| Summary/Abstract |
Secretary of External Affairs Alister McIntosh's career-long parrying with the British Security Service (MI5) was exemplified by the events and personalities associated with Dick Collins's abrupt departure from External Affairs in July 1954. That event prompted the establishment of the New Zealand Security Service two years later. Through the following decade an increasingly fraught relationship developed between McIntosh and the first NZSS director, William ('Bill') Gilbert. Collins's misfortune was that MI5 (with Special Branch complicity) wilfully mangled his security risk case so that they could get at McIntosh, long a bete noire to MI5 headquarters in London.
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