Weekend Listen: Former UK Spy Chief Was Paid to Steal Secrets, Not Solve Mysteries

Summary

Podcast Summary:
Big Take – "Weekend Listen: Former UK Spy Chief Was Paid to Steal Secrets, Not Solve Mysteries"
Host: Michelle Hussain
Guest: Richard Moore (Former Chief of MI6)
Date: November 16, 2025

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Main Theme

This episode features Richard Moore, reflecting on his storied career as the outgoing chief of MI6, Britain's Secret Intelligence Service. In his first broadcast interview since stepping down, Moore provides rare insight into the realities of espionage, the complexities of global threats, the evolving nature of spycraft, and the challenges faced by Western democracies in an era of escalating geopolitical contestation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. State of the World: Geopolitical Turbulence

• Moore reflects on a world that has become more "contested" and "dangerous" than at any point in his 38-year career, with fraying relationships between major powers and the loss of post-WWII diplomatic "tram lines."

  • Quote:
    “I don’t think in 38 years of being an intelligence officer and a diplomat I’ve seen it less well ordered. There’s just an extraordinary number of loose ends, if you like, on the international scene...”
    — Richard Moore [04:22]

• He cites Russia's war in Ukraine, tensions between Washington and Beijing, and a lack of global order as major concerns.

2. China: Opportunity and Threat

• Moore discusses the dual nature of China as both an opportunity and a threat to Western interests.

  • MI6’s job includes gathering intelligence not only to manage threats but also to help seize opportunities (07:10).
  • The intelligence world should be robust in denying Chinese espionage or cyber-attacks, which Moore characterizes as "pretty relentless" [08:42].
  • On responding to espionage:
    “If you are spying for a foreign power against the United Kingdom and you are caught, then you should expect to… receive the consequences.”
    — Richard Moore [09:31]

• Moore stresses the importance of strength and values in dealing with Beijing, arguing that China "respects strength."

3. Recruitment and Ethics of Espionage

• Moore details his own recruitment: an almost stereotypical "tap on the shoulder" at Oxford by a talent scout, a method MI6 no longer uses [12:04–12:49].

• The moral complexity of a life in intelligence is a recurring theme: secrecy, deception, and managing the psychological toll of being unable to be fully honest, even with one’s family.

  • “If you’re desperate for recognition for what you do, this is not the right profession to go into.”
    — Richard Moore [15:07]

• Moore describes the process and emotional weight of revealing his MI6 role to his teenage children and its impact on family dynamics [15:55–17:01].

4. Spycraft: Reality vs. Fiction

• Moore admits to not reading Fleming (Bond) but valuing Le Carré and contemporary writers like Mick Herron. He contrasts literary spycraft with the far less glamorous reality, while admitting that real intelligence work retains occasional intrigue [18:26].

• Human intelligence work centers on forming relationships of trust with agents, who “take risks in order to gather that intelligence and share it with you.”
  “You are about to enter into a relationship where there’s a huge amount at stake.”
  — Richard Moore [20:15]

• MI6’s motivations and methods are pragmatic rather than judgmental—sometimes financial compensation is involved, but motivations vary.

5. Navigating Moral Hazards

• Moore addresses the challenge of avoiding cynicism and maintaining ethical standards. MI6 looks for centered, “very low-ego” individuals to guard against the corrosive effects of suspicion and secrecy [20:59–22:06].

6. Accountability & Torture Allegations in the War on Terror

• When questioned on the UK and US intelligence agencies' roles during the post-9/11 period & torture allegations, Moore defends MI6’s compliance with the law, denies personal knowledge of US torture at the time, but accepts that mistakes were made and systems have since improved.
  • “If [an MI6 officer] had been complicit, they would be in jail. And not a single MI6 officer has been prosecuted for this. And I’m very proud of that… because they have that set of values that I described earlier.”
    — Richard Moore [26:17]

7. US-UK Intelligence Relationship in the Trump Era

• Moore affirms the depth of the US-UK intelligence partnership despite frequent political changes.

  • “We will share more with each other than we will do with anyone else because of the high levels of trust that built up over many, many years.”
    — Richard Moore [29:56]

• He acknowledges recent tensions and adjustments, such as the US temporarily suspending intelligence sharing with Ukraine, but maintains that the partnership remains central [31:40].

8. Russia and the War in Ukraine

• Moore is candid: “Putin has no intention of doing a deal. This is about dominating Ukraine and turning Ukraine into something that looks rather like its neighbor Belarus.” [32:06–32:57]

• The West, he argues, must remain patient and resolute:
  “We have to be patient. We have to be prepared to see this off… we do not lose this contest of will.”
  — Richard Moore [34:13]

• China closely observes Western resolve in Ukraine as a testing ground for its own ambitions, notably with Taiwan [36:00].

9. Weaponization of Technology in Intelligence

• Technological arms race: MI6 now relies on AI and advanced surveillance—both as an asset and as a challenge, given sophisticated adversarial capabilities [41:28].

  • “AI helps us enormously in interrogating vast amounts of data and perhaps helping us to find somebody who might be prepared to help us.”
    — Richard Moore [41:28]

• MI6 has sought partnerships with tech startups and set up a venture capital fund to ensure access to cutting-edge innovation, not just legacy defense contractors [42:57–43:56].

