Spy story

Spotlight on a spy

Maxwell Knight, spymaster at MI5, the United Kingdom’s domestic counter-intelligence and security agency, was known to Fleming. Knight had been known as M within MI5 and beyond since 1931.  He ran “M” section. His agents had codenames such as “M/1” and “M/A”. He signed off all correspondence as “M” and had dealings with individuals and organisations throughout the secret world.

Knight, says Hemming, may have been the greatest spymaster ever employed by MI5. The author bases his claim on recently declassified MI5 files, conversations with former officers from MI5 and MI6, and the relatives of Knight and the agents he ran, as well as diaries, memoirs, newspaper reports and contemporary accounts. (MI6 is the common name of the Secret Intelligence Service, the foreign intelligence agency of the British government.)