Times obits

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Joseph Conlon
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Times obits

Post by Joseph Conlon » Wed Jun 09, 2021 7:57 am

As not every chess player makes the Times when they make their last promotion, I note that today’s Times contains an obituary of Hamilton McMillan, of current grade 1923A (=163A) and late of MI6.

NickFaulks
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Re: Times obits

Post by NickFaulks » Wed Jun 09, 2021 9:55 am

Thanks, that will be of great interest to Pimlico members, among many others. I expect I can get hold of a copy.
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Angus French
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Re: Times obits

Post by Angus French » Wed Jun 09, 2021 10:08 am

Indeed. I didn't know Hamilton had been a senior M16 officer. When I asked him what he did he said he'd worked for the Foreign Office...

Kevin Thurlow
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Re: Times obits

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Wed Jun 09, 2021 11:46 am

MI6 is part of Foreign Office so its employees tend to say "Foreign Office" or "Civil Service" when questioned! As everybody in Civil Service said "Civil Service", passport control overseas assumed that meant "MI6", so the rest of the CS started being a bit more forthcoming about their departments.

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John Upham
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Re: Times obits

Post by John Upham » Wed Jun 09, 2021 12:00 pm

Angus French wrote:
Wed Jun 09, 2021 10:08 am
Indeed. I didn't know Hamilton had been a senior M16 officer. When I asked him what he did he said he'd worked for the Foreign Office...
That surprises me.

I was the under the impression that MI6 / SIS employees freely handed out business cards listing "Secret Service" as their primary occupation.
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Re: Times obits

Post by Angus French » Wed Jun 09, 2021 12:21 pm

Well, yes. Though he was long retired and had been outed by Howard Marks.

David Gilbert
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Re: Times obits

Post by David Gilbert » Wed Jun 09, 2021 12:59 pm

No doubt about it, Hamilton was one of the nicest people ever to play club chess (although he could be ruthless over the board). There was always a grin and a warm welcome when I saw him. He'll be badly missed by all, not just Pimlico Chess Club but by all the Clubs and players of the London Public Service Chess League.

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Re: Times obits

Post by NickFaulks » Wed Jun 09, 2021 2:19 pm

I seem to be the only person for whom this is hidden behind a paywall.
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JustinHorton
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Re: Times obits

Post by JustinHorton » Wed Jun 09, 2021 2:27 pm

No, me too, though I can read a little more than is normally the case for The Times
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Re: Times obits

Post by Brendan O'Gorman » Wed Jun 09, 2021 3:03 pm

Times Obituary

"Hamilton McMillan obituary
MI6 officer who was based in Vienna during the Cold War and later ‘outed’ in Rome by Howard Marks, aka Mr Nice

Tuesday June 08 2021, 5.00pm, The Times
[89fa6cf4-c85f-11eb-b6f5-fed739e7c1ca.jpg]
McMillan believed in “getting into the fabric” of a country or culture and its players.

Hamilton McMillan, admired by many of his colleagues as one of the most innovative and effective British intelligence officers of his generation, was particularly at home during his two postings to Vienna. It helped that he was bilingual in German, having spent much of his childhood in Hamburg, where his father had been posted as a banker. He also, with his passion for wearing hats, rather looked the part. Some thought he resembled Orson Welles, the trilby-wearing star of the 1949 film The Third Man, which created a powerful image of postwar Vienna as a place of great international intrigue.
Jointly occupied by victorious Second World War allies, but then swiftly a centre of Cold War tension and negotiation, Vienna was a place through which all kinds of international actors passed. Hamilton described the city as an “intelligence bazaar”. When he was first based there in the 1970s it was still dark and seedy and damaged from the war years, but had also taken on broader significance. It was the headquarters of Opec during global oil price crises, and important UN agencies were based there, including the International Atomic Energy Agency.
From his vantage point, sometimes while enjoying favourite restaurants including the Black Camel, McMillan could observe the human traffic. He also appreciated the great tradition of chess-playing in some of the city’s venues. Chess, played by correspondence from whichever part of the world he found himself in, was a lifelong hobby that he pursued at a high level. The habits of mind developed in this field, along with his study of chemistry at university, informed his approach to the procuring of intelligence. Thinking outside the box hardly described McMillan’s style as he would not even have recognised the existence of a box when presented with a new problem.
His approach to his work went well beyond pure analytics or what he criticised as mere “spying by numbers”. He was always mindful of the need to stand outside the game to understand individuals, “getting into the fabric” of a country or culture and its players.
Norman Hamilton McMillan was born in 1946. His analytical skills had been honed when he read chemistry at Balliol College, Oxford, in the mid-1960s. His powerful intellect might have led to a scientific research career but he became frustrated with the limitations of the particular line he was studying. Instead he responded to the traditional tap on the shoulder by Balliol’s resident talent-spotter for MI6.

