LONDON (Reuters) – Britain named career diplomat and intelligence officer Richard Moore on Wednesday as the new head of MI6’s spy service as the West seeks to beef up its defenses against hostile espionage from China and Russia.
FILE PHOTO: Britain’s political director Richard Moore attends a working session during the G7 Nations Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Dinard, France on April 6, 2019. REUTERS / Stephane Mahe / Pool
Moore, 57, joined the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) in 1987, just four years before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
As an accomplished intelligence officer, Moore held various diplomatic and security positions before winning one of the most powerful jobs in Western intelligence. Alex Younger, the current chief of MI6, or simply “C”, will resign in the fall.
“I am pleased and honored to be asked to return to lead my Service,” said Moore, who is currently director general of political affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Moore served as the British Ambassador to Turkey from January 2014 to December 2017 and also served as a deputy national security adviser. Born in Libya, he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford and was a Kennedy Scholar at Harvard.
His biggest challenge is likely China, which the United States has identified as its main geopolitical enemy, although it will also have to fight for funding after British politicians squandered the coronavirus crisis.
As technology transforms espionage, Moore will have to discover how one of the world’s preeminent human intelligence services can collect massive data while retaining its reputation for obtaining high-level sources to steal secrets from around the world.
MI6, represented by novelists as the employer of some of the most memorable fictional spies, from George Smiley by John le Carré to James Bond by Ian Fleming, operates abroad and is tasked with defending Britain and its interests.
Younger has served since November 2014. He stayed longer than usual to ensure stability through the political turmoil of the Brexit negotiations.
His biggest challenge was the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal, a Russian double agent converted by MI6, in the English cathedral city of Salisbury in 2018 with a Soviet-designed nerve agent known as Novichok.
Britain blamed Russian military intelligence (GRU), but the Kremlin denied any involvement. The attack caused the largest western expulsion of Russian diplomats and spies since the Cold War.
Report by Guy Faulconbridge; Edition of Paul Sandle and Alison Williams
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