Biography Stella Rimington was educated at Edinburgh University and Liverpool University and joined Britain's Security Service (MI5) in 1969 working part-time in their office in New Delhi, India. On her return to the UK she joined the Security Service full time. During her nearly thirty-year career she worked in all the main fields of the Service's responsibilities–counter-subversion, counter-espionage, and counterterrorism–and became successively director of all three branches. |
|---|
Appointed Director General of MI5 in 1992, she was the first woman to hold the post and the first Director General whose name was publicly announced on appointment. She led the Service's counter-espionage work in the closing days of the Cold War and in the late 1980's she was in charge of the Service's work against International and Irish terrorism.
She pursued a policy of greater openness, seeking to explain to the public what the Service was and the extent of its responsibilities. She was made a Dame Commander of the Bath in the New Year's Honours of 1995/96 and has been awarded the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Law by the Universities of Nottingham and Execter, and in 1994 was elected Alumna of the Year by Edinburgh University.
Following her retirement from MI5 in 1996, she became a non-executive director of Marks and Spencer and published her autobiography, Open Secret, in the United Kingdom.
She has gone on to write four Liz Carlyle novels. She lives in London and Norfolk. [updated 4th Feb, 2009]
|
|
|
Bibliography
Open Secret: The Autobiography of the Former Director-General of MI5
Deadline
Illegal Action
Secret Asset
At Risk