John Bingham (Lord Clanmorris)

John Bingham, Lord Clanmorris, (1908-1988) also known as Michael Ward, was a British novelist and intelligence officer, reputed to be the inspiration for the character George Smiley, created by his former colleague David Cornwell (John Le Carré).Smiley's model, LA Times, 23 December 2007.
Bingham was the son of Maurice Bingham, Sixth Lord Clanmorris and Leila Cloete, a descendant of one of the earliest Dutch settlers in South Africa.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.15. A great-grandfather on his father's side founded the first Orange Lodge.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.208.
He was educated at Cheltenham College.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.22.
Through a family contact with Lord Rothermere, Bingham found a job on the Hull Daily Mail in 1930.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.58. He moved to the Sunday Dispatch in 1933.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.62.
He was briefly a member of the British Democratic Party in the 1930s, a move which led to criticism from his uncle, the MP for Belfast East, Herbert Dixon.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.81. 
==MI5 B Division==
It was through Dixon's contacts that Bingham gained an entrée to MI5, using suspicions about what he later decided was an innocent German acquaintance.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.81. He was subsequently interviewed by Maxwell Knight, who introduced himself as Captain King.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.83.
After Knight was authorised to recruit five new officers by the head of MI5 B Division, Guy Liddell, on 18 June 1940, Bingham was one of the first approached.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.87. For much of World War Two, he worked as Maxwell Knight's deputy in B5(b) section at 308 Hood House, Dolphin Square.Anthony Masters, The Man who was M: The Life of Maxwell Knight, The real-like spymaster who inspired Ian Fleming, Grafton Books, p.101.
However, among his first tasks, carried out directly for Liddell, was the creation of an MI5 press section, which would eventually be run by Derek Tangye.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.89. He subsequently became heavily involved in MI5's Double Cross deception operations against German intelligence.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.91. He interrogated potential agents among aliens being processed at the Royal Patriotic Schools.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.92. He also posed as an Abwehr officer to trap British nationals attempting spy for the Germans, notably Irma Stapleton, arrested on 19 November 1941.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.95.
In 1942, he conducted security investigations on General Charles De Gaulle, along with Bill Younger, and on Lady Diana Cooper.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.99. Using the name 'John Bentley', he also investigated the Portuguese diplomat Rogeiro Menezes.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, pp.99-100.
In the summer of 1944, Bingham was ordered to continue associating with right-wing pro-German groups, despite the imminence of German defeat.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.110. With B Division work winding down, Bingham was seconded to the Allied Control Council in Germany in 1945, on the initiative of Guy Liddell.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, pp.111. Based in Gehrden, Hanover, Bingham spent much of his time interviewing refugees and attempting to weed out Soviet agents.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.139. 
==Return to Fleet Street==
He returned to London in June 1948.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.133. He rejoined the staff of the Sunday Dispatch under editor Charles Eade, a former PR advisor to Lord Mountbatten.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.139. One of his first article was a detailed attack on the career of Aneurin Bevan, prompted by Bevan's attack on conservative voters as 'lower than vermin'.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.141. 
==MI5 F4==
In the summer of 1950, Bingam was invited by Maxwell Knight to rejoin his MI5 section, now known as F4.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.147. Concurrently with his return to MI5, Bingham embarked on a career as a novelist, with My Name is Michael Sibley about an innocent man accused of murder.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.155.
Among the agents recruited by Bingham was a family friend, Louis Denaro, assistant managing director of International Nickel.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.159. he later recruited Denaro's Czech contact, Emil Smidak.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.160. 
In 1952, he recruited Julie Pirie, the former secretary of the Duchess of Atholl to infiltrate the Communist Party of Great Britain.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.161. This led to Operation Tie Pin and Operation Party Piece, on the latter of which Bingham worked with Arthur Spencer of MI6.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.171. 
According to Mike Hughes, Bingham became head of MI5's F4 agent-running section after Knight's retirement in the mid-1950s.Mike Hughes, Spies at Work, Chapter Nine. However, Michael Jago claims that, despite Knight's wish for Bingham to succeed him, he was content to remain a senior agent-runner within the section.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.183. He worked closely with David Cornwell (John Le Carré) who joined MI5 in 1958.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.183. Their friendship would later deteriorate as Le Carré's character George Smiley, partly based on Bingham, appeared in a series of books that gave a more morally ambiguous picture of the intelligence services, and which eclipsed Bingham's own literary achievements.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.191. Bingham is reported to have claimed before his death, that Le Carré worked for Maxwell Knight while a student at Oxford.Le Carre draws a veil over a lost chapter, Sunday Times, 5 January 1992.
Bingham inherited the title of Lord Clanmorris in 1960.The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Andrew Lownie Literary Agency, accessed 5 June 2015.
In response to the satire boom of the early 1960s, Bingham created a new subsection of F4, entitled F4/ARTS (colloquially 'FARTS').Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.198.
According to biographer Michael Jago, Bingham may have interrogated Anatoli Golitsyn alongside Arthur Martin in 1963.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.201. Bingham was commissioned to research Golitsyn's biography as a result of the controversy about his far-reaching claims, which included allegations casting suspicion on Harold Wilson.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.202.
Bingham's planned retirement in 1968, was delayed by the onset of the Troubles in Northern Ireland:
::He had family and contacts there and, although his attempts at an Ulster accent were notoriously dreadful, he was the obvious officer to gather intelligence on the spot.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.208.
He made several visits to Northern Ireland over the next six years, where despite his family connections, he regarded unionists as intransigent.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.208. By the early 1970s, 'using a network of contacts supplied by a relation, he gathered a mass of useful background information about Ulster'.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.226.
MI5's increased emphasis on domestic counter-subversion under Michael Hanley increased Bingham's prestige within the service during this period.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.226.
According to Michael Jago, Bingham distrusted Harold Wilson but was nevertheless involved in infiltrating a 1974 right-wing anti-Wilson plot which included his distant relative Lord Lucan.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.233.
Bingham's last official task at MI5, was dealing with the fallout from the 1979 exposure of Anthony Blunt, as liaison with Fleet Street.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.238. 
He retired from MI5 in 1979.The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Andrew Lownie Literary Agency, accessed 5 June 2015. he nevertheless continued to carry out occasional assignments for a further three years.Michael Jago, The Man Who Was George Smiley: The Life of John Bingham, Biteback Publishing, 2013, p.238. In 1982, he confirmed that Betty Gordon had been an MI5 agent in the Communist Party in the 1950s.Britain's Communists infiltrated in 1950s, United Press International, 23 January 1982.
==Notes==
Bingham, JohnBingham, John