Sir Alex Younger: in Memoriam
Alex was a friend at St Andrews University. A good few people could say that as he was a very popular, affable and funny person with the indelible streak of goodness running through him. I had hoped to interview him for this series and that, sadly, will now not happen. Alex’s death was announced yesterday.
Alex studied Economics at St Andrews which, then and now, was a popular course. I studied Philosophy, which was less well bid but Alex had a sneaky respect for my choice and would casually toss me questions, out of the blue, on ethics or moral problems.
Behind his bluff exterior, he was a deep thinker, a trait he chose to keep largely hidden behind his already well-developed sense of humour which he has displayed, post his retirement, in the radio and TV studios of the BBC and elsewhere. Alex had his own dress sense at University. He loved a tweed jacket over a frayed shirt or a rugby shirt, heavy duty moleskin trousers or jeans, sometimes a discoloured Barbour jacket. He ran to Norwegian wool sweaters which became, for many of us, a clothing staple, proof against as the chill winds that coursed around the East Neuk. He also had the annoying habit of canting numerous books under his arm, books which he probably was actually reading.
In more recent times, in TV studios, tweed jackets were sometimes deployed. He was also fond of a slim knit tie, often with stripes and a suede Chelsea boot. He was a natty dresser but not a fussy dresser. These are the clothes known to me, his various professional disguises would be known only by the service.
Our mutual friend and undergrad, Jack Kelly, organised a reunion of our cohort in the upstairs of a bar in London’s West End in May 2016. Jack worked tirelessly to bring everybody together – and about 80 of us were able to attend. During the run up, various email lists of attendees were circulated. Alex’s name never featured on any list or email but I was sure he had been made aware and would attend. He was at that time in station as the Chief of the Security Services. On the evening itself, I walked through the various rooms to find the room furthest from the entrance, where the fewest people would be, and there was Alex (in a safari suit) telling a joke to Vanessa Robinson, just as if 1986 was yesterday, not 30 years ago.
Alex was an avid traveller even before the service came calling. On one trip across India, afflicted by a stomach upset, his copy of Tolstoy's War & Peace was shredded, page by page. So that he could finish the novel proper, Tolstoy's epilogue part II philosophical treatise on free will and power was deployed.
Shortly after the fatal missile strike on the Iranian Ayatollah, Alex was asked by Nick Robinson on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme what the path appointing a new leader would look like. Observing that an in-person meeting of the leadership would be avoided he suggested that the image that came to mind was of 34 imams on a Zoom call. On the broadcast, you could hear Nick Robinson chortling at that comment. Alex could do that to you.
In a later reference to the changed guards at the top of Iranian leadership, where effective control had passed from religious clerics to religious army officers, he commented “the beards just got shorter”.
For many listeners, myself included, Alex’s post-retirement media appearances were moments to relish. He spoke with incision, knowledge, flexibility, counterpoint, intelligence and humour. I clearly remember the morning of 24 January 2022 when he spoke on the Today programme of his view that a Russian invasion of Ukraine was much more likely than not, this at a time at which most of us chose not to consider the imminent horror of that prospect. I was listening on headphones at the South-East corner of Hyde Park, close to Hyde Park Corner and I simply stopped and sat on a bench in rose garden there. Once he had finished speaking, I walked to my office in the West End – an asset manager – and told all my colleagues that this point of view should be taken gravely. Russia invaded Ukraine exactly a month later.
Whilst we were students at St Andrews between 1982 and 1986, Ronald Reagan was the US President, Margaret Thatcher the British Prime Minister, Helmut Kohl the Chancellor of Germany and Francois Mitterrand the President of France. Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985 and Deng Xiaoping was the de-facto leader of China whilst his Premier, Zhao Ziyang, was enacting sweeping economic reforms that began to change the course of China’s modern economic history.
Take a moment to consider that constellation of leaders, the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Alex’s appointment to MI6 in 1991 and his 30-year career there, rising to become ‘C’ in 2014 and remaining so until his retirement in 2020. The world spun at speed on its axis over this time but Alex always maintained a steely realism in terms of where the threats could emanate from. His passing will be noted in his old regiment, the Scots Guards, capitals of the world and, within them, the circles of political correspondents, secret services, military and civil groupings. Pre-eminent, though, amongst his family and his many friends.
The smallest groups of people whom Alex shone his light on were his wife and children and his extended family, his schoolfriends and his mates at St Andrews. Goodbye our friend and fine fellow, Alex Younger.