Introduction

British intelligence services and their activities were mysterious to many. One organisation which remains particularly mysterious was SIME, MI5's regional headquarters run from Egypt during and after the Second World War. Little is known about its activities, relationship with MI6, or its liaison with local authorities. This chapter explores these issues before demonstrating what the story of SIME's closure in 1958 reveals about the shift in Whitehall's conduct of the Cold War. With the prospect of war against the Soviet Union reduced, SIME became obsolete in the eyes of military planners. This chapter shows that having increasingly become an instrument of the Cold War, the role of SIME was not to defend broadly against anti-British movements, but rather to focus narrowly on Communism. It further argues that the fragile nature of post-war intelligence liaison, when local populations became increasingly hostile to the British military presence, limited SIME's activities and effectiveness.

SIME in the Second World War

A former British Army officer, who served under the Middle East Command during the war, once described SIME as ‘MI5 behaving rather like MI6 and doing it better’. This is rather misleading because SIME was never the regional headquarters of MI5 during the war: it was staffed and administered by the British Army and operated entirely under the direction of the General Headquarters of the Middle East (GHQ/ME). The exception was the Defence Security Officer (DSO) in Cairo, Colonel (later Brigadier) Raymond J. Maunsell, an Army officer on the MI5 payroll. SIME's connections with MI5 developed on an ad hoc basis throughout the war, often driven by SIME requiring technical advice on counter-espionage in the region. As the war progressed and the ‘double-cross’ deception operations developed, MI5 sent SIME instructions to enhance its security practices, necessary given its counter-espionage functions.