By Associated Press’s JILL LAWLESS
London (AP) According to her family on Monday, Stella Rimington, the first female head of Britain’s MI5 spy organization and a subsequent popular thriller author, passed away. She was ninety years old.
Judi Dench’s portrayal of MI6 leader in the seven James Bond films was inspired by Rimington, the first female head of a U.K. intelligence agency.
Rimington passed away on Sunday, surrounded by her cherished family and dogs, and she steadfastly clung to the life she loved until the very end, according to a statement from her family.
As the first outspoken female head of any intelligence agency in the world, Dame Stella broke down long-standing boundaries and was a clear example of the value of diversity in leadership, according to Ken McCallum, the current director-general of MI5.
Rimington, who was born in London in 1935, attended Edinburgh University to study English before becoming an archivist. In the middle of the 1960s, she was living in India with her diplomat husband when she was hired as a part-time clerk and typewriter in the New Delhi office of MI5, Britain’s domestic intelligence agency.
After relocating to London in 1969, she became a full-time employee of the agency and worked her way up, circumventing regulations that restricted the most coveted positions, like hiring and managing agents, to men.
At a time when MI5’s duties included spotting Soviet spies, infiltrating militant groups in Northern Ireland, and—controversially—snooping on leftists, trade union leaders, and other suspected subversives, she worked in each of the operational branches of MI5: counterespionage, counterterrorism, and counter-subversion.
During the Cold War, Rimington admitted in 2001 that the agency could have been a little too eager in some of its domestic target eavesdropping.
In 1992, Rimington became the first person to be publicly named as the director-general of MI5, and under her tenure, the formerly closed-off agency became a little more transparent.
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In 1995, Dench made her debut as M, a part traditionally performed by men, in Golden Eyes. The casting was motivated by Rimington’s appointment, according to the film’s producers.
Queen Elizabeth II named Rimington a dame, the female equivalent of a knight, after she resigned in 1996.
Later, to the government’s chagrin, Rimington published a book titled Open Secret. She also wrote a number of spy novels with fictional MI5 operative Liz Carlyle.
CIA officer Manon Tyler was the new heroine in the 2022 novel The Devil’s Bargain.
Her top intelligence positions were followed by other women. From 2002 to 2007, Eliza Manningham-Buller was MI5’s leader.In 2023, Anne Keast-Butler was appointed chief of GCHQ, the body responsible for electronic and cyber intelligence.In June, Blaise Metreweli was appointed as the first woman to lead MI6, the foreign intelligence service.
In 2020, during the COVID-19 lockdown, Rimington and her husband, John Rimington, returned to living together after a separation in the 1980s.
“I would say it’s a good recipe for marriage,” she remarked. Divide, live apart, and then come back to it.
Her spouse, two kids, and five grandchildren survive her.
