Sir Brian Tovey: Director of GCHQ during a period in which Britain and the US were rethinking the 'special relationship'

Tovey was the first GCHQ Director from the post-Bletchley Park generation, and unlike his predecessors had to contend with GCHQ's being in the public eye

Tovey: he was a Renaissance scholar and a brilliant linguist (GCHQ)

Brian Tovey was Director of Britain's government intelligence centre, GCHQ, from 1978-83, at a time when both Britain and the US were re-thinking what Britain likes to call “the special relationship.” His connections with European spymasters, the British success of the Falklands War in 1982 and the unmasking of the former GCHQ employee Geoffrey Prime as a traitor in 1981, led to a revision during his directorship.

Tovey had told GCHQ's staff after the Falklands triumph: “High-level praise. There can be no doubt that this praise has been well-deserved. It has been earned by hard and dedicated work by you as individuals.” Britain's new-found confidence after the victory gave Tovey a new idea. It was that this could be the moment to develop an independent British signals intelligence-gathering satellite in space.

During the Falklands War Britain had enjoyed the advantage of a US satellite, normally turned on central America, being re-aligned to pick up intelligence helpful to her forces in the South Atlantic, but she had chafed at US refusal to offer more than a few hours a day. US intransigence in 1982 reminded GCHQ chiefs of the actions of Henry Kissinger, who in 1973 temporarily cut off US signals intelligence-sharing with Britain as revenge for Britain's failing to toe the US line over some talks. This had been considered by the British as “sinister”.

By the era of Tovey's directorship US-British goodwill had again been jeopardised by the discovery that between 1968 and 1977 GCHQ had harboured a KGB mole, Geoffrey Prime. In 1982 Prime was sentenced to 35 years' jail for espionage and child sexual abuse, and was released in 2001. Against British inclinations, US spy chiefs were also eager for Britain to introduce lie-detector tests at GCHQ, something Britain would reject in 1988.

GCHQ's reputation with her ally was also imperilled in Tovey's time by upheavals over the unions. The Thatcher government imposed a ban on trades unions at GCHQ which Tony Blair's government rescinded in 1997. US fears of foreign influence on British staff with access to US material were perennial.

Tovey's satellite project, “Zircon”, had the support of Margaret Thatcher and is believed to have gone as far as a secret launch in September 1990 before being cancelled because of cost. Some observers believe that Tovey, a character described as “bullish”, “energetic” and “gung-ho”, had hopes – in the words of Richard J Aldrich, author of GCHQ (2010) – “that Zircon was about GCHQ becoming the biggest fish in a European pool.”

Tovey, a Renaissance scholar and brilliant linguist, had links with Dutch and German intelligence, and even more with the French through his friendship with Count Alexandre de Marenches, head since 1970 of the French intelligence agency, the Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionage.

With Marenches, Tovey had scored successes which included the prediction of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. As the crisis approached, the Frenchman sent Tovey copies of French intercepts about Soviet military air movements to Afghanistan. In return Tovey gave Marenches transcripts of Soviet army communications among forces deployed along the border. De Marenches strengthened SDECE's team in Kabul and was able to confirm to President Giscard d'Estaing and the British that the Soviet Union was about to invade.

Earlier, in Singapore in 1965, Tovey had been GCHQ's man on the Joint Intelligence Committee Far East during the Indonesian Confrontation, in which Britain, with forces on the ground aided by intelligence, was victorious over President Ahmed Sukarno of Indonesia in his attempt to destroy the new state of Malaysia. The JIC received “ministerial commendation on the quality of its reporting”. GCHQ broke Indonesian codes and used intercepts to persuade a doubtful US that appeasement of Sukarno was useless.

Tovey had joined GCHQ in 1950 as a junior assistant, and served in Melbourne with the Defence Signals Bureau (DSB) until 1953. Back in Britain he worked on Soviet intercepts and planning, becoming principal in 1957, then GCHQ representative to the military in Singapore in 1964. He was GCHQ liaison offer to the DSB, and after leading Soviet reporting, was promoted Assistant Secretary. He was GCHQ's head of planning from 1970-73, and head of the communications security policy division until 1975, when as under-secretary he took charge of a section protecting British government communications.

Coming between Sir Arthur Bonsall and Sir Peter Marychurch, Tovey was the first GCHQ Director from the post-Bletchley Park generation, and unlike his predecessors had to contend with GCHQ's being in the public eye in the wake of the 1978 “ABC” trial and the Prime case. He was appointed KCMG in 1980.

During Thatcher's battle with the unions and the discussion of whether GCHQ staff should be allowed to belong to one, Tovey appeared before the House of Commons Employment Select Committee. He supported the ban, which was made ready to implement before he chose to retire early, in September 1983. He attempted to smooth feelings by becoming an unofficial spokesman for GCHQ after the ban was announced.

In retirement Tovey became an advisor to Plessey Electronic Systems, and on 22 March 1984 the Labour MP Tam Dalyell asked Thatcher “what conditions she had imposed on Sir Brian Tovey before approving his appointment.” Thatcher replied that Tovey was banned from company dealings with GCHQ or the MoD on certain export licences.

Tovey was the only child of the Rev Collett Tovey, a canon of Bermuda Cathedral. He went to St Edmund's Hall, Oxford. From 1945-48 he served with the Royal Navy, the Army Intelligence Corps and the Royal Army Educational Corps, then studied Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese and Vietnamese at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London until 1950.

He later followed his love of the Italian Renaissance with works on the 17th century art historian Filippo Baldinucci.

Brian John Maynard Tovey, GCHQ director: born London 15 April 1926; KCMG 1980; married firstly Elizabeth Christopher (divorced 1959; two daughters, one son, and one daughter deceased); two further marriages; fourthly Mary Lane; died Oxford 23 December 2015.