Sidney George Reilly - "Reilly Ace of Spies" MI5 British Intelligence & Royal Air Force Files

Sidney George Reilly - "Reilly Ace of Spies" MI5 British Intelligence & Royal Air Force Files

MI5 Files

The MI5 files contain 171 pages of documents dating from 1916 to 1944. The British, so-called 'Ace of Spies', worked for British Intelligence in the Soviet Union after the Bolshevik Revolution. Reilly was lured back into the USSR in 1925, arrested and executed. The file reveals that Reilly was a Russian-born Jew who was engaged in business activity in New York in 1915, when he came under suspicion from the Russians as being a German spy.


Royal Air Force/Air Ministry: Department of the Master-General of Personnel: Officers' Service Records

An Air Ministry document made up of a two page service record noting the various British intelligence entities he was employed by, and a notation that he was awarded the Military Cross on December 2, 1919.


About Sidney George Reilly:

His persona whether real, imagined, fabricated, or exaggerated is said to be the inspiration that guided Ian Flemming's creation of his character James Bond Agent 007. Although he claimed to have been born in Ireland, Sidney George Reilly, (1873 – 1925), was born Shlomo (Salomon) Rosenblum on March 24, 1873, he would later change his name, in the Jewish Kherson gubernia of Tsarist Russia, according to Andrew Cook, author of "Ace of Spies: The True Story of Sidney Reilly ." Like many details of his life, this is disputed by some and there are alternative theories about his birth. Some sources say Reilly was born Georgi Rosenblum in Odessa, then a Black Sea port of the Russian Empire (now Ukraine), on 24 March 1873 or 1874.

According to author Robin Bruce Lockhart, the son of British spy R. H. Bruce Lockhart, Reilly worked for Scotland Yard, the British Secret Service Bureau and the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). Lockhart's father is responsible for much of the information commonly known about Reilly. The Senior Lockhart was an associate of Reilly, who after Reilly's death wrote about their efforts to overthrow the Bolshevik regime in 1918. The London Evening Standard in 1931 began printing a serial based on exploits attributed to Reilly called, "Master Spy." According to Andrew Lycett, author of "Ian Fleming, The Man Behind James Bond," Fleming used Reilly as a model for James Bond.

Andrew Cook, a former aide to Britain's Secretary of State for Defense George Robertson, for his book "On His Majesty's Secret Service: Sidney Reilly, Codename ST1." examined passport and birth records, academic transcripts, immigration documents, marriage certificates, military records, business records, Russian intelligence files, and other primary source official documents. He concluded that Reilly had been an MI6 agent in Russia who plotted to overthrow the Bolshevik government, but he was also a con man, bigamist, and murderer.

According to Hayden B. Peake, curator of CIA’s Historical Intelligence Collection, "What is generally accepted about Reilly’s life can be summarized in a few sentences. He was born Solomon Rosenblum in Polish-Russia, raised near Odessa, and educated to some extent in Europe. Passport records show he arrived in England from France in 1895 and went on to have business dealings in Russia, the Far East, Europe, and New York. He joined the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) in Canada in October 1917. In March 1918, he became a British SIS agent and was sent to Russia where he became involved in the so-called Lockhart Plot, a failed attempt to overthrow the communist government. Sought by the Cheka, Reilly escaped to London. In 1925, after several trips to Russia for the SIS, Reilly, now on his own, returned one more time to the Soviet Union, as part of the TRUST operation, hoping to assist in overthrowing the communists. He was captured, interrogated, and shot."