JAY ELWES
Richard Dearlove frowned at the coffee pot on the table before him, as he pondered the phenomenon of Donald Trump. “I think he’s very strongly nationalist,” he said, pouring himself a small cup. The room, at a discreet location in central London, was large and empty of other people, its walls lined with 19th-century portraits. Is Trump the start of something worrying, I asked. “I think it depends on how fundamental this shift in politics in the US and other countries is,” he replied, speaking slowly. “I think the jury’s out on how far it is going to go.”
Between 1999 and 2004, Dearlove was head of the Secret Intelligence Service, known as MI6, a tenure that included the bruising experience of the Iraq war, the drama of 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan. He joined the service in 1966 and in his time he ran MI6’s Washington station, the most significant posting in British intelligence and was also overall Director of Operations.