Education
Rugby School; The Queen"s College.
Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service
Rugby School; The Queen"s College.
Educated at Rugby School and Queen"s College, Oxford, Franks was commissioned into the Royal Corps of Signals in 1940. He became an Intelligence officer in the Western Desert and then joined the Special Operations Executive. After the War he briefly worked for the Daily Mirror before joining the Secret Intelligence Service in 1946.
He became involved in Operation Boot, a plan to overthrow Mohammad Mosaddegh, the nationalistic Iranian Prime Minister in 1953.
He was posted to Bonn in 1962 and was promoted to Deputy Chief in 1977. He was appointed Chief of the Service in 1978.
He lived at Aldeburgh in Suffolk.