. 'Spedding was the one outstanding candidate for the job,' said one colleague.

'It was simply that he had by far the best qualifications - the same as what it takes to head any other big organisation. Administrative ability, coupled with imagination. And he has an extremely distinguished operational record.'

After Sherborne public school in Dorset, he went on to Hertford College, Oxford. He trained at Mecas, the Arabic training centre for the elite camel corps. He was posted to Beirut in 1970, to Santiago, Chile, in 1972 (the year of the coup against President Allende), Abu Dhabi in 1978, and Amman in 1983. 'He keeps his private life separate from his work, yet he's very friendly,' a colleague said.

The first 'C' - short for CSS, or Chief of the Secret Service - was Mansfield Smith- Cumming, a naval officer who set up the first Secret Service Bureau in 1909. Sir Compton Mackenzie, one of its early operatives, wrote: 'The whole point of a Secret Service is that it should be secret.'

That part will not change.