File 4/2 (1.a/50) M.E.I.C. Publicity, IOR/R/15/2/926, India Office
Records, British Library (St Pancras, London) [BL].
MI4 was the cartographic service of British military intelligence, which
later specialized in aerial reconnaissance and photo interpretation (until
1940).
See Helen McCarthy, ‘Two Attachés’, Women of the World: The Rise of the
Female Diplomat (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), 172–200. The diplomatic
‘careers’ of Stark and Persianist Nancy Lambton (1912–2008) are exam-
ined in the same chapter, without any apparent awareness of the covert
nature of their activities and connections, and that neither woman was a
real diplomat. Like Freya’s, Lambton’s wartime chain of command is
obscure; however, her assistant press attachés in Tehran were both friends
of Stark and Bishop: the author and broadcaster Christopher Sykes (SOE,
later Special Air Service [SAS]) and the Oxford don R.C. ‘Robin’ Zaehner
(1913–1974) (SIS under SOE cover). Lambton’s connection with SIS
became somewhat less opaque when it became known after the war that
she had conceived and concocted Operation BOOT/TPAJAX (the over-
throw of Mossadeq), jointly with Zaehner.
What Stark actually said was decidedly unromantic, claiming that she was
motivated simply by what was likely to happen in regions where oil had
been discovered. See Moorehead, Freya Stark, 46.
Though she was a frequent visitor to the South Gate headquarters, I cannot
trace any record of Stark’s ever working directly for SOE or being assigned
an SOE symbol. On the other hand, the most reliable of SOE sources,
Bickam Sweet-Escott (1907–1981), states unequivocally that Freya Stark,
Adrian Bishop, Aidan Philip, and Pat Domvile were all SIS: members of
‘the old D section’ originally sent out to the Middle East to do under-
ground (black) propaganda. See Bickham Sweet-Escott, Baker Street
Irregular (London: Methuen, 1965), 88. For more about Sweet-Escott,
see Charles Cruickshank, ‘Sweet-Escott, Bickham Aldred Cowan’, ed.
M.R.D. Foot, Secret Lives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 270–2.
All of the above except Stark have SOE symbols on file. See HS 3/144, HS
8/896, HS 8/971, HS 8/984, TNA. The following secondary sources also
confirm that Stark was a member of Section D, SIS: Stephen Dorril, MI6:
Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service (New
York: Touchstone, 2002), 622; Morris Riley, Philby: The Hidden Years
(London: Janus, 1999), 4; Nigel West, Historical Dictionary of British
Intelligence (London: Scarecrow Press, 2005), 99.
And then there is the highly successful and consequential interrogation of
a captured Italian submarine officer that Stark conducted in Aden (see
Chap. 4 ). As a mere MOI assistant information officer, had it not been for
her Section D status and reputation, Stark would never have been tasked
