Nicholas Elliott should have been fired for what one colleague called a “one man Bay of Pigs.” Astonishingly, he survived—if not unscathed, then at least unsacked, an outcome that would have been highly unlikely in any other organization. As Elliott had himself demonstrated, this was a club that looked after its members. With typical insouciance he wrote: “A storm in a teacup was blown up by ineptitude into a major diplomatic incident which reflected unjustifiable discredit on MI6. The incompetence lay on the shoulders of the politicians, most notably Eden, in the way the matter was handled.”
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