182 • FIFTH COLUMN
After his retirement, Fielding moved to Serrania de Ronda, in the
south of Spain, and wrote a biography of his old friend Billy
McLean,One Man in His Time, but died in August 1991, soon after
its publication. In his war memoirs, published in 1954, Fielding made
no mention of his postwar role and instead gave a detailed account of
his experiences in Crete.FIFTH COLUMN.The fear that a Spanish-style ‘‘fifth column’’ of
enemy collaborators existed in Britain prior to World War II fueled
MI5’s efforts to monitor the activities of various suspect organiza-
tions, among them the Nordic League, theLink, theAnglo-German
Fellowship, the Peace Pledge Union, the Imperial Fascist League,
theBritish Union of Fascists, and the British People’s Party. All
were the subject of surveillance and penetration, but no evidence was
found of clandestine contact with, or funding by, foreign fascists.
FIGURES, SIR COLIN.ChiefoftheSecret Intelligence Service
(SIS) from July 1981 to 1985, Colin Figures was educated at King
Edward’s School in Birmingham and Pembroke College, Cambridge,
and served in the Worcestershire regiment between 1943 and 1948.
He joined SIS in 1951 and in June 1953 was posted to Germany,
underBritish Control Commission for Germanycover. In Septem-
ber 1956, in time to be a witness to the Suez debacle, he went to
Amman, Jordan, staying until April 1959. In December 1959, Fig-
ures was posted to Warsaw, where he was indoctrinated into three
cases, all Polish intelligence service officers from the Urzad Bezpiec-
zenstwa (UB) who had been ‘‘walk-ins.’’ Of the three volunteers,
noddy, with the rank of colonel, was the most productive, and his
information included material he had picked up during his frequent
visits to Moscow. Initially, of course, there had been suspicion that
noddywas yet anotherKGB-orchestrated deception, but Robert
Dawson, SIS’s director of production for Eastern Europe, authenti-
cated him, and he proved his worth time and again. Figures’s last
overseas posting was to Vienna, between October 1966 and 1969.
Over the next 10 years he held senior posts atCentury House.In
July 1981 he succeededDickie Franksas Chief. In April 1982 Fig-
ures was plunged into theFalklandsconflict, which was to define
Prime Minister Thatcher’s government. The conflict with Argentina