On Monday 18 September, we were delighted to welcome former Regimental Intelligence Officer, Major General Peter Williams, to the College for the first Scholars’ Masterclass of the academic year.
During the Cold War, Peter specialised in intelligence, serving first in Berlin from 1973 to 1975 as a Regimental Intelligence Officer. He then studied Russian and German before spending more than four years in the 1980s in Berlin and East Germany as an officer in the British Commanders'-in-Chief Mission to the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany (known as BRIXMIS), in essence working as a military spy.
During his fascinating and humorous talk, Peter spoke to our pupils about his experiences as part of BRIXMIS, including the training involved prior to being deployed – this included studying Russian every day for 18 months! This was then followed by a three-month course in Kent where he was joined by other members of the Royal Navy and Air Force.
As well as speaking about his time in Germany, Peter gave an overview of Germany’s profile including the different sectors of ‘occupation’ in the aftermath of World War 2. He went into detail about the different agreements that were in place such as the pre-Cold War alliances and liaisons. In essence, there were agreements of equal nature that each party had to adhere to.
Speaking about his experiences as a spy, Peter talked about life on patrol including the specifications of the cars, and even how they would go about their daily business from taking photographs of areas of interest to cooking in the car. The former proved to be a humorous topic as more than not, the Russians were aware of his patrols and whereabouts – this was demonstrated in a photo that depicted Peter looking at a train through a set of binoculars... completely unaware that half a kilometre behind him was a Russian patrol photographing him.
Peter concluded his talk by talking about his closest shave with the Russians. This was an incident at a radar station (which was not marked on their latest maps!) where his patrol car was rammed off the road by a Russian truck. Many years later, Peter would meet with the driver of the truck at the same radar station.
A huge thank you to Peter for taking the time to visit us. We hope to see you again and hear more about your experiences!
