Ronnie Reed

Ronald Thomas Reed (8 October 1916 – 22 January 1995) was a BBC radio engineer who became an MI5 officer in 1940, and ran double agents during World War II.

His father had been Second Head Waiter at the London Trocadero Restaurant before the First World War but was killed by a stray shell shortly after his arrival in France in 1917 when his son was less than a year old.

In 1940, Ronnie Reed was requested by the BBC to go on an assignment, which turned out to be a visit to Wormwood Scrubs prison, which is where MI5 had its headquarters at the beginning of the Second World War.

Commander Ewen Montagu, who thought up the scheme, needed to produce an identity card for the corpse on which fake invasion plans were to be planted.

Then, at a meeting to discuss double-agents, he found himself seated opposite Ronnie Reed and realised that "he could have been the twin brother of the corpse".

[citation needed] In 1957, Ronnie Reed was seconded to the Foreign Office when he, and his wife and sons, went to New Zealand for a three-year posting.