500 • SMITH, SIR HOWARD
of an attachment to the British Military Mission. It soon became
clear to Smiley that the operation had been betrayed, however, for
the local security apparatus seemed well prepared for their arrival.
Disappointed, Smiley rejoined his regiment in 1952 and commanded
the Blues in Germany until 1955 when he was appointed military
attache ́in Stockholm. After three years in Sweden, he went to Oman
to command the sultan’s army, and in 1962 he became the military
adviser to the imam of Yemen and his guerrillas.
After four years in the Gulf, Smiley retired to a farm near Alicante
in Spain and wroteArabian Assignment(1975). His second volume
of memoirs,Albanian Assignment, followed in 1984, shortly before
the author’s return to England.SMITH, SIR HOWARD. Director-general of the Security Service
from 1979 to 1981, Howard Smith was a diplomat who had served
as the British ambassador to Moscow until his appointment. Born in
October 1919 and educated at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge,
Smith joined the Foreign Office in 1939 and served in Oslo, Wash-
ington, D.C., Caracas, and Moscow before going to Prague as ambas-
sador in 1968. Upon his return in 1971, he was posted to Belfast as
the UK representative for a year, and in 1976 went back to Moscow
as ambassador. He succeededSir Michael HanleyasMI5’s direc-
tor-general, and upon his retirement saw his deputy, John Jones, take
over.
SMITH, MICHAEL.A formerCommunist Party of Great Britain
member, Michael Smith was arrested in August 1992 following an
MI5 false-flagoperation. Smith, had been identified the previous
month byViktor Oshchenko,aKGBofficer who haddefectedfrom
the Parisrezidentura. An MI5 officer masqueraded as his new KGB
contact and Smith, who had worked until May for the defense con-
tractor Thorn-EMI and had access to classified contracts, including
the fuse for the We-177 nuclear bomb, accepted him as genuine. Per-
suaded that the Russians wanted to reestablish contact, Smith was
entrapped on 8 August 1992 and incriminated himself by offering to
resume his espionage. A search of his home in Kingston-upon-
Thames revealed some classified documents he had taken home years
earlier, and he was sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment.