Following on from last week's show I look at how the intelligence services who were causing mayhem in Northern Ireland were protected by a culture of institutional secrecy in the British government. Via a little-known government file that was declassified in 2009 I tell the story of government policy on avowing the existence of the security services.
This episode focuses in on the late 1970s when a major shift in that policy - admitting MI6's existence after 30 years of denial - was contemplated by the Prime Minister. The tale of how this shift was averted involves the Cabinet Secretary Sir John Hunt and a woman who would herself soon be Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. By reconstructing the timeline of events I offer a different view of how this potentially major shift in policy was diverted, which resulted in the existence of MI6 not being officially admitted until 1994.
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