Richard Moore

Richard Moore    (spook, diplomat)
Born	Richard Peter Moore 9 May 1963 Tripoli, Libya
Alma mater	Worcester College (Oxford), Harvard University, Stanford Graduate School of Business
Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6)  Chief of the SIS In office 1 October 2020 - Present Employer UK/FCDO Preceded by Alex Younger  Director General (Political) In office April 2018 - 30 September 2020 Employer UK/FCDO  British Ambassador to Turkey In office January 2014 - December 2017 Employer HM Diplomatic Service

Richard Peter Moore is a British intelligence official, currently the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and formerly the Director General (Political) at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, and previously the British Ambassador to Turkey.

Own words

"In the contest for power through the 21st century, those who command key technologies will have an advantage," says Richard Moore.

Radio interview

On 30 November 2021 Richard Moore, known to spies as 'C' and who oversees the UK’s foreign intelligence apparatus, told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme that while he believed that free societies possessed an advantage over authoritarian ones, “we need to be very robust in fighting our corner” and leverage “the entrepreneurial animal spirits” within science and techonology to keep pace with Beijing.

Moore said Britain had observed China using loans and debt to “acquire significant ports that have the potential to become naval facilities”, doing by economic means what nations including the UK and US had done in the past by force.

But he added that data and technology now provided a comparable avenue for Xi Jinping’s government to gain power.

Control over critical data

'C' said:

Mansfield Cumming's English Heritage Blue Plaque at 2 Whitehall Court, London SW1A 2EJ

“If you allow another country to gain access to really critical data about your society, over time that will erode your sovereignty – you no longer have have control over that data. That’s something which I think in the UK we are very alive to and we’ve taken measures to defend against. It’s not true, I think, in all the conversations I have around the globe, but I’m very keen that people should understand that.”

Green ink

In the same BBC Radio 4 interview, Richard Moore revealed the significance of the green ink used by those in his role - which came from a tradition started by Sir Mansfield Cumming, the first head of MI6, who was the original 'C' .

Moore said the green ink means those working in the service know any directive has been signed by him.

"The same is true of my typescript on my computer," the latest 'C' added.

Public speech

Richard Moore's first public speech as 'C'

Later, on the same day as his Today Programme interview, Richard Moore made his first public speech at the International Institute for Strategic Studies as Chief of the SIS. In his speech entitled "Human intelligence in a digital age", Moore talked about the seismic changes he was seeing in the world, specifically in the espionage environment.

'C' discussed China, Russia and Iran, three of the ‘Big Four’ priorities for the intelligence world. He also explained what the UK is doing to address the fourth priority – the amorphous, shape shifting character of international terrorism.

 

Events Participated in

Event	Start	End	Location(s)	Description
Munich Security Conference/2019	15 February 2019	17 February 2019	Germany Munich Bavaria	The 55th Munich Security Conference, which included "A Spreading Plague" aimed at "identifying gaps and making recommendations to improve the global system for responding to deliberate, high consequence biological events."
Munich Security Conference/2020	14 February 2020	16 February 2020	Germany Munich Bavaria	The 56th Munich Security Conference, in 2020, "welcomed an unprecedented number of high-ranking international decision-makers."
Munich Security Conference/2022	18 February 2022	20 February 2022	Germany Munich Bavaria	Slightly less than 1/3 of the 664 of the participants have pages here
Munich Security Conference/2024	16 February 2024	18 February 2024	Germany Munich Bavaria	Annual conference of mid-level functionaries from the military-industrial complex - politicians, propagandists and lobbyists - in their own bubble, far from the concerns of their subjects

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