Historical Dictionary of British Intelligence

(Michael S) #1

348 • MAW, BERTIE


the issue became academic. SIS asked Maugham to go to Romania
instead, but he declined, pleading poor health.
Having recovered from his tuberculosis, Maugham continued his
literary success and scoured the world for tales to entertain. HisAsh-
endenstories, which also included some based on Maugham’s work
in Petrograd, certainly influenced many later spy writers, including
David CornwellandIan Fleming. Cornwell (known by his pen
name John Le Carre ́) was later to agree that Maugham ‘‘was the first
person to write about espionage in a mood of disenchantment and
almost prosaic reality.’’
Soon after the outbreak of the World War II, Maugham, aged
nearly 70, returned to London from his home on the French Riviera
and volunteered his services to an intelligence contact, Ian Hay, in
the hope of working for SIS again. Maugham’s offer was politely
declined but he did travel to the United States at the request of the
Ministry of Information to improve Britain’s propaganda. After the
war he returned to his home in Cap Ferrat, where he died in Decem-
ber 1965.

MAW, BERTIE.A careerSecret Intelligence Service(SIS) officer,
Bertie Maw played a key role in theZinoviev Letteraffair, acting
as the representative of his chief, AdmiralSir Hugh Sinclair.Hewas
later to be appointed one of twoG officersresponsible for supervis-
ing all of SIS’s European stations.


MAX. GCHQcode name during World War II for intercepted wireless
traffic that originated from areas along the line from Leningrad to
Rostov and Kerch through the Caucasus from the North, from Novo-
sibirsk to Batumi from Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, from Iran,
Baghdad, and Basra as well as Kuibyshev, Astrakhan and from the
western side of the Caspian Sea.


MAXWELL FYFE DIRECTIVE.In September 1952 the home sec-
retary, Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, set out the terms of the appointment
ofDick WhiteasSir Percy Sillitoe’s successor asdirector-general
of the Security Service. In six short paragraphs he described how
the director-general would be answerable to him—but with direct ac-
cess to the prime minister when appropriate, should keep his orga-

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