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Eliza Manningham-Buller — news, coverage & facts — IJR

Professional life

Manningham-Buller worked as a teacher for three years at Queen's Gate School, Kensington, London from 1971 to 1974, having read English at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, before joining the Security Service. She was recruited to the Security Service at a drinks party when someone suggested that she see someone at the Ministry of Defence. Specializing in counter-terrorism rather than MI5's then-classical counter-espionage, she was active at the time of the Lockerbie bombing by Libya in 1988. During the early 1980s she was reportedly one of only five people aware that Oleg Gordievsky, the deputy head of the KGB rezidentura at the Soviet embassy in London, was a double agent. She was one of the few people who knew that it was Gordievsky who had exposed Michael Bettaney.

She was a senior liaison officer working out of Washington, D.C. to the US intelligence community over the period of the first Gulf War, before leading the newly created Irish counter-terrorism section from 1992 when MI5 were given the lead responsibility for such work (from the Metropolitan Police). Having been promoted to the management board of the Security Service the next year, Manningham-Buller became the director in charge of surveillance and technical operations. She was appointed Deputy Director General in 1997, and succeeded Sir Stephen Lander as Director General in 2002, the second woman to take on the role after Dame Stella Rimington.

In the 2005 Birthday Honours, Manningham-Buller was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the Bath (DCB). She resigned from MI5 on 21 April 2007, and was succeeded by her deputy, Jonathan Evans. She was raised to the peerage as Baroness Manningham-Buller, of Northampton in the County of Northamptonshire on 2 June 2008.

She reportedly joined the public speaking circuit. She was appointed to the Court and Council of Imperial College London in 2009, becoming deputy chairman later that year, and named chairman in July 2011. She became a governor of biomedical research charity the Wellcome Trust in 2008 and the first female chair of the Trust on 1 October 2015. She left the Wellcome Trust in 2021, being replaced as chair by Julia Gillard on 12 April 2021. From 2015 to 2025, she was co-president of Chatham House.

On St George's Day (23 April), 2014, Manningham-Buller was appointed a Lady Companion of the Order of the Garter (LG) by Queen Elizabeth II.

She became chair of the Conduct Committee on 19 January 2022. She took part in the Royal Procession at the Coronation of Charles III and Camilla, carrying St Edward's Staff.

Stance on gaining intelligence through torture

On 21 October 2005, BBC News reported Manningham-Buller's leaked court statement to the Law Lords regarding methods for collecting intelligence from overseas. This was part of an investigation by the Law Lords on whether Her Majesty's Government should have to be made aware whether the intelligence it is using was obtained through torture. "Experience proves that detainee reporting can be accurate and may enable lives to be saved", she stated, also maintaining that obtaining information from foreign intelligence agencies, which initially enters the British intelligence system via MI6, was vital in fighting terrorism. Regarding the ethics of how and where this intelligence is gathered she stated that "agencies will not often know the location or details of detention".

Her example to support the need for intelligence gathering from overseas was the case of Mohammed Megeurba, an Algerian man who was questioned by agencies in his country. Evidence collected by this questioning led to a raid in London which led to the Wood Green ricin plot being uncovered. Press have speculated that Megeurba was tortured to obtain this information, although Manningham-Buller has maintained neither she nor MI5 were aware of the "precise circumstances that attended their [Algerian agencies'] questioning of Megeurba". She emphasised that, had MI5 requested information regarding how the intelligence had been gathered, its request would have been ignored and the relationship between Britain and Algeria could have been damaged. She concluded by exemplifying the "importance of co-operation between states in countering the threat from international terrorism". Shami Chakrabarti, director of human rights organisation Liberty, commended Manningham-Buller for being "brutally honest" about the activities of intelligence agencies. She also stated that Britain should not "legitimise" torture as a means of intelligence gathering by accepting evidence gained in such a manner as evidence in court. Manningham-Buller stated that the British intelligence services do not ask how intelligence is obtained "because that would make things difficult".

The BBC Reith Lectures

In June 2011, the BBC announced Eliza Manningham-Buller would present the 2011 Reith Lectures, alongside the Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in a series entitled "Securing Freedom". Eliza Manningham-Buller's lectures were broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service in September 2011.

In her first lecture, titled "Terror", recorded at BBC Broadcasting House in London, she reflected on the lasting significance of 11 September 2001, asking was it a terrorist crime, an act of war, or something different. She also revealed details of her own role in the discussions involving international security agencies in the days following the attacks on New York and Washington DC and examined the impact the US-led invasion of Iraq had on the fight against al-Qaeda.

In her second lecture, titled "Security", recorded at the Leeds City Museum, she stated that the use of torture is "wrong and never justified" and should be "utterly rejected even when it may offer the prospect of saving lives". She said that the use of torture had not made the world a safer place, adding that the use of water-boarding by the United States was a "profound mistake" and as a result America lost its "moral authority".

In her third and final lecture, titled "Freedom", recorded at the British Library in London, she discussed foreign policy priorities since the September 11 attacks. She stated that it was "necessary" to talk to dictators and terrorists, to protect security and said that the British government's decision to engage with Colonel Gaddafi in 2003 was "the right decision". She went on to say that protecting British citizens would be impossible if the security services were restricted to talking only to those with shared values and cited examples where people once deemed terrorists were now part of the political establishment: "Look at Northern Ireland, where former terrorists are in government... look at Mandela and the ANC which used terror tactics when it was in exile." During the recording of the final lecture she revealed that she had suffered an anxiety dream, in which she imagined that she was to be arrested for breaking the Official Secrets Act after having given the lectures.