By 1909, growing tensions with Germany led the Committee of Imperial Defence to recommend the creation of the Secret Service Bureau to provide organization and leadership to the intelligence-gathering process as well as a layer of insulation from espionage activities for the Foreign Office.

[3] A 10 August 1909 letter from the Director of Naval Intelligence, Alexander Bethell, to then-Commander Mansfield Smith-Cumming offered him a "new billet": the opportunity to head the Foreign Section of the new Secret Service Bureau.

Although Cumming and his successor Hugh Sinclair both had long Navy careers,[6] in 1939 Army veteran Stewart Menzies was appointed over naval officer (and Churchill's preferred candidate) Gerard Muirhead-Gould.

Among these offences, according to Attorney General Sir Thomas Inskip was "reveal[ing] the mysterious consonant by which the Chief of the Secret Service is known."

[10][11] The Chief remains the only member of the Secret Intelligence Service whose identity is officially made public.