10. Post-Intelligence Life & Reflections

• Moore discusses the toll of the job, the necessity of both self-discipline and strong teams, and why he’s not interested in ambassadorial roles after MI6:
  “After five years of a really reasonably intensive, intense job I’m ready to do some other things including say a bit more of my grandson and do other stuff.”
  — Richard Moore [44:50]

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On the ambiguity of leaving MI6 better:
  “I left the job after five years, and I certainly haven’t left the world in a better place than I found it. And I’m lucky that wasn’t in my job description.”
  — Richard Moore [01:33]

• On public misperceptions of spying:
  “I was paid to steal secrets, not solve mysteries.”
  — Richard Moore [35:36]

• On personal integrity:
  “You have to be comfortable with [deception]. Also, if you’re desperate for recognition for what you do, this is not the right profession to go into.”
  — Richard Moore [15:07]

• On the US-UK partnership:
  “This partnership goes back in one form or another over a century.”
  — Richard Moore [30:20]

• On Russia-China alignment:
  “Putin has become increasingly dependent on Chinese support… the chemicals in those shells are mostly Chinese... it’s very clear that Putin has become more and more dependent.”
  — Richard Moore [36:41]

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Memorable Anecdotes

• Moore shares the awkward (and humorous) moment of telling his teenage son the truth about his real profession, likening it to the most difficult “pitch” he ever made [16:17].
• He describes the shift from the secretive, informal recruitment style of the past to a more open, meritocratic process in MI6 [12:04–12:49].

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• World at its most contested: [04:22]
• Understanding China: [06:01–08:45]
• Recruitment story: [12:04–13:42]
• Family and secrecy: [15:43–17:07]
• Spycraft and literature: [18:09–19:07]
• Motivations and ethics: [20:19–22:06]
• Torture/torture report debate: [23:24–26:17]
• US-UK intelligence ties: [29:56–31:40]
• War in Ukraine and Putin’s aim: [32:06–34:13]
• Technology arms race: [41:22–43:56]
• Life after MI6: [44:41–44:50]

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Tone and Language

The interview is candid, reflective, sometimes wry, and maintains a balanced, understated British tone. Moore is careful with operational details, but forthright about personal insights and institutional values. Michelle Hussain’s questions are probing yet respectful, fostering an atmosphere of trust and openness that's rare in intelligence conversations.

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This summary captures the depth and breadth of the conversation—providing a valuable window into both the personal and professional realities of modern espionage, as seen from the very top.

Transcript

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[Michelle Hussain]

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[Richard Moore]

I left the job after five years, and I certainly haven't left the world in a better place than I found it. And I'm lucky that wasn't in my job description.

[Michelle Hussain]

Richard Moore, spy, British intelligence chief, and now in his first broadcast interview since stepping down, taking us into a world of secrets.

[Richard Moore]

What is the job of the chief of MI6? It's to serve a government, government of the day, within the law. And you provide truth to power and sometimes tell them things they really, really don't want to hear. Particularly if it's a Friday afternoon.

[Michelle Hussain]

From Bloomberg Weekend, this is the Michelle Hussain Show. I'm Michelle Hussain. When I was growing up, my parents had a friend, a British diplomat in the United Arab Emirates where we lived. They this was someone they liked and respected and kept in touch with as his work took him from one place to another. Only they worried about his career. They wondered why he was never appointed a British ambassador until one day we heard his name on the radio because he was being appointed as chief of Britain's MI6, the Secret Intelligence service with the codename C. At that point, we realized there was nothing to worry about. He had never been an ordinary diplomat. And in many ways, that story, that double life, is also the story of my guest today, Richard Moore. For nearly four decades, his world was espionage. He was in MI6, the agency most people know or think they know through James Bond. But his career was the real life version. It was all about countries or groups that would wish Britain harm and people that he could spot and recruit that he hoped would help keep it safe. Now that he's stepped down after five years in the job, he's been talking to me. You'll hear the story of how his career began with a tap on the shoulder. The moment he told his teenage children the truth about what he did for a living and about values, challenges, responsibility and risk. From Russia to China and Venezuela to the United States. Welcome. Thank you for doing this, Richard. Until six weeks ago, your daily work involved reading highly classified intelligence. And I wonder if, therefore I could start with the here and now. And your perception of the world, what you see as you look around the world today that me and most people watching or listening to this might not see.

[Richard Moore]

Thank you, Vishal. It's lovely to be here. As I reflect. Yes, a few weeks on, I think we're in an extraordinarily contested international environment. I don't think in 38 years of being an intelligence officer and a diplomat, I've seen it less well ordered. There's just an extraordinary number of loose ends, if you like, on the international scene and we might talk about some of those in a bit more detail, like Ukraine or what happens next in Gaza or over Iran. There are so many of these and unfortunately, the way in which relationships have broken down between leading powers, particularly following Russian behavior in Ukraine, but also a difficult relationship undoubtedly between Washington and Beijing. Some of the tram lines that we were used to in the years after 1945 are not really there to manage some of this contestation. So one thing I said as I left the job after five years, that I certainly haven't left the world in a better place than I found it. And I'm lucky that wasn't in my job description.

[Michelle Hussain]

More contested means more dangerous. We should be clear.

[Richard Moore]

There's definitely dangers in the world as we look at them and they can suddenly loom out of the mist at you.

[Michelle Hussain]

And the fact that you said that relationships fraying is a part of this and you mentioned that the relationship between Washington and Beijing. So that has really happened much more this year, hasn't it, with the Trump administration? How does that play into what you've already made clear has been the case on your old agency and the CIA's perception of China, that it's the major intelligence challenge of the 21st century?

