Historical Dictionary of British Intelligence

SECRET SERVICE FUNDS• 475

by Malcolm Munthe. Reporting to the controller, Far East, was P9,

led by Major Barff. The controller, Americas, supervising P8, was

Reginald Moare.

SIS’s overseas stations were located at The Hague, Brussels, Paris,

Toulouse, Madrid, Barcelona,Gibraltar(where the head of station

also representedMI5), Lisbon, Tangier, Casablanca, Rome, Milan,

Trieste, Caserta, Bari, Zurich, Vienna, Klagenfurt,Bad Salzuflen,

Hamburg, Hannover, Berlin, and the Ruhr. The P2 stations were at

Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Prague, Moscow, and War-

saw. The P3 stations were at Budapest, Bucharest, Belgrade, Athens,

Salonika, Florina (a substation of Salonika), Istanbul, Tehran, Ab-

khaz, Baghdad, Beirut, Damascus, Jerusalem, Cairo, and Tripoli,

with a planned station in Addis Ababa. The P4 stations were at Singa-

pore, Batavia, Honor, Hong Kong, and Nanking, with plans for sta-

tions at Shanghai, Tientsin, Bangkok, Seoul, and Tokyo.

SECRET OFFICE.In 1512 the master of posts was established and
within his organization was a Secret Office responsible for the inter-
ception and decryption of correspondence. During the Common-
wealth this role was taken over by the secretary of state so he could
communicate with his agents abroad, and in 1657 the structure was
absorbed into the General Post Office. In 1732 William Bode and his
family was brought over from Hannover to head the Secret Office,
while decryption was adopted by various members of the Willes
family.
The secretary of state continued to monitor the mails, especially
diplomatic correspondence, under warrants authorized in 1765, and
specific warrants were allowed for in the 1711 Post Office Act. Fol-
lowing the Economic Reform Act of 1782, the costs of maintaining
the Secret Office were met by thesecret vote. Following the scandal
surrounding the interception of the mail fromGuiseppe Mazzini, the
Secret Office was closed in 1846 by Lord Palmerston, although Bode
and his staff were retained on a full salary by Lord Aberdeen for a
further year. In 1851 the Secret Office’s records were destroyed.

SECRET SERVICE FUNDS.Unvouchered funds for unavowable,
clandestine activities have been available to successive foreign secre-
taries since the days of Henry VIII andSir Francis Walsingham.