Elliott was self-confident as only a well-bred, well-heeled young Etonian, newly graduated from Cambridge University, with all the right social connections, can be. Indeed, he knew nothing whatsoever about espionage, but he thought spying sounded exciting and important and exclusive. He knew little about the complexities of international politics, let alone the dextrous and dangerous game being played by MI6 in the run-up to war. Nicholas Elliott was not obviously cut out to be a spy. The old boys' recruitment network had worked perfectly. "So that was that," Elliott wrote many years later. Sir Robert Vansittart smiled and replied: "I am relieved you have asked me for something so easy." Nicholas Elliott arranged to meet "Van" at Ascot and, over drinks, mentioned that he thought he might like to join the intelligence service. Sir Claude knew everybody who was anybody and nobody who wasn't somebody, and among the many important men he knew was Sir Robert Vansittart, chief diplomatic adviser to His Majesty's government, who had close links to the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), better known as MI6, the agency responsible for intelligence gathering abroad.
John Nicholas Rede Elliott's father, Sir Claude Aurelius Elliott, OBE, was headmaster of Eton (England's grandest public school), a noted mountaineer, and a central pillar of the British establishment. The date was June 15, 1939, three months before the outbreak of the deadliest conflict in history.
One moment Nicholas Elliott was at Ascot Racecourse, watching the favorite, Quashed, come romping home at 7-2, and the next, rather to his own surprise, he was a spy.
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