Illustration: a Cold War intelligence collage of a non-aligned-movement conference and a map spanning Latin America, Africa and Asia.

Stewart Menzies

Illustration, not an archive object

Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, known as C (1939 to 1952) · United Kingdom

On the regime page: Churchill wartime government

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Often attributed, not verified

These words circulate under Stewart Menzies’s name but could not be traced to a source. They are listed so readers can check them, not as Stewart Menzies’s words.

“Without being able to talk freely to my office from my home, I am virtually prevented from taking more than twenty-four hours leave, and now that the war has lasted nearly two years, I do feel occasionally the need for a little longer relaxation.”
Unverifiable Usually said to come from: Menzies to the Foreign Office or Churchill's staff, August 1941, asking for a scrambler telephone at his home; reported in web summaries of SIS and Bletchley Park history
Appears in a search summary with no archive reference or page. The underlying file (probably in the National Archives, HW or FO series) and the books it comes from were not found or read. It is also routine administrative correspondence, not a statement about intelligence, propaganda or policy.
“every possible measurement was being taken, and BP's needs were being very rapidly met, although all of the new arrangements were not yet in place”
Paraphrase Usually said to come from: Menzies's report to Churchill about Bletchley Park, 18 November 1941, as reported in a web summary
The wording is in the third person ("was being taken") and is a summary of a report, not Menzies's own sentence. The source document was not found.
“It is thanks to the secret weapon of General Menzies, put into use on all the fronts, that we won the war!”
Unverifiable Usually said to come from: Churchill's words to King George VI when presenting Menzies
This is Churchill's remark, reported at second hand in popular accounts, not Menzies's words. No contemporary record was found. No published words of Menzies on propaganda or political warfare were found in the sources available (Hansard, the official history of the air offensive, Churchill's war memoirs, the Digital Library of India scans of Lockhart's and Alanbrooke's books).