The story of the heads of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service Contains numerous anecdotes and is fully up to date Written by acclaimed author and intelligence expert Nigel West 'A fascinating description of fourteen of the most secretive men to hold public office in the past hundred years.' - Frederick Forsyth In August 1909, a kindly, balding figure named Mansfield Smith-Cumming was summoned to London by Admiral Alexander Bethell, Director of Naval Intelligence. He was to assume the inaugural position of Chief - or 'C' - of what has become the world's most celebrated intelligence agency, the British Secret Intelligence Service. And, while the organisation has developed in the near one hundred years since its inception, the role of C, currently fulfilled by John Scarlett, is in many respects unchanged from that of Smith-Cumming's. This remarkable book tells the story of that role, from Smith-Cumming to Scarlett, and each of the other twelve C's in between, all of whom still get reports headed 'CX' - Cumming Exclusively. For the first 85 years of the SIS, known variously as 'the firm', 'the funnies' and, within the Foreign Office, 'the friends', its existence and the identity of its Chief were subject to the strictest secrecy. Its only official recognition was the wartime designation MI6, by which the service continues to be commonly known today. For an agency that was not, until the Intelligence Services Bill of 1994, formally recognised by the government its notoriety is then something of a paradox. It was, perhaps, Britain's worst-kept secret, let slip by a succession of novelists, most notably Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond - a character whom former C Colin McColl dubbed 'our best recruiting sergeant'. But while Bond was a fiction, the flamboyant personalities and clever, or comical, subterfuges were not - for many years the SIS headquarters at 54 Broadway bore a brass plate proudly declaring the premises to belong to the 'Minimax Fire Extinguisher Company'. On Her Majesty's Secret Service is a revealing, detailed and highly entertaining account of the heads of Britain's most secret service. Written by the critically acclaimed author and intelligence expert Nigel West, it is compelling reading.