Millicent Jessie Eleanor Bagot, CBE (1907-2006)
Michael Rhodes
May, 2006, at the Jubilee Nursing Home, Godalming, aged 99. She was
born in 1907, daughter of Cecil Villiers Bagot (1865-1940), by his wife
the former Ethel Garratt (d. 1944); she was educated at Lady Margaret
Hall, Oxford (MA); career: attached to the Ministry of Defence, MBE
(Civil) 1949, CBE (Civil) 1967. She never married.
Source: The Times
***
Michael Rhodes
Le Carré's 'Connie' dies aged 99
By Michael Evans Defence Editor
Milicent Bagot: MI5 legend
A LEGENDARY figure in MI5 who was reputed to be the model for one of
John le Carré's characters in the Cold War Smiley series, has died
at the age of 99.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2208401,00.html
Milicent Bagot, a spinster devoted to her secret work, knew more about
the spread of Communism than anyone else in MI5, which was why she was
thought to be the model for Connie Sachs, the eccentric Soviet expert
in Smiley's People and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
Le Carré - the pseudonym of David Cornwell - placed his Connie
Sachs character inside MI6, but the author worked for MI5 and MI6 and,
according to security sources yesterday, Ms Bagot was always considered
inside MI5 to be the model for "Connie".
They shared the same extraordinary knowledge of the Soviet Communist
threat and were similar characters, although, reputedly, there was
another woman working in MI6 in the same Cold War period who was
another potential Connie model.
However, Ms Bagot, an Oxford graduate, had other claims to fame inside
the service. Nigel West, the author of several spy and intelligence
books, said that she was the first person to warn MI5 that Harold
"Kim" Philby, the MI6 officer who was a Soviet KGB double agent,
had been a member of the Communist Party. "She didn't know that
Philby was spying for the Russians, but in 1951 she told a senior MI5
officer that she knew from a secret source that Philby was a
Communist," West said.
"When Philby was asked if he had been a Communist, he denied it, and
that's what eventually brought him down. He had to resign from
MI6."
In 1963 Nicholas Elliott, an MI6 officer, flew to Beirut, where Philby
was working as a journalist though still employed by MI6 on a freelance
basis. He confronted Philby with evidence from key KGB defectors that
he was part of a ring of British spies. Philby confessed and fled to
Moscow.
"Milicent Bagot was not involved in exposing Philby as a spy, but she
knew that he was a Communist, although she never revealed how she knew
this," West said.
Ms Bagot, who died last week in a nursing home, was also the author of
the definitive inside account of the Zinoviev affair: the publication
in 1924 of a letter allegedly written by Grigori Zinoviev, president of
the executive committee of the Comintern, the Soviet body responsible
for overseas propaganda, which urged the working class in Britain to
rise in an armed insurrection.
The letter was a forgery, aimed at undermining Anglo-Soviet treaties
signed by Moscow and the Labour Government of Ramsay MacDonald.
Publication of the Zinoviev Letter in a newspaper led to the
abandonment of the treaties and the fall of the MacDonald Government.
There were questions over whether MI5 or MI6 had been involved in
leaking the forged letter.
When the affair was revived in 1967 with the publication of a book by
The Sunday Times Insight team, Ms Bagot, then just retired, was asked
to look at intelligence files and to write a secret report. Her
memorandum was never published as it contained sensitive operational
and personnel information.