Peter Marychurch

Sir Peter Marychurch KCMG (born 13 June 1927[1]) is a former Director of the British signals intelligence agency, GCHQ, a post he held from 1983 to 1989.

Career

According to the memoirs of a former MI5 intelligence officer, in the 1960s, Marychurch, then a young GCHQ cryptanalyst, applied computerised cluster analysis to the problem of traffic analysis of espionage traffic.[2] Marychurch lends his name to the "Sir Peter Marychurch award", an honour given annually for work in international cryptology.[3] He spent several years working at the Government Communications Security Bureau, New Zealand's SIGINT agency.[4] He became Director in 1983 and at the request of the Government continued in that role until 1989.[5]

He has also served as the chairman of the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music from 1994 to 2000.[6]

References

  1. ^ Birthdays Tomorrow The Independent, 12 June 1993
  2. ^ Peter Wright, Spycatcher, p. 153, 1987
  3. ^ Office of the Director of National Intelligence
  4. ^ Aldrich, David, GCHQ, Harper Press, 2010, ISBN 978 0007278473, p.445
  5. ^ Hansard 22 July 1986
  6. ^ Royal School of Music Annual Review 2000
Government offices
Preceded by
Sir Brian Tovey		 Director of GCHQ
1983 - 1989		 Succeeded by
Sir John Adye