Hugh Sinclair was born in 1873. He joined the Royal Navy in 1886 and during the First World War he joined the Naval Intelligence Division.

In February 1919 he succeeded Admiral Blinker Hall as Director of Naval Intelligence. Later he was appointed head of the Submarine Service and in 1923 he succeeded Mansfield Cumming as head of MI6. Soon afterwards he brought in his unmarried sister, Evelyn Sinclair, as his assistant.

Sinclair was a strong opponent of communism and argued that telegrams sent by Maxim Litvinov showed that Russia was financing Sinn Fein. Later it was revealled that these telegrams were forgeries.

Several figures in MI6 were sympathetic to the government of Nazi Germany. Wing Commander Frederick Winterbottom, head of MI6's air section, argued that Britain and Germany should united against the Soviet Union. In March 1939 Sinclair rejected evidence that Germany planned to go to war against Britain as "alarmist rumours put forward by Jews and Bolsheviks."

Soon after the outbreak of the Second World War Sinclair was replaced by Stewart Menzies as Director General of MI6. Sir Hugh Sinclair died in 1939.

 

 

Home Front

Home Front Simulation

Forum Debates

Second World War

Controversial Issues in History

Cold War Debates

The CIA/MI5 and the Labour Party

The Cambridge Spy Ring

The Kim Philby Spy Group

 

 


 

 

 


Google
 

Educational Websites

Standards Site, BBC History, PBS Online, Open Directory Project, Virtual Library,
Education Forum, History GCSE, Design & Technology, Learn History, Music Teacher Resource,
Freepedia, Teach It, Science Active, Geography IST, Brighton Photographers, Sussex Photo History,
Crompton History, Universal Teacher, English Teaching, English Online, History Learning Site,
History on the Net, Black History, Greenfield History, School History, Active History, I Love History,
E-HELP, Ed Podesta Blog, Macgregorish History, Historiasiglo20, Sintermeerten, ICT4LT

News and Search

Guardian Unlimited, Times Online, Daily Telegraph, The Independent, New York Times,
Washington Post, BBC, CNN, Yahoo News, New Scientist, Google News, Channel 4, ZDNet,
Google, Excite, Yahoo, MSN, Lycos, AOL Search, Hotbot, Metacrawler, Netscape, Ask, Search,
Go, Looksmart, Dogpile, Raging Search, All the Web, Kartoo, Search Engine Watch, About