Sir Geoffrey Tantum
MI6 Middle East controller, ‘quintessential Englishman’ and noted Arabist who served in the SBS
SIR GEOFFREY TANTUM, who has died aged 83, was a senior MI6 officer and Middle East specialist who, during and after his service, was key to fostering good relations with the Gulf States, especially Bahrain.
The son of George Tantum and the former Margaret Goozée, Geoffrey Alan Tantum was born on November 12 1940 and educated at Hampton Grammar, High Wycombe. He joined the Army in 1959, leaving in 1966. He was seconded from the Intelligence Corps to 3 Commando Brigade Royal Marines, then on active service in Borneo, and was attached to the Special Boat Section (SBS) along with Paddy Ashdown (later leader of the Liberal Democrats).
Tantum maintained a lifelong attachment to the Marines, contributing generously to an SBS charity and often wearing his SBS tie. He left the Army to read Oriental Studies at St John’s College, Oxford, where he gained a Blue in judo and graduated with a First. In 1969 he joined MI6, where he again found himself serving with Paddy Ashdown.
Tantum’s time with MI6 was spent largely, but not entirely, in or connected with the Middle East, beginning with a posting to Kuwait in 1970. Subsequent overseas postings included Aden, Amman, and Rome, where he was appointed Counsellor in 1985. His London postings included heading the training and recruiting departments of MI6, culminating as Controller Middle East.
At 6ft 3in, precise in speech and thought and sometimes lugubrious in manner, Tantum could be unintentionally intimidating. Some staff nicknamed him “Tantrum”, others “Eeyore”, others again described him as “a clipboard with legs”. They all agreed, however, that out of the office he was good company, charming and entertaining with a nicely turned ironic sense of humour.
An accomplished pianist, he was known as “an absolute hit with jazz numbers”. Friends found him generous and loyal, especially former subordinates who ran into difficulties in their later careers.
Although not known as a case officer, he was respected for his ability to get on with Arabs, creating and sustaining lasting high-level liaison relationships. His Arabic was stately rather than colloquial and, in the words of a colleague, “his often funereal delivery was especially impactful… as was his quintessential Englishness, evident in a good suit and tie even in the hottest weather, and profound, perhaps excessive, courtesy.”
But he could also do the common touch, frequently observed on his travels chatting amiably to hotel staff and complimenting musicians playing in the lobbies.
In his last post as Controller Middle East he focused on intelligence diplomacy, rather than the core business of recruiting human intelligence sources. This approach was not universally popular within the intelligence service. But his efforts to replicate the access and trust with a new generation of Gulf rulers that he had observed with their fathers in the 1960s and 1970s bore fruit; and its legacy continues to this day.
His liaison relationship with the Israelis was less successful, though, characterised as it was by a mutual lack of sympathy.
It was also during this period that Tantum worked closely with the then minister for defence procurement, Jonathan Aitken, to improve strained relations between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia and facilitate British exports to the region, particularly the al-yamamah fighter jet deal.
He remained in contact with Aitken after retirement and is said to have testified as a character witness in Aitken’s subsequent perjury trial.
On his retirement, in 1995, Tantum was appointed CMG and awarded the Star of Jordan in 1995. He had been appointed OBE in 1981.
Settling in Bath, he was anything but retired, pursuing a second career in Middle Eastern consultancies and founding and directing a number of companies; this second career built on and almost eclipsed his work with MI6. He became a close adviser to the King of Bahrain, to whom he gave “courageous and impartial advice”, as one contact put it, for more than 20 years, and in 2018 he was knighted “for outstanding service and contributions to the development of relations between Bahrain and the UK”.
Significantly, Tantum was also key to securing for the International Institute for Strategic Studies the Manama Dialogue, an annual event in Bahrain providing a forum for ministers, policy-makers and experts to debate Middle Eastern issues. Over 20 years it has proved to be a central element of the Middle East security architecture.
Among other post-retirement activities, Tantum served on the advisory board of the University of Bolton Centre for Islamic Finance, and was a member of the Chartered Institute of Linguists (Arabic and Italian). He also contributed a historical paper, “Muslim warfare: a study of a medieval Muslim treatise on the art of war”, to Islamic Arms and Armour (1979), edited by Robert Elgood.
Geoffrey Tantum married, in 1977, Caroline Kent, with whom he had three daughters. The marriage was dissolved in 2005 and in 2007 he married Carin Lake. That marriage was dissolved in 2014, but they subsequently reunited.
Tantum suffered a stroke following a flight from Australia, where he had been visiting a daughter. He died a few days later in the presence of his second wife and his daughters. He is survived by both former wives, and by his daughters and two step-daughters.