Maurice Oldfield
Sir Maurice Oldfield (16 November 1915, Over Haddon, near Bakewell, Derbyshire - 11 March 1981, London) was a British espionage administrator. He studied medieval history at Manchester University, where he became a friend of the historian Betty Kemp. She later said that she had no idea Oldfield was gay: "He said his job offered no sort of a life to a wife," she told The Sunday Telegraph in 1987. "I would get postcards from the oddest places, and he was often in danger. I knew exactly what he did, of course - he never made a secret of that." During the war Oldfield rose from sergeant in field security to lieutenant-colonel in Security Intelligence Middle East (SIME).
Oldfield was "C", director-general of MI6 between 1973 and 1978, although his identity was revealed by the German magazine Stern in 1973. In 1979 the new prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, asked Oldfield to coordinate security and intelligence in Northern Ireland. He left this post in 1980 after his positive vetting clearance was withdrawn.
In 1987, Thatcher confirmed to the House of Commons what had long been widely known - that Oldfield was gay. Oldfield himself had previously admitted that "from time to time [he] engaged in homosexual activities."
He was reputedly the model for John le Carré's fictional character George Smiley, though Le Carré disputes this.[1]
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Notes
- ^ In an interview included in the BBC's DVD release of Smiley's People (1982, DVD release June 28 2004), Le Carré says of Oldfield:
- ...little, tubby man with spectacles. Was never the model for Smiley, I didn't meet him till after I'd invented Smiley but the press wouldn't wear that...