Sir John Anthony Adye KCMG (born 24 October 1939) is a former Director of the British signals intelligence agency, GCHQ, a post he held from 1989 to 1996.

Career

Educated at Leighton Park School

Leighton Park School

Leighton Park School is a co-educational Quaker independent school for both day and boarding pupils. It is situated in the large town of Reading in Berkshire, in South East England...

 and Lincoln College, Oxford

Lincoln College, Oxford

Lincoln College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is situated on Turl Street in central Oxford, backing onto Brasenose College and adjacent to Exeter College...

, Adye joined GCHQ in the mid-1960s becoming Director in 1989. He then served until 2002 as the chair of the Country Houses Association

Country Houses Association

The Country Houses Association was a British charity that converted country houses into retirement flats and maintained them from 1955 until its liquidation in 2004.- History :...

. In 2005 he was appointed to the board of the US National Biometric Security Project.

Adye was a witness in February 2008 at the inquest into the death of Diana Princess of Wales: in an unprecedented move (normal policy is neither to confirm nor deny operational activities), he strenuously denied that GCHQ had any involvement in either the Camillagate or Squidgygate

Squidgygate

Squidgygate refers to the pre-1990 telephone conversations between Diana, Princess of Wales and a close friend, James Gilbey, and to the controversy surrounding how those conversations were recorded. During the calls, Gilbey affectionately called Diana by the names "Squidgy" and "Squidge"...

tapes.