SINCLAIR, SIR JOHN• 493mament was politically unacceptable to the British electorate in May- However, Sinclair and his team persuaded the committee that
SIS’s estimates were accurate, and the government belatedly recog-
nized the need to promote the Royal Air Force. Sinclair had warned
Winterbotham that their future lay in the balance, but once the Air
Staff’s opposition collapsed, the Chief triumphed. ‘‘On our way back
to the office,’’ recalled Winterbotham, ‘‘the Admiral congratulated
Morton and myself on our performance. It was, in a way, a turning-
point for my career inMI6. We all had a drink in the Admiral’s flat.’’
Having survived the debacle over the Zinoviev letter, Sinclair’s
legacy was a series of rearguard actions against Treasury parsimony
that left his stations abroad badly depleted and strapped for cash. In
failing health, Sinclair was to succumb to cancer at the London Clinic
on 4 November 1939, probably his greatest achievement being his
dress rehearsal for war, conducted during the Munich Crisis of 1938,
which had temporarily moved the entire organization to its secret
‘‘war station’’ atBletchley Park, a hideous mansion and estate the
Chief had bought with his own funds so as to avoid a further drain
on the secret vote, which had been increased belatedly to £350,000.
Accommodated alongside SIS’s various individual sections at Blet-
chley was GC&CS, which through bureaucratic inertia had remained
under C’s umbrella and had mobilized a cadre of academics to exer-
cise their codebreaking skills. This apparently unpromising invest-
ment was to prove to be a war winner, but until the source initially
codenamedboniface, and thenultra, came on stream, Sinclair
would be recalled by Winterbotham as a Chief ‘‘whose absolute per-
sonal loyalty and fairness to his staff were qualities which were rarely
found in his successors.’’
SINCLAIR, SIR JOHN.Chief of theSecret Intelligence Service
(SIS) from 1952 to 1956, Sir John Sinclair was known as ‘‘Sinbad’’
because he had made the unusual career change from the Royal Navy
to the army. Born in Fulham, the son of the archdeacon of Cirences-
ter, he was always known to his family and close friends as ‘‘Alec’’
and did not use the name John until he received his knighthood in
- Sinclair had been educated at Osborne and Dartmouth and had
spent the first two years of World War I as a midshipman in subma-
rines, afflicted with chronic seasickness. After participating in the