[Richard Moore]

I think there's been really issues around this relationship for some time, and in particular, I think the rupture of normal diplomatic contact that happened during the pandemic. I mean, for a number of years, senior Chinese and senior American Americans just didn't meet. And that's a worrying thing. You want, as an intelligence officer, where you can see the dangers of things, of miscalculation, those sort of issues. You want the diplomats, you want the leaders to be talking more regularly. Now, the fact that President Trump and President Xi met recently, that's helpful. The tariffs is the current issue between them. But I mean, there are clearly any number of rub points between the US And China and between the US Allies and China.

[Michelle Hussain]

And help me understand how you see China, because I know you've talked about China as an opportunity and a threat, and that combination is quite hard for people like me and perhaps other outsiders to get our heads around. So it just has a complexity within it that I imagine makes it hard for someone like you to help formulate policy. How is a government supposed to deal with the country as both an opportunity and a threat?

[Richard Moore]

So, I mean, I think the starting point when I talk about opportunity and threat is partly because of the nature of intelligence, is that people often assume, understandably, that we're all about threats. And if you look at an organization like MI5, that's primarily what they're there to do, is to manage the threats.

[Michelle Hussain]

The domestic intelligence agency of the UK.

[Richard Moore]

Or the FBI in America, et cetera. But a foreign intelligence service like my former service, MI6, is there to gather intelligence on a number of global issues. And some of that intelligence is used by ministers and senior officials to exploit opportunities as well as to manage threats.

[Michelle Hussain]

That's what you meant by opportunity and threat, that it's an opportunity to gather intelligence. And it is a.

[Richard Moore]

No, it's you gather intelligence to enable your political leadership to seize opportunities, which may be upside ones, is my point. It's not all about managing threats. And with China, clearly this is a huge and powerful country. It re emerged onto the international scene and its values and interests. Interests certainly don't overlap always with our own. So, you know, you are looking at it if you are the Prime Minister of Great Britain or the President of the United States, about how do you manage that relationship in a way that means you secure UK interests. And for me, that means you are pretty robust at home, you are pretty robust about trying to deny and then to tackle any behavior aimed at your own country, whether that is espionage or cyber attacks, et cetera.

[Michelle Hussain]

And does that happen all the time?

[Richard Moore]

It's pretty relentless, yeah.

[Michelle Hussain]

So what did you think of the collapse of the recent case against two individuals, two British men who were accused of spying for China?

[Richard Moore]

Well, what I'll say on that is very clearly I'll repeat what I just said, which is that China is intent on gathering intelligence on the UK, and we have to recognise that. And Ken MacCallum, the director general of MI5, has spoken about that.

[Michelle Hussain]

He said he was frustrated.

[Richard Moore]

Like him, I don't think I'll be drawn on an individual case. That's for the lawyers to resolve. But it's certainly the case that they're active in this space. But, you know, you have to be a little bit.

[Michelle Hussain]

And if you can't, and if you can't take people to task for acting in that space, that was the accusation against those two men, then where does it leave you as a country? What are your levers?

[Richard Moore]

What I'll say on that, Michelle, is clearly if you are spying for a foreign power against the United Kingdom and you are caught, then you should expect to, you know, to receive the consequences of that action. You will understand also why I tend to discourage politicians from being too moralistic about the issue of spying in itself. The UK has rather effective intelligence organizations and we are actively gathering intelligence against other countries. I think where you have to be less tolerant is the sort of hybrid warfare activity that we're seeing from Russia. Arson, attempted assassination, that crosses a very different line for me. But against all of these, MI5, with our help and with GCHQ's help and with help of our allies, is trying to detect and deter that type of activity.

[Michelle Hussain]

So, just on language, just so I understand how you see China and therefore perhaps how you suggest we should see it, do you see China as an active national security threat?

[Richard Moore]

I think clearly China is involved in activities which threaten our interests and we should be very robust in pushing back against those. And they would expect us to do so, to be honest. And Beijing respects strength in this space. So I think it is both the right thing to do and also is the practical and good thing to do. And I've always noticed when countries have had sort of set tos with China, it doesn't always impact on trade. Sometimes trade goes up. Do you remember when David Cameron met the Dalai Lama and this caused a big sort of to do with China? As I understand it, our trade figures went up after that incident.

[Michelle Hussain]

So stick to your values, stick to your guns. What would you do with the Chinese Embassy? The plan for the New mega embassy would be the largest embassy in Europe on the edge of the city of London.

[Richard Moore]

Again, what I would say on this is that countries obviously have to have embassies, so there's clearly, you know, we need one in Beijing and it's important that we have that. So it's right and proper that the Chinese should get their embassy. Whether it's this one or not isn't really not for me to judge.

[Michelle Hussain]

It's just it's a particularly big one. It is going to be an enormous amount.

[Richard Moore]

I'm not there to justify, you know, its size or, you know, what it does, but you know, it is. I'm sure there has to be a way through where they get an appropriate embassy and we are allowed to retain and develop our own excellent embassy in Beijing.

[Michelle Hussain]

I do want to know about how this journey of your professional life of 40 years, nearly 40 years, nearly 40 years to make me feel very old, that all began. So to cast your mind right back to your recruitment, how did that happen? In the early 1980s, I'm afraid I.

[Richard Moore]

Am an almost stereotypical example of what is sometimes referred to as a tap on the shoulder. And what's more, at Oxford. So one, an academic and let me. Even now I went, I won't name who they were, but an academic approached me and they knew that I was interested in a career and I was looking at the Foreign Office potentially as a route, as a career, as well as your former employer, the BBC, who rejected me without an interview. Michelle. Something I have often.

[Michelle Hussain]

Well, I'll tell you what I'll throw back at that, is that when I left university I was not eligible to enter the service that you led because both my parents were not born in the uk. In fact, neither of my parents were born in the uk.

[Richard Moore]

And thank goodness we've changed that as we have also changed the method of approaching people. But it was.

[Michelle Hussain]

So that doesn't happen anymore, the tap on the shoulder. Not Oxford or elsewhere.

[Richard Moore]

No, he's. I remember him saying, you know, would you be interested in a career in an alternative field of foreign affairs? And I must have been a very naive 20 year old. I didn't have a clue what he meant. But one thing led to another. I got a letter.

[Michelle Hussain]

So was that academic at Oxford, was he in the service? Was that his cover in those days?

[Richard Moore]

No, no, no, no. In those days there was a very kind of informal set of what were called talent and their job was to look at bright people coming through and who they thought might be suitable for our peculiar Line of work. And he, you know, picked me and I have no idea. Maybe he picked others. And occasionally I meet very senior people in public life who. It's always a kind of. They come into my office and they sort of. And it's really funny how they're still very secure about it, and they look around and they check no one's there and then they declare that they were approached and for one reason or another, they chose not to come in.

[Michelle Hussain]

Or they didn't make the grade, maybe.

[Richard Moore]

Well, for all those very distinguished people in the first category.

[Michelle Hussain]

But did you hesitate once you realize what the words alternative career meant? What did you think? I know your father was a Foreign Office man, so you knew that. Well, genuine one, but spying.

[Richard Moore]

Yeah. You can imagine. I was intrigued by it. I thought it'd be exciting. I didn't know very much. I mean, in those days they told you virtually nothing. So I think coming into it, it was a bit more of a punt than it would be today. I did think about it and because I thought about the issues which are involved in it, which are quite difficult, involving a degree of deception. And so I thought about it, but I think having done some conversations and been encouraged by people, including my wonderful father, who's very. So straight down the line, and a man of towering integrity, many friends within the service. So I kind of felt. And my mum was cheering me on, so between that, I decided to give it a go.

[Michelle Hussain]

But the hesitation I get, the impression is not so much then about living your life with secrecy, as you then had to do from most people. The deception, as in. What did that mean?

[Richard Moore]

Well, living a life of secrecy, as you put it, requires a degree of deception, because if you.

[Michelle Hussain]

So you're not being honest with people around you.

[Richard Moore]

Yeah. Some close friends, members of the wider family, are not aware of what you're doing for a living. And so, yeah, you have to be comfortable with that, along with the character traits of. Also, if you're desperate for recognition for what you do, this is not the right profession to go into. You've got to be satisfied with the intrinsic importance of the mission and the motivating power of that mission. You've got to be satisfied with the comradeship, the teamwork that goes with the people who are in the know. But you can't go down to the pub at the end of the week and have a brag about it to your mates.

[Michelle Hussain]

And you have to be ready for people to see your life as a kind of boring desk job a lot of the time.

[Richard Moore]

Indeed. Including Your children for the early part of their lives, this gray man in.

[Michelle Hussain]

The Foreign Office, when and how did you tell your children?

[Richard Moore]

So it, it varies from family to family. It's a big decision because once you tell them, of course, you're pulling them within that circle of knowledge and you're putting something on them, they then become complicit. So you. You think about it. In our case, I think we. We decided when our kids were in their kind of early mid teens, seemed the right moment to do it.

[Michelle Hussain]

And the words you used were, well.

[Richard Moore]

It'S really funny, Michel, because here I was, I remember with my son, I can't tell the full story. Fundamentally, you know, I should by that stage. I'm an experienced intelligence officer. I have learned to pitch people, to put the question to them, to try and say, will you work with us? And I've been trained to do that. Completely and utterly messed it up with my own son. So the two of us, first of all, Maggie and I made the mistake of sitting there and looking slightly nervous and solemn in front of him. So of course I could see in his eyes he thought we were about to announce our divorce. So then I started to gabble in front of him and just sort of spewed out in the end. And he kind of looked at me, oh, God, thank God for that. And said something which is unprintable.

[Michelle Hussain]

But Maggie, your wife, knew all along, I think, because you've known each other since you were very young.

[Richard Moore]

Yes, that's unusual. When I joined the service, albeit at 24. We were already married by then, so it was very much all of those, you know, thinking through the issues was done, of course, chatting it through with Maggie as well. But think again of colleagues who do begin a romantic attachment and at some point they too, because I can't just say it on the first date. At some point, they too have to find having, you know, checked in with the office, with the service. They have to find the right time to say they might have not have been entirely honest in that first phase of the relationship. And that's.

[Michelle Hussain]

And then what happens if the relationship doesn't last? Then you've got someone out there in the wider world who knows something really important about you.

[Richard Moore]

They do. So if you're going to split up, then do it as amicably as possible, I think would be the advice.

[Michelle Hussain]

I want to ask about what spycraft is actually like. Because, look, the time when you went into the service, you will have read John le Carre and presumably Ian Fleming, you know, all of that kind of the classic things people know. Was it actually like that?

