What does «Servicio de Inteligencia Secreta» mean in Spanish?
- A British national-level civilian organization, the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), often but incorrectly called "MI6," is the British center for intelligence collection, covert action, and intelligence analysis. Its functions are roughly comparable to those of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and, as the CIA is part of the U.S. intelligence community under the Director of National Intelligence, SIS coordinates its work through the cabinet-level Joint Intelligence Committee. The SIS can trace its ancestry back to the operations of Sir Francis Walsingham, an advisor to Queen Elizabeth I. During World War II, he controlled the British signals intelligence organization, then the Government Code and Cipher School (now the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ)), which ran the vital ULTRA cryptanalytic program against German communications. Also during World War II, it competed with an ad hoc covert operations organization, the Special Operations Executive (SOE), disbanded at the end of the war with some functions reverting to SIS. The proper balance between man-made clandestine intelligence and covert action remains a constant challenge for national policymakers. As much as the CIA may call on U.S. Special Operations Command for assistance, the SIS has a working relationship with the United Kingdom Special Forces (UKSF). In turn, SIS and CIA cooperate in many ways, such as jointly operating one of the best sources on the Soviet Union, Oleg Penkovsky.