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Daphne Park, MI6 woman with a 30-year secret career, dies at 88

27 March 2010 03:58 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. One of MI6â€™s most treasured intelligence officers whose secret career spanned Russia, Africa, Vietnam and Mongolia has died at the age of 88, APA reports quoting timesonline.co.uk web-page.
Baroness Park of Monmouth died on Wednesday night after being ill for some time, a spokeswoman for the opposition whips office in the House of Lords said.
Daphne Park spent 30 years in MI6. In her time in Africa she was held in such awe by leaders across the continent that she could gain access to them whenever she wished.
Sir Colin McColl, Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) from 1989 to 1994, told The Times: â€œShe was marvelllous, she was always confident of her abilities without showing off and treated everyone as her equal. I felt sorry for the other women in the service because they tried to be like Daphne but it was impossible to be like Daphne.
â€œShe was totally loyal to the service and always said it was her proudest time being a member [of MI6}.
â€œShe would recount how she escaped death on a number of occasions, including being threatened with a firing squad in the Belgian Congo. She was an absolute gem and Iâ€™m very sad at her death.â€
She never made it to the top, unlike two of her female counterparts in MI5, Dame Stella Rimington and Baroness Manningham-Buller, both appointed head of their service.
â€œShe was always regarded as operational and she abhorred administration,â€ Sir Colin said.
Her final job at MI6 was as Controller of the Western Hemisphere which included North America, South America and Canada.
Lady Park became Principal of Somerville College, Oxford, after leaving MI6 in 1979, and was also a BBC governor before being made a peer in 1990.
Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale, a former MI6 spy and close friend of Lady Park, paid tribute to her wisdom.
â€œWe were very old friends from shared professional experience in Government service. I have lost a very, very dear friend and the House [of Lords] has lost the valuable contribution of a very,very able and much-loved lady.â€