Frank Bossard

Frank Clifton Bossard (13 December 1912 – 19 June 2001) was a British Secret Intelligence Service officer who provided classified documents to the Soviet Union in the 1960s.

Early life Bossard was born in 1912 to a poor single mother, Ethel Bossard (née Clifton). His father, Frank Bossard, a journeyman joiner, died before he was born. His mother worked as a housekeeper and general store manager in Gedney, Lincolnshire until 1923, when she married a farmer and moved to the country. Bossard dropped out of school when his stepfather could no longer afford it and became a store clerk. Eventually, he saved enough money to attend radio technology courses at Norwich Technical College. When he ran out of money, he was arrested for attempting to cash a forged cheque in 1934.

Bossard married his first wife, Ethel Isobel Brash, on 26 February 1941 at St Simon's Parish Church, Southsea.

RAF and Ministry of Civil Aviation Bossard joined the Royal Air Force in 1939, and fought in the Mediterranean and Middle East Theatre. He gained an officer's commission with a false CV. He taught briefly at the Air Service College before the Ministry of Aviation offered him a post as an assistant signals officer. He was eventually promoted to the position of staff telecommunications officer. In Bonn, Bossard had the duty of interviewing scientists, engineers, and technicians, who had left the Soviet Union. Bossard routinely took classified documents, mostly involving missile systems and radar systems, from his office, photographed them in his hotel room during his lunch break, using equipment he left in a briefcase in the left luggage office at London Waterloo station, and returned the documents the next day. For every packet of photographs delivered, he received £2,000.

When Bossard went on spending binges, he caught the attention of MI5. Suspicions were confirmed when the Soviet double agent Dmitri Polyakov (known as TOPHAT) provided information about Bossard's activities. Another agent known as NICNAC also provided the Central Intelligence Agency with information regarding Bossard. After weeks of surveillance and an investigation into his finances, Bossard was arrested on 12 March 1965 in the Ivanhoe Hotel in Bloomsbury, where he had been photographing documents. and received a trial at the Old Bailey on 10 May 1965, where he confessed At the time, Bossard's sentence was the third longest resulting from a postwar spy trial. Following Bossard's case, officials began reforming the qualifications of those who handled classified documents and how espionage cases were handled if they occurred. While in prison, Bossard was divorced by his wife, Ethel.

Later life After being released early from prison in 1975, Bossard changed his name to Frank Russell Clifton and found employment with Bird and Clarke, a firm of solicitors. He soon married again.

Frank Clifton died of natural causes in Hull on 19 June 2001.