| 54 Broadway | |
|---|---|
 Broadway Buildings | |
 | |
| General information | |
| Location | Westminster, London |
| Coordinates | 51°30′00″N0°08′00″W / 51.49989°N 0.13347°W |
| Completed | 1924 |
| Technical details | |
| Floor count | 9 |
54 Broadway sometimes known as Broadway Buildings is an office building in Broadway, London.
The building, which has a prominent mansard roof, was completed around 1924, when it became the main operating base for the Secret Intelligence Service. [1] [lower-alpha 1] During the Second World War it had a brass plaque identifying it as the offices of the "Minimax Fire Extinguisher Company". [1] Sir Stewart Menzies, Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, had access to a tunnel, which connected 54 Broadway to his private residence in Queen Anne's Gate. [2] Kim Philby, who worked in the building during the war, described it as
a dingy building, a warren of wooden partitions and frosted glass windows...served by an ancient lift. [3]
The Secret Intelligence Service moved out to Century House in 1964. [4] During the 1990s, the building was used by the project team for the Jubilee Line Extension to the London Underground. [5]
Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby was a British intelligence officer and a double agent for the Soviet Union. In 1963, he was revealed to be a member of the Cambridge Five, a spy ring which had divulged British secrets to the Soviets during World War II and in the early stages of the Cold War. Of the five, Philby is believed to have been most successful in providing secret information to the Soviets.
The Cambridge Five were a ring of spies in the United Kingdom that passed information to the Soviet Union during the Second World War and the Cold War and was active from the 1930s until at least the early 1950s. None of the known members were ever prosecuted for spying. The number and membership of the ring emerged slowly, from the 1950s onwards.
Major General Sir Stewart Graham Menzies, was Chief of MI6, the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), from 1939 to 1952, during and after the Second World War.
Harry St John Bridger Philby, CIE, also known as Jack Philby or Sheikh Abdullah, was a British Arabist, adviser, explorer, writer, and a colonial intelligence officer who served as an advisor to King Abdulaziz ibn Saud, the founder of Saudi Arabia.
John Cairncross was a British civil servant who became an intelligence officer and spy during the Second World War. As a Soviet double agent, he passed to the Soviet Union the raw Tunny decryptions that influenced the Battle of Kursk. He was alleged to be the fifth member of the Cambridge Five. He was also notable as a translator, literary scholar and writer of non-fiction.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a 1974 spy novel by British-Irish author John le Carré. It follows the endeavours of taciturn, aging spymaster George Smiley to uncover a Soviet mole in the British Secret Intelligence Service. The novel has received critical acclaim for its complex social commentary—and, at the time, relevance, following the defection of Kim Philby. It has been adapted into both a television series and a film, and remains a staple of the spy fiction genre.
Sir Dick Goldsmith White, was a British intelligence officer. He was Director General (DG) of MI5 from 1953 to 1956, and Head of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) from 1956 to 1968.
The SIS Building or MI6 Building at Vauxhall Cross houses the headquarters of the Secret Intelligence Service, the United Kingdom's foreign intelligence agency. It is located at 85 Albert Embankment in Vauxhall, London, on the bank of the River Thames beside Vauxhall Bridge. The building has been the headquarters of the SIS since 1994.
Phillip George Knightley was an Australian journalist, critic, and non-fiction author. He became a visiting Professor of Journalism at the University of Lincoln, England, and was a media commentator on the intelligence services and propaganda.
Arnold Deutsch (1903–1942?), variously described as Austrian, Czech or Hungarian, was an academic who worked in London as a Soviet spy, best known for having recruited Kim Philby. Much of his life remains unknown or disputed.
Alice Friedmann, known as Litzi Friedmann, was an Austrian Communist who was the first wife of Kim Philby, a member of the Cambridge Five. Records identify her as the Soviet agent with the code name Mary.
Edith Tudor-Hart was an Austrian-British photographer and spy for the Soviet Union. Brought up in a family of socialists, she trained in photography at Walter Gropius's Bauhaus in Dessau, and carried her political ideals through her art. Through her connections with Arnold Deutsch, Tudor-Hart was instrumental in the recruiting of the Cambridge Spy ring which damaged British intelligence from World War II until the security services discovered all their identities by the mid-1960s. She recommended Litzi Friedmann and Kim Philby for recruitment by the KGB and acted as an intermediary for Anthony Blunt and Bob Stewart when the rezidentura at the Soviet Embassy in London suspended its operations in February 1940.
Flora Solomon, OBE was an influential Zionist. The first woman hired to improve working conditions at Marks & Spencer in London, Solomon was later instrumental in the exposure of British spy Kim Philby. She was the mother of Peter Benenson, founder of Amnesty International. She described her "personal trinity" as "Russian soul, Jewish heart, British passport".
Anthony Cave Brown was a British journalist, espionage non-fiction writer, and historian.
John Nicholas Rede Elliott was an MI6 intelligence officer. His MI6 career was notable for his involvement with the Lionel Crabb affair in the 1950s and the flight of double agent Kim Philby to Moscow in 1963.
St. Ermin's Hotel is a four-star central London hotel adjacent to St James's Park Underground station, close to Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, and the Houses of Parliament. The Grade II-listed late Victorian building, built as one of the early mansion blocks in the English capital, is thought to be named after an ancient monastery reputed to have occupied the site pre-10th century. Converted to a hotel in 1896–1899, it became during the 1930s, through the Second World War and beyond, a meeting place of the British intelligence services, notably the birthplace of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), and where notorious Cambridge Five double agents Philby and MacLean met their Russian handlers. St Ermin's is now part of Marriott Hotels' Autograph Collection. The hotel is owned by the family of Tei-Fu Chen, founder of Sunrider International.
The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6, is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligence in support of the UK's national security. SIS is one of the British intelligence agencies and the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service ("C") is directly accountable to the Foreign Secretary.
Kathleen Maria Margaret Sissmore, OBE (1898–1982), was known as Jane Sissmore and then Jane Archer after her marriage in 1939. In 1929 she became the first female officer in Britain's Security Service, MI5, and was still their only woman officer at the time of her dismissal for insubordination in 1940. She had been responsible for investigations into Soviet intelligence and subversion. She then joined the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), but when Kim Philby, later to be exposed as a double agent, became her boss he reduced her investigative work because he feared she might uncover his treachery.
Montagu Mansions is a street in the City of Westminster, in the Marylebone area of London, England, that is made up entirely of mansions flats and in World War II was one of the locations used by the Special Operations Executive.
Palmer Street is a street in the City of Westminster in London that runs between Petty France in the north and Victoria Street in the south. It is crossed by Caxton Street and Butler Place. The lower half of Palmer Street, below Caxton Street, is pedestrianised.