1. John Nicholas Rede Elliott was an MI6 intelligence officer.
16 Facts About Nicholas Elliott
1. 2.
Elliott was born in London, the son of Claude Aurelius Elliott, a don at Cambridge and Headmaster at Eton, where Nicholas was sent after Durnford School, a prep school on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset.
3.
Sir Hugh Sinclair, Head of MI6, happened to visit The Hague, took to Nicholas Elliott and offered him a job.
4.
Nicholas Elliott was Honorary attache at the British Embassy in The Hague from 1938 to 1940.
5.
Nicholas Elliott returned to London in 1956 and then served as head of station in Beirut from 1960 to 1962.
6.
Nicholas Elliott was awarded the US Legion of Merit for his services to the Office of Strategic Services.
7.
Nicholas Elliott arranged for Crabb, an experienced ex-naval frogman, to investigate.
8.
Nicholas Elliott made one run under the ship, came back for an extra pound weight for his next attempt and failed to return from the second dive.
9.
Nicholas Elliott speculated in his autobiography that Crabb suffered equipment failure.
10.
Subsequent criticism of Crabb, whom Nicholas Elliott believed to be a brave and honourable officer and who had undertaken operations of the same kind before, was resented by Nicholas Elliott.
11.
Nicholas Elliott claimed to have been told the operation had been cleared by the Foreign Office.
12.
In With My Little Eye, Nicholas Elliott gives an account of his last contacts with Kim Philby, in 1963.
13.
Philby, with whom Nicholas Elliott had worked in Beirut, had been a friend, and Nicholas Elliott felt his betrayal bitterly.
14.
Nicholas Elliott volunteered to confront Philby to obtain a written confession of his espionage.
15.
Nicholas Elliott felt he could not have prevented Philby's flight.
16.
In retirement Nicholas Elliott was a director at Lonrho from 1963 to 1969 and then an executive director there from 1969 to 1973.