'New MI6 chief apologises for "unjust" past ban on LGBT staff' The Guardian, 20 February 2021

S/PTC/6/2/11

20 February 2021

Paul Thurlow was a volunteer on the Islington's Pride LGBTQ+ archives project at the Islington Local History Centre and later became a volunteer with the Islington Local History Centre. He is a long-term resident of Islington and an active member of the LGBTQ+ community having volunteered with many organisations including Gay Switchboard. He also actively participated in many events and activities.

Approx. A4 press cutting, black and red with colour and black and white photos on white. Article by Dan Sabbagh on Richard Moore, the new head (also known as "C") of the UK's Secret Intelligence Service MI6, and his public apology for the way LGBTQ+ staff had been treated in the past, including those thrown out of the service pre-1991 if 'discovered' to be LGBTQ+. Includes reference to Alan Turing, the mathematician and code-braker who was forced out of GCHQ in1952 after being convicted of "gross indecency" for a consensual sexual relationship with another man - this policy applied to all three of the UK's intelligence agencies: MI6, MI5 (the domestic intelligence service) and GCHQ (the government's communications spying agency). There is also reference to Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt, Donald Mclean and John Vassall. John Vassall was a gay civil servant working at the UK embassy in Moscow, caught in a Soviet (Russian) 'honey trap' operation and blackmailed into becoming a spy, who was arrested in 1962 and convicted of spying. Released in 1972, he worked for a number of years for the British Records Association, which had it's offices at The Charterhouse in Clerkenwell.

LGBTQ+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning+) Community, LGBTQ+ Social Life, LGBTQ+ Individuals, LGBT+ History Month, HOMOPHOBIA

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