[Richard Moore]

So this is a terrible admission to make, but when I came into the job, I hadn't read a single Ian Fleming novel, so I'm desperately putting that right and reading my way through them. I had read Le Carre. I now put Nick Heron right up there in the pantheon alongside Le Carre. I think he's a brilliant book.

[Michelle Hussain]

The Slow Horses books. Yep.

[Richard Moore]

Yeah, the Slow Horses book. Many people will be more familiar, perhaps with the TV than they are the books, but the books are fantastic, so there's just a massive difference. These are works of fiction, works of creativity. Clearly, with Le Carre, there was, you know, he spent a short period in the service, so there was some verisimilitude, particularly to those portraits of early Cold War Berlin and all the rest of it. And you occasionally will see references to tradecraft in them. And sometimes it's accurate and sometimes it isn't. But look, it's very different. Of course, it's very different in real life, but occasionally there is a degree of intrigue and excitement which touches over into that world. Yeah, yeah.

[Michelle Hussain]

Isn't there a degree also of seeing the use in people and then using them? When you identify people, you are trying to work out how they can further Britain's interests and trying to get to them in one way or another.

[Richard Moore]

You are clearly trying to forge a relationship with another human being because you need the secrets that they possess. Yeah. And therefore that, if you think through it, means you have to. To create a relationship of real intimacy and trust with them, because you're often asking them to take risks in order to gather that intelligence and share it with you, which are significant. And they won't do it unless they can look at you and think, this is a person who is professional. They're going to be competent in the managing of this relationship and they will also. They'll be looking for something else, they'll be looking for something they can trust. They'll be looking for the values in that space. So, yeah, it's very powerful because you are about to enter into a relationship where there's a huge amount at stake. I mean, sometimes the case officers will be putting themselves in harm's way in that relationship, but nothing like that of the secret agent, the person who's agreed to do it.

[Michelle Hussain]

And sometimes you're offering money, or are you often offering money?

[Richard Moore]

What I can say on that space is very obviously when people are going to come and talk to you and take those sort of risks, they're going to be driven by different motivations and are. Our job is not to be particularly judgmental, frankly, about those motivations to try and work out something that works for both parties. And if that involves financial compensation, yeah, of course we'll do that.

[Michelle Hussain]

But I wonder whether it means that you start to see people in a certain way or whether you ever worried about your perception of people. My grandfather worked in intelligence for about a year and the reason he left it was because he said he felt it made you suspicious of everyone.

[Richard Moore]

So I think it's a really profoundly important point. And when we're looking to recruit people, the sort of people who will be successful in this world, they have to be really centered individuals. They have to really know themselves and they have to be very low ego because precisely for those reasons, you are going to be bouncing up against some really difficult ethical situations in this work. So you better be very well grounded.

[Michelle Hussain]

You mean the people like you, the intelligence? Yeah, the people within, not the agency agents that you recruit in different countries.

[Richard Moore]

I meant people within MI6. Yes, absolutely. They need to be in that place so that you don't get what you're describing there as a sort of, you know, a drift over time into doing stuff that you would have regarded as unacceptable. And therefore, you know, people are very thoughtful. I mean, throughout my career I've really thought about these things. These things are important and we, you know, within the organization, we give people space to think through this. If people have personal crises of conscience on this, it's very important they come, you know, they work it out, you know, within the circle of secrecy, as you can imagine.

[Michelle Hussain]

Did you ever have an agent who you'd recruited and developed who then was arrested or worse, in another country?

[Richard Moore]

I'm going to distance it a bit from me because I don't want to talk about things that I did in case it. Because I'm very averse to give any clues as to who might have worked with me in the past. But. But of course, from time to time, that is bound to happen. Our commitment to people is to keep them safe and we will bend over backwards to do that. But in history, for reasons sometimes unconnected with what MI6 does, circumstances will lead to their arrest. And it's a very difficult moment because we root for those people. They are why we exist as a human intelligence service. And it's very painful when it happens, but it doesn't happen very often because we are very, very careful.

[Michelle Hussain]

And you have to be good readers of people. I imagine when you reveal yourself to Someone you have to be fairly confident.

[Richard Moore]

And you definitely have to have that. And you have to have this set of values which they recognize. If you had a reputation of just using and abusing people, they're not going to choose to come and talk to you, are they? Or when you approach them, they're going to say a very abrupt no, but they know with MI6 that they will get care and attention and we'll look after them.

[Michelle Hussain]

Can I talk then about something that might have been a test or almost certainly was a test of exact what you're saying? And it's the period after 9, 11 when the US and the UK worked very closely together. The US carried out torture on detainees. We knew that from the Feinstein led report, the US Senate report in 2014, and the UK MPs found later on in their own report went along with it.

[Richard Moore]

So I, I'm not sure I recognize the characterization you've just given. I mean, we're clearly very close to the us. I work through that period, including on difficult counterterrorism work, including in, in Islamabad. I was there when the very first Al Qaeda bombs developed. In fact, my daughter was in a kindergarten whose windows were blown in by a bomb which exploded in the Egyptian Embassy. So I was right in the midst of all that. Michel. And it's very clear that the US administration at the time did a whole pile of things which were utterly unacceptable. You know, we all know about waterboarding, you know, which is clearly unusual.

[Michelle Hussain]

Did you know about it at the time?

[Richard Moore]

No, because they were very, very careful to exclude us. They absolutely did not tell their UK counterparts.

