Ken Flower was of Cornish extraction and worked for H. M. Customs & Excise before joining the British South African Police in Southern Rhodesia in 1937. After war service in British Somaliland and Ethiopia he returned to Rhodesia in 1948 rapidly rising in the hierachy of the BSAP. He studied the Mau Mau insurgency in Kenya and applied his knowledge in the distrubances in Nyasaland in the late 1950s.

Flower was appointed Deputy Commissioner of the BSAP in March 1961 and subsequently served as the first head of Rhodesia's and later Zimbabwe's Central Intelligence Organisation. Rhodesia was the name adopted when the formerly British colony of Southern Rhodesia declared itself independent ( Unilateral Declaration of Independence See also Great Zimbabwe National Monument. For information about the March and June 2008 presidential elections see Zimbabwean presidential election The Central Intelligence Organisation ( CIO) is the national Intelligence agency or " Secret police " of Zimbabwe. The organisation had been set up by him under Prime Minister Winston Field in 1963 though the original initiative for such an agency had come from Field's predecessor Sir Edgar Whitehead. Winston Joseph Field MBE (1904 - 1969 was a Rhodesian politician Sir Edgar Cuthbert Fremantle Whitehead, OBE, ( February 8, 1905 &ndash September 22, 1971) was a Rhodesian politician Flower saw himself as non-political, though with a bias against the 'cowboy element' in the Rhodesian Front, as he dubbed it. ^[1] Ken Flower has been tied to the creation of RENAMO, a militant anti-Communist organization in Mozambique. The Mozambican National Resistance ( RENAMO; Portuguese: Resistência Nacional Moçambicana) is a conservative Political party in Mozambique Communism is a Socioeconomic structure that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless Society based Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique (Moçambique or República de Moçambique, ʁɛ'publikɐ d musɐ̃'bik is a country in southeastern Africa ^[2]

When Robert Mugabe became the first Prime Minister of the state of Zimbabwe he kept Flower and Ken Norman, ex-President of the Commercial Farmers Union, in his predominantly black, first administration. See also Great Zimbabwe National Monument. For information about the March and June 2008 presidential elections see Zimbabwean presidential election ^[3]

He wrote Serving Secretly: An Intelligence Chief on Record, Rhodesia into Zimbabwe 1964-1981, published in 1987. ^[4]

Controversy

In March 1975 Flower ordered the assassination of Herbert Chitepo, then-leader of the Zimbabwe African National Union. Herbert Wiltshire Chitepo ( 15 June, 1923 &ndash 18 March, 1975) led the Zimbabwe African National Union until the Central The Zimbabwe African National Union was a militant organization that fought against White minority rule in Rhodesia, formed as a split from the Zimbabwe African ^[4]

There are allegations that after Ian Smith unilaterally declared Rhodesia independent Flower maintained his allegiance to the British government, or at least the Queen, spying on the Smith administration for MI6. Ian Douglas Smith GCLM ID ( 8 April 1919 &ndash 20 November 2007) served as the Prime Minister of the British The Unilateral Declaration of Independence ( UDI) of Rhodesia from the United Kingdom was signed on November 11, 1965 by the administration The Secret Intelligence Service ( SIS) colloquially known as MI6 is the United Kingdom 's external Intelligence agency. ^[5] The fact that Sir Humphrey Gibbs, the Governor of Rhodesia at the time of UDI, and treated shabbily by the illegal Smith Government, wrote the forward to Serving Secretly and referred to him there as 'my friend Ken Flower' lends credence to this view. Sir Humphrey Vicary Gibbs, GCVO, KCMG, ( November 22, 1902 &ndash 1990 was the penultimate

References

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