The British Secret Service: MI6

A lo largo de más de un siglo, entre la realidad y la ficción, en decenas de novelas y películas, el servicio de inteligencia británico ha construido su reputación como uno de los más eficientes y, sobre todo, más glamurosos del mundo.

British Council

Bandera UK
Daniel Francis

Speaker (UK accent)

Actualizado a

Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) building in London

Escucha este articulo

Imprimir

You might have heard of MI6 through the man known as 007. James Bond doesn’t exist, of course, but what about MI6? MI6 is very real. It is an organisation that recruits agents who collect ‘human intelligence’, or information, from countries around the world in order to protect the security of the UK. The official name for MI6 is the Secret Intelligence Service, or SIS.

when?

MI6 started life in 1909, so it’s over a hundred years old. However, it wasn’t officially recognised by the British government until 1995!

where?

The agency started off in a small, rented office, but it has its present headquarters in a huge building at Vauxhall Cross, on the banks of the River Thames in London. The building is shown in several James Bond films, including The World Is Not Enough and Skyfall.

who?

The first chief of MI6 was Sir Mansfield Smith-Cumming. He always signed his name as ‘C’ in green ink. Since then, the chiefs of MI6 have continued the tradition and still sign documents with a green ‘C’.

John le Carré, famous for his spy novels, was a former MI6 agent. He changed his name from David John Moore Cornwell because agents weren’t allowed to publish books under their own names.

what?

During the Second World War, MI6 communicated with agents through coded radio messages broadcast on the BBC. MI6 was also involved in breaking other countries’ codes in order to understand their secret communications. Most of this code-breaking work was done at Bletchley Park, in the south of England, by teams of people who were good at maths, languages or solving puzzles. Modern computers didn’t exist at that time and the code breakers had to use huge noisy machines to help them break the codes.

The Spice Girls: Pop Princesses

Culture

The Spice Girls: Pop Princesses

Las Spice Girls fueron todo un símbolo en los noventa. Vendieron millones de discos. Hoy continúan siendo amigas, pero llevan una vida más tranquila y relajada.

Alastair Peel

More in Explore

TODAY’S TOP STORIES

A Short Story: Frost Fair

Fiction

A Short Story: Frost Fair

El espectáculo del Támesis helado transforma Londres en un escenario único, donde una historia de amistad inicialmente maravillosa se convierte rápidamente en una pesadilla.

Rachel Roberts

 'Know' y 'Learn': cuáles son las diferencias
Istock

Grammar

'Know' y 'Learn': cuáles son las diferencias

Las palabras 'know' y 'learn' se refieren a conceptos relacionados con el conocimiento, pero se utilizan de forma diferente. Te explicamos las diferencias y cómo utilizarlas.

Cristina Alarcón

Suscríbete y mejora tu inglés por solo 1€/mes ¡Es el momento! Mejora tu nivel de inglés con un método sencillo que se adapta a ti. Cancela cuando quieras.