The Unexpected Rise of a Spy Chief
In 1905, Kenneth Barnard Thomas Folkes was born in Gloucester, England. When WWII began, he had twelve years’ experience as a law clerk for a firm that handled many criminal cases, plus a stint with a carpet manufacturer in the Midlands. In 1940, he enlisted as a private with the Corps of Military Police, but mentioned only the legal work in his background questionnaire. Between that, a keen mind, and a fair knowledge of French, he was transferred to the Intelligence Corps and commissioned as a second lieutenant.
Folkes was a tireless self-promoter. He claimed that within just a few months into his military career, he had interrogated a prisoner of war and outsmarted him “until he told me what he wanted to hide“. In what in hindsight turned out to be a blunder, nobody questioned his claims. In late 1940, he was offered command of New Zealand’s fledgling Security Intelligence Bureau (SIB), and a promotion to major. Once in Wellington, Folkes conflated and inflated his employment background of law clerk and Midlands carpet manufacturer employee. He presented himself to the locals as a former Midlands lawyer, now devoted to the security of New Zealand’s war secrets.