[Michelle Hussain]

You see, that's not really what came out in the MPs report here in the UK. After three years of looking into it. Their finding was that the UK tolerated inexcusable treatment of US detainees. And that did involve waterboard, stress positions, sleep deprivation, being in coffin sized boxes. And the MP said it's beyond doubt that the UK knew how the US handled some detainees.

[Richard Moore]

So I'm not sure I agree with beyond doubt in those terms because I was there and they were not. Their description of the activity is perfectly valid. I agree with it. And we, of course, let's be clear, we deal with partners around the world who employ methods that we would not countenance. And we're very careful that in our engagement with them that we do not facilitate or enhance that type of behaviour.

[Michelle Hussain]

The MPs were pretty thorough. British agencies continue to supply intelligence despite knowing or suspecting abuse in more than 200 cases.

[Richard Moore]

Michelle, I'm not. We're taking it into slightly different areas. You know, did the relationship continue with the Americans and therefore did we pass material as described by the MPs? Undoubtedly. Were there lessons learned about that? That absolutely. There is now an entire compliance process around us led by the Investigatory Powers Commission. That doesn't happen unless one recognizes that there are mistakes made. So let me. I mean, I don't want to give the impression that I'm not accepting. I am. I'm just saying, you know, we were starting about individuals and where they were individually. And I'm trying to make the point that as individual officers, including me at the time, no, I did not realize that my US counterpart was involved in that type of activity. Otherwise I would have not approached it in the same way. You know, might I, you know, you know, is there an argument that we should have been better earlier at working out that things were going on that we would not do? Yeah, of course. I accept that completely. I'm not trying to resist that. I was just trying to resist any kind of implication that individuals within MI6 were complicit in this because if they had been, they would be in jail. And not a single MI6 officer has been prosecuted for this. And I'm very proud of that. That's not because they weren't caught, Michell. Well, it's because they have that set of values that I described earlier on.

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[Michelle Hussain]

Can we bring it up to the present day then? Sure, if you grab those headphones. I want to play you a little of a very striking appearance that you made while you were in office at MI6 when you appeared on a stage with the FT with your then US counterpart William Burns. And this is part of what you said.

[Richard Moore]

I think our partnership does matter enormously to both of our services, but I think also to both of our countries. We have no better foreign partner in the world. My agency doesn't than sas. We will share more with each other than we will do with anyone else because of the high levels of trust that built up over many, many years. This partnership goes back in one form or another over a century.

[Michelle Hussain]

So that was you in September 2024.

[Richard Moore]

Indeed.

[Michelle Hussain]

What were the last nine months of your service like with the Trump administration?

[Richard Moore]

So Bill moved out of course was a wonderful colleague, Bill Burns, and one of the great sort of public servants of the US in recent decades. And he was replaced by a gentleman called John Ratcliffe, who has been an excellent partner. And clearly you get changes of administration in Washington, you get changes of government in the UK and in my case rather too many. Leaving aside the politics, just the sheer number of prime ministers, foreign secretaries that I dealt with in my five years. So that moves on. But the partnership remains the most critical one for our two nations and the people called upon to steward that relationship. The chief of MI6. And the director of CIA worked very, very hard on that relationship.

[Michelle Hussain]

Are you suggesting there's been no change at all? Because there was a very obvious practical change where in March, the US suspended intelligence sharing with Ukraine for a bit. So that was an indication of a very different era. William Burns himself has characterized this period in the US as being a really difficult one. That it's. That the sacking of officials, including intelligence officials, has been about retribution rather than reform.

[Richard Moore]

What I can say on that is that the relationship continues to be a really important and strong one, and I work really hard on it. You know, all relationships evolve. They change. The personalities change, the policies change. And, you know, when you're chief of MI6, you deal with the world as it is, is, and, and get on with it.

[Michelle Hussain]

But help me understand how it evolved in this period, because clearly, Russia and Ukraine, China, these are all present threats and issues. How do they evolve in these 90s.

[Richard Moore]

Your influence, don't you. So Ukraine is a good example where, you know, we have very clear views in the UK about prosecuting that war and how to support the Ukrainians. And, you know, our voice is one that is listened to in Washington. So, you know, things change, move around a bit. That's the style of the current administration. But we are always there, and it's our responsibility to use that to convey exactly what the intelligence is telling us. And it's telling us, for example, that Putin has no intention of doing a deal, that this is not an issue for him, purely of territory. This is about dominating Ukraine and turning Ukraine into something that looks rather like its neighbor, Belarus. So all of that stuff, stuff we talk to the Americans about all the time.

[Michelle Hussain]

And I think you can see sometimes if he has no intention of doing a deal, Vladimir Putin, if he has no intention of doing a deal, then how do you see this ending at.

[Richard Moore]

The moment, under current conditions? Well, I'm basing this on, you know, access, as I had a few weeks ago, to our understanding of the intelligence on it, and that is that he's not ready to do a deal. So for me, the answer to that is he needs to be put under more pressure. So he is prepared. Prepared to do a deal. The President of Ukraine is clearly ready to do a deal. He's remarkably, in the pursuit of peace, prepared to give away up to 20% of his country de facto. And yet Putin is not. So what's going to change that? More pressure on the battlefield. Ukrainians have an undercapitalized defense industry. They have spare capacity that cash would solve. There is more that we can give them. There is more that we can give them in terms of permission to use long range weaponry, for example, example. There's all of that as well as giving them the sort of the basics of air defense and all that. And there's an opportunity to put a lot more pressure on Putin at home. And I don't pretend that that is going to give immediate results. One of the things I would say in this space is we have to be patient. We have to be prepared to see this off. And I've talked about this, including with Bill on that occasion that you gave us the quote from the just seminal importance of this for the Western alliance, that we do not lose this contest of will.

[Michelle Hussain]

So you've told me your reading of President Putin. What about your reading of President Trump? Why does he give Putin the red carpet welcome?

[Richard Moore]

Michelle, the wonderful thing about the job I had the honor of doing is that we spy on Putin, but we don't spy on our American allies. So there are other people who would be better qualified than me to comment on US Politics.

[Michelle Hussain]

But this is actually just about the reading of him from your experience, not about, about inside information. Why is he so generous to President Putin?

[Richard Moore]

What I would say on that is I do recognize in President Trump a genuine commitment to peace. I mean, he clearly finds the horrors of war as witnessed in Ukraine or indeed in Gaza, abhorrent, and he is determined to bring it to an end. My job is to inform my own prime minister and then to know, discuss with the director of CIA. As I was saying, the picture we have of what's driving Putin. And so we, you know, I think there has been an evolution of thinking in the administration about Putin. And clearly Putin is trying to play us. You know, he's a, he's an intelligence officer, Michelle. I recognize the type. He's trying to maneuver us into a place which is convenient for him and we need to pin him down and not allow him that maneuverability.

[Michelle Hussain]

You're painting a picture of a still long war ahead, I think.

[Richard Moore]

I don't know. You know, I was paid to steal secrets, not solve mysteries. So I don't know how long it would be. But it's just so, so important that we don't lose this contest of wills, not just because of what that does inside Putin and other senior Russian minds and what it might invite in terms of opportunistic testing of our defenses, some of which we've seen in recent weeks, but also because President Xi is watching this really careful, carefully, and the Chinese leadership has evolved a sort of narrative of Western weakness ever, really ever since the international financial crisis. And there's a real danger that if he sees us being weak on Ukraine, then he will draw conclusions from that on his own behaviors. Around the South China Sea and potentially on Taiwan.

[Michelle Hussain]

Have those two countries, Russia and China, been pushed closer together by America's actions this year? Remember those images in Shanghai and Beijing with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping together and Kim Jong Un as well?

[Richard Moore]

I don't think they've been pushed together by the us they have been pushed together by their alliance around, particularly around Ukraine. It's a very unequal arrangement. But Putin has become increasingly dependent on Chinese support. And although the Chinese have not given the Russians some of the more sophisticated end of weaponry, it is the case that they have been very helpful with what things are called dual use things, in other words, things which might have a civil and a military application. So the chemicals in those shells are mostly Chinese. A lot of the components in the missilery are Chinese, I don't know. For all I know they might be good in a washing machine, but they are certainly a missile. So it's very clear that Putin has become more and more dependent. And of course the Iranians and the North Koreans have also helped them out. So there has been a tightening of that, that group of four people to do bad stuff together.

[Michelle Hussain]

The other day on an episode of this podcast, I spoke to the Venezuelan peace laureate Maria Carina Machado. And this is an ongoing situation in the Caribbean where the US has for the last couple of months been carrying out strikes on boats saying that they were drug smugglers on board. You've grappled with so many issues of this kind. You've lived through a time of drone strikes in places like Afghanistan. What do you think when you look at that situation in the Caribbean? Caribbean?

[Richard Moore]

Well, I, I really am not across it, Michelle. And it's not, you know, compared to some other issues and areas, one which is in the forefront of British interests and things. So I, I don't know, I genuinely don't know on what the US are basing these strikes. But you know, you made the reference to Afghanistan and to drone strikes and in extremists only, we would always prefer to arrest people, people and put them in front of a court. But in certain parts of the world, at certain times, people who would do you harm, particularly in our case, terrorists, you know, you can't reach them. And there are bits of Somalia that that's probably true for, and there certainly were bits of Afghanistan in those days and, and in extremists, you know, ministers might authorize a lethal operation like a drone strike in order to remove a threat. But when you do that, again, it has to be within UK law and UK law requires things to be necessary and proportionate to the threat posed. And there's usually a strong, it's a very legalistic word, imminence. In other words, it's not just a threat, might be vaguely materialized in 20 years time. It has to feel real and now. So that's the basis on which we would proceed. And I really can't comment on what's happening in Venezuela.

[Michelle Hussain]

Can we talk closer to home about politicians in Europe? And I'm thinking of two in particular who have been accused of echoing Russian talking points on Ukraine and who might be perceived as soft on Russia, who certainly face those accusations. One is Nigel Farage, who might be the next UK Prime Minister, and the other is Marine Le Pen. Would you have concerns about either of those people being elected to those offices?

[Richard Moore]

Michelle, I've spent 38 years being devotedly non partisan and I will, of course, I'm not about to throw that habit out of the window. My job is very simple on this and my job was very simple on this, which is to give advice based on good intelligence about what Putin is actually intending. And that's what I would do and that's what my successor will do, regardless of who is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. I come back to what is the job of the chief of MI6? It's to serve the government of the day within the law, obeying UK law. And that's what you do, you get on with it and you provide truth to power. So again, one of the things the Chief does frequently is appear in front of the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary and sometimes tell them things they really, really don't want to hear, particularly if it's a Friday afternoon.

