Mi6 Agents facts

While investigating facts about Mi6 Agents, I found out little known, but curios details like:

Unlike James Bond, real MI6 agents don't need a license to kill because everything they do outside the UK is already illegal. The UK spy agency makes Bond-like gadgets for operatives but, as one said after retiring, they "frequently fail to work upon arrival at our destination".

The death of MI6 spy Gareth Williams. Who was found dead, locked inside a bag in the bath. Police ruled the cause of death was suicide despite no fingerprints or DNA being found. A former KGB agent has since said he was killed by Russian hitmen after refusing to become a double agent.

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across. Here are 19 of the best facts about Mi6 Agents I managed to collect.

1. The British Secret Service (James Bond's employer) really can issue a "license to kill". It's called a Class Seven authorization, and must be approved by the MI6 agent's superiors all the way up to the Foreign Minister.

2. Mansfield Cumming, first director of Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) started using semen as invisible ink during World War 1, but they stopped it because of the smell and questions regarding the masturbatory habits of the agents involved.

3. MI6 thought a report submitted by a false agent regarding the Iraqi Chemical Weapons Program was legitimate, until they realized it bore a striking resemblance to aspects of the movie "The Rock"

4. Duško Popov was one of inspirations for Ian Fleming's James Bond. He was a ladies man, party goer and double agent in WW2 working for MI6, who informed FBI about impending Pearl Harbor. Fleming witnessed real-life bluff made by Popov and used it as basis for Casino Royale.

5. The life story of Dušan "Duško" Popov, triple agent during World War II who worked for the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, MI6 and the Nazis. During his lifetime he had an affair with French actress Simone Simon and was the inspiration for Ian Flemming's James Bond.

6. Semen makes a good invisible ink, leading to its use by MI6 agents in World War I.

7. MI6's first director, George Manfield Smith-Cumming (seriously), knew that semen made good invisible ink, and noted of his agents that "Every man (is) his own stylo".

8. The co-writer of the Camp X Manual, field manual for CIA and MI6 spies, was a KGB double agent Kim Philby

9. British MP Airey Neave was assassinated by the INLA in 1979, had escaped from Colditz in WWII, and served with the International Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg. There is a theory that he was killed by MI6 agents working with the CIA.

What is true about mi6 agents?

You can easily fact check it by examining the linked well-known sources.

MI6 used "Garfield the Cat" toys to transmit secret messages to their embassy, because their sucker feet allowed an agent to covertly stick the transmitter on the side window of a car.

Cold War MI6 agent Kim Philby, who worked for the KGB, upon his defection to the USSR discovered that he was not a colonel in the KGB as he was led to believe. He was placed under house arrest, guarded and monitored 24/7. Philby took to drinking and suffered from depression till his death. - source

"cumming" (ejaculating) comes from the name of Mansfield Smith-Cumming, an MI6 agent who proposed used semen as invisible ink in WW1 - source

Russian double agent Oleg Gordievsky was smuggled out of Russia in a car's trunk by MI6 agents posing as a family going on a day trip. Search dogs at the border were thrown off Oleg's scent by the dirty diapers of the "family's" baby.

Russian double agent Oleg Gordievsky was smuggled out of Russia in a car's trunk by MI6 agents posing as a family going on a day trip. Search dogs at the border were thrown off Oleg's scent by the dirty diapers of the "family's" baby. - source

MI6 agents used semen as invisible ink - under orders from their chief Mansfield Cumming

In the 60s the deputy director of MI6, Graham Mitchell, was accused of being a KGB double agent who encoded secrets in chess games. However, despite many attempts a message has never been decoded from his games, and so he was cleared of all accusations in the 80s.