Stella Rimington, first female chief of Britain's MI5, dies at 90

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A file photograph shows Dame Stella Rimington, the first female director of the British Security Service, commonly known as MI5 (Military Intelligence, Section 5), during the presentation of her novel 'The invisible' in Madrid in January 2009. Rimington died Sunday night at the age of 90. File Photo by Angel Diaz/EPA
Aug. 4 (UPI) -- Stella Rimington, the first female chief of the British Security Service MI5 and the first woman to "head any intelligence agency in the world," has died at the age of 90.
Rimington, who joined MI5 as a typist in the mid-1960s in India and was the inspiration behind Judi Dench's M in the James Bond series, died Sunday night.
She was "surrounded by her beloved family and dogs and determinedly held on to the life she loved until her last breath," her family said in a statement.
Rimington joined MI5 full-time in 1969 and was promoted to director general in 1992.
Born in 1935 in south London, Rimington's career with MI5 was dominated by the Cold War and threats from the Soviet Union. Not only was she the first female chief, she was also the first director general to be publicly identified when appointed.
Her roles with the agency included "counter-subversion, counter-espionage and counter-terrorism," MI5 said Monday in a statement on its website.
"She oversaw MI5 taking lead responsibility for countering Irish republican terrorism in Great Britain, the move of MI5's headquarters to Thames House and instituted a policy of greater public openness to demystify the work of MI5, including beginning a program of releasing MI5 files to The National Archives."
Rimington retired from MI5 in 1996 and was made Dame Commander of the Order of the Bath that same year.
"I'm proud that I was the first woman DG and that, during the time I was there, MI5 changed from being an old-fashioned closet organization," Rimington told the Guardian in 2011.
"I still thought the essence of the Cold War and spies and stuff was fun. You know, going around listening to people's telephones and opening their mail and stuff," she said in a separate interview after leaving the agency in 2001.
Rimington wrote her autobiography, "Open Secret," that same year, followed by a series of eight novels with a fictitious MI5 officer, named Liz Carlyle. She also wrote two more novels with the character Manon Tyler as a CIA agent.
Current MI5 director general Ken McCallum paid tribute to Rimington on Monday, calling her "the first publicly avowed Director General of MI5" and the "first avowed female head of any intelligence agency in the world."
"Her leadership ushered in a new era of openness and transparency about the work MI5 does to keep this country safe," he said, "a legacy that continues to this day."
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