Spedding, Sir David Rolland

▪ 2002

      British intelligence agent and administrator (b. March 7, 1943—d. June 13, 2001, London, Eng.), was from 1994 to 1999 chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI-6), the branch of the British government responsible for foreign intelligence and espionage activities. Under the traditional code name “C,” Spedding, an Arabist who studied at Hertford College, Oxford, and the Middle East Centre for Arabic Studies, reorganized the post-Cold War MI-6 into a modern operation dealing with such international crimes as drug trafficking, money laundering, and terrorism. Although Spedding's appointment was officially announced in 1994, he never appeared in public, and no photographs of him were published until after his death. He was knighted in 1996.

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