[ALBSA-Info] The Guardian

[Agron Alibali]

The Guardian (London) 
May 18, 2001 
Guardian Leader Pages, Pg. 28 

Nigel Clive; 
 Intelligence Officer Whose Memoirs Preceded Spycatcher 



Nigel Clive, who has died in Athens at the age of 83, was one of the few former members of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) to have produced a memoir covering at least part of his undercover activities. A Greek Experience, 1943-48, was published in 1985, shortly before the Spycatcher trial began in Australia, where it was claimed, on behalf of the Crown, that M15 and SIS operatives never ventured into print. Defence lawyers acting for the former agent Peter Wright appeared, however, to be unaware of this earlier work, which they could arg- uably have used as a precedent for allowing Wright's memoirs to be published. 

Following a distinguished school and university career at Stowe and Christ Church, Oxford, where he read history, in 1940 Clive was recruited, in characteristically haphazard fashion, by the inter-services liaison committee, as MI6 in the Middle East was known. His first instruction was to purchase a dinner jacket. 

In December 1943, under the pseudonym Jim Russell, codenamed Jute and equipped with a copy of Das Kapital, Captain Clive was parachuted into Epirus in north-westem Greece. He had been disconcerted when told that his first concern should be to avoid the fate of his predecessor, a Greek- American who had been shot dead, for purported collab-oration, by a member of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), the prodigal son of SIS and, at times, its bitter rival. 

Clive's main task was to gather military intelligence in preparation for a possible Allied landing on the west coast of Greece. Inadequately briefed, he found it impossible to steer clear of the treach- erous shoals of occupation politics. Indeed, he rapidly developed a fascination for Greek politics that remained until the end of his life. Unlike some SOE operatives, he never looked on the Greeks as white wogs', nor did he regard acquiring fluency in Greek as a waste of time. 

Although there existed in Greece (and still, to some degree, exists) a widespread belief in the omniscience and omnicompetence of the British intelligence service, Clive rapidly came to realise that SOE's understanding of the complex politics of occupied Greece was more acute than that of his masters in SIS. He got on well with his SOE colleagues and - thanks to his own resourcefulness and the courage and ingen-uity of his Greek contacts - was soon able to build up an impressively detailed picture of the German order of battle. 

The shine was taken off his achievement, however, when he learned that his rudimentary ciphers, and probably those of SOE, had been cracked by the staff of General Hubert Lanz, commander of the XXII Armeekorps, which was garrisoned in Jannina, and whose activities Clive was seeking to monitor. 

He was also dispirited to learn that his reports to Cairo on the civil war that had broken out between rival Greek guerrilla organisations were being transmitted neither to SIS headquarters in London, nor to the Foreign Office, which was becoming increasingly alarmed at the growing strength of the communist resistance. 

After the war, Clive continued to serve in Greece until 1948. Subsequent postings with SIS, about which he was reticent, included Jeru- salem, Baghdad, Tunis and Algiers. Between 1966 and 1969, he headed the information research department, the Foreign Office's propaganda arm during the cold war. His last posting, between 1970 and 1980, was as adviser to the OECD secretary-general. 

In retirement, Clive was a stalwart of the Anglo-Hellenic League, wrote on Greek politics, spoke at conferences on Britain's wartime entanglement in Greek affairs, and frequently reviewed books of Greek interest. Besides writing the account of his wartime experiences, he translated Marianna Koromila's In The Steps Of Odysseus, based on a memoir written by Yanko Danielopoulos, whose varying fortunes threw much incid-ental light on the fate of the Greek mercantile diaspora on the shores of the Black Sea in the 20th century. 

Clive was awarded the mil-itary cross in 1944, the OBE in 1959 and was made CMG in 1967. He is survived by his wife, Maria Tambakopoulou, whom he married in 1949. 

Richard Clogg 

Nigel David Clive, diplomat, intelligence officer and Hellenophile, born July 13 1917; died May 6 2001 


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