Richard Brooman-White - Intelligence Work

Intelligence Work

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Brooman-White was mobilised as a Second Lieutenant in the Dunbartonshire Light Anti-Aircraft unit, Royal Artillery. In 1940 he resigned his commission due to ill-health. From 1940 he was a desk officer for the Security Service; in June 1940 he was put in charge of a new section of MI5 which looked at "Celtic movements". His normal work was as head of section B1(g) which dealt with Spanish espionage.

In 1941, Brooman-White met with an informant who told him that Arthur Donaldson, leader of the Scottish National Party, intended in the event of a Nazi invasion of Britain, to form a puppet government along the lines of Vidkun Quisling in Norway. This information led Brooman-White to successfully recommend Donaldson's detention under Defence Regulation 18B. In 1943 he rejoined the Army as a Second Lieutenant in the Intelligence Corps and later rose to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.

Brooman-White was head of the Italian section of MI6 in 1943, and was later moved into the field where he served in the Mediterranean and then in North-Western Europe. After fighting the 1945 general election against James Maxton in Glasgow Bridgeton, he worked from 1946 to 1947 as an attaché at the British embassy in Istanbul, Turkey.

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