Historical Dictionary of British Intelligence

SKRIPKIN, IVAN• 497

Alluding to Sinclair’s continued silence over the circumstances of his

departure and his refusal to record what really had occurred, Oldfield

recalled Sinclair’s

inability for security reasons to answer some of the criticisms made long

after the event of happenings, during his period of office. Those who know

the truth of such matters sympathized with him and are above all grateful

for the memory of a dedicated upright patriot.

SINGLE INTELLIGENCE VOTE (SIV).Funding for the security
and intelligence services is granted by the Exchequer through the sin-
gle intelligence vote, formerly known as thesecret vote.MI5, the
Secret Intelligence Service,GCHQ, and other participants in the
process submit their estimates to theintelligence coordinator to the
Cabinet, who then submits the budget to thePermanent Secretar-
ies’ Committee on the Intelligence Services. Once approved, it is
placed before ministers, either directly to the chancellor of the Ex-
chequer or through theMinisterial Committee on the Intelligence
Services—which has not met since 1997. The published SIV, now at
£1 billion, is not an accurate guide to total expenditure on security
and intelligence becauseGCHQreceives support from around a
thousand members of the armed forces, deployed mainly on collec-
tion duties, and various other items are borne by other departmental
budgets, including the Ministries of Defence and Transport.

SKARDON, JIM.Formerly a Scotland Yard detective sergeant, Jim
Skardon joinedMI5in 1940 and at the end of World War II acquired
a reputation as a skillful interrogator, having questionedWilliam
Joyce. In 1949 he extracted a confession from Klaus Fuchs without
compromising the signals intelligence source of the original clue to
the existence of a Soviet spy, but in 1951 he failed to persuadeKim
Philbyto make any incriminating admissions. Later Skardon was
transferred to head MI5’sWatcher Service, supervising the surveil-
lance onMorris and Lona Cohenin Ruislip. He retired in 1961,
finally moving to Torquay where he died in March 1987.

SKRIPKIN, IVAN.In 1946 Ivan Skripkin had made a tentative ap-
proach to theSecret Intelligence Servicein the Far East todefect,
but after his return to Moscow he fell for a classic entrapment tech-