Michael Hanley

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Sir Michael Bowen Hanley, KCB (24 February 1918 – 1 January 2001) was a British intelligence officer who led MI5, the United Kingdom’s internal security service, from 1972 to 1978.

Born in Leeds, he studied history at Queen’s College, Oxford. During World War II, he served in the Royal Artillery after being commissioned in 1940, and later worked as an assistant military attaché at the Joint Allied Intelligence Centre in Budapest from 1946 to 1948.

He joined MI5 in 1948, rising to become director of Protective Security in the 1960s and then Deputy Director General from 1971 to 1972. He was Director General of MI5 from 1972 to 1978.

As DG, Hanley had a difficult relationship with Prime Minister Harold Wilson, who believed MI5 was involved in a conspiracy sometimes referred to as "The Wilson Plot."

He was married to Lorna, Lady Hanley, and had two children: Peter Michael Hanley and Sarah Margaret Pittman. He died in Salisbury at the age of 82. He was a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB).