[A-List] UK state: new MI5 boss

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

MI5 faces accountability test as new chief takes reins
By Kim Sengupta
The Independent, 08 October 2002

The second woman to head MI5 takes over as the director-general today with
the domestic security agency facing one of the most difficult periods in its
history.

Eliza Manningham-Buller succeeds Sir Stephen Lander, who stepped down this
year. The only other female leader of MI5 has been Stella Rimington, whose
tenure created some controversy.

Mrs Manningham-Buller is the 52-year-old daughter of a former conservative
attorney-general and a schoolmate of Princess Anne at Benenden.

Her appointment comes at a time when MI5 is striving for more public
transparency and accountability.

In the week Mrs Manningham-Buller begins her new job, the service looks set
to face some of its old problems with the start of the trial of David
Shayler at the Old Bailey.

Mrs Manningham-Buller, who joined MI5 in 1974 after working for three years
as a teacher, played a senior role investigating the Lockerbie bombing and
was also one of the handlers of the senior KGB defector Oleg Gordievsky.

In 1992, she became the head of the newly-created counter-terrorism section
for Northern Ireland.

Mrs Manningham-Buller was appointed deputy director at the same time.

Her husband, David, is the son of a former lieutenant-colonel and a former
lecturer in moral philosophy at St Andrews University. He has recently
retrained as a carpenter.

An Irish Catholic by birth, he is said to have once held strong left-wing
views. According to friends, he did not know his future wife's profession
during their courtship.