578 • WHITE LADY
to catch the first flight, he discovered his passport had expired. De-
spite frantic efforts to revalidate it, White failed to make his flight
and Maclean was able to escape unhindered. Embarrassed by this
monumental blunder, White and his colleagues pretended that noth-
ing had happened, and when Mrs. Maclean telephoned on Monday
morning to report the disappearance of her husband, they all acted as
though this was the first MI5 knew of his departure two days earlier.
White was appointed director-general when Sillitoe went into re-
tirement in 1953. Just three years later, however, White was invited
to replaceSir John Sinclairas chief of theSecret Intelligence Ser-
vice(SIS). Told by the permanent undersecretary at the Home Office,
Sir Frank Newsam, that his duty lay with whatever the prime minister
requested, White accepted the appointment and transferred toBroad-
wayin the middle of July 1956, becoming the fifth Chief and the first
with a degree.James Eastonstayed on as his vice chief.
White’s appointment proved to be a highly controversial one. Over
the next 12 years, White would have to deal with the treachery of
George Blake, whose trial at the Old Bailey he attended, as well as
his wartime friends Philby andAnthony Blunt. He also participated
instraggle,Anthony Eden’s ill-fated attempt to recover theSuez
Canalfrom Egyptian Colonel Abdel Nasser. When White finally re-
tired from Whitehall in 1972, he lived in a modern, timber-frame
house he had built himself at Burpham, near Arundel in Sussex, with
his wife Kate, leading a vegetarian existence and writing poetry.
White died on 22 February 1993, of cancer, and at his memorial ser-
vice held at the Guards Chapel, Wellington Barracks, the lessons
were read by the current heads of the two services he had led:Dame
Stella Rimingtonfor MI5 andSir Colin McCollfor SIS.WHITE LADY. Secret Intelligence Servicecode name for a large
train-watching network in German-occupied Belgium during World
Wa r I .white ladygrew out of two other organizations that had been
penetrated by the enemy. According toHenry Landau, who took
control of it in July 1917, it amounted to 90 observation posts. In
1918 Mansfield Smith-Cumming congratulated thewhite lady
leaders and credited them with having produced 70 percent of the
intelligence reaching the Allies and being responsible for saving
thousands of Allied lives.