[Michelle Hussain]

So when you step away from all of that, as you have now, what is the decompression like? Because what you're describing is, I mean, it must affect every area of your life. I imagine you can't really do a job like that without devoting every, probably every waking hour to it.

[Richard Moore]

I didn't worry about things I couldn't change for starters. Now things that thing that I would focus a lot on is around our own business, the business of human intelligence work, the, you know, of, of keeping that going in a world where, you know, the, the tools of surveillance weighed again, you know, used against. You are pretty sophisticated so the thing that I would worry most is that are we going to stay in this game? Are we going to keep being good enough at our methodology, our trade crime craft to keep in this game? Are we going to get the right technology fast enough to stay in the game?

[Michelle Hussain]

So is it much more about technology than the human factor now compared to the way you work?

[Richard Moore]

It's both, it's just not binary at all. So you need great technology. And AI helps us enormously in interrogating vast amounts of data and perhaps helping us to find somebody who might be prepared to help us. At the same time, you can see in China that the surveillance state is pretty well advanced and a lot of that technology makes its way overseas. And so it doesn't have to be Beijing, you might encounter that in Dubai or in other cities. So we have to be very mindful of the capabilities that are deployed against us. So I worried about that. I worried whether we'd stay on top of the game. I'm glad to report, I think we, we are, but it's a, it's a bit of an arms race. It's a thing, you know, you have to continue to do. And one of the reasons I decided that we needed to be a little bit more open about ourselves and speak about our mission a bit more was partly because I wanted to engage technology outside government, because they would often have the solutions that would help us in that space.

[Michelle Hussain]

You mean the OpenAI's and the Googles of this world?

[Richard Moore]

Everything from the really big defense or tech companies to the woman doing something in her garage to invent something utterly brilliant. And both of them actually, in some ways the bigger companies were easier to reach. We had some structures for doing that. We would clear members of their team so they could see some of the secret stuff, stuff. But if you're a small startup, that's not your world. And if we were to wait and say, you know, we need to put you through security vetting, you know, these people start up, make their billion and go out of business, don't they, in the time it would take us to go through a vetting process. So did that happen?

[Michelle Hussain]

Did you manage to do some kind of fast track?

[Richard Moore]

Yeah, we've done some great stuff. Both hmgcc, which is a horrible acronym, I apologize for it, but it is basically our national security engineering hub. You know, if you, if you are a Bond fan, I suppose it's the nearest we'd have to QL Labs sits in Milton Keynes and they've been much more open about their mission. And their technology and you can now go to a building near the Milton Keynes station and you can literally walk in and talk about some of the technology. That's one thing. And the second thing, a few years ago under Alex Younger, my predecessor, we decided to get into the venture capital side. So there's a thing called the National Security Strategic Investment Fund and it looks at technologies which might not quite make it if left purely to the commercial side. But by if you like having a UK intelligence community imprimatur on a particular bit of technology, it often excites the interests of private venture capital and they bring in and say and we've got something like a 40%, they call it a pull through rate. So of the technologies that are invested in, 40% of them end up being used in the organization and that's a big change.

[Michelle Hussain]

So what's life on the outside feel like?

[Richard Moore]

I think if you're going to do these jobs, you do them for five years and you do actually have to look after yourself. And I had an extraordinary institution under to me and you can delegate and you know, I had brilliant directors general the next level below me in the organization and I could walk away and have a holiday. Clearly if something massive blew up then you, you'd come home but by and large you, you could do that. I'm also I think a reasonably calm person and so I'm not a big fretter. I think you don't want to worry her in this job. So you know, the last six weeks I think a lot of friends are looking for me to sort of look totally transformed but I don't feel that way. I had a very nice holiday with Maggie in, in Tuscany which we really enjoyed and then we came back, back and I'm sort of thinking about what I might do next.

[Michelle Hussain]

There's a vacancy for ambassador in Washington.

[Richard Moore]

Not, not for me there isn't. I wish whoever takes on that role the best of luck and I'm sure.

[Michelle Hussain]

They'Ll get a great candidate so easily.

[Richard Moore]

I say it so easily because of course I've given it a lot of thought and made a decision. So it's easy then, isn't it? But why, but why? Because I think there are people better qualified than me to do the job. And after five years of a really reasonably intensive, intense job I'm ready to do some other things including say a bit more of my grandson and do other stuff.

[Michelle Hussain]

Richard Moore, thank you very much.

[Richard Moore]

Thanks very much Michelle.

[Michelle Hussain]

And that's the Michelle Hussain show for this week. If you haven't already subscribed, please do. You'll always know as soon as we have a new episode. That way, if you've left us a comment, even given us some stars, thank you. You you can watch these conversations on YouTube and on Bloomberg TV and you'll find the written version with my [e-mail] Weekend the team is producers Jessica Beck and Chris Martleau. Guest booking by Dave Warren Social Media by Alex Morgan this week our sound engineer was Richard Ward. Video editing was by Laura Francis. The Executive producer is Louise. At Bloomberg Weekend, Editorial Director of Audio and Special projects is Brendan Francis Newnham and our Executive editor is Catherine Bell. Bart Walshaw composed our music and this week's special thanks go to Alex Wickham and Brendan Scott, as well as Alana Susnow, Summer Saadi and Sage Bauman. And of course, thanks to you for listening. Please come back back next weekend.

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