Colin Figures

Chief of MI6 1981-85

Mar 30, 2023

∙ Paid

Sir Colin Figures was head of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6 or SIS) from 1981 to 1985 and Cabinet Office Intelligence Co-ordinator from 1985 to 1989 (ref 1).

Early life

Figures was born on 1 July 1925 in Birmingham, where he was educated at King Edwards' School (ref 1).

He served in the armed forces from 1943 to 1948 (ref 4, p.249). Initially with the Worcestershire Regiment, he took the Inter-Service Language course in Russian at Cambridge in 1946, , after which he served with the British military missions in Romania and Hungary (ref 1). He returned to Cambridge to study French and Russian at Pembroke College (ref 1).

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