While at Oxford he met his future wife, who survives him along with their two children. Their names have not been included here for security reasons.
Balliol had given McMillan the opportunity to meet and observe a wide range of colourful characters. The college had at that time a reputation as a hotbed of left-wing politics amid the ferment of 1960s student and social radicalism. Among his college friends was Howard Marks, later a notorious drug smuggler and subject of the film Mr. Nice. McMillan recruited Marks as an informant, which caused him much embarrassment when Marks, under increasing pressure from law enforcement agencies, blew McMillan’s cover by revealing that he was an MI6 officer.
That happened when McMillan was based in Rome (he was also fluent in Italian). He was later posted to Dhaka in Bangladesh. Among his experiences there was being refused entry to the Dhaka Club, despite being a member. One morning he arrived dressed in the local Bengali garb of kurta pyjama only to be told by the secretary that the rules required a jacket and tie. “But Mr Secretary this is your national dress,” he protested. “But Mr McMillan these are your rules,” replied the secretary.
McMillan was also based in Cairo for a time, where challenges included being summoned to meetings by an insomniac Egyptian government minister at one o’ clock in the morning.

His most influential appointment was as head of MI6’s newly established counterterrorism section, where he formed a close bond with Duane Clarridge, the flamboyant head of the CIA’s counterterrorism centre. McMillan’s imaginative strategy, supported by the CIA’s resources, led to the neutralisation of the main international terrorist threat of the day, just as that threat was becoming focused on Britain. He built on that success by adapting techniques invented for counterterrorism to tackle weapons of mass destruction proliferation and organised crime.
McMillan’s last appointment before his retirement in 1997 put him in charge of European operations. During that time he advanced MI6’s integration in the Whitehall community by instituting a lunch club of under-secretaries from the main civil service departments. In the last phase of his career his robust style of management attracted criticism. Some referred to him as a “Marmite” figure, but even those who did not like his management style still called him “Mac”, with some affection.
Hamilton McMillan OBE, CMG, intelligence officer, was born October 28, 1946. He died of heart disease on April 20, 2021, aged 74"

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JustinHorton
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Re: Times obits

Post by JustinHorton » Wed Jun 09, 2021 3:14 pm

he formed a close bond with Duane Clarridge, the flamboyant head of the CIA’s counterterrorism centre
and a man responsible for a great deal of murder in Latin America
Last edited by JustinHorton on Wed Jun 09, 2021 3:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Times obits

Post by NickFaulks » Wed Jun 09, 2021 3:37 pm

Thanks, Brendan.
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Re: Times obits

Post by NickFaulks » Wed Jun 09, 2021 4:09 pm

I have just found this from 2003, which I did not know about.

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/new ... t-ABN.html
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Re: Times obits

Post by Geoff Chandler » Wed Jun 09, 2021 5:14 pm

I played him in Edinburgh 2006. What a wonderful gent. He was so gracious in defeat.
Dougie Bryson had a field day using the game in his national chess column pointing out all the missed chances.

Game swing back and forth with me eventually pulling off a swindle.
He was smiling after the game, congratulated me saying it was very exciting.
One of the very few opponents I've only played once but have never forgotten.

Paul McKeown
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Re: Times obits

Post by Paul McKeown » Thu Jun 10, 2021 1:34 am

Hamilton McMillan was a former clubmate of mine, from the Athenaeum Chess Club, a lovely guy to have a beer with, a laugh and a conversation. He was sometimes mischievously known as "Santa Claus," for the luxuriant beard he grew, and for his waistline. He took it unflinchingly in his usual very good humour. I haven't seem him or spoken with him for some years now, but the world will still seem a colder place without him.

Ruhe in Frieden, Hamilton McMillan.

(Moderators - surely this belongs in the Deaths and Obituaries section?)

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