Sir David Rolland Spedding (7 March 1943 – 13 June 2001) was head of the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

Secret Intelligence Service The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 (MI numbers, Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of Human i ...

(MI6) from 1994 to 1999.

Early life

David Spedding was the son of a Border Regiment lieutenant colonel, and grew up in the middle class. He was initially educated at

Sherborne School Sherborne School is a full-boarding school for boys aged 13 to 18 located beside Sherborne Abbey in the Dorset town of Sherborne. The school has been in continuous operation on the same site for over 1,300 years. It was founded in 705 AD by Ald ...

, then read history at

Hertford College, Oxford Hertford College ( ), previously known as Magdalen Hall, is a colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It is located on Catte Street in the centre of Oxford, directly opposite the main ga ...

Career

Spedding joined the Secret Intelligence Service in 1967, while a postgraduate student at Oxford. He then attended the Middle East Center for Arabic Studies in

Beirut Beirut ( ; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, just under half of Lebanon's population, which makes it the List of largest cities in the Levant region by populatio ...

, becoming a specialist on Middle East affairs. He also served in

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile (), is the capital and largest city of Chile and one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is located in the country's central valley and is the center of the Santiago Metropolitan Regi ...

and

Abu Dhabi Abu Dhabi is the capital city of the United Arab Emirates. The city is the seat of the Abu Dhabi Central Capital District, the capital city of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, and the UAE's List of cities in the United Arab Emirates, second-most popu ...

. In 1971 Spedding was named as the local SIS station commander in Lebanon, and was later posted to Abu Dhabi in 1977. Following his Middle East Directorate appointment in 1983, he was made the Amman Jordan station head, and was subsequently commended in that position for uncovering an Abu Nidal plan to assassinate the Queen during an upcoming Jordan visit. For this he was made Commander of the Royal Victorian Order. In 1993, Spedding became Director of Requirements and Operations. In 1994 he became Chief of the Service, becoming the first chief to have never served in the armed forces, and the youngest to have held the position to that date. During his tenure the SIS faced some degree of negative publicity due to unauthorized disclosures in the wake of Richard Tomlinson's dismissal. Spedding died of lung cancer on 13 June 2001, aged 58.

References

External links

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1943 births 2001 deaths Alumni of Hertford College, Oxford Commanders of the Royal Victorian Order Knights Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George Chiefs of the Secret Intelligence Service Officers of the Order of the British Empire People educated at Sherborne School Post–Cold War spies 20th-century spies {{UK-gov-bio-stub