Colin Figures

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox spy Sir Colin Frederick Figures Template:Post-nominals (1 July 1925 – 8 December 2006) was Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (known as MI6) from 1981 to 1985. During this time he had oversight of the supply of human intelligence information, including Argentine positions and their stocks of Exocet missiles, to the UK Government during the Falklands War.<ref name=times/>

Career

Figures was born in Birmingham, the son of Frederick Figures, an insurance executive, and his wife Muriel.<ref name=inde>Obituary: Sir Colin Figures The Independent, 29 December 2006</ref> He was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham<ref name="times">Template:Cite news</ref> and served in The Worcestershire Regiment from 1943 until 1948,<ref name=times/> during which time he studied Russian via the Inter-Service Language Course at Cambridge, and served in Romania and Hungary.<ref name=times/> He read French and Russian at Pembroke College, Cambridge after being demobilised in 1948.<ref name="times" /> While there, he also founded the Woodpeckers, a combined Oxford and Cambridge touring rugby team.<ref name="inde" /> He joined the SIS when he graduated in 1951.<ref name=times/><ref>Template:Cite ODNB</ref>

After a period in London, he served in Germany, served in Amman during the Suez Crisis, in Warsaw, and in Vienna during the Prague Spring, before returning to London.<ref name=times/> He moved from Eastern bloc espionage in 1973 to supervise SIS activities in Northern Ireland.<ref name=times/> He became deputy head of SIS in 1979 and its ninth Chief in 1981.<ref name=times/> The following year, SIS was involved in the Falklands War, seeking to prevent Argentina obtaining stocks of Exocet missiles to be carried by their Super Etendard attack aircraft.<ref>Obituary: Sir Colin Figures Daily Telegraph, 21 December 2006</ref> He received an OBE in 1969 and CMG in 1978, and advanced to KCMG in 1983.<ref name=times/>

He retired from SIS in 1985, and became Intelligence Co-ordinator at the Cabinet Office.<ref name=times/> He finally retired in 1989.<ref name=times/>

He married Pamela Ann Timmis in 1956.<ref name=inde/> He suffered from Parkinson's disease in later life, and died in Esher.<ref name=inde/> He was survived by his wife, and their son and two daughters.<ref name=inde/>

External links

• Figures' entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography