One of the pleasures of running coldspur is the fact that so many interesting people stumble across it, and contact me. Apart from the dozens of professional and amateur enthusiasts of intelligence and espionage matters, a number of individuals with intriguing backgrounds have written to me: for example, a retired counter-intelligence officer overseas; a man who lodged with Agent SONIA in Great Rollright as a boy; a grand-daughter of the MI5 officer Michael Serpell; the son of the FBI’s representative in London during the Fuchs events; a son of the Communist spy Dave Springhall, who only recently learned who his father was; and, recently, the grandson of a soldier who guarded interned spies at a Home Office internment camp in World War 2.
It is the last whose story I want to highlight in this month’s feature. I believe that Pete Mackean owns a startling set of photographs from Camp 020 in its four incarnations, at Latchmere House, Huntercombe Park, Diest and Bad Nenndorf, some of them showing notable figures involved in the administration of the camps that have not been published before. They deserve a wider audience. When Pete shared them with me, I immediately suggested that coldspur might be a good place to showcase them, and he graciously agreed to let me use them.
Lieutenant Mackean of the Staffordshire Regiment
Yet I wanted to place them in a solid context. I was familiar with Latchmere House at Ham in Surrey, partly because I had played golf in the grounds next to it. I had also encountered the history of Camp 020 (as it became to be called) from the work issued in 2000 by the Public Record Office (as it then was), Camp 020: The Official History of MI5’s Wartime Interrogation Centre, compiled from the accounts of Lieutenant-Colonel R. W. G. Stephens and his assistants Lieutenant-Colonel G. Sampson and Major R. Short, and edited with an introduction by Oliver Hoare. Camp 020, otherwise known as Latchmere House, is a well-known landmark in counter-espionage literature. During World War II, it was used as a detention and interrogation centre for suspected German spies (most of whom, incidentally, were not German citizens), as well as, for a short time, a place to intern obvious domestic subversives, such as Oswald Mosley. It was led by the celebrated Lieutenant-Colonel R. W. G. Stephens, known as ‘Tin-Eye’ because of his monocle.
But Huntercombe, the alternative and back-up partner to Camp 020, which was dubbed Camp 020R, was much of a mystery to me, and I wanted to research its provenance and development in more detail. It was intended by Stephens and MI5 that there should not be any sharp distinctions made between the Camp 020 and Camp 020R. Yet a study of the files at the National Archives (specifically, KV 4/102 & /103) reveals that Huntercombe took on an identity and life of its own, and was not just an extension, or potential replacement, for Camp 020. (The ‘R’ stood for ‘Reserve’.) Its story has been largely overlooked.
Huntercombe merits only one paragraph (and a very occasional reference) in Stephens’s history: Christopher Andrew ignores it completely in his authorised history of MI5, Defence of the Realm, while John Curry briefly records, in his official history of MI5, that Camp 020 and 020R were in fact a ‘joint establishment’. Hinsley and Simkins, in Volume 4 of British Intelligence in the Second World War, merely cite, in an Appendix, when it was opened, as a reserve camp, in January 1943. In MI5, Nigel West suggests that ‘a long-term detention centre was hastily sited at a quiet spot on Lord Nuffield’s estate, Huntercombe Place, Nettlebed, near Henley’, an assessment that turns out to be incorrect on several counts. Guy Liddell, in his Diaries, makes one or two references to Huntercombe specifically, but his generic mentions of ‘Camp 020’ could be intended to designate either of the two.
As background reading, I heartily recommend A. W. Brian Simpson’s In The Highest Degree Odious (1992), a magisterial account of the slide into aggressive detention policy in the first years of the war. (Its major defect for me was an abundance of Footnotes, a tide that became highly distracting. Most of them should have been packaged as Endnotes. I also believe that Simpson is a little harsh on MI5, since his criticisms of it cover exactly the time that it was essentially leaderless, under Lord Swinton’s Security Executive, from May 1940 to March 1941.) Hinsley and Simkins give an overall solid account of the legislative muddles that accompanied the establishment of Camp 020, although they cover very superficially the implications of the Treachery Act. Helen Fry’s London Cage (2017) is a very useful guide to the string of prisons and detention centres where German prisoners-of-war were interrogated.
As a final observation on the slimness of official accounts, I have found no single place where all the Camps referred to in the literature (001- Dartmoor, 011- Bridgend, 020 – Ham, 020R – Huntercombe, 186 – Colchester, L – Isle of Man, WX – Stafford Prison, and then the Isle of Man, X – Canada, Z – Aldershot) are listed and described. A sentence on the Kew website runs as follows: “Those classified in Category A were interned in camps being set up across the UK, the largest settlement of which were on the Isle of Man though others were set up in and around Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, Bury, Huyton, Sutton Coldfield, London, Kempton Park, Lingfield, Seaton and Paignton. Other documents indicate that there was not a direct correspondence between identified camps and named prisons: for example, Camp001 was the isolated hospital wing at Dartmoor.
The Background – Dealing with Hostile Elements:
Great Britain, primarily represented by the Home Office, struggled with the challenge of controlling and defanging undesirable elements in the first year of the war. The problem was multi-dimensional. In one category were British citizens who held unreliable opinions – the Fascist sympathisers, such as Oswald Mosley’s British Union, and The Link; communists driven into a hostile position by the demands of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, who might undermine the war effort; pacifists who, out of different convictions, might spread similar disaffection. In the second category were aliens, including German (and other) citizens who had fled from Nazi-controlled territories before the war, refugees escaping from territories that had succumbed to Nazi invasions in the first half of 1940, as well as unfortunate Germans and Austrians who had settled unobtrusively in the country during the last decade or two. The Home Office had no confident means of distinguishing between those fiercely opposed to Hitlerism, those who may have been infiltrated as spies or subversives, and those essentially apolitical beings who had switched their national loyalties. (This problem became more absurd when Italy entered the war in June 1940.) In the third category were true spies, who entered the country illegally or clandestinely (or, later in the war, were picked up on territories abroad), were not protected by any military uniform, and presented a unique challenge since no appropriate laws had been set up for their treatment, and, because of MI5’s peculiar interest in them, presented some problems for any open prosecutorial process.
The problem of handling subversive citizens had been addressed by some clumsy amendments to general Defence Regulations, most notoriously Amendment 39A, and a new paragraph 1a to 18B, which was introduced in May 1940. This allowed detention of any persons who were found to be furthering the objectives of the enemy, and resulted in many prominent citizens (such as Oswald Mosley) being detained in prison. As Simpson wrote, anyone to whom the Home Secretary took exception could be locked up for an indefinite period. Yet the policy took on a sharper focus in the summer of 1940. Mass internment of persons of German origin began after the Fifth Column scare of early June, 1940, and special camps, such as on the Isle of Man, were set up to hold such groups. Since the centuries-old Treason Act required special rules of evidence and procedure (and foreign spies, unlike those who has sought asylum, could hardly be accused of treasonable behaviour against a country to which they owned no allegiance), a Treachery Bill was quickly formulated, and passed on May 23. It likewise demanded the death penalty, but it could be commuted.
The outcome of this combination of respect for legal procedure, and somewhat panic-driven haste, was that a mixture of irritating but probably harmless ruffians, possible traitors sympathetic to Germany, suspicious but maybe innocent foreigners, and certifiably dangerous spies and saboteurs sometimes found internment in the same location. Ascot Racecourse was one internment camp, as were the Oratory Schools: Wandsworth and Holloway jails were also used. In January 1941, the Royal Victoria Patriotic Schools building in Wandsworth was set up as a general reception function (the London Reception Centre) for all manner of aliens, under the responsibility of the Home Office, but with MI5 conducting the interrogations, and the Army providing the guards and sentries. In mid-July, 1940, Latchmere House opened, and as Professor Hinsley wrote, ‘accepted its first batch of enemy aliens, British fascists, and suspects arriving from Dunkirk’. Yet the awareness of habeas corpus, and the inability of the government to hold suspects for more than twenty-eight days, led to vociferous complaints by the British citizenry among this group, declaring their entitlement to a fair trial, meant that a change of policy occurred. The crux of the matter was that internees could be interrogated, but those prosecuted could not.
As Hinsley went on to write (Volume 4, p 70): “Latchmere House had been opened as an interrogation centre for suspect Fifth Columnists in July, but in October MI5 decided that it should be used only for more serious cases among aliens, for example where espionage was suspected, and that British subjects should be taken there only in very exceptional circumstances. And from early in November the place was entirely reserved for captured agents, including some of the double-cross agents, arrangements being made by which MI5 reported to the Home Office every month the names of those detained, the reason for their detention, and the length of time they had been there.” Early the following year, as the double-cross operation gained momentum, the danger of leakage about the whole process impelled the authorities to decide that Latchmere House could not be used as a holding-place for short-term interrogation. It gained the nomenclature of ‘Camp 020’ in December 1941, and was by then assigned to the permanent detention of captured agents and dubious refugees, even though many were sent on to other secure areas, such as Dartmoor Prison (Camp 001), or Camp WX on the Isle of Man.
Since one of the primary functions of Camp 020 was to weed out dedicated Nazi agents, with the possibility of ‘turning’ suitable candidates to work for the British, it took on a highly secret nature, since, if an agent was detained, and then found not be suitable for turning, or betrayed that trust, MI5 could not risk any inkling of that attempt to leak out to the enemy. The initial policy for Camp 020 was to hold detainees incommunicado: that was one of the key differences between internment and imprisonment. (In September 1941, a potential disaster was averted after the failed double-agent JEFF had been sent to Camp WX, next to Camp L, on the Isle of Man, where Nazi German internees were held.) Moreover, complications were caused by the fact that, if any such victim were sent to trial, officers at Latchmere House would be called upon to give evidence. Proceedings and interrogations were documented in secrecy: if a formal statement were required, officers would have to send the subject to one of the prisons. Permanent detention was thus preferred to open prosecution. Permanent detainees could be housed in conventional prisons, but run-of-the-mill offenders could not be detained indefinitely in Camp 020.
The Regimental Sergeant-Major with Stephens and Sampson
Rumours about the prolonged interrogation and detention in 1943 would cause questions in high places to be posed about whether MI5 was under proper ministerial control. Indeed, up till then, Camp 020 had been running in an extra-legal fashion, much to the embarrassment of the Home Secretary, John Anderson. Nigel West points out that it was omitted from the list of camps submitted to the Red Cross, and thus was protected from inspection. MI5 survived that investigation, and several probable spies – though many who had been captured overseas could not be convicted of offenses against Great Britain, and had to wait until the end of the war to be repatriated – remained in detention for years. As Hinsley wrote: “Once a man’s case was completed, if he was not executed, released as innocent, or released to B1A to act as a double-agent. life in Camp 020 was far from intolerable.” (Hinsley overlooks the fact that some prisoners were despatched to other camps.) And that was the fate of the overwhelming majority of those sent to Camp 020.
From various comments in his Diaries, Guy Liddell betrays some of the tensions experienced in trying to keep the lid on the activities at Camp 020, away from the prying eyes of diplomats and bureaucrats. The main objective seemed to be to ensure that no whisper of information about the Double Cross initiatives – especially of those who had been initially considered, and exposed to the scheme, but then turned out to be unreliable – must be allowed to travel outside. Hence the emphasis on keeping prisoners incommunicado, and not releasing them for trial. Liddell makes references to more candidates who were offered the chance, but then failed the test. They had to be locked away. Moreover, MI5 took big risks with Agent ZIGZAG, Edward (Eddie) Chapman, who was brought back to Camp 020 for interrogations after undertaking missions abroad.
The Idea Behind Camp 020R:
The sense of awkwardness about Camp 020R may have been due to the fact that it had become an expensive white elephant. It was originally conceived as a back-up in the event that Latchmere House were bombed. A minor aeronautical raid in January 1941 had exposed the establishment, as if the Germans knew what was going on there. Stephens wrote as follows: “In consequence the Commandant was instructed to plan a duplicate camp at Nuffield. Thus Huntercombe, or Camp 020R, came into being. Primarily it was intended as a reserve camp. It was large enough to absorb Ham in time of crisis and to provide for the future commitments of a long-term war. It included a hostel at Wallingford where some 80 female staff could be accommodated. The decision was wise, but the cost, about £250,000, was high, and it is for consideration whether M.I.5. should not have a permanent lien on the place. In the event, Huntercombe was never put to full use as the Germans were good enough to leave Ham alone. The camp, however, did become the oubliette *; the place where enemy spies, no longer of interest, were allowed to vegetate until the end of the war.”
[* Oubliette: ‘a dungeon with no opening except in the roof’ (Chambers Dictionary, from the French ‘oublier’, to forget. Obviously a very un-English form of punishment)]
A study of KV 4/102 & 4/103 at the National Archives tells a rather more complicated story. Brigadier Harker had been discussing with Lord Swinton, the Chief of the Security Executive, as early as December 1940, the acquisition of ‘another complete establishment in the country’, concurrently with plans to construct new cells near the existing Latchmere House building. Early in 1941, waves of fresh German spies were expected. Army GHQ was concerned about the location and exposure of Ham, and the War Office began pressing Lord Swinton for an ‘alternative Latchmere’ in February. Swinton concurred: Latchmere had almost been hit again that month.
Thus negotiations began. The Home office and the Ministry of Works had to be involved. A March 10 memorandum to R. S. Wells at the Home office by D. Abbot states: “So far as the area of search [for premises] is concerned we must be guided by Home Forces. For our part we would like to be somewhere well outside London, and if possible in the general direction of Oxford. Or perhaps more broadly speaking within a sector bounded by lines drawn due West and N.N. West from London.” The search began. The Ministry of Works recommended a site, The Springs, North Stoke, in Oxfordshire, but it was deemed unsuitable.
The Selection of a Site:
By May 1, however, a more attractive site (for what was then called ‘Latchmere R’) had been found, and the Post Office was asked to be involved, as it would need setting up the same listening equipment that existed at Camp 020. Here we also find a mention of a ‘Home for Incurables’, suggesting that some diehard prisoners might be accommodated on the new premises, and require special handling in a facility some 200 or 300 yards from the main building. The site is not yet identified, but a report says that ‘the present owner, who is anxious to get rid of the place, has offered it for sale for £25,000, but the Ministry of Works . . . would requisition it under their present powers probably at a rental of £200 or £300 per annum.’
The site is soon identified as Huntercombe Place, owned by Sir Francis Maclean. Maclean had been a WWI air ace, and was now Sheriff of Oxfordshire. He was famous for an aviation feat on August 10, 1912, when he flew his biplane through Tower Bridge, and under several other bridges on the Thames (see https://www.thisdayinaviation.com/10-august-1912/ ) Sir Francis wanted to stay in the Mansion House until the end of the year, but he was told that the outbuildings would need to be possessed immediately.
Initial Sketch for Camp 020R
Stephens visited the site in the middle of June, and was impressed with the location, the seclusion it offered, and the general amenities. But he was not so happy with the emerging plans for replicating Latchmere House, and the amount of personnel it would take to guard the place properly. On June 23, he wrote to Richard Butler (of the MI5 Secretariat) that his plans would turn out to be cheaper than those of the Ministry of Works: his suggestion can be seen alongside that of the Ministry. Lord Swinton chipped in at the end of the month, indicating that the back-up site was more urgent than the ‘Home for Incurables’, and stressing the need for speed.
Yet, despite all the apparent urgency, obstacles started to appear for what was now being called ‘Nuffield Camp’. The War Office was under the impression that the shadow camp would be occupied only if Ham were evacuated, and therefore no new guard personnel would be required. Stephens had to somehow finesse the problem that the separate oubliettes required by MI5 and SIS would come into operation immediately, while the shadow Prison block for Latchmere House would come into operation when Latchmere House was irretrievably ‘blown’, which went very much against Lord Swinton’s view of things. Moreover, the Ministry of Works was dragging its feet, and the optimum building season was, by July, passing by.
Stephens had a clash with the ‘pessimist’ Russell, of the Ministry of Works, who was slow visiting the site. They disagreed about the availability of labour, and Stephens was impelled to write a letter to Butler, complaining about the delays, saying that ‘the completion of Latchmere “R” ten months hence [i.e. May 1942] will be of little use to the Security Services’, when Swinton had hoped for completion by October 1941. Stephens was still referring to the need for the ‘reserve’ camp in terms of Latchmere House’s staff and prisoners moving ‘in the event of an invasion, or if it should again suffer from enemy action’. Yet he must have known by then, what with Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in June, that both threats were drastically reduced.
Lord Swinton Intervenes:
And then a further blow occurred. There had obviously been rumblings about who should pay for the construction, and it was agreed in mid-September that it had to be out of MI5’s budget, on the secret vote, and not appear as a War Office expenditure. In that way, as a memorandum in November 1941, stated, ‘no inquisitive persons or committees will be able to investigate it’. Yet, as early as September 1941, a Ministry of Works letter to Abbot drew attention to the fact that the Prime Minister had asked the Production Executive to perform a drastic curtailment of any marginal projects. The official (a Mr. E. Batch) went on: “It is felt here . . . that it is doubtful whether we should proceed with Huntercombe Place”.
Relaxing at Huntercombe Place
Lord Swinton was able to intervene, however, and the work that had started in late September continued. Batch was summarily taken care of. Construction, and especially the electrical installations, required sentries to guard the property: Latchmere overall was taking on a new existence, and on December 1, David Petrie, the Director-General of MI5, had to rule that the establishment would be separated from B.1.E. on the grounds of its discrete characteristics of Policy, Intelligence, Administration and Army Administration. Furthermore, he declared that “in the interests of Security it is desired that in future Latchmere House, and the Country establishment at Nuffield, shall be referred to in all connections as Camp 020 and Camp 020, R. respectively.’
The Nuffield reference is a fascinating one, in its own right. Nigel West’s suggestion of a larger Nuffield estate, of which Huntercombe Place was a portion, cannot be true. Lord Nuffield (who as William Morris, founded Morris Motors) moved into his house, which was formerly known as Merrow Mount, only in 1933, when he renamed it. One map in the archive shows ‘Merrow Mount’ as a mansion on the right of the entrance road to Huntercombe Place and its much more expansive property. Furthermore, the name of ‘Nuffield’, apart from giving away the location of the new camp, was possibly of some embarrassment, for Lord Nuffield had been a prominent member of the pro-German society, The Link (and is actually listed as such on page 167 of West’s book).
Plan showing Merron Court (Lord Nuffield’s Residence)
The bills started coming in. An expenditure of £26,500 was marked for the period up to the end of February 1942. The archive is strangely silent for the summer of 1942, but, in August, Lt.-Col Stephens started raising new security concerns, primarily because of the proliferation and extension of USA air-bases in the area. He specifically wanted Huntercombe (and Latchmere) to be declared a ‘Prohibited Area’, where any aliens would be excluded, writing in stark tones: “The fact is that Camp 020 and the reserve establishment 020R are not only contre-espionage [sic] centres, but also prisons where spies who richly deserve the death penalty under the Treachery Act are kept alive for active Intelligence purposes.”
At this point, Stephens made a more exacting demand, suggesting that the camps be handed over to the War Office for administration: “ . . . to discard the appellation ‘Internment Camp’ in each case, and to invite the War Office, from an Army point of view, to administer Camp 020 and 020R definitely as War Office units rather than the responsibility of London District and South Midland Area, by which uninformed and uneven treatment is not unnaturally at times received. Precedents exist in support of this proposal. The first is ‘Camp Z’, which was kept off official lists altogether, and the second is the series of M.I. 19 Intelligence Camps Nos. 10, 20 and 30, which are not only kept off official lists, but are administered by the War Office direct rather than the Military Districts in which they are situated.” This language is rather puzzling – and provocative – as it seems to draw attention to the fact that the legality of Stephens’s establishments may have been questionable.
The irony was that even the MI5 Regional Control Officer, Major M. Ryde, did not know what was going on, and rumours were starting to fly around about the new ‘P.O.W. camp’. The police had taken an interest, but had been refused entry. Even though the place had been requisitioned from the Sheriff of Oxfordshire, the Chief Constable did not know why his officers had been refused admittance. In addition, Stephens had to write about the ‘vast extension’ of the aerodrome at Benson, three miles north, and the erection of a camp for 4,000 US servicemen at Nettlebed, one and a half miles south, which, he believed, would ‘render Intelligence work by special apparatus quite impossible’. Yet he still used the threat of further air bombardment at Ham, and the threat of invasion, as arguments for protecting the ‘reserve’ site.
In the short term, Stephens managed to win this particular battle, it seems, and was able to turn to the problem of staffing. In this he was beset by the problem of whether Camp 020R was going to be complementary to Camp 020, or whether it would still have to absorb all the latter in an emergency. He produced a paper that stressed how important it was to remove the more dangerous ‘old lags’ from Latchmere to Huntercombe. Camp 020 was operationally full in September 1942. Stephens looked forward to Camp 020R opening ‘in the near future’: “I would move there the old lags, split disturbing elements between 020 and 020R, and possibly accommodate some XX prisoners under better conditions.” Who these reformed ‘XX prisoners’ were is rather mysterious, as it hints at several previously unknown spies who could neither be executed nor turned, and Stephens’s desire to house them in better conditions shows a rapid shift in humanitarian impulses from the commandant. In any case, in October, Stephens prepared for the influx. He arranged for Butler to appeal to the War Office that Huntercombe Farm, planned as a domicile for American troops, should be assigned to the Camp ‘for additional accommodation’. Brigadier Harker added his weight to the case in December. New maps of the protected territory were drawn. Another year had passed.
Diagram of Camp 020R (September 1942)
A Change of Mood:
While demands on rural space did not go away, Stephens’ tone continued to change. He softened his objections to low-flying aircraft from R.A.F. Benson. On January 26, 1943, he noted that ‘the threat of a comic Nazi invasion recedes’. Yet now a new bureaucratic challenge emerged – the Home Office, who may have been prodded into action by Stephen’s outburst from August. When MI5 started planning for the transfer of prisoners to Camp 020R in February 1943, it discovered that it had neglected to inform Sir Alexander Maxwell, the Permanent Secretary at the Home Office, even of the idea of the camp. Since Maxwell was very concerned about issues of welfare and fair treatment, Stephens had to prepare a grovelling report, submitted under Petrie’s signature, that stressed how superior the conditions were to those at Latchmere.
Stephens’ words ran as follows: “The conditions at Camp 020 R are more advantageous to the prisoners than at Camp 020 itself. More space is available out of doors, constant association is possible when desirable, while wireless, papers, games, cigarettes and other privileges are provided free of charge. Rations are somewhat better than received elsewhere as we are able to supplement the prescribed scale by produce form the ground.” This was far from the notions of ‘oubliettes’ and ‘prisoners being kept alive’: a concern now focussed on prisoners’ welfare. It sounded as if the ‘country establishment at Nuffield’ was taking on the characteristics of a country club, or health farm.
Moreover, the emphasis is no longer on ‘reserve’, even though the two camps are to be considered as one entity. Stephens told Maxwell that the camp was to be used ‘primarily as a place to which we can send prisoners whose intelligence investigations have been completed at Camp 020 and who, because of the espionage nature of their case, cannot, for security reasons, be transferred to any ordinary internment camp, or other place of detention.’ He was no doubt thinking of agents who had not been successfully turned, and thus knew too much about the Double-Cross System, such as SUMMER. Yet SUMMER had had to be re-confined well before Camp 020R was ready to accept prisoners.
The Home Office Wakes Up:
Standing orders were issued for the reception of internees on November 10, 1942, and prisoners started arriving in January 1943, it seems. (On the other hand, documents in KV 4/103, such as those referring to unauthorised lending of library-books between prisoners [!], indicate that detainees were already being held there.) Soon some ‘incident’ must have occurred, probably of maltreatment, since Harker had to intervene, but possibly an attempt at suicide by one of the detainees. The full documents have been removed, but the Register holds a memorandum from the Deputy Director-General, who had to seek a meeting with Maxwell to ‘explain what had happened’. “I further made it quite clear to Sir Alexander Maxwell that Mr. Milmo was in no way responsible for what had occurred, and I feel sure that his position will not be imperilled in any way by reason of any premature action”. But what had ‘Buster’ Milmo done? Liddell went on to write that Maxwell confirmed Milmo’s view that ‘the persons transferred to 020(R) are illegally detained’. A flurry of activity resulted in a report for Maxwell’s benefit.
The legal basis for the camps thus had to be investigated, and was eventually determined. In an instrument dated March 20, 1943, Camp 020 was ‘formally authorised as a place of detention for persons held under Articles 5A and 12(5A) of the Aliens’ Order’, and the Home Secretary then signed an equivalent order for Camp 020R (thus, incidentally, undermining the argument that the two camps should be seen as one unit.) But the Home Office also found a loophole: there was no formal authorisation for those detained under D.R.18B and 18BA, namely arrested spies, and the Home Secretary had to sign an order with retroactive effect, to cover this situation. Sampson informs us that Home Secretary John Anderson had given Swinton a ‘verbal’ [he should have written ‘oral’] approval during a telephone call in 1940, but had clearly not discussed the matter with his civil servants.
At Huntercombe Place
[Lt.-Col. Sampson second from left. Is that a senior RAF officer in the centre, maybe visiting from R.A.F. Benson? Looks a bit like the future Marshal of the R.A.F. Arthur Tedder, but then perhaps all Air-Marshals looked like Tedder.]
Apparently the transferred prisoners were not happy with their lot, as they started sending in petitions to the Home Secretary in the summer of 1943. Whether the more comfortable conditions at Camp 020, and the availability of books, had contributed to their sense of entitlement, or whether they had been put up to it by some champion for them, is not clear, and the record is sparse. But in August 1943, Milmo (B1B) had to respond to a complaint from the Home Office, which was obviously perturbed by the volume of petitions coming to it. “As has been pointed out”, he wrote, “the amenities at Camp 020R leave nothing to be desired, and are of an exceptionally high standard, being more reminiscent of a modern hotel than an internment camp.” He went on to explain the comforts, freedom of movement and association, no forced work, gardening optional, free tobacco, etc. etc. , and concluded: “We are quite satisfied that these manifestoes are the result of something in the nature of a conspiracy, and this is borne out by the fact that there were no signs of unrest or disturbance of any kind at the camp.”
When Maxwell held a meeting, on July 29, to discuss the administration of Camp 020R, Petrie himself attended, confirmed the fact that both Dr. Dearden and a local practitioner were available for medical attention. (Here also is the first indication that Camp 020R had its own commandant, a Major Gibbs.) The last item informs us that ‘such matters as attempts at, or actual, suicide would be so reported’, thus confirming the ‘incident’. Petrie followed up, somewhat sluggishly, on November 29, by inviting Maxwell to visit Camp 020R, so that he might investigate working conditions for himself. He reminded Maxwell that a ‘considerable number’ of ‘detainees’ had been transferred to Camp 020R, and that he expected several more in the coming months. Some jocularity was now called for: “I think you will also be interested in the ‘amenities’ which are provided at Stephens’ ‘country’ residence!”.
Petrie had visited the camp just before he sent this letter, and a memorandum from Butler to Stephens, dated December 1, reminds the latter that he and Petrie were both keen that ‘more books and games’ should be made available for the prisoners, and that money was on hand to address this need. The ensuing flurry of memoranda shows the earnestness with which this project was pursued, and also informs us that ’well over 100’ internees were now present there, of which half knew little English. Maxwell, meanwhile, was highly occupied, and replied on December 16 that he would not be able to accept the invitation until January.
So yet another year passed. Maxwell visited Camp 020R on January 5, and wrote promptly to Petrie the next day. In a somewhat starchy and headmasterly way, he requests Petrie to make sure that the Home Office receives a copy of any report made after a prisoner complaint. He is evidently concerned that he is ultimately responsible for the treatment of the prisoners, but has not been kept properly informed. Stephens’ instructions to Butler, a few days later, indicate that Milmo has been following the book over such cases, and the problem was probably due to civil servants in the Home Office suspecting that facts were being withheld. Stephens takes the time to remind Butler that Maxwell was otherwise very impressed.
The final note in the first file on Camp 020R shows that Maxwell has bought into the idea that Camp 020R was ’not an ordinary internment camp’. In a memorandum to Petrie, Butler reports on a meeting he had with Maxwell, where the latter ‘entirely agreed that it was extremely important that as few people as possible should know the details of the cases at Camp 020 and Camp 020R, or indeed of their existence. In the preparations for D-Day it was essential that no leakage of information about the so-called ‘double agents’ should occur.
Stephens’ assessment of Camp 020R was somewhat mournful: “There the prisoners learnt much about the British Constitution; they whiled away their time by writing petitions to the King, to the Home Secretrary and to the Judges. Sometimes they gave good advice to Mr Churchill and Mr Anthony Eden. Occasionally they tried to escape. In the end it became a soulless camp, and much sympathy is due to the officers and men who carried out their dreary task so conscientiously and well for so long a time.” Peter Mackean has pointed out to me how these obligations endured for several years after the war.
Camp 020R in Operation:
The second file, KV 4/103, covers Camp 020R after it opened for business at the beginning of 1943. It is not very revealing. It is replete with standing orders, such as the posting of sentries, fire precautions and orders, inspections, and instructions for distributing newspapers and cigarettes, bathing protocols, cell cleanliness, exercise, and the procedures for escorts and vehicle searches. The Home Office is clearly very interested in the welfare of the internees, who are now granted rights that one might deem over-indulgent for such a group of desperadoes. “Complaints, couched in respectful language, will be in writing and will be handed by prisoners to the Orderly Officer of the day at breakfast rounds only”, runs one edict.
Group Guard Portrait: Mackean at back left
By early 1944, the permanent secretary at the Home Office, Sir Alexander Maxwell, has visited the camp, and is overall satisfied, but he is concerned about extra medical supplies, and wants the chief prison Medical Officer, Dr. Methven, and Sir John Moylan (who appears to be responsible for handling petitions) to visit the camp at Huntercombe. Stephens is concerned about security and disruption. Maxwell seeks extra milk for prisoners having medical problems, a concern that Stephens has to address himself, and informs Milmo back in Head Office. Petrie is involved in the question of extra nourishment that ‘may be required for medical grounds’. One wonders: did these gentlemen not know that there was a war on?
Despite all this attention to their wellbeing, prisoners still planned escapes from their Colditz-in- the-Cotswolds, as a letter of February 21, 1944 confirms. The detainees involved were Stephens, K. C. Hansen, Pelletier, Hans Hansen, Oien, Olsen, Robr, Ronning, Steiner [sic], and Lecube – not all of whom, somewhat mysteriously, appear in the list maintained, and later distributed, by the camp authorities. But Stephens was on top of it, and wrote to Richard Butler on February 23: “I am not in the least troubled by the situation at Camp 020R. the men involved are determined to escape and the authorities concerned are equally determined that they will not succeed.”
Another year passed, apparently peacefully, and at the end of May 1945, Stephens planned to liquidate both Camp 020 and Camp 020R at once. He was alert to the constitutional challenges, and firmly believed that, no matter how ill-prepared their native countries might be, the prisoners should be repatriated at once. He wants some detainees at 020R to be sent to Camp 020, and sets a target of June 15 for Camp 020R to be closed. All prisoners were in fact moved to Ham by July 3, and the property was handed over to the Ministry of Works later that month, and its closure formally declared on September 5. Those German prisoners captured towards the end of the war who had been brought initially to Ham (such as Karl Heinz Kraemer, who played a very significant role in Stockholm) were transferred to Diest in Belgium, and then Bad Nenndorf, camps which were managed by the Ministry of War, not MI5. Camp 020 was disbanded in December, although Petrie did report to Maxwell that ‘a small residue’ of detainees were still in Beltane Schools [sic: a school originally for German Kindertransport children, in Wimbledon], awaiting repatriation.
Diest PrisonMackean at Bad Nenndorf
After the war, Camp 020R became a Borstal prison. In 1983, it became a cellular prison for young juveniles. It has since (according to Wikipedia) taken a role for holding foreign national offenders awaiting deportation – an echo of its wartime role. Huntercombe Hall, which was used for administration, and as a recreational and residential facility, is now Huntercombe Hall Care Home, owned by Oxfordshire County Council, which offers ‘residential, nursing, and dementia care for up to 42 elderly residents’.
Thus the installation has come full circle, and acts as a stark reminder of the legal and constitutional challenges facing a security service and police force that today have to protect the democracy from hostile elements planning mayhem, but who may have not committed any act that can confidently be prosecuted.
The Prisoners:
Stephens’s commentary in his history, and a Kew file (KV 2/2593), combine to give us a good description of those who were moved to Camp 020R. I list them here, with a brief thumbnail sketch of those for whom information exists.
Stoerd Pons Only member of his LENA spy squad to escape execution
Gosta Caroli SUMMER: reneged, tried to escape by overpowering his guard
Kurt Goose Double-agent who tried to smuggle message to German Embassy
Albert Jaeger
Otto Joost LENA spy who was spared
Gunnar Evardsen LENA spy who was spared
Cornelius Evertsen Dutch captain who tried to land agents in Fishguard
Arie Van Dam Member of Belgian sea-mission in London; denounced
Theophil Jezequel Cuban from Spain recruited by Abwehr; brought in by Evertsen
Juan Martinez ditto
Silvio Robles ditto
Pedro Hechevarria ditto
Kurt Hansen
Gerard Libot
Wilhelm Heinrich
Hugo Jonasson Swedish skipper recruited by Abwehr in Brest
Francis de Lee
Jan de Jonge Dutchman arrested in Gibraltar making inquiries about convoys
Jose del Campo Cuban arrested in British port, confessed
Karl Hansson
Johan Strandmoen Norwegian arrested in Wick on ‘fishing’ expedition
Bjarne Hansen ditto
Hans Hansen ditto
Henry Torgesen ditto
Edward Ejsymont Pole form Gdansk who made misleading statements
Helmik Knudsen
Edward Balsam Polish Jew who shadowed Ejsymont; made false claims?
Abraham Sukiennik ditto
Eigil Robr Norwegian traitor spirited into UK by military attaché in Stockholm
Leopold Hirsch Crook who tried to bribe Germans captured in Trinidad
Oscar Gilinsky ditto
Gustav Ronning
Martin Olsen
Thorleif Solem Norwegian in pay of Germans arrested in Shetland Islands
Sigurd Alsaeth ditto
Cornelius Van der Woude
Florent Steiner Belgian seaman denounced by Verlinden
Piet Schipper Dutch seaman engaged by Abwehr
Jean Pelletier
Gottfried Koch
Erich Blau
Hans Sorensen
Carl Meewe
Hilaire Westerlinck Belgian doctor denounced by Verlinden
Tadeus Szumlicz Polish refugee recruited by Germans in Paris
Jens Palsson
Leon Jude Belgian airline pilot recruited by Germans
Robert Petin Frenchman in air force who retracted his confession
Alfred Lagall
Jose Manso Barras
Sandor Mocsan Hungarian employed by German in Brazil: radio interception
Janos Salomon ditto
Sobhy Hanna Egyptian groomed by Abwehr, arrested in Dar-es-Salaam
Pieter Grootveld
Pierre Morel Demobilised French pilot, employed by Germans: evasive story
Serrano Morales
Juan Lecube Mulish Spaniard, arrested in Trinidad: radio interception
Jose Moreno-Ruiz
Vincente Fernandez-Pasos
Gabriel Pry Belgian mathematician: offered services to Abwehr, arrested in Lisbon
Ernesto Simoes Portuguese spy in UK who contacted Germans by secret ink
Dos Santos Mesquita Portuguese journalist captured in Lourenço Marques
De Ferraz Freitas Portuguese radio operator on fishing-fleet: radio interception
Garcia Serrallach Petty Argentinian crook captured in Trinidad
Andres Blay Pigrau ditto
Homer Serafimides Greek seaman, swindler: handed over to British in Durban
Torre de la Castro
Frank Stainer Belgian crook Abwehr planned to infiltrate, captured in Lisbon
This is a mixed bag of scoundrels. Clearly some of them deserved the death penalty, but MI5 was reluctant to invoke the Treachery Act, as it would mean public trials, and secrets coming out that the service would prefer remain hidden, followed by an obligatory death sentence if the accused had been found guilty. There might be further information to be gained by interrogation, and, if too long a time passed, questions would be asked why there had been a delay. A few were failed ‘double-agents’ who knew too much. Some of the accused had been denounced, and motives might have been suspect; the identity of others had been gained by interception of Abwehr radio signals (ISOS), and clearly had to be kept quiet. Lastly, many of those detected had been arrested on foreign soil. The jurisdiction that the UK security service had over such probable criminals was uncertain, and many such persons had therefore to be detained until the end of the war, when they were repatriated to their home countries so that they could receive native justice. At least one (Stainer) was executed under such circumstances.
* * * * * * * * *
Now that the Presidential election is over and decided (pending last-minute judicial challenges), we have to look forward to the period of transition. We thus need to build a word-ladder from TRUMP to BIDEN.
A word-ladder is a set of words that incorporates a change of one letter at a time to transform the subject word into the object word, where no proper names are used. Thus MOAT can become HILL by a sequence such as MOAT-MOOT-HOOT-HOLT-HILT-HILL.
I have discovered a ladder of 14 steps to take TRUMP to BIDEN (i.e. thirteen intermediate ‘rungs’). And I have created another 14-step ladder to transform TRUMP to PENCE, as the Republican chief in waiting. However, if we want to project the transition to my favourite for the 2024 Republican presidential nominee, Nikki Haley, I have plotted another 14-step campaign for TRUMP-HALEY. On the other hand, sketching the 2024 handover from BIDEN to HALEY is a 6-step breeze. I am offering an extended free tour of my library to anyone who can offer a combined array shorter than these, a 48-step total. And I can promise that my library is far more interesting than the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library ever will be, as the latter will probably contain just bound volumes of Playboy, and signed copies of The Art of the Deal. Please send your answers to antonypercy@aol.com. (Travel and accommodation arrangements are the responsibility of the winners.)
When Sonia Met Klaus at Snow Hill Station? (see below)
Dead Doubles, by Trevor Barnes (2020)
Atomic Spy, by Nancy Thorndike Greenspan (2020)
An Impeccable Spy, by Owen Matthews (2019)
Master of Deception: The Wartime Adventures of Peter Fleming, by Alan Ogden (2019)
Secret: The Making of Australia’s Security State, by Brian Toohey (2019) [guest review by Denis Lenihan]
I return this month to reviewing some recently published books on espionage and intelligence, and thank Denis Lenihan, coldspur’s Commissioner for Antipodean Affairs, for making a lively and insightful contribution. Ben Macintyre’s Agent Sonya did not arrive in time to meet the Editor’s deadline, but, in any case, I have been engaged to write a review of it for an external publication, so I shall have to hold off for a while. (My review was submitted on October 19, has been accepted, and will be published soon.) I considered two other books that, from their titles, might have been considered worthy of consideration for a review, Secret History: Writing the Rise of Britain’s Intelligence Services, by Simon Ball (2020), and Radio War: The Secret Espionage War of the Radio Security Service 1938-1946 by David Abrutat (2019). Then, a few weeks ago, I came across the following comment from one of my least favourite economists, Joseph Stiglitz, in a book review in The New York Times: “As a matter of policy, I typically decline to review books that deserve to be panned. You only make enemies.”
On reflection, this seemed a tendentious and somewhat irresponsible line to take. Assuming that experts like Stiglitz are commissioned to write reviews of books, how will they know whether such volumes deserve to be panned or not until they have read them – unless they make a prejudgment based on their understanding of the author’s politics or opinions, and in ignorance of how well the book may have been written? It would be a bit late to accept the commission, read the book, decide it was dreadful, and back out of the contract. But maybe that is why book reviews are overall positive: the publisher of the review wants to encourage readers, not warn them off undeniable clunkers.
Well, I am not worried about making enemies. Heaven knows, I must have upset enough prominent historians and journalists through my writings on coldspur, and the ones who were too elevated to engage with me were never going to change anyway, so that is not a worry that concerns me. And, since I am not in this for the money, I can choose to review what I want. But the two books named above, which would seem, potentially, to play a valuable role in the history of intelligence activities were in their different ways so poor in my opinion that I decided not to waste any further time on them. Incidentally, as I revealed a few months ago, Abrutat has recently been confirmed as the new GCHQ departmental historian.
‘Dead Doubles’
Dead Doubles, by Trevor Barnes
The 1960-61 case of the Portland Spy Ring is, I assume, fairly well known by enthusiasts of espionage lore. A very public trial took place, and a government inquiry followed. Paul Tietjen, a Daily Mail reporter, wrote a very competent account, Soviet Spy Ring, in 1961, and a movie based on the case, Ring of Spies, appeared in 1964. References are sprinkled round various books, and the several million who read Peter Wright’s Spycatcher will have learned of some of the electronic wizardry that went on in preparation for the arrests. Late in 2019, the National Archives released a batch of files relating to the five subjects in the case, and Trevor Barnes has worked fast and diligently to produce a comprehensive account of what happened, in his recently released Dead Doubles. The title is a little unfortunate: it refers to the Soviet practice of stealing identities of children who died soon after birth, such as Konon Molody was permitted to do with Gordon Lonsdale. Yet it is not the essence of the story, and does not perform justice to the other actors in it.
In 1959, the CIA received a warning from a Polish intelligence officer who was close to defecting, Michael Goleniewski, that secrets were leaking from a top-secret naval research establishment in Portland, Dorset. When MI5 was informed, suspicion soon fell upon Harry Houghton, who maintained a relationship with Ethel Gee, an employee who had access to documents concerning development of underwater weapons technology. Houghton was trailed to London, where he had assignations with an enigmatic character called Gordon Lonsdale. By inspecting Lonsdale’s possessions, and eavesdropping on his apartment, MI5 and GCHQ were able to ascertain that Lonsdale listened to coded messages from Moscow on his wireless, and also owned one-time pads (OTPs) that were necessary for decryption – and probable encryption – of messages. He was in turn followed to a bungalow in Ruislip, where two ostensible New Zealanders, Peter and Helen Kroger, the latter a second-hand book-dealer, were living. As the KGB moved closer on Goleniewski, MI5 had to act quickly, and arrested all five miscreants, soon discovering a hidden wireless apparatus in the Ruislip basement. All five were jailed: Gordon Lonsdale turned out to be one Konon Molody, while the Krogers’ real identities were Morris and Lona Cohen, known to the FBI as dangerous Soviet agents, but lost track of. Molody and the Cohens were soon released in spy swaps.
Barnes’s story does not start well. He supplies a map – an excellent device, since maps give substance to the dimension of space in the same way that a proper chronology provides a reliable framework for time. In his first sentence, however, he refers to ‘Fitzrovia’ in order to provide a location for ‘Great Portland Street’. But ‘Fitzrovia’ is a literary construct, not an administrative district, and his map betrays the confusion, as Fitzrovia is clumsily packed close to Marylebone, and, to make matters worse, mis-spelled as ‘FIZROVIA’. Moreover, on page 2, Barnes describes a journey from Great Portland Street to the ‘secret MI5 laboratory two miles to the west’. But this establishment does not appear on the map, and it was located two miles to the east, not to the west. Thereafter, some other important places do not appear on the map, such as the CIA’s London Office at 71 Grosvenor Street, referred to on page 15.
After this, Barnes quickly gets into his stride. He has performed all the necessary research to give the story the political and intelligence context it needs, exploiting American and Russian sources, the obvious archives at Kew, as well as the unpublished diaries of Charles Elwell, the MI5 officer on the case, and the papers of Morris Cohen at the Imperial War Museum. He understands the technological issues well, and re-presents them in a highly accessible and comprehensible way. He very rarely gives the impression of bluffing his way through a thorny controversy, although he may be a bit too trusting of that rogue, Peter Wright. (Barnes refers to Wright’s ‘Radio Operations Committee’, when the Spycatcher author wrote of a ‘Radiations Operations Committee’. I can find no trace of such an entity.) The story moves at a smooth pace, although the chronology darts around a little too much for this highly-serial reader, with the result that relevant details of some events are scattered around the text. An irritating structure of Parts and Chapters, a very sparsely populated Index, and – the bane of all inquisitive reference-followers – Endnotes that refer to Parts, but do not describe the relevant chapter or page ranges at the top of their own pages, made close analysis more difficult than it could have been. A master index of National Archives files used would have been useful, rather than having them scattered around the Endnotes. Overall, however, Dead Doubles is unmistakably an indispensable and highly valuable contribution to espionage literature.
And yet. (Coldspur regulars will know there is always an ‘and yet’.) While every aspect of the investigation, arrest and prosecution is fleshed out in gripping detail, I was looking for a deeper analysis of some of the more troubling dimensions of the case. For example, it does not help me to know that, a week before Houghton and Gee were trailed to London on the day of their arrest, the Beatles had given ‘a sensational performance in the ballroom of Litherland Hall’, or that The Avengers serial began on television the same day (January 7, 1961). What I would have liked to read, for example, was a more insightful analysis of why Houghton’s drunkenness and violent behaviour while working for the British Embassy in Warsaw resulted in his being sent home but then transferred to Portland’s Port Auxiliary Unit in 1951, rather than being fired.
It reminded me of the scandalous behaviour of Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, who benefitted from a series of indulgent job changes, instead of being despatched to earn their living elsewhere. What is it about the British Civil Service that causes it to think that a recruit has a job (and pension) for life? Barnes reveals some fresh information on the way that The Admiralty and MI5 had ignored a damaging report on Houghton provided in 1956 by his abused wife, which was buried, or diminished, and he concentrates on this new archival evidence, but at a cost of overlooking a more dramatic scoop.
For the charges went back farther than that. In his book, Tietjen had recorded, back in 1961, that the British Embassy in Warsaw had declared, when they sent Houghton home in October 1952, that he was ‘a security risk’. If that were true, the whole exposure could have been quashed at birth. (We must remember that Tietjen was not aware of the Goleniewski revelations, or Mrs Johnson’s testimony, when he wrote his book. Moreover, as is clear from his notations, his book was published before the Romer Report on security at Portland came out in June 1961.) It is not clear where Tietjen gained his information about the ‘security risk’ report, but it was obviously official, as Tietjen annotates his awareness of it with a Footnote: “Whether Houghton was ever reported to the Admiralty by Captain Austen as a ‘security risk’ is a matter still under investigation by a specially convened Government committee.”
Yet Barnes does not mention this report in his book: he records an interview (undated, but probably in late May 1960) that MI5 officer George Leggett and MI6’s Harold Shergold had with Captain Nigel Austen, for whom Houghton had worked in Poland, but Barnes does not cite Austen as referring to his own ‘security risk’ report on Houghton. On the contrary, Austen used the opportunity to minimise Houghton’s failings, and bolster his own image: Yes, Houghton had been drinking heavily, but Austen was quick to get rid of him; yes, Houghton did make money on the black market, but then no more than any other Embassy official; Houghton’s wife was as much to blame (‘a colourless, drab individual who disliked being in Warsaw and no doubt was partly responsible for Houghton’s conduct’) for her husband’s behaviour. And when Leggett asked Austen whether he thought Houghton was a spy, Austen suggested that Houghton’s actions never indicated any betrayal of secrets to the Poles. (p 19)
It appears as if Austen had been nobbled by this stage, and instructed that, if he wanted to keep his pension (he had retired in January 1960), he should downplay Houghton’s behaviour, and never mention the ‘security risk’ report. Yet the Admiralty had already started digging its hole. As Barnes writes: “The Admiralty had forwarded this report [UDE to Admiralty in 1956, concerning claims made by his ex-wife, now Mrs. Johnson] to MI5 with a covering note, which disclosed that Houghton had been sent home from Poland because he had become very drunk on one occasion, and ‘it was thought he might break out again and involve himself in trouble with the Poles.” (p 10)
‘On one occasion’? As Barnes adds: “According to Mrs Johnson, while in Warsaw Houghton was ‘frequently the worse for drink in public, and apt to talk loudly and indiscreetly about his work. On . . . occasions, at official parties at the embassy, Captain Austen was obliged to send Houghton home by car, he having become incapable of standing up.’” Moreover, when the MI5 officer James Craggs, ‘a sociable bachelor in his late thirties’, went into the Admiralty on May 5, 1960 to inspect the Houghton files, he apparently learned a lot. “A picture of Houghton’s life began to emerge. In December 1951 Austen had cautioned the navy clerk for heavy drinking, and the following May Austen wrote again to say that Houghton was still drinking excessively. Houghton was sent home later that year, and on his return to the UK he was posted to the UDE at Portland.” (p 12) The Admiralty was trying to pull the wool over the eyes of MI5. Certainly not just ‘one occasion’.
So where did Tietjen get his information? Did officer Craggs find out about the ‘security risk’ in his session at the Admiralty, and leak it to Tietjen? The claims that the Admiralty made were evidently untrue, according to Mrs Johnson’s testimony, but also from the Admiralty files that they must have forgotten to weed. But Craggs surely knew. And the whole problem of suitable behaviour at foreign embassies was brushed under the rug when Lord Carrington addressed the House of Commons on the Romer Report. On June 13 he spoke as follows, as Hansard reports: “1. No criticism can be made of Houghton’s appointment in 1951 as Clerk to the Naval Attaché in Warsaw. Nor can any criticism be made of want of action by the Naval Attaché or the Admiralty in the events leading up to his recall to London, before the expiration of his appointment, on account of his drinking habits. 2. Given the security criteria of the time no legitimate criticism can be made of Houghton’s subsequent appointment in 1952 to a post in the Underwater Detection Establishment at Portland which did not in itself involve access to secret material. It is regrettable however that the authorities at Portland were not informed about the reason for Houghton’s recall from Warsaw.”
So that’s all right, then. Getting continually sloshed is a hazard of working in dull Embassies behind the Iron Curtain. Black market dealings are not mentioned. Nothing is said about the lost ‘security risk’ report. Yet the Admiralty’s own evidence contradicts this smooth elision of what happened. Did Tietjen speak up after the Romer Report was issued, possibly incriminating Craggs, and was he then sworn to silence? Moreover, a further disturbing complication has to be addressed. In an endnote, Barnes informs us that ‘Craggs’ was not the MI5 officer’s real name (it had been redacted in the archives), and Barnes, though he discovered the real name, had to conceal it, at the request of MI5, because of ‘potential distress to his family’. (Note 8, p 290)
Apart from questioning why Barnes was negotiating with MI5 during this research, I have to ask: what could Craggs possibly have done that would require his name to be concealed after sixty years have passed! This must be an epic scandal if today’s cadre of MI5 officers have to be warned about it. Was Craggs perhaps punished severely for leaking information from the Admiralty files to a Daily Mail journalist? Craggs’s inspection of Admiralty records, Tietjen’s knowledge of Austen’s report, Austen’s clumsy interview, the Admiralty’s claim that the report was lost, Cragg’s humiliation and excision from the record: they all point to a dishonourable leakage of information. I believe that Barnes could, and should, have paid more attention to this mystery. By highlighting the fact of his own diligent sleuthing, namely that he had discovered who the anonymous officer was, but then showing no interest in what the scandal was about, Barnes has simply drawn attention to the shenanigans. (I have communicated my thoughts to him, but he has not replied to my latest analysis.)
A related story worthy of deeper investigation is the lamentable security at the Underwater Defence Establishment (UDE) at Portland. On May 11, 1961, Prime Minister Harold Macmillan commissioned Lord Radcliffe to investigate security across all the public services, and the Romer Committee (which was inquiring into Houghton and Gee) delivered its own findings to the Cabinet Secretary on May 30. The Romer report described the lack of security-consciousness at UDE, and criticised the head of the establishment, Captain Pollock, but the outcome was feeble. As Barnes writes: “Although the Portland security officer was dismissed from his post, as a temporary civil servant his pension was not cut; and the head of UDE in 1956, Captain Pollock, who retired in 1958, submitted a robust defence. Almost a year after the Portland trial, the Admiralty decided there were simply no grounds for disciplinary action against him.” What incentive can there be for doing a job properly if the incumbent knows that the institution will always take care of its own? The analysis of the Radcliffe report warrants only two short sentences in Dead Doubles: no doubt Barnes felt it was outside his remit, but this is a subject crying out for greater analysis.
This account presents an absorbing case-study in historiography. Barnes has clearly benefitted from the support and encouragement of his mentor, Christopher Andrew (‘the godfather to this book’), and cites Andrew’s coverage of the case in his 2009 history of MI5, Defending the Realm (pp 484-488). Andrew had offered one line about the failure of MI5 to follow up on the clues provided by Houghton’s ex-wife. But Andrew was characteristically oblique in his sources, listing solely his traditional ‘Security Service Archives’, some conversations with MI5 officers, and some selective – and thus, highly questionable – references to Peter Wright’s Spycatcher. (which Andrew shamelessly lists in his Bibliography). The only specific source was an obscure article in Police Journal by Charles Elwell, one of Barnes’s key witnesses, written under the pseudonym ‘Elton’. See: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0032258X7104400203 . (I do not believe Barnes cites this, but it may have been inserted into the recently released files.)
Yet a useful file was available at the National Archives at that time. In his 2012 work, The Art of Betrayal, Gordon Corera also wrote about the Portland Spy Ring at length, and dedicated a paragraph (p 234) to the fact that Houghton’s ex-wife believed that he was in touch with Communist agents. Corera quotes the response from MI5 that her accusations were ‘nothing more than the outpourings of a jealous and disgruntled wife’, citing the file ADM 1/30088, which was the text of the Romer Inquiry. One can ascertain from the Kew Catalogue that this file is accompanied by ADM 116/6295-6297: they appear to have been stored for access in the 1960s, and updated with various items since. Yet these files (which Andrew could have named) are not referred to by Barnes. Instead, he uses the more comprehensive version of the Romer Inquiry issued in 2017, at CAB 301/248. I have not been able to compare the two, but it is important to recognize that the facts about MI5’s oversights in not checking out Houghton have been known for almost sixty years.
Furthermore, Chapman Pincher claimed, at the same time, that Macmillan ‘declined to publish Romer’s findings’, and that they were not published until 2007, when the Cabinet Office yielded to a Freedom of Information request from Dr Michael Goodman. That presumably relates, however, to Cabinet Office files, not Admiralty records. (Infuriatingly, the Catalogue entry for ADM 1/30088 does not give a release date.) Naturally, Pincher places all the blame on Roger Hollis, and that his ‘minimalist policy’ had allowed Houghton to continue his espionage untroubled. That was more an indictment of incompetence rather than of treachery. If Hollis had really wanted the Portland Spy Ring to remain a secret, he would surely have arranged things so that Lonsdale left town at the first available opportunity.
I believe Barnes might have plunged in more boldly on some other intelligence aspects of the case, and I highlight six here:
Lonsdale’s One-Time Pads: One of the key discoveries made when Lonsdale’s safe-deposit box was opened by MI5 was a set of three one-time pads (OTPs), vital for the decryption of incoming and outgoing messages. It seems that Helen Kroger keyed in all of Lonsdale’s messages, both the confidential ones (encyphered and typed on his typewriter), and the family ones (in manuscript) that were found in HK’s bag. One of the pads evidently referred to encyphered messages received on Lonsdale’s general-purpose wireless set, and MI5 & GCHQ were able to detect the frequency of personalized transmissions by inspecting the use of the pad. Thus the second of the three OTPs found in Lonsdale’s box must have been used for the encypherment of transmissions. Why did GCHQ/MI5 not notice or comment on how pages in this OTP had been used up, as they did with his receiver OTP? And what was the third OTP used for? Barnes does not comment.
Lonsdale in Ruislip: The reason that the Krogers were able to be arrested was because Lonsdale had unwittingly led his surveillance officers to their bungalow. But why did Lonsdale have to visit them? It sounds to me like very dangerous tradecraft. He should surely have met Helen or Peter at a neutral location to pass over his documents. After all, when Lonsdale was extradited to Berlin in the swap with Greville Wynne, he told MI5 officers, as they went through Ruislip, that they had chosen that location because of the US air traffic that would mask their transmissions, so why would the three of them endangered that ruse by the possibility of Lonsdale’s leading surveillance officers to the secret place?
Flash Mode: Barnes comments that the Krogers had been issued with a ‘novel’ wireless apparatus (the R-350-M) that operated in ‘flash’ mode, namely allowing keyed messages to be stored on tape, and then sent at ultra-high speeds to Moscow to avoid interception and direction-finding. If the Krogers had been using flash mode from the start, why would they have been concerned about direction-finding? The operation would have been over before GCHQ could even contact a van, if they had been able to pick up the signal (which Arthur Bonsall of GCHQ said was impossible, anyway.) Barnes refers to their previous equipment as the ‘Astra’ box, but does not describe it fully, or explain whether it was also capable of ’flash’ operation. His reference to ‘novel’ suggests that the previous box did not have flash capabilities. This characteristic is important in the story of interception.
Interception and Direction-Finding: Astonishingly, the status of GCHQ’s ability to intercept and locate illicit transmissions in 1960 appears to be markedly weaker than it was in World War II, as is shown by the testimony from Bonsall that Barnes cites. Coldspur readers will recall that Peter Wright claimed that GCHQ said that it would have been impossible for Agent Sonia to have operated undetected in the years 1941 to 1945. Yet by 1959 GCHQ admits defeat in its ability to pick up clandestine traffic targeted towards Moscow, and needs MI5 to tip it off about the places to watch! There is an untold story here about the reality and deterioration of the capabilities of the RSS (after the war The Diplomatic Wireless Service). (I have my own theories on this, which I shall explain in my culminating chapter on Sonia and Wireless Detection.)
Soviet Stable of Spies: Barnes makes some highly provocative claims about the presence of unnamed Soviet spies and illegals, assertions that are dropped into the text – almost carelessly. He writes that, at the time of the arrests, GCHQ was aware of ‘radio signals transmitted by KGB illegals in the UK’. So how did they know of the existence of such? Elsewhere he refers to the ‘stable of spies’ which had issued burst signals similar to those transmitted by the Krogers? Who were these people? He also states that MI5 had no practical experience of KGB illegals. Apart from the fact that they were aware of Soviet illegals in the 1930s (Mally & co.), if GCHQ knew of them, MI5 must surely have known them, too. This is a puzzle that I do not understand, and I am anxious to know Barnes’s sources.
Lonsdale’s Death: Lastly, the demise of Lonsdale. I have a particular interest in the dozens of cases of unexplained or early deaths of those who incurred the wrath of the KGB, and whom Sudoplatov’s ‘Special Tasks’ group may have pursued and annihilated. Barnes recounts Lonsdale’s death from a heart-attack in Moscow while mushroom-picking (a notoriously dangerous Russian pastime, by the way). Was this a straightforward medical incident? After all (as Barnes relates) he received death warnings, feared being shot on his return, was openly critical of Soviet society, and was given multiple injections shortly before he died. Is it not possible that his appalling tradecraft incurred the ire of KGB high-ups?
The good news is that I have presented this set of questions to Mr. Barnes himself, and he has accepted them as appropriate and thought-provoking. He has promised to inspect them more closely when he is not so busy. He must be much in demand with the attention over his book, as he well deserves to be. I look forward avidly to Barnes’s eventual response. His discomfort with Peter Wright comes through in his narrative, where he is sensibly cautious in accepting some of Wright’s claims about GCHQ’s interceptions of related messages. That is the perennial challenge for Barnes, and Andrew, and anyone else who chooses to cite Wright’s recollections from Spycatcher. Why do you accept some assertions, but discount others, and what does the inclusion of the book in your Bibliography mean?
I also wish Barnes had pushed his comprehensive reportage a bit further into analysis, and not withdrawn because of pressure from MI5, but I still encourage you to read Dead Doubles. And please send me your thoughts on the issues I have listed. In order to ensure the confidentiality of our correspondence, I do remind you all not to re-use your one-time pads (as some of you have been doing), and to ensure that your indicator groups appear in your message after my name, not before it. And, if you run out of one-time pads, we use Wisden’s Almanac, 2016 edition (not 2015!) as our reference book. Got that? It shouldn’t be that difficult, should it?
‘Atomic Spy’
Atomic Spy, by Nancy Thorndike Greenspan (2020)
Does the world need another biography of Klaus Fuchs? I have on my shelf those by Norman Ross, Robert Chadwell Williams, and Eric Rossiter, as well as last year’s epic composition by Frank Close. Evidently, the publishers at Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House, thought so, even though Close’s Trinity was published by Allen Lane, also an imprint of Penguin Random House. Presumably Ms. Greenspan knew about Frank Close’s concurrent work, and she indeed lists it in her biography. So one might expect a novel interpretation of the life of the atomic spy with divergent loyalties. The sub-title is ‘The Dark Lives of Klaus Fuchs’. Dark – as in ‘previously undisclosed’? Or as in ‘sinister’?
And what are Ms. Greenspan’s qualifications for writing about Fuchs, and what is her approach? It is not clear. She is recorded as having collaborated with her late husband, Stanley, on works of child psychiatry, and she published a book on the Life and Science of Max Born a decade ago, but I can find no record of her academic credentials. Moreover, she appeared to require large doses of help in compiling her work – not just the predictable interviews with a large range of offspring of friends and associates of Fuchs, but availing herself of an impressive list of persons who ‘agreed to interviews, tours, meetings, teas, and lunches and in every way were supportive’, from Charles and Nicola Perrin to the inevitable Nigel West and the elusive Alexander Vassiliev. How very unlike the solitary drudgery in which coldspur finds himself performing his researches! I should add, however, that while I shall probably not breakfast in Aberystwyth again, I did have a very pleasant lunch with Nigel West a few years ago, but am still awaiting Sir Christopher Andrew’s invitation to tea.
Ms. Greenspan lists a highly impressive set of international archival references, which point to a broad and deep study of the available material. Moreover, one noticeable feature of Greenspan’s detailed endnotes is the fact that she appears to have had access to some of the Fuchs files that have been withheld at Kew, such as the AB/1 series, which has been closed for access for most human beings. Her ability to inspect Rudolf Peierls’s correspondence, for instance, represents a highly controversial feather in her cap, which demands a more open explanation. Why would the relevant ministries allow an American writer to inspect such files, and why does she not explain her tactics in achieving such a coup? I was immediately intrigued to know whether her access to papers that the authorities have, in their wisdom, deemed too confidential to be exploited by the common historian, enabled her to construct some piercing breakthroughs in analysing Fuchs’s relationship with his political masters in the United Kingdom. When researching this matter with an on-line colleague, however, I was informed that she (and Frank Close) both probably benefitted from the availability of papers before the decision to withdraw them – primarily the AB 1/572-577 series of Rudolf Peierls’s correspondence. From a study of her endnotes, and those of Close (which are, incidentally, a treasure trove in their own right, which teaches more on each subsequent inspection), it would appear that Greenspan delved more widely in these particular arcana than did Close. What prompted the sudden secrecy by units of the British government over atomic research in the 1940s remains an enigma.
Greenspan’s methodical coverage of the sources is, however, not reflected in the originality of her text. Atomic Spy is overall disappointing, and does not add much to our understanding of Fuchs’s motivations and behaviour. Nevertheless, in four aspects, I thought Greenspan provided some fresh value worth noting. She dedicates four excellent chapters on Fuchs’s experiences in Kiel and Berlin in 1932 and 1933 – a period compressed to just two pages in Close’s account – describing vividly the terrors that the Nazis imposed on opposition groups, but especially the German Communist Party. At the age of twenty-one, Klaus had taken over from his brother, Gerhard, the leadership of the Free Socialist Student Group (a cover name) in Kiel. Gerhard had escaped to Berlin, but Klaus was now a hunted man, under sentence of death. On February 28, 1933, Klaus himself escaped from Kiel, when he was number one on the list to be arrested, and moved to Berlin. Very recklessly, when Gerhard had had to go into hiding, Klaus continued to try to recruit students to the communist cause, when it was clearly a hopeless venture. The Nazis were leaving mangled bodies of communists on the streets. In mid-July, Klaus boarded a train for Aachen, Paris, and eventually Bristol.
Greenspan also sheds fresh light on the horrors of internment that Fuchs and others experienced on the S. S. Ettrick on the voyage to Canada in July 1940, the brutal way that the prisoners were treated by their guards, and the vile conditions that existed on the ship, with thirteen hundred refugees crowded into a hold with the portholes shut in conditions of unbelievable squalor. According to Fuchs, the communists did most of the work in cleaning up the vomit and excrement that swamped the place. While they were at sea, they heard that U-boats had torpedoed the sister ship, the Arandora Star. Dry land in Canada may have been a relief after ten days on the Atlantic Ocean, but conditions in the camp were also grim to start with, a freezing winter making life desperately uncomfortable. The prisoners successfully petitioned for improved conditions, and by December Fuchs was a member of one of the first lists of internees to be sent back to Britain. One can forgive him for harbouring a grudge against the treatment they received, and the frequent accusations and insults that they heard from guards and civilians that he and his fellow internees were ‘Nazis’ simply because they were Germans.
The third area where I believe that Greenspan is more perceptive than other biographers is her coverage of the conversations between Henry Arnold, the security officer at Harwell, and Klaus, in late 1949. A possible defence that Fuchs could have used at his trial was that he had been ‘induced’ by Arnold, and John Cockcroft, the director of the Atomic Energy Research Establishment, into confessing his espionage a spart of a deal. The concern that Fuchs’s confession might not have been truly voluntary brought MI5 to questioning whether the prosecution might fail on that account. Moreover, he had not been cautioned appropriately. Thus the written confession that he provided became extremely important. MI5’s attorney, B. A. Hill, was comfortable, however, with the sequence of events, and moved to advise the prosecuting lawyer, Christmas Humphreys. Yet Fuchs’s decision to say nothing at his initial hearing (on February 10, 1950), and the reluctance of Derek Curtis-Bennett, who represented Fuchs at the trial that took place on March 1, to challenge the Attorney-General, Sir Hartley Shawcross, on what Greenspan describes as ‘the now open secret of inducement’ is puzzling and disturbing. Curtis-Bennett, perhaps under instructions, made a very disjointed plea in Fuchs’s defence, but Fuchs had little to say when invited by Lord Goddard to speak.
Lastly, Greenspan adds some useful information about Fuchs from his time in East Germany, where he did not get the heroes’ welcome that he expected, maybe naively. The Soviets wanted no suggestion that they had acquired the atomic bomb other than from their own research and imagination. The author writes: “No celebrations and accolades welcomed him. The Russians wanted no reference to his passing them information. According to them, they had discovered the atomic secrets themselves. Russia’s denial of any connection to him made his past taboo. Even his nephew Klaus had felt the long arm of the KGB. When he applied for admission to Leipzig University in 1956, he included that his uncle had spied for Russia. University officials accused him of lying. Russia didn’t have spies. They forced him to delete the information.” But what is surprising is that Greenspan does not include the passage from the Vassilievsky Notebooks, where Sonia (Ursula Beurton, née Kuczynski) was quick to tell the authorities how ashamed she was of Fuchs’s conduct in confessing, and how, if she had been given the chance to give him a firm talking-to, the whole messy business of arrest and trial could have been avoided.
Yet the reader has to trudge through some familiar territory, well-ploughed by Close, to glean these insights. And Greenspan leaves behind a number of errors in her wake, mainly because she appears to have spent little time in the British Isles. She characterizes MI6 as ‘the military division of foreign intelligence’, represents the British intelligence establishment as ‘dominated by toffs’ from Eton or Harrow, which was certainly not the case, and introduces Edinburgh (where Fuchs returned to work under Max Born) in the following terms: “Januarys in Edinburgh are blustery and gray. The cold, raw air from the English Channel blankets the city of stone and seeps into the bones”, an observation bound to raise the hackles of even the most indulgent Caledonian. She hazards a guess that Sonia might have been in contact with Fuchs in 1949 because of ‘the proximity of Harwell to Great Rollright’, when Sonia had in fact lived closer to Harwell beforehand, and there is no evidence that she and Fuchs got together again in the UK after 1943. I would have thought that one of her many advisory readers would have shown a greater familiarity with British geography and institutions. Like many chroniclers, Greenspan is also a bit too trusting of ‘Sonya’s Report’.
The final judgments that emanate from all this teamwork are drearily mundane and misguided. She phrases her final verdict thus: “Fuchs’s actions left most people confused, but what they didn’t see was that his life, circumscribed from within, was consistent and constant to his unwavering set of ideals, he sought the betterment of mankind that transcended national boundaries. His goal became to balance world power and to prevent nuclear blackmail. As he saw it, science was his weapon in a war to protect humanity.” If this is what ‘Dark Lives’ consists of, it is very feeble, and represents the tired refrain that a traitor like Fuchs, who, like Sonia, took advantage of British citizenship, and then betrayed his adopted home, should somehow be forgiven because he was ‘sincere’. (Shortly before she died, Lorna Arnold, the official historian at AERE Harwell, gave Frank Close a similar testimony.) ‘An unwavering set of ideals’ – much the same could be said of Lenin, and Stalin, all the way to their grisly imitators such as Pol Pot, all laced with the vague narcissistic illusion that the hero of our tale had it in his hands the ability ‘to balance world power’. It is a shoddy ending to a weakly-conceived and ill-timed book.
Ms. Greenspan needed some help with her writing, as she acknowledges no less than sixteen persons who read ‘most or some of the manuscript’, a handful who helped her with German and Russian translations, another twelve who made suggestions or who provided introductions, and archivists from thirty or so libraries who pointed her in the right direction, as well as her team of agents, editors, project managers, an endnote compiler, and a copy editor. As an author who had to perform my own copy-editing with no benefit of outside readers, and was obliged to reconstruct my own text after an ‘experimental’ editor mangled my words and punctuation, who had to create all the footnotes and endnotes, create the Affinity Charts and Biographical Index, select and organize the illustrations, undertake the laborious task of constructing an index, recruit my own PR agency, and then, when a copy of Misdefending the Realm was requested for review purposes by the Times Literary Supplement, had to order a copy from amazon for the reviewer since my editor had taken off for India for a month without informing me, I was both overwhelmed and disenchanted. It is rather like comparing two expeditions to the Hindu Kush. The Zoological Society would take hampers of chutney, chocolate and champagne with them, and recruit a posse of porters and ponies to carry their provisions, while Eric Newby or Eric Shipton would go alone, with a rucksack on their backs. But it is the solo explorers who bring back the more intriguing stories.
‘An Impeccable Spy’
An Impeccable Spy, by Owen Matthews (2019)
The only major feature wrong with this book is its title. If a spy were truly ‘impeccable’, he (or she) would be infiltrated silently into a target institution, would extract vital secrets and deliver them to his controllers without ever being detected, his achievements would never be lauded and publicized, and he would die in obscurity, his name and cryptonym forever a secret. No doubt there have been persons like that. But there would be no material to write biographies of them.
Richard Sorge (the subject of Owen Matthews’ book) was far from that model. He behaved ostentatiously, drawing attention to himself, he was caught by the Japanese, he confessed his crimes, and was eventually hanged. Up until the last day he believed that Stalin would rescue him in some exchange deal because of his dedication, and the value he had brought to his bosses. Yet that was not the way Stalin thought. Sorge was a failure because he had got himself caught. And maybe Sorge knew at heart that a return to Moscow might mean death at the hands of his employers. After all, in Stalin’s eyes, Sorge had lived too long abroad, would clearly have been subject to non-communist influences, and might disapprove of how Stalin had distorted the Bolshevik impulse. Moreover, he was half-German. Let him swing.
Biographers of spies have to spice up their stories to attract attention, admittedly. ‘The Most Dangerous Spy in History’ (Fuchs, according to Frank Close); ‘The Spy Who Changed the World’ (Fuchs, according to Mike Rossiter); ‘Moscow’s Most Daring Wartime Spy’ (Sonia, according to Ben Macintyre), ‘The Spy Who Changed History’ (Shumovsky, according to Lokhova), etc. etc. Matthews appears to have taken his inspiration from Kim Philby, perhaps a dubious authority in this métier. Philby is quoted on the dust-jacket as stating that Sorge’s ‘work was impeccable’, John le Carré, for good measure, classifies Sorge as ‘the best spy of all time’, and Ian Fleming is recorded on the cover as claiming that Sorge was ‘the most formidable spy in history’, all reflecting an enthusiasm for bohemianism and extravagance rather than patience and discretion.
Sorge’s life was a rambunctious and exhilarating one. He was born in 1895 in Baku, in the Russian Empire, of a German father and Russian mother. He served on the Western Front, where he became a communist. After the Russian revolution, he moved to Moscow, where he was recruited by the Comintern, and roamed around Europe on various missions, including a short stay in the United Kingdom in 1929. Shortly after that, he was instructed to join the Nazi party with cover as a journalist, and sent to Shanghai, China in 1930, to join a motley international group of ne’er-do-wells, conspirators, saboteurs, spies and activists, and among his sexual conquests were Agnes Smedley and Ursula Hamburger (Sonia). (In Agent Sonya, Ben Macintyre has written: “Exactly when Ursula Hamburger and Richard Sorge became lovers is still a matter of debate.” That may be so in London, but in the circles in which I move, the precise date of that tempestuous event has never been a topic of conversation.) On a return to Moscow in 1933, where Sorge got married, he received fresh instructions to go to Japan and organize an intelligence network, since Stalin was more concerned about the threat from the East than he was of the Nazi menace. He went there via Germany, where he was able to build links with the Nazi Party, and thereafter led a stressful double life of hobnobbing with Nazi officials while building contacts with the Japanese government, and recruiting Max Clausen to send his reports to Vladivostok by wireless. He provided much valuable information to Stalin – although some of it is overrated – but the Japanese penetrated his ring, and he was arrested on October 18, 1941, interrogated and tortured. He then confessed, and was hanged on November 7, 1944.
I was familiar with Owen Matthews from an earlier work of his, Stalin’s Children (2008), which was not literally about the Dictator’s own offspring, but consisted of an uneasy combination of private memoir and serious history. It was an affecting and occasionally moving composition, uncovering the stories of Matthews’ maternal Russian grandparents (his grandfather was killed in the purges of 1937, and his grandmother lost her mind in the Gulag), and the love-affair of his own parents. (The granting of his mother’s visa to leave for Britain was part of the deal to free the Krogers, noted above.) Yet I found it flawed, owing to some mystical nonsense about ‘blood memory’, a lot of speculation about his grandfather’s thoughts and intentions, the insertion of many now familiar stories of the Ukrainian famine and the Purges, too much shy-making information on the author’s own love-life, and an irritatingly but no doubt fashionably erratic approach to the chronology of his story. The book was 50% longer than it needed to be.
Matthews, who spoke Russian before he learned English, studied Modern History at my alma mater, Christ Church, Oxford, and then pursued a career as a journalist, working in Moscow from 1997. His account of Sorge’s life is methodical, and sensibly cautious about many of the rumours that surrounded Sorge’s career in the muddle of Shanghai and wartime Japan. (I must confess that I have not read any other of the Sorge biographies, so cannot compare.) He has had access to American, German, Russian and Japanese archival sources, with necessary assistance in translation, and professes a large and learned bibliography. There is little of the Pincherite speculation about assignments and recruitment (e.g. ‘Hollis’s position at BAT would have been of interest to the GRU’ and ‘Sorge could have encountered Hollis there [at the YMCA]’: Treachery, page 46).
Matthews does comment on the Hollis case, however, although mainly in an endnote (of which there are many rich examples). On pages 367 and 368 he spends perhaps too much space on a topic that is not germane to the Sorge story, echoing the line of the Pincherite-Wrightean clique of faux-historians. He states that ‘there is evidence that Luise Rimm [the wife of a GRU operator] had a love affair with Roger Hollis that lasted three years’, and he accuses Hollis of being deceptive about his movements in China and Moscow. He is firmly of the belief that Hollis alone was able to shield Sonia from investigation, concluding, rather lamely: “The record is clear that Hollis was that protective hand, for reasons that make no apparent sense unless he was the agent ‘Elli’ and was working, like Sonja, for the GRU”. It would have been better for Matthews to have stepped back from this particular controversy.
I found a few mistakes about personalities and organisation. Matthews introduces Peter Wright as ‘the Australian-born head of MI5 counter-intelligence’, which is wrong on two counts. And he gets a bit carried away about Shanghai in the 1920s. One sentence stands out, on pp 57-58: “In the 1920s Shanghai hosted many of the great Soviet illegals of the age – Arnold Deutsch (who went on to recruit Kim Philby), Theodore Maly (later controller of the Cambridge Five), Alexander Rado (one of the many agents who would later warn Stalin of Nazi plans to invade the Soviet Union), Otto Katz (one of the most effective recruiters of fellow-travellers to the Soviet cause from Paris to Hollywood), Leopold Trepper (founder of the Rote Kapelle spy ring inside Germany before the Second World War), as well as legendary Fourth Department illegals Ignace Poretsky and Walter Krivitsky, Ruth Werner [Sonia] and Wilhelm Pieck.” No matter that this was the decade before Sorge arrived, that not all of these characters were ’illegals’, and that none of them was mythical. Sonia did not arrive there until 1930, and Agnes Smedley would have been very upset to have been omitted from this list of desperadoes. How a lot of problems would have been forestalled if this crew had been mopped up at the time and locked away where they could do no damage!
The account of Sorge’s eventual entrapment and arrest is very dramatic, and Matthews tells it well. I was particularly interested, because of my research into Sonia’s activities, in the attempts to determine the location of Clausen’s transmitter, as one would think that the Japanese would have been ruthless and efficient in tracking down illicit transmissions. Matthews reports: “Thanks to their own radio monitoring, and after a tip-off from the military government in Korea, the Japanese authorities knew that a powerful illegal transmitter was regularly operating from various sites in the Tokyo area. An all-points bulletin was sent out to all municipal police stations, including Toriizaka, to try to spot the source of the signals. But the Japanese were never able to successfully triangulate Clausen’s radio. And happily for Sorge, the Russian military code he used proved unbreakable – though the messages were faithfully monitored and transcribed by the Japanese in an ever-thickening file of unintelligible strings of number groups.” It seems to me that because of the wavelengths that Clausen would have been using, and the peculiar shape of Japan, and its mountains, that detecting the exact location of Clausen’s transmissions (and he did sensibly move around) turned out to be impossible.
Matthews’s final judgment endorses the view that Sorge was impeccable because he was ‘brave, brilliant and relentless’, and he laments the Soviet Union’s overall indifference to him, and the fact that it engaged in ‘the ultimate betrayal of its greatest spy.’ “It was Sorge’s tragedy that his masters were venal cowards who placed their own careers before the vital interests of the country that he laid down his life to serve” is the last sentence in Mathews’ book. Well, that is one way of looking at it. But you could also say that he was just like every other Stalinist dupe: he was consumed by a dopey ideology, believed that he was one of the charmed saviours of humanity, and completely overlooked the evidence that pointed to the fact that Stalin was a monster who would show no compassion or mercy when his underlings were no longer of use to him. One of Matthews’ excellent commentaries contains the following chilling fact (p 179): Soviet military intelligence had six different heads between 1937 and 1939, five of whom would be executed. The Hall of Fame consists of the following:
Jan Berzin, 1924-April 1935
Semyon Uritsky, April 1935-July 1937
Jan Berzin, July 1937-August 1937
Alexander Nikonov, August 1937-August 1937
Semyon Gendin, September 1937-October 1938
Alexander Orlov, October 1938-April 1939
Ivan Proskurov, April 1939-July 1940
Filipp Golikov, July 1940-October 1941
Alexei Panfilov, October 1941-November 1942
Not a career to be undertaken lightly. One might wonder why Jan Berzin, the second time round, didn’t reflect on the opportunity, and select a quieter and less hazardous occupation, such as deep-sea diving. But you couldn’t do that with Stalin. Once you were in the maw, you had no control. And the same for Sorge. Despite its occasional missteps, I recommend this book highly.
‘Master of Deception’
Master of Deception: The Wartime Adventures of Peter Fleming, by Alan Ogden (2019)
‘Joyce Carey playing Myrtle Bagot’
Most readers will probably recall Peter Fleming as the elder brother of Ian Fleming, or the husband of Celia Johnson, whose controlled performance of thwarted passion made Brief Encounter such an iconic film. That story of how Sonia (Celia Johnson) met Klaus Fuchs (Trevor Howard) at Birmingham’s Snow Hill Station, and then how the couple had to subdue their romance for the cause of delivering atomic secrets safely to the Soviet Embassy [are you sure this is correct? Ed.], was a box-office hit in 1945, and notable for the cameo performance by Joyce Carey playing Myrtle Bagot [sic! Milicent’s sister?], an MI5 officer under cover as the restaurant owner. Perhaps more authentically, I remember being introduced to Fleming in his travel-book, Brazilian Adventure (1933) about a poorly-organized search for Percy Fawcett, which entertained me because the author appeared to parody himself. I thus keenly consumed his One’s Company (1934) and News from Tartary (1936), in which his cover as a journalist allowed him to perform some intelligence-gathering on behalf of MI6. (There is no evidence that he had an affair with Sonia while he was in Manchukuo, and Sonia wisely decided to omit all references to any such liaison in her memoir.) His account of Hitler’s plans after the invasion of Britain, Invasion 1940, was of great historical interest to me. Finally, I enjoyed Duff Hart-Davis’s biography of Fleming, published in 1974.
Thus I jumped at the opportunity to learn more when Alan Ogden’s Master of Deception appeared last year, especially since it carried a warm endorsement from Professor Glees on the back cover. Alan Ogden was not a name I knew, but, since he has written several books about the Special Operations Executive, especially concerning activities in a region of the world that I find utterly absorbing – Transylvania, Romania, and parts of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire – I thought that it was an omission that I should quickly remedy. Ogden has set himself the task of documenting Fleming’s war experiences in the Military Intelligence Directorate (MIR) and then in what Ogden calls the ‘mysterious’ D. Division, which was responsible for deception in the Far East.
Part of the problem of recording faithfully what went on in military intelligence circles is the tendency to be overwhelmed with acronyms, liaison officers, operational code-names, and a host of minor figures, the Biffies, Jumboes and Tigers who populated this realm. (Ogden recognises part of this challenge in his Preface, where he declares his aim to reduce the ‘alphabet soup’. Yet he provides no glossary of acronyms, and his Index is very weak.) Thus it requires a large amount of concentration and patience to keep up with the stream of codewords and rapidly changing military units that evolved as the war changed its shape. Another hurdle for the author to overcome, however, is more paradoxical, and more serious. Even though Fleming is characterised as the ‘Master of Deception’, his schemes and campaigns were essentially failures – not because of his lack of inventiveness, but because the enemy refused to bite, or because the battle was lost for external reasons. A campaign record of Norway, Greece, the Pacific and Burma is not the most illustrious showcase for how deception operations won the day.
I have recently studied the deception campaign supporting the Normandy landings (see https://coldspur.com/the-mystery-of-the-undetected-radios-part-8/ ), and it was informative to discover that much of the investment that the Allies put into the movements of dummy armies was wasted because the Germans did not have the capacity nor the imagination to interpret all the fake signals and equipment that were constructed to convince them of the existence of FUSAG. The Nazis were nowhere near to building a picture of the organisation and order of battle of the Allies to match what British and American intelligence had constructed concerning Nazi forces. Thus Germany came to be completely reliant on its crew of agents, who had either been ‘turned’ or had signed up for the Abwehr originally with the intention of working for the opposition. And British intelligence was able to manipulate the Abwehr and its successors simply because they wanted to be misled.
Whereas deception, under Lt.-Colonel Dudley Clarke’s ‘A’ Force, had been successful in Africa, it was a struggle in the war in Burma and the frontiers of Japanese-controlled territory. As Fleming himself wrote in a report: “There can be no question that the Japanese Intelligence was greatly inferior in all respects to the German and even the Italian Intelligence. The successful deception practiced on the Axis military machine in Europe was made possible by the fact that the enemy’s Intelligence staffs and services were, though gullible, well organized and reasonably influential.” As Ogden concludes, D. Division’s plans were too sophisticated: Philip Mason, head of the Conference Secretariat (SEAC), echoed Fleming’s judgment: “Deceiving the Germans had been very different; they wanted to know our plans and expected us to try and deceive them. That had been like playing chess with someone not quite as good as oneself.; with the Japanese, it was like setting up the chessboard against an adversary whose one idea was to punch you on the nose.”
Fleming was to explain failure in other ways, such as a lack of knowledge with the deception planners as to what military strategies actually were in a chaotic and dispersed region – very different from what existed in the European theatre. But a naivety about deception, and maybe an overestimation of achievement, and a lack of understanding of how controlling agents was supposed to work, were evident in other activities. Ogden reports how, in March 1943, our old coldspur friend John Marriott was sent to India to advise on how a new section should be formed to handle double-agents (a formulation that immediately highlights a problem, as you cannot be sure you have ‘double-agents’ until you have trained them, and brought them strictly under your control). Ogden reports: “Marriott’s credentials were impeccable save in one respect. He had never been to India, and knew next to nothing about its peculiarities, impediments and handicaps.” Marriott was very critical of the set-up in India, and Fleming appeared to have been rather disdainful of Marriott’s practical experience. For where were these double-agents going to come from? Who arrested them, interrogated them, and who was to ‘turn’ them, and ensure that they were loyal to you? Moreover, Fleming frequently upset the military brass with his unconventionality. One judgment recorded by Ogden is that of Colonel Bill Magan, one of the officers in the Delhi Intelligence Bureau. He found Fleming ‘an irresponsible, ambitious and irrational man who was always trying to persuade us to pass messages which we believed would “blow” the channel.’
Ogden has clearly done his homework, as is shown by the hundred or so files from the National Archives that he lists in his Sources, and whose contents are faithfully reflected in his text. But it becomes a bit of a trudge working through his story to find the nuggets. Too many multi-page reports are embedded, when they should preferably have been summarized, and the complete versions relegated to Appendices. Much detail about operations, which is surely of considerable value to the dedicated military historian, could have been left out in order to focus more tightly on the author’s main thrust, and Fleming sometimes gets lost in the caravanserai.
Yet nuggets there certainly are. I was delighted to add the following assessment to my dossier on Roger Hollis. In August 1939, Fleming was invited to submit his recommendations as to who, among associates he had known, might be useful to the war effort, and offered, among his testimonies, that Hollis ‘Did several years in China with BAT’, adding: “Though he has not been there recently, his judgement of Far Eastern affairs has always impressed me as unusually realistic. His cooperation, or even his comments, might be valuable at an early stage, particularly as he is available in London.” Nothing appeared to come from this, but the outwardly rather dim Hollis had impressed someone who knew what he was talking about, and gained a fan of note. (My dossier has also been enriched this month by one of the more memorable phrases in Ben Macintyre’s Agent Sonya: “He [Hollis] was a plodding, slightly droopy bureaucrat with the imaginative flair of an omelet.”)
Another gem consists of a paper that Fleming wrote in Chungking in 1942, titled ‘Total Intelligence’, which, by using the fictitious example of Ruritania in 1939, outlined how a diverse set of intelligence sources could be harnessed without consolidating the gatherers of intelligence into one massive organisation. The paper takes almost ten pages of text, and should thus likewise have been a candidate for appendicisation, but it deserves broader exposure, and is well worth reading. I was a bit puzzled, however, by Ogden’s brief commentary on this report, where he indicates that, addressing Fleming’s criticism, SOE went out of his way to recruit business men and bankers to assist them in undermining the enemy. But SOE was a sabotage organisation, not an intelligence-gathering unit (although intelligence came its way by way of its destructive exploits), and I should have liked Ogden to explore this dilemma – one so keenly understood by MI6 – in a little more depth.
So what is the verdict on Fleming? Ogden’s assessment is a little surprising. He writes (p 274): “As the new world order unfurled, with his knowledge of and experience in dealing with Russia and China, he was eminently well qualified for a top post in either SIS or MI5.” That seems to me an errant call. Fleming had no insider reputation in the Security Service or the Secret Intelligence Service, and his sudden appointment would surely have provoked resentment. Moreover, I believe he was temperamentally unsuited for roles that required tact, patience, and an ability to negotiate with Whitehall. He was an adventurer, a maverick, and would have bridled at all the protocols and formalities of communicating with career civil servants – something that Dick White was famously good at. It is not surprising that Fleming took early retirement as a gentleman farmer.
‘Master of Deception’ he may have been, but the targets of his deception frequently failed to act like English gentlemen, or perform as they were supposed to, not having installed the obvious British-like institutions. In one important passage, Fleming’s frustrations come through. As Ogden writes, of one multi-year operation that had minimal impact, the HICCOUGHS project, which planted a network of notional agents in Burma, and somehow caused them to send messages back to Delhi (p 228): “For two years, Fleming and the HICCOUGHS case attached little importance to this rather tiresome routine commitment since it was transparently flawed. ‘Why,’ asked Fleming, ‘if our agents could communicate with us by W/T, could we not communicate with them by the same means? Why, if we were forced to broadcast messages to them, did we continue to use a low-grade cipher? How was it that they were all (apparently) able to listen in twice daily at fixed times to receive a message when in most cases it affected only one of them? How was it that the Japanese Radio Security Service never obtained the slightest clue to the places and times at which they transmitted their lengthy and invaluable reports? Why, after all this talk about sabotage and subversion, did nothing ever happen?’”
This was perhaps an admission that ingenuity alone was not enough. It needed comprehensive understanding and support from the military organisation, and it required, even more, a proper assessment of the psychology of the enemy, insights into how its intelligence units thought, and a clear idea of what behavioural changes the operation was trying to achieve. Causing confusion was not enough.
‘Secret’
Secret: The Making of Australia’s Security State, by Brian Toohey (2019) [guest review by Denis Lenihan]
Even taking into account the generation gap, there are some remarkable similarities between Brian Toohey (born 1944) and Harry Chapman Pincher (1914-2014). Both began their journalistic careers in conventional fields, Toohey in finance, although the Australian Financial Review when he joined it in the 1970s had perhaps a somewhat broader range than now. Pincher’s field was initially defence and science on the Daily Express in the Beaverbrook days after the war. Both had the gift or the knack of attracting confidences, so that senior figures in government leaked material which they wished to see released, for varying reasons. The historian E P Thompson described Pincher as
“a kind of official urinal in which, side by side, high officials of MI5 and MI6, sea lords, permanent under-secretaries, Lord George-Brown, chiefs of the air staff, nuclear scientists, Lord Wigg and others, stand patiently leaking in the public interest. One can only admire their resolute attention to these distasteful duties.”
Pincher’s sources went beyond that group, taking in those who went fishing or pheasant or grouse shooting in season – cabinet ministers, industrialists, well-informed nobles – when some on Pincher’s account became much more willing to divulge secrets, or at least matters which were classified as secrets. It was not a difference that they or Pincher always recognised. Toohey’s only overseas posting was to Washington, and his social circle was more restricted; and if there were any grouse shooters among his sources, he has been careful to protect them.
While Pincher will be well-known to readers of coldspur.com some further information on Toohey might be helpful. He has written about national security policy since 1973 and is the author or co-author of four books, including Oyster: The Story of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (1989). After part of the manuscript came into the Australian (Labor) Government’s possession, it took court action which resulted in the book effectively being vetted by the Government. A sensible approach saw only one major deletion, the name of a public relations firm, an omission remedied soon after the book’s publication by another journalist who published not in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age (Melbourne).
Pincher became interested in spies in 1950 when he covered the trial of Klaus Fuchs, the atomic spy. Pincher informed his editor that a spy named Fuchs had been arrested, and the editor said ‘Marvellous! I’ve always wanted to get that word into a headline.’ As noted, Toohey has written about national security matters since 1973, while he was still at the AFR, perhaps more so later when he moved to the late-lamented National Times. Both believed in lunch as a setting where people talked; French was Pincher’s cuisine of choice, habitually at A L’Ecu de France in Jermyn St Piccadilly. His footnotes show that Toohey followed suit on at least one occasion, at La Bagatelle in Washington, but in New York he went to the Union Club (founded 1836), the cuisine in which was unlikely to have been French. No Canberra restaurant is mentioned. Perhaps Toohey was wise to move about. After A L’Ecu closed in the 1990s, Pincher was told by the senior director that MI5 had bugged the banquettes, including the one favoured by Pincher. A later development of the story had it that when MI5 went to remove the bugs, it found another set – put there by the KGB. Whether it’s true or not is irrelevant: it’s a great story. Pincher evidently had a very good memory and drank little. After lunch he would return to his office and dictate the story without reference to documents. ‘…I have always had a golden rule’, he recorded in 2013,’ that I would never touch or look at any classified documents’. (Foreword to Christopher Moran: Classified: Secrecy and the State in Modern Britain (2013)). Toohey seems to have got documents frequently but after writing his story he would very sensibly destroy them, thus putting himself beyond the reach of his official pursuers who often took him to court.
Reading along and between the lines in Toohey’s book Secret: The Making of Australia’s Security State (2019) suggests that most of his sources were public servants. As with Pincher, much public money was spent on attempting to find out who they were, evidently without success. Both lived or have lived long enough to be able to see from government files released to archives the attempts made to identify their sources. After Pincher had published in 1959 details of a cabinet decision two days after it had been made, Harold Macmillan was moved to exclaim: ‘Can nothing be done to suppress or get rid of Mr Chapman Pincher’. Pincher’s books contain the explanation for many of the characteristics of Australian government which Toohey rightly complains about: unwarranted secrecy and lies, particularly by security agencies. The UK system of government has for decades prized secrecy, very often in circumstances where it was later shown to be unnecessary and even harmful. In Treachery, Pincher is able to show that time and again MI5 in particular lied to ministers and even the Prime Minister, to the extent of being publicly reproved. In 1963 Harold Macmillan criticised Sir Roger Hollis, the Director General of MI5, in the House of Commons for keeping from him critical information during the Profumo affair.
As time goes by, more and more ludicrous examples emerge. In 1940 Neville Chamberlain while still Prime Minister commissioned Lord Hankey to investigate the efficiency of the intelligence services. His report has never been released in the United Kingdom, which had prompted much speculation about its contents. The spy John Cairncross had at the time slipped a copy to Moscow and in 2009, in its well-known role of assisting scholarship, the Soviet archives released it. Fallen upon by scholars eager to find its secrets, it turned out to be in the words of one reader ‘mostly pedestrian and superficial’.
That tradition of too much secrecy and too many lies was bequeathed to Australia and the other colonies and continues to bedevil them, as Toohey shows. He became the bete noire of Sir Arthur Tange, the Secretary of the Department of Defence, whose ‘demands to find the leakers chewed up the time of senior officials who had more important things to do than pursue often inept and always futile investigations’. Tange might usefully have followed the precedent of his UK counterpart, Sir Richard Powell, who advised his minister in 1958 with regard to Pincher that
“I believe that we must live with this man and make the best of it. We can console ourselves that his writings, although embarrassing at times to Whitehall, disclose nothing that Russian intelligence does not already know.”
Toohey’s jousts with the establishment make for enjoyable reading, and on most issues (nuclear bomb testing in Australia, ‘the depravity of nuclear war planning’ etc) he is on the side of the angels, even if sometimes he does not quote prominent supporters such as the Pope who give weight to his causes. Given that most of the Pope’s clergy and his flock do not at least in public echo his views on the bomb, Toohey’s omission is forgivable.
When he strays outside his area of expertise, however, as he does when arguing that out of the thirteen wars Australia has fought, only one (the Pacific theatre of World War II) was ‘a war of necessity for Australia’, Toohey stumbles. Some of the thirteen pre-dated the establishment of Australia in 1900, and while his argument might be true looking backwards, there was no prospect in say 1914 that Australia would not join in the defence of what was then called the mother country, especially when all her other white daughters enrolled. Toohey must also be one of the very few Australian commentators to have written about the Japanese and World War II and who have failed to mention the bombing of Darwin and the invasion of Sydney Harbour by midget submarines, both in 1942.
All this makes it very disappointing that Toohey should be so far off the mark in the very first chapter of his book (there are 60 chapters, some of them very short), which deals with ‘The Security Scandal that the US Hid from the Newborn ASIO’, as the chapter heading has it. The scandal concerned the Venona material, messages which passed between Moscow and its embassies in a number of countries, including Australia, in the 1940s, many of which were intercepted by the US or its allies (or by neutral countries such as Sweden) and some of which were able to be decoded or deciphered. On Toohey’s account, an NSA employee, William Weisband, was a KGB spy and told Moscow in 1948 about the interceptions and the encryption methods were then changed. Again on Toohey’s account, ASIO was never told about this betrayal. All these assertions are worth examining in some detail, together with Toohey’s account of what the Australian Venona material revealed.
Toohey begins by claiming that ‘the highly classified material handed over by the Australian spies was of no consequence’, in particular the two top-secret UK planning papers passed over in 1946 which showed ‘banal, often erroneous predictions’; further, the predictions were ‘fatuous’ while the other papers passed over were ‘trite’. That some of the predictions turned out to be wrong, and that some of the other material seemed to be unimportant, are hardly sufficient to dismiss them altogether. Given some indication by the Soviet Embassy in Canberra of the contents of the two top-secret reports, Moscow asked that they be sent immediately by telegram, which is a good indication of what it thought of them at the time. A more objective account of the Canberra Venona is to be found in Nigel West’s Venona (1999), where he describes one of these two documents as being ‘of immense significance’, and says that for it to have fallen into Soviet hands at that time was ‘devastating’.
In any event, Toohey fails to mention that in the estimation of the US National Security Agency which released the Venona material in the 1990s ‘More than 200 messages were decrypted and translated, these representing a fraction of the messages sent and received by the Canberra KGB residency.’ (NSA website). It is idle to suppose that those not intercepted contained no important classified material.
Toohey also misrepresents the messages sent by Moscow to the senior MI5 officer in Canberra, Semyon Makarov: ‘Moscow told Makarov not to let [Clayton, the Communist Party member who was the contact man for the spies in External Affairs] recruit new agents, not to send any document that was more than a year old, not to be overeager to achieve success and to stop obtaining information of little importance.’ What Moscow in fact said to Makarov was‘…if possible do not take any steps in the way of bringing in new agents without a decision from us’ (message of 6 October 1945); ‘you should not receive from [Clayton] and transmit by telegraph textual intelligence information that is a year old’ the implication being that it might be sent by bag (message of 17 October 1945); and that [Nosov, the TASS correspondent in Sydney] should be brought into the work ‘but do not be over-eager to achieve success to the detriment of security and maximum caution’ (message of 20 October 1945). This kind of close supervision by Moscow was not unusual, as West’s book shows.
Individual members of the External Affairs spy ring are declared to be innocent. Ric Throssell is described thus: ‘After interviewing him in 1953, ASIO concluded that he “is a loyal subject and is not a security risk in the department in which is employed” ‘. Quite true, but incomplete. After Petrov’s defection in 1954, ASIO formed the view that Throssell could not be given a security clearance for classified material, and he never was. Frances Garratt (nee Bernie) is described by Toohey as ‘working mainly on political party issues as a young secretary/typist in the Sydney office of the External Affairs minister, Bert Evatt..She insisted that she thought she was simply giving the local Communist Party some political information.’ Again, incomplete. As Robert Manne noted in The Petrov Affair (1987), the Royal Commission on Espionage found that
“While Frances Bernie had certainly broken the law – in passing official documents to Walter Clayton without authorisation – she had only admitted to doing so having been granted an immunity from prosecution.”
And according to the late Professor Des Ball, ‘In 2008, Bernie admitted that she had given Walter Seddon Clayton (code-named KLOD or CLAUDE), the organiser and co-ordinator of the KGB network, much more important information than she had previously confessed’. (‘The moles at the very heart of government’, The Australian, April 16, 2011)
The scandal referred to in the chapter heading is this. As noted, on Toohey’s account the Venona secret was betrayed to Moscow by William Weisband, a Soviet spy employed by the National Security Agency, and in 1948 the Soviet encryption systems were changed. Toohey takes up the story:
“I asked ASIO when the US informed it (or its predecessor) that Weisband had told the Soviets that Venona was able to read its messages; ASIO replied in an email on 30 June 2017: ‘The information you refer to is not drawn from ASIO records.’ ASIO also told the National Archives of Australia (NAA) that it does not hold any open period records (i.e.up to 1993) about the US notifying it that Weisband told the Soviets about Venona. The US should also have told the Defence Signals Directorate (now the Australian Signals Directorate, or ASD). When I asked ASD, via Defence, it declined to answer.”
It is worth noting here that entering ‘William Weisband’ and ‘National Security Agency’ into the Australian Archives website yields only references to public material about the Agency. Entering ‘William Weisband’ into the website of the UK National Archives yields no result; while the only two results for ‘National Security Agency’ are for files from the Prime Minister’s Office concerning the publication of material about the Agency. Toohey would presumably not argue on the basis of these results that the Agency did not tell the UK security authorities about Weisband. The strongest argument against Toohey’s claim is that entering Weisband’s name into the website of the US National Archives and Records Administration yields only scraps, and nothing connected directly to the NSA. Clearly NSA guards its records zealously, as one would expect. It was at one time so secret that its initials were said to mean ‘No Such Agency’.
In any event, ASIO did not come into existence until 1949, and on Horner’s account in Volume 1 of the history of ASIO – The Spycatchers – he and his research team ‘found files that ASIO did not even know they had.’ Relying on ASIO records, especially from the early days, is thus a chancy business.
“These got a further boost when, just after midnight on 9 June, CATO [the German codename for GARBO] spent two full hours on the air sending a long and detailed report to his spymaster, Kühlenthal. The risk of capture was enormous when an agent transmitted that long, for it gave the direction-finding vans plenty of time to locate him. But this very fact impressed the Germans with the importance of his signal.” (Hitler’s Spies, by David Kahn, p 515)
“If the receivers of this vast screed had paused to reflect, they might have registered how unlikely it was that a wireless would have been able to operate for more than two hours without detection. But they did not.” (Double Cross, by Ben Macintyre, p 324)
“Garbo still ranked high in the esteem of his controller, but if Kühlenthal had thought coolly and carefully enough, there was one aspect of that day’s exchange of signals that might have made him suspicious. Garbo had been on the air so long that he had given the British radiogoniometrical stations ample time on three occasions to obtain a fix on his position and arrest him. Why was he able to stay on the air so long? Did he have a charmed life? Or was he being allowed to transmit by the British for the purpose of deception? These were questions that Kühlenthal might well have asked himself. But instead of being suspicious, he sent a message to Berlin. In it he recommended Garbo for the Iron Cross.” (Anthony Cave-Brown, Bodyguard of Lies, pp 676-677)
“The Abwehr remained remarkably naïve in thinking that in a densely populated and spy-conscious country like England an agent would be able to set up a transmitter and antenna without attracting attention. Moreover, it seems not to have smelled a rat from the fact that some agents, notably GARBO, were able to remain on the air for very long periods without being disturbed. It did have the good sense to furnish agents sent to Britain with only low-power sets that would cause minimal interference to neighbors’ receivers and would be more difficult for the British to monitor – though they also afforded less reliable communication. Once again, GARBO was an exception. Telling the Germans that he had recruited a radio operator with a powerful transmitter, he sent his messages at 100 watts from a high-grade set. Even this did not raise the Abwehr’s suspicions.” (Thaddeus Holt, The Deceivers, pp 142-143)
“And so, with Eisenhower’s authorization, Pujol transmitted, in the words of Harris, ‘the most important report of his career’. Beginning just after midnight, the message took two hours and two minutes to transmit. This was a dangerously long time for any agent to remain on air.” (Operation Fortitude, by Joshua Levine, p 283)
“GARBO’s second transmission lasted a record 122 minutes, and hammered home his belief that the events of the past forty-eight hours represented a diversionary feint, citing his mistress ‘Dorothy Thompson’, an unconscious source in the Cabinet Office, who had mentioned a figure of seventy-five divisions in England.” (Nigel West, Codeword OVERLORD, p 274)
“The length of this message should have aroused suspicion in itself. How on earth a real secret agent could stay on the air transmitting for so long in wartime conditions was unbelievable. British SOE agents operating in Europe were told to keep transmissions to less than five minutes in order not to be detected. However, this was not questioned.” (Terry Crowdy, Deceiving Hitler, p 270)
“We are sure that we deceived the Germans and turned their weapon against themselves; can we be quite sure that they were not equally successful in turning our weapon against is? Now our double-cross agents were the straight agents of the Germans – their whole espionage system in the U.K. What did the Germans gain from this system? The answer cannot be doubtful. They gained no good from their agents, and they did take from them a very great deal of harm. It would be agreeable to be able to accept the simple explanation, to sit back in the armchair of complacency, to say that we were very clever and the Germans very stupid, and that consequently we gained both on the swings and the roundabouts as well. But that argument just won’t hold water at all.” (The Double-Cross System, by John Masterman, p 263)
“Masterman credited only his own ideas, fresh-minted like gold sovereigns entirely from his experiences on the XX Committee. The wonder of it is, with the exception of the sporadic pooh-poohing from the likes of maverick Oxford historian A. J. P. Taylor and veteran counter-intelligence officer David Mure, The Double-Cross System came to be swallowed whole. Farago’s book was essentially forgotten; Masterman’s became celebrated.” (Fighting to Lose, by John Bryden, p 314)
“Yet, when all is said, one is left with a sense of astonishment that men in such responsible positions as were those who controlled the destinies of Germany during the late war, could have been so fatally misled on such slender evidence. One can only suppose that strategic deception derives its capacity for giving life to this fairy-tale world from the circumstance that it operates in a field into which the enemy can seldom effectively penetrate and where the opposing forces never meet in battle. Dangers which lurk in this terra incognita thus tend to be magnified, and such information as is gleaned to be accepted too readily at its face value. Fear of the unknown is at all times apt to breed strange fancies. Thus it is that strategic deception finds its opportunity of changing the fortunes of war.” (Fortitude, by Roger Hesketh, p 361)
“Abwehr officials, enjoying life in the oases of Lisbon, Madrid, Stockholm or Istanbul, fiddling their expenses and running currency rackets on the side, felt that they were earning their keep so long as they provided some kind of information. This explains why for example Garbo was able to get away with his early fantasies, and Tricycle could run such outrageous risks.” (Michael Howard, British Intelligence in the Second World War, Volume 5, p 49)
“However, the claim that the Double Cross spies were ‘believed’ in ‘Berlin’ needs some amplification. Even if the information was swallowed by the Abwehr, that is not to say that it was believed at OKW or that it influenced overall German policy. Part of the problem is that the Abwehr was not a very efficient organisation. Nor was it involved in significant analysis of its intelligence product: on the contrary, the Ast and outstations tended to pounce on any snippet of potentially useful information and, rather than evaluate its intelligence value, pass it on to Berlin as evidence of their ‘busyness’ and as justification for their salaries and expense accounts.” (David Kenyon, Bletchley Park and D-Day, p 163)
“We have succeeded in sustaining them so well that we are receiving even at this stage . . . an average of thirty to forty reports each day from inside England, many of them radioed directly on the clandestine wireless sets we have operational in defiance of the most intricate and elaborate electronic countermeasures.” (Admiral Canaris, head of the Abwehr, in February 1944, from Ladislas Farago’s Game of the Foxes, p 705)
“A fundamental assumption they [the Germans] made was logically simple: if they were reading parts or all of different British codes at different times, and no mention of any signal was ever found that referred to any material transmitted by the Germans in an Enigma-encoded message, then the system had to be secure.” (Christian Jennings, The Third Reich is Listening, p 261)
By 1943, the Radio Security Service, adopted by SIS (MI6) in the summer of 1941, has evolved into an efficient mechanism for intercepting enemy, namely German, wireless signals from continental Europe, and passing them on to Bletchley Park for cryptanalysis. Given the absence of any transmissions indicating the presence of German spies using wireless telegraphy on British soil, the Service allows its domestic detection and location-finding capabilities to be relaxed somewhat, with the result that it operates rather sluggishly in tracking down radio usage appearing to be generated from locations in the UK, whether they are truly illicit, or simply misguided. RSS would later overstate the capabilities of its mobile location-finding units, in a fashion similar to that in which the German police units exaggerated the power and automation of its own interception and detection devices and procedures. RSS also has responsibilities for providing SIS agents, as well as the sabotage department SOE (Special Operations Executive), with equipment and communications instructions, for their excursions into mainland Europe. SOE has had a very patchy record in wireless security, but RSS’s less than prompt response to its needs provokes SOE, abetted by its collaborators, members of various governments in exile, to attempt to bypass RSS’s very protocol-oriented support. RSS has also not performed a stellar job in recommending and enforcing solid Signals Security procedures in British military units. Guy Liddell, suspicious of RSS’s effectiveness, knows that he needs wireless expertise in MI5, and is eager to replace the ambitious and manipulative Malcom Frost, who is eased out at the end of 1943. It thus takes Liddell’s initiative, working closely with the maverick RSS officer, Sclater, to draw the attention of the Wireless Board to the security oversights. Towards the end of 1943, the plans for OVERLORD, the project to ‘invade’ France on the way to ensuring Germany’s defeat, start to take shape, and policies for ensuring the secrecy of the operation’s details will affect all communications leaving the United Kingdom.
Contents:
NEPTUNE, OVERLORD, BODYGUARD & FORTITUDE
Determining Censorship Policy
The Dilemma of Wireless
Findlater Stewart, the Home Defence Security Executive, and the War Cabinet
Problems with the Poles
Guy Liddell and the RSS
‘Double’ or ‘Special’ Agents?
Special Agents at Work
The Aftermath
NEPTUNE, OVERLORD, BODYGUARD & FORTITUDE
Operation Bodyguard
My objective in this piece is to explore and analyse policy concerning wireless transmissions emanating from the British Isles during the build-up to the Normandy landings of June 1944. This aspect of the war had two sides: the initiation of signals to aid the deception campaign, and the protection of the deception campaign itself by prohibiting possibly dangerous disclosures to the enemy that would undermine the deceits of the first. It is thus beyond my scope to re-present the strategies of the campaign, and the organisations behind them, except as a general refreshment of the reader, in order to provide a solid framework, and to highlight dimensions that have been overlooked in the histories.
OVERLORD was originally the codeword given to the assault on Normandy, but in September 1943 it was repurposed and broadened to apply to the operation of the ‘primary United States British ground and air effort against the Axis in Europe’. (Note that, on Eisenhower’s urging, it was not considered an ‘invasion’, a term which would have suggested incursions into authentic enemy territory.) NEPTUNE was the codeword used to describe the Normandy operation. BODYGUARD was the overall cover plan to deceive the enemy about the details of OVERLORD. BODYGUARD itself was broken down into FORTITUDE North and FORTITUDE South, the latter conceived as the project to suggest that the main assault would occur in the Pas de Calais as opposed to Normandy, and thus disguise NEPTUNE.
I refer the reader to six important books for greater detail on the BODYGUARD deception plan. Bodyguard of Lies, by Anthony Cave Brown (1975) is a massive, compendious volume, containing many relevant as well as irrelevant details, not all of them reliable, and the author can be annoyingly vague in his chronology. Sir Michael Howard’s British Intelligence in the Second World War, Volume 5 (1990), part of the authorized history, contains a precise and urbane account of the deception campaign, although it is rather light on technical matters. Roger Hesketh, who was the main architect of FORTITUDE, wrote his account of the project, between 1945 and 1948, but it was not published until 2000, many years after his death in 1987, as Fortitude: The D-Day Deception Campaign. (In his Preface to the text, Hesketh indicates that he was given permission to publish in 1976, but it did not happen.) Hesketh’s work must be regarded as the most authoritative of the books, and it includes a large number of invaluable, charts, documents and maps, but it reflects some of the secrecy provisions of its time. Joshua Levine’s Operation Fortitude (2001) is an excellent summary of the operation, lively and accurate, and contains a highly useful appendix on Acknowledgements and Sources. Nigel West delivered Codeword Overlord (2019), which sets out to cover the role and achievements of Axis espionage in preparing for the D-Day landings. Like many of West’s recent works, it is uneven, and embeds a large amount of source material in the text. Oddly, West, who provided an Introduction to Hesketh’s book, does not even mention it in his Bibliography. Finally, Thaddeus Holt’s Deceivers (2007) is perhaps the most comprehensive account of Allied military deception, an essential item in the library, very well written, and containing many facts and profiles not available elsewhere. It weighs in at a hefty 1000+ pages, but the details he provides, unlike Cave Brown’s, are all relevant.
Yet none of these volumes refers to the critical role of the Home Security Defence Executive (HSDE), chaired by Sir Findlater Stewart, in the security preparations. (Findlater Stewart receives one or two minor mentions in two of the Indexes, but on matters unrelated to the tasks of early 1944.) The HSDE was charged, however, with implementing a critical part of the censorship policy regarding BODYGUARD. The HSDE was just one of many intersecting and occasionally overlapping committees performing the planning. At the highest level, the Ops (B) section, concerned with deception under COSSAC (Chief of Staff to Supreme Allied Commander), was absorbed into SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force) in January 1944, when General Eisenhower took over command, expanded, and split into two. Colonel Noel Wild headed Ops (B), with Jervis Read responsible for physical deception, while Roger Hesketh took on Special Means, whose role was to implement parts of the deception plan through controlled leakage.
In turn, Hesketh’s group itself was guided by the London Controlling Section (LCS), which was responsible for deciding the overall strategy of how misinformation should be conveyed to the enemy, and tracking its success. At this time LCS was led by Colonel John Bevan, who faced an extraordinary task of coordinating the activities of a large number of independent bodies, from GC&CS’s collection of ULTRA material to SOE’s sabotage of telephone networks in France, as well as the activities of the ‘double-agents’ within MI5. Thus at least three more bodies were involved: the W Board, which discussed high-level policy matters for the double-cross system under General Davidson, the Director of Military Intelligence; the XX Committee, chaired by John Masterman, which implemented the cover-stories and activities of both real and notional agents, and created the messages that were fed to the Abwehr; and MI5’s B1A under ‘Tar’ Robertson, the group that actually managed the activities and transmissions of the agents. Lastly, the War Cabinet set up a special group, the OVERLORD Security Sub-Committee, to inspect the detailed ramifications of ensuring no unauthorised information about the landings escaped the British Isles, and this military-focussed body enjoyed a somewhat tentative liaison with the civilian-oriented HDSE through the energies of Sir Findlater Stewart.
When Bevan joined the W Board on September 23, 1943, the LCS formally took over the responsibility for general control of all deception, leaving the W Board to maintain supervision of the double-agents’ work solely. Also on the W Board was Findlater Stewart, acting generally on behalf of the Ministries, who had been invited in early 1941, and who directly represented his boss, Sir John Anderson, and the Prime Minister. The Board had met regularly for almost three years, but by September 1943, highly confident that it controlled all the German agents on UK soil, and with Bevan on board, held only one more meeting before the end of the war – on January 21, 1944. It then decided, in a general stocktaking before OVERLORD, that the XX Committee could smoothly continue to run things, but that American representation on the Committee was desirable. As for Findlater Stewart, he still had a lot of work to do.
Determining Censorship Policy
The move to tighten up security in advance of NEPTUNE took longer than might have seemed appropriate. At the Quebec Conference in August 1943 Roosevelt and Churchill had agreed on the approximate timing and location of the operation, but it needed the consent of Stalin at the Teheran Conference at the end of November, and the Soviet dictator’s commitment to mount a large scale Soviet offensive in May 1944 to divert German forces, for the details to be solidified. Thus Bevan’s preliminary thoughts on the deception plan for OVERLORD, sketched out in July, had to be continually revised. A draft version, named JAEL, was circulated, and approved, on October 23, but, after Teheran, Bevan had to work feverishly to prepare the initial version of the BODYGUARD plan which replaced JAEL, completing it on December 18. This received feedback from the Chiefs of Staff, and from Eisenhower, newly appointed Commander-in-Chief, and was presented to SHAEF in early January, and approved on January 19. Yet no sooner was this important step reached than Bevan, alongside his U.S. counterpart Bauer, was ordered to leave for Moscow to explain the plan, and convince the Soviets of its merits. Such was the suspicion of Soviet military and intelligence officers, and such was their inability to make any decision unless Stalin willed it, that approval did not arrive until March 5, when the delegates returned to London.
Yet Guy Liddell’s Diaries indicate that there had already been intense discussion about OVERLORD Security, the records of which do not seem to have made it into the HDSE files. Certainly, MI5 had been debating it back in December 1943, and Liddell refers to a Security Executive meeting held on January 26. At this stage, Findlater Stewart was trying to settle what travel bans should be put in place, and as early as February 8 Liddell was discussing with his officers Grogan and (Anthony) Blunt the implications of staggering diplomatic cables before OVERLORD. The next day, he met with Maxwell at the Home Office to discuss the prevention of the return of allied nationals to the country (because of the vetting for spies that would be required).
More surprisingly, on February 11, when reporting that the Chiefs of the General Staff had become involved, and had made representations to Churchill, Liddell refers to the formation of an OVERLORD Security Committee, and comments drily: “The committee is to consist of the Minister of Production, Minister of Aircraft Production, Home Secretary and Duncan Sandys, none of whom of course know anything about security.” This committee was in fact an offshoot of the War Cabinet, which had established a Committee on OVERLORD Preparations on February 9, part of the charter of which was ‘the detection of secret enemy wireless apparatus, and increased exertions against espionage’, perhaps suggesting that not all its members were completely au fait with the historical activities of RSS and the W Board. It quickly determined that it needed a further level of granularity to address these complex security matters. Thus the Sub-committee on OVERLORD Security was established, chaired by the Minister of Production, Oliver Lyttleton, and held its first meeting on February 18, when Liddell represented MI5. Oddly, no representative from MI6 attended. Liddell continues by describing the committee’s charter as considering: 1) the possibility of withdrawing diplomatic communications privileges; 2) the prevention of export of newspapers; 3) more strengthened surveillance of ships and aircraft; 4) the detection of secret enemy wireless apparatus and increased precautions against espionage. Findlater Stewart is charged with collecting relevant material. In what seems to be an overload of committees, therefore, the HDSE and the War Cabinet carry on parallel discussions, with Findlater Stewart a key figure in both assemblies.
The primary outcome of this period is the resistance by the Foreign Office to any sort of ban, or even forced delay, in diplomatic cable traffic, which they believed would have harmful reciprocal consequences abroad, and hinder MI6’s ability to gather intelligence (especially from Sweden). This controversy rattled on for months [see below], with the Cabinet emerging as an ineffective mechanism for resolving the dilemma. Liddell believed that, if the Foreign Office and the Home Office (concerned about invasion of citizens’ rights) had not been so stubborn and prissy about the whole thing, the Security Executive could have resolved the issues quickly.
Thus the impression that Findlater Stewart had to wait for Bevan’s return for seeking guidance before chairing his committee to implement the appropriate security provisions is erroneous. Contrary to what the record indicates, the critical meeting on March 29 was not the first that the HDSE Committee held. Yet, when Bevan did return, he might have been surprised by the lack of progress. He quickly learned, on March 10, that the Cabinet had decided not to withdraw facilities for uncensored communications by diplomats, as it would set an uncomfortable precedent. That was at least a decision – but the wrong one. Bevan had a large amount of work to do shake people up: to make sure that the rules were articulated, that the Americans were in line, and that all agencies and organizations involved understood their roles. “Only under Bevan’s severe and cautious direction could they perform their parts in FORTITUDE with the necessary harmony”, wrote Cave Brown. Bevan clearly put some urgency into the proceedings: the pronouncements of LCS were passed on to Findlater Stewart shortly afterwards.
The history of LCS shows that security precautions were divided into eight categories, of which two, the censorship of civilian and service letters and telegrams, and the ban on privileged diplomatic mail and cipher telegrams, were those that concentrated on possible unauthorised disclosure of secrets by means other than direct personal travel. The historical account by LCS (at CAB 154/101, p 238) explains how the ban on cable traffic was imposed, but says nothing about wireless: “The eighth category, the ban on diplomatic mail and cipher telegrams was an unprecedented and extraordinary measure. As General EISENHOWER says, even the most friendly diplomats might unintentionally disclose vital information which would ultimately come to the ears of the enemy.”
What is significant is that there is no further mention of wireless traffic in the HDSE meetings. Whether this omission was due to sheer oversight, or was simply too awkward a topic to be described openly, or was simply passed on to the War Cabinet meetings, one can only surmise. When the next critical HDSE meeting took place on April 15, headlined as ‘Withdrawal of Diplomatic Privileges’, it echoed the LCS verbiage, but also, incidentally, highlighted the fact that Findlater Stewart saw that the main threat to security came from the embassies and legations of foreign governments, whether allies or not. Well educated by the W Board meeting, he did not envisage any exposure from unknown German agents working clandestinely from British soil.
The Dilemma of Wireless
It is worthwhile stepping back at this juncture to examine the dilemma that the British intelligence authorities faced. Since the primary security concern was that no confidential information about the details of the actual assault, or suggestions that the notional attack was based on the strength and movement of illusionary forces, should be allowed to leave the country, a very tight approach to personnel movement, such as a ban on leave, and on the holidays of foreign diplomats, was required, and easily implemented. Letters and cables had to be very closely censored. But what do to about the use of wireless? Officially, outside military and approved civil use (railway administration, police) the only licit radio transmissions were being made by Allied governments, namely the Americans and the Soviets, and by select governments-in-exile, the French, the Poles and the Czechs (with the latter two having their own sophisticated installations rather than just apparatus within an embassy). It was quite possible that other countries had introduced transmission equipment, although RSS would have denied that its use would have remained undetected.
Certainly all diplomatic transmissions would have been encyphered, but the extent to which the German interception authorities (primarily OKW Chi) would have been able to decrypt such messages was unknown. And, even if the loyalty and judgment of these missions could be relied upon, and the unbreakability of their cyphers trusted, there was no way of guaranteeing that a careless reference would not escape, and that a disloyal employee at the other end of the line might get his or her hands on an indiscreet message. (Eisenhower had to demote and send home one of his officers who spoke carelessly.) Thus total radio silence must have been given at least brief consideration. It was certainly enforced just before D-Day, but that concerned military silence, not a diplomatic shutdown.
Yet the whole FORTITUDE deception plan depended on wireless. The more ambitious aspect focused on the creation of dummy military signals to suggest a vast army (the notional FUSAG) being imported into Britain and moved steadily across the country to assemble in the eastern portion, indicating a northern assault on mainland Europe. Such wireless messages would have appeared as genuine to the Germans – if they had had the resources and skills to intercept and analyse them all. Thus the pretence had to be meticulously maintained right up until D-Day itself. In August 1943, the Inter-Services Security Board (ISSB) had recommended that United Kingdom communications with the outside world should be cut off completely, and Bevan had had to resist such pressure. As Howard points out, most involved in the discussion did not know about the Double-Cross System.
As it turned out, both German aerial reconnaissance and interception of dummy signals were so weak that the Allies relied more and more on the second leg of their wireless strategy – the transmissions of its special agents. Thus it would have been self-defeating for the War Cabinet to prohibit non-military traffic entirely, since the appearance of isolated, illicit signals in the ether, originating from British soil, and remaining undetected and unprosecuted, would have caused the Nazi receivers to smell an enormous rat. (One might add that it strains credibility in any case to think that the Abwehr never stopped to consider how ineffectual Britain’s radio interception service must be, compared with Germany’s own mechanisms, if it failed completely ever to interdict any of its own agents in such a relatively small and densely populated territory. And note Admiral Canaris’s comments above.) Of course, the RSS might have wanted to promote the notion that its interception and location-finding techniques were third-rate, just for that purpose. One might even surmise that Sonia’s transmissions were allowed to continue as a ruse to convince the Germans of the RSS’s frailties, in the belief that they might be picking up her messages as well as those of their own agents, and thus forming useful judgments about the deficiencies of British location-finding.
We should also recall that the adoption of wireless communications by the special agents was pursued much more aggressively by the XX Committee and B1A than it was by the Abwehr, who seemed quite content to have messages concealed in invisible ink on letters spirited out of England by convenient couriers, such as ‘friendly’ BOAC crewmen. Thus TREASURE, GARBO and BRUTUS all had to be found more powerful wireless apparatus, whether mysteriously acquired in London, from American sources, or whether smuggled in from Lisbon. The XX Committee must have anticipated the time when censorship rules would have tightened up on the use of the mails for personal correspondence, even to neutral countries in Europe, and thus make wireless connectivity a necessity.
In conclusion, therefore, no restrictions on diplomatic wireless communication could allow prohibition completely, as that would leave the special agents dangerously exposed. And that policy led to some messy compromises.
Findlater Stewart, the Home Defence Security Executive, and the War Cabinet
Sir Findlater Stewart
It appears that the War Cabinet fairly quickly accepted Findlater Stewart’s assurances about the efficacy of RSS. A minute from February 28 runs: “We have considered the possibility that illicit wireless stations might be worked in this country. The combined evidence of the Radio Security Service secret intelligence sources and the police leads to the firm conclusion that there is no illicit wireless station operating regularly in the British Isles at present. The danger remains that transmitting apparatus may be being held in readiness for the critical period immediately before the date of OVERLORD – or may be brought into the country by enemy agents. We cannot suggest any further measures to reduce this risk and reliance must therefore be placed on the ability of the Radio Security Service to detect the operation of illicit transmitters and of the Security Service to track down agents.” Thus the debate moved on to the control of licit wireless transmissions, where the HDSE and the War Cabinet had to overcome objections from the Foreign Office.
The critical meeting on ‘OVERLORD Security’ – ‘Withdrawal of Diplomatic Privileges’ was held on the morning of April 15, under Findlater Stewart’s chairmanship. This was in fact the continuation of a meeting held on March 29, which had left several items of business unfinished. That meeting, which was also led by Findlater Stewart, and attended by only a small and unauthoritative group (Herbert and Locke from Censorship, Crowe from the Foreign Office, and Liddell, Butler and Young from MI5) had considered diplomatic communications generally, and resolved to request delays in the transmission of diplomatic telegrams. After the Cabinet decision not to interfere with diplomatic cable traffic, Petrie of MI5 had written to Findlater Stewart to suggest that delays be built in to the process. A strangely worded minute (one can hardly call it a ‘resolution’) ran as follows: “THE MEETING . . . invited Mr. Crowe to take up the suggestion that diplomatic telegrams should be so delayed as to allow time for the Government Code and Cypher School to make arrangements with Postal and Telegraph Censorship for particularly dangerous telegrams to be delayed or lost; and to arrange for the Foreign Office, if they agreed, to instruct the School to work out the necessary scheme with Postal and Telegraph Censorship.”
It would be difficult to draft a less gutsy and urgent decision than this. ‘Invited’, ‘suggestion’, ‘to make arrangements’, ‘if they agreed’, ‘to instruct’, and finally, ‘particularly dangerous telegrams’! Would ‘moderately dangerous telegrams’ have been allowed through? And did GC&CS have command of all the cyphers used by foreign diplomacies? Evidently not, as the following discussion shows. It is quite extraordinary that such a wishy-washy decision should have been allowed in the minutes. One can only assume that this was some sort of gesture, and that Findlater Stewart was working behind the scenes. In any case, as the record from the LCS history concerning Eisenhower, which I reproduced above, shows, the cypher problem for cable traffic was resolved.
When the forum regathered on April 15, it contained a much expanded list of attendees. Apart from the familiar group of second-tier delegates from key ministries, with the War Office and the Ministry of Information now complementing Censorship, the Home Office, and the Foreign Office, Vivian represented MI6, while MI5 was honoured with the presence of no less than seven officers, namely Messrs. Butler, Robertson, Sporborg, Robb, Young, Barry – and Anthony Blunt, who no doubt made careful mental notes to pass on to his ideological masters. [According to Guy Liddell, from his ‘Diaries’, Sporborg worked for SOE, not MI5.] But no Petrie, Menzies, Liddell, White, Masterman, or Bevan. And the band of second-tier officers from MI5 sat opposite a group of men from the ministries who knew nothing of Ultra or the Double-Cross System: a very large onus lay on the shoulders of Findlater Stewart.
The meeting had first to debate the recent Cabinet decision to prohibit the receipt of uncensored communications by Diplomatic Missions, while not preventing the arrival of incoming travellers. Thus a quick motion was agreed, over the objections of the Foreign Office, that ‘the free movement of foreign diplomatic representatives to this country was inconsistent with the Cabinet decision to prohibit the receipt of uncensored communications by Foreign Missions in this country’. After a brief discussion on the movement of French and other military personnel, the Committee moved to Item IX on the agenda: ‘Use of Wireless Transmitters by Poles, Czechs and the French,’ the item that LCS had, either cannily or carelessly, omitted from its list.
Sporborg of MI5/SOE stated that, “as regards the Poles and the Czechs, it has been decided after discussion with the Foreign Office –
that for operational reasons the transmitters operated by the Czechs and the Poles could not be closed down:
that shortage of operators with suitable qualifications precluded the operation of those sets by us;
that accordingly the Poles should be pressed to deposit their cyphers with us and to give us copies of plain language texts of all messages before transmission. The Czechs had already given us their cyphers, and like the Poles would be asked to provide plain language copies of their messages.”
Sporborg also noted that both forces would be asked not to use their transmitters for diplomatic business. Colonel Vivian added that “apart from the French Deuxième Bureau traffic which was sent by M.I.6, all French diplomatic and other civil communications were transmitted by cable. There were left only the French Service transmitters and in discussion it was suggested that the I.S.S.B. might be asked to investigate the question of controlling these.”
Again, it is difficult to make sense of this exchange. What ‘operational reasons’ (as opposed to political ones) could preclude the closing down of Czech and Polish circuits? It would surely just entail an announcement to targeted receivers, and then turning the apparatus off. And, since the alternative appeared to be having the transmitters operated by the British – entrusted with knowledge of cypher techniques, presumably – a distinct possibility of ‘closing down’ the sets must have been considered. As for Vivian’s opaque statement, the Deuxième Bureau was officially dissolved in 1940. (Yet it appears in many documents, such as Liddell’s Diaries, after that time.) It is not clear what he meant by ‘French Service transmitters’. If these were owned by the RF Section of SOE, there must surely have been an exposure, and another wishy-washy suggestion was allowed to supply the official record.
The historical account by LCS says nothing about wireless. And the authorized history does not perform justice to the serious implications of these meetings. All that Michael Howard writes about this event (while providing a very stirring account of the deception campaign itself) is the following: “ . . . and the following month not only was all travel to and from the United Kingdom banned, but the mail of all diplomatic missions was declared subject to censorship and the use of cyphers forbidden”, (p 124, using the CAB 154/101 source given above); and “All [the imaginary double agents] notionally conveyed their information to GARBO in invisible ink, to be transmitted direct to the Abwehr over his clandestine radio – the only channel open after security restrictions on outgoing mail had been imposed.” (p 121) The irony is that Howard draws attention to the inconvenience that the withdrawal of mail privileges caused LCS and B1A, but does not inspect the implications of trying to suppress potentially dangerous wireless traffic, and how they might have affected the deception project’s success.
Problems with the Poles
The Polish Government-in-Exile
Immediately after the critical April 15 meeting, the War Office began to toughen up, as the file KV 4/74 shows. The policy matter of the curtailment of diplomatic privileges was at last resolved. Findlater Stewart gave a deadline to the Cabinet on April 16, and it resolved to stop all diplomatic cables, couriers and bags, for all foreign governments except the Americans and the Russians. The ban started almost immediately, and was extended until June 20, even though the Foreign Office continued to fight it. Yet it required some delicate explaining to the second-tier allies. Moreover, the Foreign Office continued to resist it, or at least, abbreviate it. They even wanted to restore privileges on D-Day itself: as Liddell pointed out, that would have been stupid, as it would immediately have informed the enemy that the Normandy assault was the sole one, and not a feint before a more northerly attack at the Pas de Calais.
Brigadier Allen, the Deputy Director of Military Intelligence, who had been charged with following up with the ISSB on whether the British were controlling French service traffic to North Africa, drew the attention of the ISSB’s secretary to the importance of the proposed ban. The record is sketchy, but it appears the Chiefs of Staff met on April 19, at which a realisation that control over all diplomatic and military channels needed to be intensified. The Joint Intelligence Sub-Committee was instructed to ensure that this happened, and a meeting was quickly arranged between representatives of the ISSB, MI6, SOE, the Cypher Policy Board and the Inter-Service W/T Security Committee, a much more expert and muscular group than had attended Findlater Stewart’s conference.
While the exposure by French traffic was quickly dismissed, Sir Charles Portal and Sir Andrew Cunningham, the RAF and Royal Navy chiefs, urged central control by the Service Departments rather than having it divided between SHAEF and Allied Forces Headquarters, and invited the JISC committee “to frame regulations designed to prevent Allied Governments evading the restrictions imposed by the War Cabinet on diplomatic communications, by the use of service or S.O.E. ‘underground’ W/T channels for the passage of uncensored diplomatic or service messages.” This was significant for several reasons: it recognized that foreign governments might attempt to evade the restrictions, probably by trying to use service signals for diplomatic traffic; it recommended new legislation to give the prohibitions greater force; and it brought into the picture the notion of various ‘underground’ (not perhaps the best metaphor for wireless traffic), and thus semi-clandestine communications, the essence of which was barely known. This minute appeared also to reflect the input of Sir Alan Brooke, the Army Chief, but his name does not appear on the document – probably because the record shows that he was advocating for the shared SHAEF/AFHQ responsibility, and thus disagreed with his peers.
The outcome was that a letter had to be drafted for the Czechoslovak, Norwegian and Polish Commanders-in-Chief, the Belgian and Netherlands Ministers of Defence, and General Koenig, the Commander of the French Forces in the United Kingdom, outlining the new restrictions on ‘communications by diplomatic bag and cipher telegrams’ (implicitly cable and wireless). It declared that ‘you will issue instructions that no communication by wireless is to be carried out with wireless stations overseas except under the following conditions’, going on to list that cyphers would have to be deposited with the War Office, plain language copies of all telegrams to be submitted for approval first, with the possibility that some messages would be encyphered and transmitted through British signal channels. A further amendment included a ban on incoming messages, as well.
Were these ‘regulations’, or simply earnest requests? The constitutional issue was not clear, but the fact that the restrictions would be of short duration probably pushed them into the latter category. In any case, as a memorandum of April 28 makes clear, Findlater Stewart formally handed over responsibility for the control of wireless communications to the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), reserving for himself the handling of ‘mail and telegrams’ (he meant ‘mail and cables’, of course). By then, the letter had been distributed, on April 19, with some special annexes for the different audiences, but the main text was essentially as the draft had been originally worded.
The Poles were the quickest to grumble, and Stanisław Mikołajczyc, the Prime Minister of the Polish Government-in-Exile, wrote a long response on April 23, describing the decision as ‘a dangerous legal and political precedent’, making a special case out of Poland’s predicament, and its underground fight against the Germans. He promised to obey the rules over all, but pleaded that the Poles be allowed to maintain the secrecy of their cyphers in order to preserve the safety and security of Polish soldiers and civilians on Polish soil fighting the German. “The fact that Polish-Soviet relations remain for the time being unsatisfactory still further complicates the situation,” he added.
It is easy to have an enormous amount of sympathy for the Poles, but at the same time point out that their aspirations at this time for taking their country back were very unrealistic. After all, Great Britain had declared war on Germany because of the invasion of Poland, and the Poles had contributed significantly in the Battle of Britain and the Italian campaign, especially. The discovery by the Germans, in April 1943, of the graves of victims of the Katyn massacre had constituted a ghastly indication that the Soviets had been responsible. Yet Stalin denied responsibility, and broke off relations with the London Poles when they persisted in calling for an independent Red Cross examination. Moreover, Churchill had ignored the facts, and weaselly tried to placate both Stalin and the Poles by asking Mikołajczyc to hold his tongue. In late January, Churchill had chidden the Poles for being ‘foolish’ in magnifying the importance of the crime when the British needed Stalin’s complete cooperation to conclude the war successfully.
Yet the Poles still harboured dreams that they would be able to take back their country before the Russians got there – or even regain it with the support of the Russians, aspirations that were in April 1944 utterly unrealistic. The file at HW 34/8 contains a long series of 1942-1943 exchanges between Colonel Cepa, the Chief Signals Officer of the Polish General Staff, and RSS officers, such as Maltby and Till, over unrealistic and unauthorized demands for equipment and frequencies so that the Polish government might communicate with all its clandestine stations in Poland, and its multiple (and questionable) contacts around the world. Their tentacles spread widely, as if they were an established government: on December 9, 1943, Joe Robertson told Guy Liddell that ‘Polish W/T transmitters are as plentiful as tabby cats in the Middle East and are causing great anxiety’. They maintained underground forces in France, which required wireless contact: this was an item of great concern to Liddell. Thus the Poles ended up largely trying to bypass RSS and working behind the scenes with SOE to help attain their goals. The two groups clearly irritated each other severely: the Poles thinking RSS too protocol-oriented and unresponsive to their needs, RSS considering the Poles selfish and too ambitious, with no respect for the correct procedures in a time of many competing demands.
The outcome was that Churchill had a meeting with Mikołajczyc on April 23, and tried to heal some wounds. The memorandum of the meeting was initialled by Churchill himself, and the critical passage runs as follows: “Mr. Churchill told Mr. Mikołajczyc that he was ready to waive the demand that the Polish ciphers used for communication with the Underground Movement should be deposited with us on condition first, that the number of messages sent in these ciphers was kept down to an absolute minimum; secondly, that the en clair text of each message sent in these ciphers should be communicated to us; thirdly, that Mr. Mikołajczyc gave Mr. Churchill his personal word of honour that no messages were sent in the secret ciphers except those of which the actual text had been deposited with us, and fourthly, that the existence of this understanding between Mr. Mikołajczyc and Mr. Churchill should be kept absolutely confidential; otherwise H.M.G would be exposed to representations and reproaches from other foreign Governments in a less favourable position.”
Thus it would appear that the other governments acceded, that the Poles won an important concession, but that the British were able to censor the texts of all transmissions that emanated from British soil during the D-Day campaign. And Churchill was very concerned about the news of the Poles’ preferential treatment getting out. Yet the JIC (under its very astute Chairman, Victor Cavendish-Bentinck) thought otherwise – that the news was bound to leak out, and, citing the support of Liddell, Menzies, Cadogan at the Foreign Office and Newsam at the Home Office, it requested, on May 1, that the Prime Minister ‘should consider the withdrawal’ of his concession, and that, if impracticable, he should at least clarify to Mikołajczyc that it ‘related to messages sent to the underground movement in Poland and not to communications with other occupied or neutral countries’.
Moreover, problems were in fact nor restricted to the Poles. De Gaulle, quite predictably, made a fuss, and ‘threatened’ as late as May 29 not to leave Algiers to return to the UK unless he was allowed to use his own cyphers. The Chiefs of Staff were left to handle this possible non-problem. Churchill, equally predictably, interfered unnecessarily, and even promised both Roosevelt and de Gaulle (as Liddell recorded on May 24) that communications would open up immediately after D-Day. Churchill had already, very naively, agreed to Eisenhower’s desire to disclose the target and date of NEPTUNE to France’s General Koenig. The Prime Minister could be very inspiring and insightful, but also very infuriating, as people like Attlee and Brooke observed.
And there it stood. Britain controlled the process of wireless communication (apart from the Soviet and US Embassies) entirely during the course of the D-Day landings, with a minor exposure in Polish messages to its colleagues in Poland. The restrictions were lifted on June 20. And B1A’s special agents continued to chatter throughout this period.
Guy Liddell and the RSS
Guy Liddell
Guy Liddell, deputy director-general of MI5, had been energized by his relationship with Sclater of the RSS, and, with Malcolm Frost’s departure from MI5 in December 1943, he looked forward to an easier path in helping to clean up Barnet, the headquarters of the Radio Security Service. In the months before D-Day, Liddell was focused on two major issues concerning RSS: 1) The effectiveness of the unit’s support for MI5’s project to extend the Double-Cross System to include ‘stay-behind’ agents in France after the Normandy landings succeeded; and 2) his confidence in the ability of RSS to locate any German spies with transmitters who might have pervaded the systems designed to intercept them at the nation’s borders, and who would thus be working outside the XX System.
Overall, the first matter does not concern me here, although part of Liddell’s mission, working alongside ‘Tar’ Robertson, was to discover how RSS control of equipment, and its primary allegiance to MI6, might interfere with MI5’s management of the XX program overseas. Liddell had to deal with Richard Gambier-Parry’s technical ignorance and general disdain for MI5, on the one hand, and Felix Cowgill’s territoriality on the other (since a Double-Cross system on foreign soil would technically have fallen under MI6), but the challenges would have to have been faced after D-Day, and are thus beyond my scope of reference. In any case, the concern turned out to be a non-problem. The second matter, however, was very serious, and Liddell’s Diaries from early 1944 are bestrewn with alarming anecdotes about the frailties of RSS’s detection systems. The problems ranged from the ineffectiveness of Elms’s mobile units to the accuracy of RSS’s broader location-finding techniques.
I shall illustrate Liddell’s findings by a generous sample of extracts from his Diaries, as I do not believe they have appeared in print before. Thus, from January 26:
Sclater gave an account of the work by the vans on an American station which had been d.f.d by R.S.S. The station was at first thought to be a British military or Air Force one as it was apparently using their procedure. The vans went out to the Horsham area where they got a very strong signal which did not operate the needle. Another bearing caused them to put the Bristol van out, which luckily found its target pretty quickly. The point of this story is that it is almost impossible to say more than that a wireless transmitter is in the north or south of England. Unless you can get into the ground-wave your vans don’t operate. To get into the ground-wave you may need to be very close to their target. There is still no inter-com between the vans and they cannot operate for more than 8 hours without having to drive several hundred miles in order to recharge their batteries. Not a very good show. Sclater is going to find out who is responsible for American Army signal security.
While this may not have been a perennial problem for units that were repeatedly broadcasting from one place, it clearly would have posed a serious exposure with a highly mobile transmitting agent. Moreover, at a meeting on February 17, MI6/SIS (in the person of Valentine Vivian, it appears) had, according to Liddell, admitted some of its deficiencies, stating, in a response to a question as to how its General Search capability worked: “S.I.S. did not think that an illicit station was operating in this country but it was pointed out that their observation was subject to certain restrictions. They were looking for Abwehr procedure, whereas an agent might use British official procedure, which would be a matter for detection by Army Signals, who were ill-equipped to meet the task.” Did Vivian not know what he was talking about, or was this true? Could an agent using ‘British official procedure’ truly evade the RSS detectors, while the Army would not bother to investigate? I recall that Sonia herself was instructed to use such techniques, and such a disclosure has alarming implications.
The minutes of the War Cabinet Sub-committee on February 17 confirm, however, that what Vivian reported was accepted, as an accompanying report by Findlater Stewart displays how the vision for wireless interception embraced by Colonel Simpson in 1939 had been allowed to dissolve. (In fact, as Liddell’s Diaries show, a small working-party had met on the morning of the inaugural meeting to prepare for the discussion.) In a report attached to the minutes, Stewart wrote the following (which I believe is worth citing in full):
“As a result of their experience extending over some four years the Radio Security Service are of opinion there is no illicit wireless station being worked in this country at present. Nevertheless it must be borne in mind that by itself the watch kept by the Radio Security Service is subject to some limitations. For example, the general search is mainly directed to German Secret Service communications and if an agent were to use official British signal procedures (there has already been some attempt at this), it is not likely to be picked up by the Service, and no guarantee that such stations would be detected should be given unless the whole volume of British wireless traffic, including the immense amount of service signal traffic, were monitored. This ‘general search’, however, is not the only safeguard. The danger to security arises from the newly arrived German Agent (on the assumption that there are no free agents at present operating here), but the art of tracking aircraft has been brought to such a point that the Security Service feel that in conjunction with the watch kept by the Radio Security Service even a determined effort by the enemy to introduce agents could not succeed for more than a few days. Admittedly if the agent were lucky enough to be dropped in the right area and obtain his information almost at once serious leakage could occur. But there is no remedy for this.”
I find this very shocking. While the RSS was justifiably confident that no unidentified spies were operating as its interceptors were monitoring Abwehr communications closely, it had abandoned the mission of populating the homeland with enough detective personnel to cover all possible groundwaves. Apparently, the sense of helplessness expressed in Stewart’s final sentence triggered no dismay from those who read it, but I believe this negligence heralded the start of an alarming trend. And the substance of the message must have confirmed Liddell’s worst fears.
Liddell and Sclater intensified their attention to RSS’s activities. Sclater also referred, later in February, to the fact that RSS had picked up Polish military signals in Scotland, but the Poles had not been very helpful, the signals were very corrupt, as picked up, and it was not even certain ‘that the messages were being sent from Gt. Britain’. Liddell also discovered that RSS had been picking up messages relating to Soviet espionage in Sweden, and blew a fuse over the fact that the facts about the whole exercise had been withheld from MI5 and the Radio Security Intelligence Committee, which Dick White of MI5 chaired. Thus, when he returned from two weeks’ leave at the end of March, his chagrin was fortunately abated slightly, as the entry for April 16 records:
During my absence there have been various wireless tests. GARBO, on instructions from the Germans, has been communicating in British Army procedure. He was picked up after a certain time and after a hint had been given to Radio Security Service. He was, however, also picked up in Gibraltar, who notified the RSS about certain peculiarities in the signals. This is on the whole fairly satisfactory. TREASURE is going to start communicating blind and we shall see whether they are equally successful in her case. Tests have also been taking place to see whether spies can move freely within the fifteen-mile belt. One has been caught, but another, whose documents were by no means good, has succeeded in getting through seven or eight controls and has so far not been spotted.
This was not super-efficient, however: ‘hints’, and ‘after a certain time’. At least the British Army procedure was recognised by the RSS. (Herbert Hart later told Liddell that ‘notional’ spies dressed in American military uniforms were the only ones not to get caught.) But the feeling of calm did not last long. Two weeks later, on April 29, Liddell recorded:
The Radio Security Service has carried out an extensive test to discover the GARBO transmitter. The report on this exercise is very distressing. The GARBO camouflage plan commenced on 13 March but the Mobile Units were not told to commence their investigations till 14 April. From 13 March to 14 April GARBO’s transmitter was on the air (and the operator was listening) for a total of twenty-nine hours, and average of one hour a day. On 14 April the Mobile Units were brought into action and they reported that the GARBO transmitter operated for four hours between 14 and 19 April inclusive. In fact, it operated for over six and a half hours, and it would seem that the second frequency of the transmitter was not recorded at all. On 15 April, GARBO transmitted for two whole hours. This incident shakes my confidence completely in the power of RSS of detecting illicit wireless either in this country or anywhere else. It is disturbing since the impression was given to Findlater Stewart’s Committee and subsequently to the Cabinet that no illicit transmissions were likely to be undetected for long. Clearly, this is not the case.
The irony is, of course, that, if the Abwehr had learned about RSS’s woes, they might have understood how their agents were able to transmit undetected. Yet this was a problem MI5 had to fix, and the reputation of the XX System, and of the claim that MI5 had complete control of all possible German agents in the country, was at stake. Liddell followed up with another entry, on May 6:
I had a long talk with Sclater about the RSS exercise. Apparently the first report of Garbo’s transmitter came from Gib. This was subsequently integrated with a V.I. report. The R.S.S. fixed stations in N. Ireland and the north of Scotland took a bearing which was well wide of the mark, and although the original report came in on March 13th it was not until April 14th that sufficiently accurate bearings were obtained to warrant putting into action of the M.U.s. They were started off on an entirely inaccurate location of the target somewhere in the Guildford area. Other bearings led to greater confusion. Had it not been for the fact that the groundwave of the transmitter was then ranged with the Barnet station it is doubtful whether the transmitter would ever have been located. The final round-up was not done according to the book, i.e. by the 3 M.U.s taking bearings and gradually closing in. One M.U. got a particularly strong signal and followed it home.
By now, however, Liddell probably felt a little more confident that homeland security was tight enough. No problematic messages had been picked up by interception, and thus there were probably no clandestine agents at large, a conclusion that was reinforced by the fact that the ULTRA sources (i.e. picking up Abwehr communications about agents in the United Kingdom) still betrayed no unknown operators. Nevertheless, Liddell still harboured, as late as May 12, strong reservations about the efficacy of RSS’s operations overseas, which he shared with the philosopher Gilbert Ryle at his club. At this time, MI5 was concerned about a source named JOSEFINE, sending messages that reached the Abwehr via Stockholm. (JOSEFINE turned out to be the Swedish naval attaché in London, and his associates or successors.) But then, Liddell expressed further deep concerns, on May 27, i.e. a mere ten days before D-Day:
I had a long discussion with TAR and Victor [Rothschild] about RSS. It seemed to me that the position was eminently unsatisfactory. I could see that the picking up of an agent here was a difficult matter. If he were transmitting on ordinary H.F. at fairly frequent intervals to a fixed station on the continent in Abwehr procedure we should probably get his signals. If he were transmitting in our military procedure it was problematic whether we should get his signals. If he were transmitting in VHF it was almost certain that we should not get him. I entirely accept this as being the position but my complaint is that the problem of detecting illicit wireless from this country has never been submitted to a real body of experts, and that possibly had it been given careful study by such a body at least the present dangers might have been to some extent mitigated. Victor agreed that it might be possible to work on some automatic ether scanner which would increase the chances of picking up an agent. There might also be other possibilities, if the ground were thoroughly explored. So much for picking up the call. The next stage is to D.F. the position of the illicit transmitter. Recent experiments had shown both in the case of GARBO and in the case of an imaginery [sic] agent who was located at Whaddon, that the bearings from the fixed stations were 50-60 miles out. This being so, the margin for error on the continent would be considerably increased. We have always been given to understand that fixed stations could give a fairly accurate bearing. The effect is that unless your vans get into the ground-wave they stand very little chance of picking up the agent. The D.G. is rather anxious to take this matter up; both TAR and I are opposed to any such course. I pointed out to the D.G. that the Radio Security Committee consisted of a Chairman who knew nothing about wireless, and that he and I had no knowledge of the subject, and therefore we would all be at the mercy of Gambier-Parry who could cover us all with megacycles. The discussion would get us no where and only create bad blood. He seemed to think however that we ought to get some statement of the position particularly since I pointed out to him that if an agent were dropped we should probably pick him up in a reasonable time. The fact is that unless the aircraft tracks pin-pointed him and the police and the Home Guard did their job, we should be extremely unlikely to get our man. Technical means would give us little if any assistance. By the time a man had been located the harm would have been done.”
Some of this plaint was misguided (VHF would not have been an effective communication wavelength for a remote spy), but it shows that, despite all the self-satisfied histories that were written afterwards, RSS was in something of a shambles. Fortunately there were no ‘men’ to be got: the Abwehr had been incorporated into the SS in the spring of 1944. Canaris was dismissed, and no further wireless agents were infiltrated on to the British mainland. Liddell was probably confident, despite RSS’s complacent approach, that no unknown wireless agents were at large because intercepted ISOS messages gave no indication of such. He made one more relevant entry before D-Day, on June 3:
TAR tells me that since 12 May RSS have been picking up the signals of an agent communicating in Group 2 cypher. They have at last succeeded in getting a bearing which places the agents somewhere in Ayrshire. The vans are moving up to the Newcastle area. Two hours later, TAR told me that further bearing indicated that the agent was in Austria. So much for RSS’s powers of D.F.ing. My mind goes back to a meeting held 18 months ago when G.P. [Gambier-Parry] had the effrontery that he could D.F. a set in France down to an area of 5 sq. miles.
Did someone mishear a Scottish voice saying ‘Ayrshire’, interpreting it as ‘Austria’? We shall never know. In any case, if Liddell ever stopped to think “If we go to the utmost to ensure there are no clandestine agents reporting on the real state of things here, wouldn’t German Intelligence imagine we were doing just that?”, he never recorded such a gut-wrenching question in his Diaries.
‘Double’ or ‘Special’ Agents?
Before Bevan left London for Moscow, he attended – alongside Findlater Stewart – that last meeting of the W Board before D-Day. They heard a presentation by ‘Tar’ Robertson, who described the status of all the double agents, confirmed that he was confident that ‘the Germans believed in TRICYCE and GARBO, especially, and probably in the others’. Robertson added that ‘the agents were ready to take their part in OVERLORD’, and offered a confidence factor of 98% that the Germans trusted the majority of agents. The concluding minute of the meeting was a recommendation by Bevan that the term ‘double agents’ be avoided in any documentation, and that they be referred to as ‘special agents’, the term that appears in the title of the KV 4/70 file. A week later, Bevan was on his way to Moscow.
The reason that Bevan wanted them described as ‘special agents’ was presumably the fact that, if the term ‘double agent’ ever escaped, the nature of the double-cross deception would be immediately obvious. Yet ‘special agents’ was not going to become a durable term: all agents are special in some way, and the phrase did not accurately describe how they differed. Liddell continued to refer to ‘DAs’ in his Diaries, John Masterman promulgated the term ‘double agents’ in his influential Double Cross System (1972), and Michael Howard entrenched it in his authorised history of British Intelligence in the Second World War – Volume 5 (1990).
Shortly after Masterman’s book came out, Miles Copland, an ex-CIA officer, wrote The Real Spy World, a pragmatic guide to the world of espionage and counter-espionage. He debunked the notion of ‘double agents’, stating: “But even before the end of World War II the term ‘double agent’ was discontinued in favor of ‘controlled enemy agent’ in speaking of an agent who was entirely under our own control, capable of reporting to his original masters only as we allowed, so that he was entirely ‘single’ in his performance, and by no means ‘double’.” The point is a valid one: if an agent is described as a ‘double’, he or she could presumably be trying to work for both sides at once, even perhaps evolving into the status of a ‘triple agent’ (like ZIGZAG), which applies enormous psychological pressure on the subject, who will certainly lose any affiliation to either party, and end up simply trying to survive.
Yet ‘controlled enemy agent’ is, to me, also unsatisfactory. It implies that the agent’s primary allegiance is to the enemy, but that he or she has been ‘turned’ in some way. That might be descriptive of some SOE agents, who were captured, and tortured into handing over their cyphers and maybe forced to transmit under the surveillance of the Gestapo, but who never lost their commitment to the Allied cause (and may have eventually been shot, anyway). Nearly all the agents used in the Double Cross System had applied to the Abwehr under false pretences. They (e.g. BRUTUS, TREASURE, GARBO, TRICYCLE) intended to betray the Germans, and work for the Allied cause immediately they were installed. Of those who survived as recruits of B1A, only TATE had arrived as a dedicated Nazi. He was threatened (but not tortured) into coming to the conclusion that his survival relied on his operating under British control, and he soon, after living in the UK for a while, understood that the democratic cause was superior to the Nazi creed. SUMMER, on the other hand, to whom the same techniques were applied, refused to co-operate, and had to be incarcerated for the duration of the war.
Thus the closest analogy to the strategy of the special agents is what Kim Philby set out to do: infiltrate an ideological foe under subterfuge. But the analogy must not be pushed too far. Philby volunteered to work for an intelligence service of his democratic native country, with the goal of facilitating the attempts of a hostile, totalitarian system to overthrow the whole structure. The special agents were trying to subvert a different totalitarian organisation that had invaded their country (or constituted a threat, in the case of GARBO) in order that liberal democracy should prevail. There is a functional equivalence, but not a moral one, between the two examples. Philby was a spy and a traitor: he was definitely not a ‘double agent’, even though he has frequently been called that.
I leave the definitional matter unresolved for now. It will take a more authoritative writer to tidy up the debate. I note that the highly regarded Thaddeus Holt considers the debate ‘pedantic’, and he decided to fall back upon ‘double agent’ in his book, despite its misleading connotations.
Special Agents at Work
The events that led up to the controversial two-hour message transmitted by GARBO on June 9, highlighted in the several quotations that I presented at the beginning of this script, have been well described in several books, so I simply summarise here the aspects concerning wireless usage. For those readers who want to learn the details, Appendix XIII of Roger Hesketh’s Fortitude lists most of the contributions of British ‘controlled agents’ on the Fortitude South Order of Battle, and how they were reflected in German Intelligence Reports. Ben Macintyre’s Double Cross gives a lively account of the activities of the agents who communicated via wireless – via their B1A operators, in the main.
TATE (Wulf Schmidt) was the longest-serving of the special agents, but the requirement to develop a convincing ‘legend’ about him, in order to explain to the Abwehr how he had managed to survive for so long on alien territory, took him out of the mainstream. In October 1943, Robertson had expressed doubts as to how seriously the Germans were taking TATE, as they had sent him only fourteen messages over the past six months, and in December, the XX Committee even considered the possibility that he had been blown. Their ability to verify how TATE’s reports were being handled arose mainly because communications were passed to Berlin from Hamburg by a secure land-line, not by wireless (and thus not subject to RSS/GC&CS interception.) Indeed, Berlin believed that the whole ‘Lena Six’ (from the 1940-41 parachutist project, and whose activity as spies was planned to last only a few weeks before the impending German invasion!) were under control of the British, but the Abwehr, in a continuing pattern, were reluctant to give up on one of their own. The post-war interrogation of Major Boeckel, who trained the LENA agents in Hamburg, available at KV 2/1333, indicates that Berlin had doubts about TATE’s reliability, but that Boeckel ‘maintained contact despite warnings’. TATE provided one or two vital tidbits (such as Eisenhower’s arrival in January 1944), and by April, the XX Committee judged him safe again. In May, he was nominally ‘moved’ to Kent, ostensibly to help his employer’s farming friend, and messages were directed there from London, in case of precise location-finding. But TATE’s information about FUSAG ‘operations’ did not appear to have received much attention: TATE’s contribution would pick up again after D-Day.
The career of TREASURE (Lily Sergeyev, or Sergueiev) was more problematical. In September 1943 she had had to remind her handler, Kliemann, that she was trained in radio operation, and that she needed to advance from writing letters in secret ink. Kliemann then improbably ordered her to acquire an American-made Halicrafter apparatus in London, and then promised to supply her one passed to her. He let her down when she visited Madrid in November, so the XX Committee had to start applying pressure. They engineered a March 1944 visit by TREASURE to Lisbon, where she was provided with a wireless apparatus, and instructed on when and how to transmit, with an emphasis that the messages should be as short as possible. She returned to the UK; her transmitter was set up in Hampstead, and her first message sent on April 13. There was a burst of useful, activity for about a month or so, but, by May 17, a decision was made that TREASURE had to be dropped. She confessed to concealing from her B1A controllers the security check in her transmissions that she could have used to alert the Germans to the fact that she was operating under control: she was in a fit of pique over the death of her dog. Robertson fired her just after D-Day.
TRICYCLE (Dusko Popov) had formulated a role that allowed him to travel easily to Lisbon, but the Committee concluded that he need to communicate by wireless as well. Popov had engineered the escape to London of a fellow Yugoslav, the Marquis de Bona, in December 1943, who would become his authorized wireless operator, and Popov himself brought back to the UK the apparatus that de Bona (given the cryptonym FREAK) started using successfully in February. Useful information on dummy FUSAG movements was passed on for a while, but a cloud hung over the whole operation, as the XX Committee feared, quite justifiably, that TRICYCLE might have been blown because Popov’s contact within the Abwehr, Johnny Jebsen (ARTIST) knew enough about the project to betray the whole deception game. When Jebsen was arrested at the end of April, TRICYCLE and his network were closed down, with FREAK’s last transmission going out on May 16. TRICYCLE explained the termination in a letter written in secret ink on May 20, ascribing it to suspicions that had arisen over FREAK’s loyalties. Astonishingly, FREAK sent a final message by wireless on June 30, and the Germans’ petulant response indicated that they still trusted TRICYCLE. After the war, MI5 learned that Jebsen had been drugged and transported to Berlin, tortured and then killed, but said nothing.
The career of BRUTUS (Roman Czerniawski) was also dogged by controversy, as he had brought trouble on himself with the Polish government-in-exile, and the Poles had access to his cyphers. Again, fevered debate over his trustworthiness, and deliberation over what the Germans (and Russians) knew about him continued throughout 1943. His wireless traffic (which had been interrupted) restarted on August 25, but his handler in Paris, Colonel Reile, suspected that he might have been ‘turned’. Indeed, his transmitter was operated by a notional friend called CHOPIN, working from Richmond. By December 1943, confidence in the security of BRUTUS, and his acceptance by the Abwehr, had been restored: the Germans even succeeded in delivering him a new wireless set. Thereafter, BRUTUS grew to become the second most valuable member of the team of special agents. A regular stream of messages was sent, beginning in from February 1, culminating in an intense flow between June 5 and June 7, providing (primarily) important disinformation about troop movements in East Anglia.
Lastly, the performance of GARBO was the most significant – and the most controversial. According to Guy Liddell, GARBO had made his first contact with the Abwehr in Madrid in March 1943. GARBO had also claimed to have found a ‘friend’ who would operate the wireless for him. The Abwehr was so pleased that it immediately sent him new cyphers (invaluable to GC&CS), and, a month later, advised him how to simulate British Army callsigns, so as to avoid detection. A domestic crisis then occurred, which caused Harmer in MI5 to recommend BRUTUS as a more reliable vehicle than GARBO, but it passed, and, by the beginning of 1944 GARBO was using his transmitter to send more urgent – as well as more copious – messages. GARBO benefitted from a large network of fictional agents who supplied him with news from around the country, and his role in FORTITUDE culminated in the epic message of June 9 with which I introduced this piece.
The Aftermath
BODYGUARD was successful. The German High Command viewed the Normandy landings as a feint to distract attention from the major assault they saw coming in the Pas de Calais. They relied almost exclusively on the reports coming in from the special agents. They did not have the infrastructure, the attention span, or the expertise to interpret the deluge of phony signals that were generated as part of FORTITUDE NORTH, and they could not undertake proper reconnaissance flights across the English Channel to inspect any preparations for the assault that they knew was coming. Interrogations of German officers after the war confirmed that the ‘intelligence’ transmitted by the five agents listed above was passed on and accepted at the very highest levels. This phenomenon has to be analysed in two dimensions: the political and the technical.
The fact that the Abwehr (and its successor, the SS) were hoodwinked so easily by the substance of the messages was not perhaps surprising. To begin with, the Abwehr was a notoriously anti-Nazi organisation, and the role of its leader, Admiral Canaris, was highly ambiguous in his encouraging doubts about the loyalty of his agents to be squashed. He told his officer Jebsen (ARTIST) that ‘he didn’t care if every German agent in Britain was under control, so long as he could tell German High Command that he had agents in Britain reporting regularly.’ Every intelligence officer has an inclination to trust his recruits: if he tells his superiors that they are unreliable, he is effectively casting maledictions on his own abilities. Those who spoke up about their doubts, and pursued them, were moved out to the Russian front. The Double Cross System was addressing a serious need.
When the ineffectiveness and unreliability of the Abwehr itself was called into question, and the organisation was subsumed into the SS, the special agents came under the control of disciplinarians and military officers who did not really understand intelligence, were under enormous pressures, and thus had neither the time nor the expertise to attempt to assess properly the information that was being passed to them. They had experienced no personal involvement with the agents supposedly infiltrated into Britain. What intelligence they received sounded plausible, and appeared to form a pattern, so it was accepted and passed on.
Yet the technical aspects are more problematic. Given what the German agencies (the Sipo, Gestapo, and Abwehr) had invested in static and mobile radio-detection and location finding techniques (even though they overstated their capabilities), they should surely have asked themselves whether Great Britain would not have explored and refined similar technology. And they should have asked themselves why the British would not have exercised such capabilities to the utmost in order to conceal the order of battle, and assault plans, for the inevitable ‘invasion’ of continental Europe. Moreover, Britain was a densely populated island, homogeneous and certainly almost completely opposed to the Nazi regime, and infiltrated foreign agents must have had to experience a far more hostile and obstructive environment than, say, SOE agents of French nationality who were parachuted into a homeland that contained a large infrastructure of Allied sympathisers. Traces of such a debate in German intelligence are difficult to find. Canaris defended his network of Vertrauensmänner, and referred to ‘most intricate and elaborate electronic countermeasures’ in February 1944, but his motivations were suspect, and he was ousted immediately afterwards. Why was GARBO (especially) not picked up? How indeed could anyone transmit for so long, when such practices went against all good policies of clandestine wireless usage?
Even more astonishing is the apparent lack of recognition of the problem from the voluminous British archives. Admittedly, the challenge may have been of such magnitude that it was never actually mentioned, but one might expect at some stage the question to be raised: “How can we optimise wireless transmission practices so that it would be reasonable to assume that RSS would not be able to pick them up?” That would normally require making the messages as brief as possible, switching wavelengths, and changing locations – all in order to elude the resolute mobile location-finding units. That was clearly a concern in the early days of the war, with agent SNOW, when B1A even asked SNOW to inquire of his handler, Dr. Rantzau (Ritter) whether it was safe for SNOW always to transmit from the same place. Rantzau replied in the affirmative, reflecting the state-of-the-art in 1940. But progress had been made by the Germans, especially in light of the arrival of SOE wireless agents, and the XX Committee must have known this.
Yet, four years later, all that the XX Committee and B1a appeared to do was allow GARBO to emulate British military traffic. And they showed a completely cavalier attitude to the problem of time on the air by allowing GARBO to compose his ridiculously windy messages. After all, if they were sharp enough to ensure that signals emanated from a location roughly where the agent was supposed to be, in case German direction-finders were on the prowl, why would they not imagine that the Germans were contemplating the reciprocal function of RSS? It was even more comprehensively dumb than the Abwehr’s credulous distancing from the problem.
Did MI5 try to communicate to the Abwehr the notion that RSS was useless? Guy Liddell confided his doubts about the apparently feeble tracking of GARBO only to his diary, so, unless the Abwehr had a spy in the bowels of RSS, and a method of getting information back to Germany, that would have been an impossible task. Perhaps some messages from the special agents indicating that they were close to being hunted down, but always managed to escape, would have given a measure of verisimilitude, indicating the existence of a force, but a very ineffective one. The behaviour of B1A, however, in reusing transmission sites, while paying lip-service to the location-finding capabilities of the foe, but allowing absurdly long transmissions to take place, simply denies belief. The utterly unnecessary but studied non-observance of basic protocols was highly unprofessional, and should have caused the whole scaffolding of deceit to collapse. It is extraordinary that so many historians and analysts have hinted at this debacle, but never analyzed it in detail.
In conclusion, the mystery of the Undetected Radios was not a puzzle of how they remained undetected, but of why both the Abwehr and MI5 both considered it reasonable that they could flourish unnoticed for so long, and behave so irresponsibly. Findlater Stewart’s 1946 history of RSS – which helped set the agenda for the unit during the Cold War – proves that he did not really understand the technology or the issues. What all this implies for the Communist agent Sonia’s transmissions (around which this whole investigation started) will be addressed in a final report that will constitute the concluding chapter of Sonia’s Radio and The Mystery of the Undetected Radios.
I recall, back in the early 1960s, seeing advertisements in the Daily Telegraph for a charity identifying itself as the Distressed Gentlefolk’s Aid Association. They showed an elderly couple, a rather tweedy gentleman of military bearing, and his elegant wife, who probably had worn pearls at some stage, but could no longer afford them. (The image I show above is a similar exhibit.) These were presumably persons of good ‘breeding’ who had fallen on undeserved hard times. The organization asked the readership to contribute to the maintenance and well-being of such persons.
I found these appeals
rather quaint, even then, and asked myself why ‘gentlefolk’ should have been
singled out as especially worthy of any handouts. After all, such terminology
had a vaguely mid-Victorian ring: I must have been thinking of Turgenev’s ‘Nest
of Gentry’, which I had recently read. Moreover, were there not more
meritorious examples of the struggling poor? Perhaps I had Ralph MacTell’s
‘Streets of London’ ringing in my head [No. It was not released until 1969.
Ed.], although I was never able to work out why, if the bag-lady celebrated
by this noted troubadour (who, like me, grew up in Croydon in the 1950s) was
lonely, ‘she’s no time for talking, she just keeps right on walking’. Was she
perhaps fed up with being accosted in the street by long-haired minstrels
wielding guitars?
But I digress. It was more probable that I had been influenced by the lunch monitor at my school dining-table, the much-loved and now much-missed John Knightly, who would later become Captain of the School. I recall how he, with Crusader badge pinned smartly on his lapel, would admonish those of us who struggled to complete our rather gristly stew by reminding us of ‘the starving millions in China’. I felt like telling him that he could take the remnants of the lunch of one particular Distressed Fourth-Former and send them off to Chairman Mao, but somehow the moment passed without my recommendation being made.
I thought about that
institution as I was preparing this piece. I have warned readers of coldspur
that I would eventually be offering an analysis of the phenomenon of
Liverpool University as the Home for Distressed Spies, and here it is. It
analyses the predicament that MI5 and the civil authorities found themselves in
when they had clear evidence that Soviet spies were in their midst, but,
because of the nature of the evidence, believed that they could not prosecute
without a confession.
The
accounts of the interviews, interrogations and suspicions surrounding some of
the atom scientists (Pontecorvo, Peierls, Fuchs, Skinner, Skyrme, Davison) in
Britain after the war display a puzzled approach to policy by the officers at the
AERE (Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell) and at MI5. If such
suspects were believed to have pro-Soviet sympathies, they could not be encouraged,
on account of the knowledge they possessed about atomic power and weaponry, to
consider escaping to the Soviet Union. On the one hand, it would have been
difficult to prosecute those whose guilt was hardly in doubt (i.e. Fuchs and
Pontecorvo), as it would require gaining a confession from them, and, on the
other, the sensitivity of the sources (the VENONA decrypts, and a lost item of
intelligence, respectively) would prohibit such evidence being used in a trial.
In Fuchs’s case, some senior figures in MI5 (Percy Sillitoe, the
Director-General, and Dick White, head of counter-espionage) were keen on
trying to gain a confession, and prosecuting. Liddell of MI5 (Sillitoe’s
deputy), in conjunction with Harwell’s chief, John Cockcroft, and Henry Arnold,
the security officer, wanted to shift Fuchs and Pontecorvo quietly off to a
regional university. Liverpool University loomed largest in this scenario.
I
have decided to work backwards generally in this account, before advancing to
the connection between the controversial role of Herbert Skinner, and how he
eventually exerted an influence on the removal of the mysterious Boris Davison.
I believe it will be more revealing to display gradually the undeclared knowledge
that affected the decisions, misleading briefings and reports that emanated
from Guy Liddell and his brother-officers at MI5, and from other civil servants
at Harwell, and at the Ministry of Supply, to which AERE reported.
The
Dramatis Personae(primarily in 1950, when most of the
action occurs):
At
the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell:
Cockcroft Director
Arnold Security
officer
Skinner Assistant
director; Head of Theoretical Physics division
Fuchs Scientist
Pontecorvo Scientist
Davison Scientist
Buneman Scientist
Flowers Scientist
The
Men from the Ministries:
Attlee Prime
Minister
Portal
Controller of Production, Atomic Energy, at the Ministry
of Supply
Perrin Deputy
to Portal
Appleton Permanent
Secretary, Department for Scientific and Industrial Research
Makins Deputy
Under-Secretary of State, Foreign Office
Bridges Permanent
Secretary to the Treasury, and Head of Civil Service
Rowlands
Permanent
Secretary, Ministry of Supply
Cherwell Paymaster-General (1953)
At
MI5:
Sillitoe Director
Liddell Assistant
Director
White Head
of B Division (counter-espionage)
Hollis B1
Mitchell B1E (Hollis’s deputy)
Robertson
J. C. Head of B2
Robertson,
T. A. R. B3 (retired in 1948)
Marriott B3
Serpell PA
to Sillitoe
Skardon B2A
Reed B2A
Archer B2A
Collard C2A
Morton C2A
Hill Solicitor
Bligh Solicitor
At
the Universities:
Mountford Vice-Chancellor,
Liverpool University
Chadwick Master
of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
Oliphant Professor
at Birmingham University
Peierls Professor
at Birmingham University
Massey Professor at University College, London
Rotblat Professor at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London
Fröhlich Professor
at Liverpool University
Frisch Professor at Trinity College, Cambridge
Flowers Researcher at Birmingham University
Pryce Professor at Clarendon Laboratories
The
Journalists:
Pincher Daily Express
Stubbs-Walker Daily Mail
Moorehead Daily Express
Rodin Sunday Express
Maule Empire News
West New York Times
De Courcy Intelligence Digest
Various
wives, mistresses, girl-friends and spear-carriers
Contents:
Bruno Pontecorvo at Harwell
Machinations at Liverpool
Klaus Fuchs at Harwell
Fuchs’s Interrogations
Herbert Skinner at Harwell
Skinner’s Removal?
Skinner’s Ventures into Journalism
Boris Davison – from Leningrad to Harwell
Boris Davison – after Attlee
Conclusions
Bruno Pontecorvo at Harwell
Bruno Pontecorvo
Bruno Pontecorvo’s journey to Harwell was an unusual one. An Italian who worked with Joliot-Curie in Paris, he had escaped from France with his Swedish wife and their son in July 1940, in the nick of time before the Nazis overran the country. After some strenuous efforts visiting consulates and embassies to gain the necessary papers, he and his family gained a sea passage to the USA on the strength of a job offer from his Italian colleague Emilio Segrè in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
In
the autumn of 1942, Pontecorvo was invited by Hans Halban to interview for a
position with the British nuclear physics team working in Montreal. He was
approved in December 1942, and was inducted into Tube Alloys, the British
atomic weapons project, in New York, the following month. He was a success in
Canada, and, after Halban’s demotion and subsequent return to Europe, worked
closely with Nunn May on the Zero Energy Experimental Pile (ZEEP) project. Yet,
as the war came to a close, Pontecorvo began to feel the anti-communist climate
in Canada and the United States oppressive to him. In late 1945, with Igor Gouzenko
and Elizabeth Bentley revealing the breadth and depth of the Soviet espionage network,
he was happy to receive an informal job offer from John Cockcroft, who had been
appointed head of the Atomic Energy Research Establishment at Harwell, which
was to open on January 1, 1946. Chadwick, who had led the British mission to
the Manhattan Project from Washington, had imposed travel restrictions on Pontecorvo,
but the Italian was able to negotiate a satisfactory deal by the end of January
1946. Despite competitive offers from several prestigious US companies, he made
his decision to join Harwell.
Yet,
very strangely, Pontecorvo did not start work for three more years, continuing
to operate in Montreal, and even travelling to Europe in the interim. In
February 1948, he became a British citizen, to assuage government concerns
about aliens working on sensitive projects. On January 24, 1949, he left Chalk
River in Ontario for the last time, and officially started work at Harwell on
February 1. An entry in his file at The National Archives, however, indicates
that he was, rather late in the day, ‘nominated for a position at Harwell’, on
July 7 of that year. Astonishingly, the record indicates that Pontecorvo was
‘confirmed in his appointment as S.P.S.O. [Senior Principal Scientific Officer]
and established’ only on January 2, 1950! (KV 2/1888-2, s.n. 97c.)
It
was not until October 1950, when Pontecorvo disappeared with his family during
a holiday on the Continent, that Liddell made his first diary entry – at least,
of those that have survived redactions – concerning Pontecorvo. As the record
for October 21 states: “On
information that had been received xxxxxxxxx in March of this year, intimating
that PONTECORVO and his wife were avowed Communists, a decision was reached,
after an interrogation of PONTECORVO by Henry Arnold, when the former admitted
to having Communist relations – to get rid of him and find some employment for
him at Liverpool University.” Yet Liddell thus implies that he (or MI5) learned
of Pontecorvo’s unreliability only in March 1950, and his memorandum reinforces
the notion that it was primarily the security officer Arnold’s idea to
accommodate Pontecorvo at Liverpool University, even though the news had apparently
come as a surprise to Arnold back in March.
Liddell
was being deliberately deceptive. As early as December 15, 1949, (see KV
2/1288, s.n. 97A, as Frank Close reports in Half-Life, his biography of Pontecorvo),
the FBI sent a report to MI5, dated December 15, that identified Pontecorvo’s
links to Communism. As Close writes: ‘MI5 took note. Someone highlighted the
above paragraph in Pontecorvo’s file’, but Close then asserts that MI5 did
nothing, as they were consumed with the Fuchs case at the time. On February 10, 1950, however, another clearer
warning arrived, when Robert Thornton of the US Atomic Energy Commission, on a
visit to a Harwell conference, informed John Cockcroft that Pontecorvo and his
family were Communists, repeating specifically the formal report from December.
A vital conclusion must be that, if this visitor from the USA had not been
invited to the conference, Cockcroft might never have learned about the project
already in place to remove Pontecorvo.
Pontecorvo
had in fact left behind him a trail of hints concerning his political
allegiances. He had joined the French Communist Party on August 23, 1939, the
day the Nazi-Soviet pact was signed. In July 1940, MI5 knew enough about him to
judge him as ‘mildly unsuitable’ for acceptance as an escapee to Britain. In
September, 1942, FBI agents had inspected his house in Tulsa (while Pontecorvo
was away), and discovered communist literature there. After Pontecorvo’s
application to join Tube Alloys, the FBI had exchanged correspondence with
British Security Control (which represented MI5 and MI6 in the United States),
concerning Pontecorvo’s loyalties. The FBI was able to confirm, after
Pontecorvo’s flight, that it had sent letters to BSC on March 2, 16, and 19
but, inexplicably, BSC had issued him a security clearance on March 3, and had failed
to follow up.
Alarmed
by Thornton’s warning (having been kept in the dark by his own security officer
and MI5), Cockcroft instructed Arnold to look into the matter. Arnold accordingly
spoke to Pontecorvo, elicited information from him, and was able to inform MI5,
by telephone call on March 1, that Pontecorvo was ‘an active communist’. (On
the same day, Collard of C2A reported that Arnold’s conversation with
Pontecorvo was ‘recent’: KV 2/1887, s.n. 20A.) Yet Arnold added more. He told
MI5 that Pontecorvo had recently before been offered a job at the University of
Liverpool, and that Pontecorvo’s acceptance of that offer would rid Harwell of
a security risk. Again, this news goes unrecorded in Liddell’s diaries at the
time.
But
is this not extraordinary? What does ‘recently’ mean? If Arnold learned of the
Liverpool job offer from Pontecorvo himself, when had it been arranged? And was
this not extremely early for Pontecorvo to be seeking employment elsewhere?
Given the long gestation period preceding the confirmation of Pontecorvo’s post
at Harwell, would this not have provoked some high-level discussion? After all,
Pontecorvo had been ‘established’ a couple of weeks after the original
warning from the FBI. And who would have made the offer? Liverpool University
is associated in the archives most closely with Herbert Skinner, but, as will be
shown, Skinner was not yet established in a position of authority and influence
at Liverpool. He had been formally appointed, but was not yet working full-time,
as he was still executing his job as Cockcroft’s deputy at Harwell. Some senior
academic figures should surely have been involved in the decision, especially
the Vice-Chancellor, Sir James Mountford.
This
aspect of the case has been strangely overlooked by Pontecorvo’s biographers,
Frank Close, and Simone Turchetti. Both mention the fact that Pontecorvo had
first indicated the fact of the Liverpool offer to Arnold on March 1, but do
not follow up why it would have been made so early in the cycle, or investigate
the earlier sequence of events, or even ask why Pontecorvo was informing Arnold
of the fact. Had someone revealed to Pontecorvo that incriminating stories were
floating around about his political beliefs, and had officers at Liverpool
University come to some sort of unofficial agreement with the authorities at
the Ministry of Supply and MI5 – but not Arnold or Cockcroft – since December? It
is difficult to imagine an alternative scenario. Thus it is much more likely
that MI5 did act in December, when they first received the report, but
made no record of the fact.
Turchetti
does in fact report that, in January 1950, i.e. well before the
Arnold-Cockcroft exchanges, Herbert Skinner ‘asked Pontecorvo to join him at
Liverpool, believing that he was the ideal candidate to lead experimental
activities’, as if this would be a normal and smooth career progression. (I
shall explore Skinner’s split role between Harwell and Liverpool later.) Turchetti does not, however, follow up on the
implications of these early negotiations. For, as I suggested earlier, this
would have been a very sudden transfer, given Pontecorvo’s official
confirmation on the Harwell post earlier that month. Moreover, this item does
not appear in the files at the National Archives. It comes from a statement
made by the Vice-Chancellor at Liverpool, Sir James Mountford, which seriously
undermines MI5’s claim that it was not aware of the seriousness of the exposure
until February 1950. Pontecorvo, incidentally, also had the
chutzpah around this time to request a promotion at Harwell, which was promptly
rejected.
Machinations
at Liverpool
Sir James Mountford
I acquired a copy of Mountford’s statement from Liverpool University. [By courtesy of the Liverpool University Library: 255/6/5/5/6 – Notes on Bruno Pontecorvo by James Mountford.]
It
was sent by the Vice-Chancellor to Professor Tilley, in September 1978.
Mountford explains that, after Sir James Chadwick in the spring of 1948 vacated
the physics chair to accept the Mastership of Gonville and Caius College,
Cambridge, the university was faced with the problem of finding a suitable
candidate to replace him, with the added sensitivity that, if the right person
were not selected, the nuclear project might be transferred to Glasgow. The
challenge required some diligent networking by the experts in this field.
The
first choice for Chadwick’s replacement was Sir Harrie Massey, the Australian Professor
of Applied Mathematics at University College, London, who had had a
distinguished war record, working lastly on isotope separation for the
Manhattan Project at the University of California. (Mountford indicated that Massey was
Professor of Physics, but he was in fact not appointed Quain Professor of
Physics until 1950.) Massey ‘reluctantly’ declined the offer, so the team from
Liverpool had a meeting on January 26, 1949, with Professor Oliphant of
Birmingham (to whom Massey had reported at Berkeley), Chadwick, and Sir Edward
Appleton, the Secretary of the Department for Scientific and Industrial
Research (DSIR). They decided upon W. H. B. Skinner of Harwell. Herbert Skinner
headed the physics section there: he also had experience on the Manhattan
Project, as he had worked with Massey on isotope separation at Berkeley.
There
is, oddly, no discussion by the team of Skinner’s merits, nor even the
suggestion of a process for interviewing Skinner, or asking him about his plans
and objectives, or whether he even wanted the job. Cockcroft does not seem to
have been consulted on his willingness to release his second-in-command so soon
after the latter’s appointment. This must be considered as highly provocative
and controversial, given Skinner’s role as Cockcroft’s deputy, and what Mountford
wrote about the importance of the position, and I shall explore the rationale
in detail later in this article. The note merely states: “He accepted and took
up duties formally in Oct. 1949.” Moreover,
Andrew Brown, in his biography of Joseph Rotblat, states that Rotblat had been
appointed joint acting head of the physics department at Liverpool in October
1948, before resigning in March 1949. That happened to be just after the speedy
decision in favour of Skinner, but Skinner does not even merit a mention in
Brown’s book. * Did Rotblat perhaps think that his close friend Chadwick should
have championed his cause instead of Skinner’s? Maybe he simply regarded the
prospect of working under Skinner intolerable. Or perhaps he was asked to move
aside to make room for a Harwell transferee?
[*
Rotblat obtained a Ph.D., his second, from Liverpool in 1950. It seems that the
Ph.D. was awarded after he moved to London.]
According
to what Mountford claimed, Rotblat moved to St. Bartholomew’s Medical School
not out of pique at Skinner’s appointment, but because of his dislike of
military applications of nuclear science. Again, Mountford’s judgment (or
memory) should be challenged. Rotblat had voiced his objections to the military
uses of the science back in 1944, when it became apparent that the Germans
would not be successful in building such a bomb. He had moved to Liverpool,
which was constructing a cyclotron to aid applications for energy, was
appointed Director of Research for Nuclear Physics at the university, and was
Chairman of the Cyclotron Panel of the UK Nuclear Physics Committee from 1946
to 1950. He had thus had several years to have considered any objections to
working there.
Irrespective
of the exact circumstances concerning Rotblat’s departure, and whether he felt
rebuffed, Skinner, on taking up his duties, raised the question of replacing
Rotblat, and ‘the idea emerged’ of a second chair in Experimental Physics. Turchetti
indicates, more boldly, that Skinner ‘dictated’ that the Faculty of Sciences
agree to establish a professorship, as this would be the status that Pontecorvo
demanded. Yet it is not clear where Turchetti gathered this insight, and it is
not precisely dated. Mountford gives October 1949 as the time Skinner assumed
his duties. Even if one considers it unlikely that a recruit not yet
established would be able to make demands of that nature, if Skinner did indeed
identify and recommend Pontecorvo that early, two months before the
disclosures ofDecember 1949, it would have very serious implications,
suggesting that MI5 and the Ministry already had reservations about the
naturalised Italian. And, even in December 1949-January 1950, Skinner’s approaching
Pontecorvo without informing his boss, Cockcroft, would have been highly
irregular. Mountford may have been putting a positive gloss on the affair, but
it now sounds as if undisclosed pressure was being applied from other quarters.
In
any case (again, according to Mountford) the Faculty responded by agreeing, in
principle, to approve the chair ‘if a satisfactory person were available’. The
outcome was that Mountford lunched with Skinner and Pontecorvo on January 18,
1950, i.e. a month before the fateful visit of the American Thornton. Pontecorvo,
according to Turchetti, was, however, not very impressed with Liverpool. (And
his highly strung Swedish wife, Marianne, would have been very uncomfortable
there: the wife of one of my on-line colleagues, a woman who hails from
Sheffield, asserts that there was not much to choose between Moscow and
Liverpool at that time.) Alan Moorehead wrote that Mrs. Pontecorvo visited the
city, but was ‘worried about the cold in the north’ – so unlike her native
Stockholm, one imagines. The Chairs Committee then spent three months or so
collecting information about the candidate. Mountford had meanwhile spoken to
Chadwick, who had doubts whether Pontecorvo could stand up to Skinner’s
‘forceful personality’. A formal interview with Pontecorvo eventually took
place, but not until June 6, 1950. He did not overall impress, however, partly
because of his poor English. Yet the committee overcame its reservations, and
Pontecorvo would later accept the position, with January 1951 set as the date
on which he would assume duties.
Mountford’s
description of events as a smooth series is a travesty of what was really going
on. Given what happened between January and June, Pontecorvo’s apparent freedom
to accept or reject the offer in June was an unlikely outcome. First of all, in
March, Pontecorvo had given Arnold the impression he had already received a
firm offer, a claim belied by Mountford’s account. At this stage, Pontecorvo apparently
did not respond to it, however vague and undocumented. Later that month,
however, further damaging evidence against him came from Sweden via MI6 (a
communication that was surely not passed on to Mountford). A letter from MI6 to
the famous Sonia-watcher J.H. Marriott, in B2, dated March 2, 1950, describes
Pontecorvo and his wife as ‘avowed Communists’. This revelation applied more pressure
on MI5 and the Ministry of Supply to remove Pontecorvo from Harwell. The
outcome was that, on April 6 (KV/2 -1887, s.n. 26) Arnold was again
recommending that ‘it would be a good thing if he were able to obtain a post at
one of the British universities’, even boosting the suggestion that ‘we might
continue to avail ourselves of his undoubted ability as consultant in limited
fields.’ The naivety displayed is amazing: Klaus Fuchs had just been sentenced to
fourteen years for espionage activities.
Furthermore,
Arnold added that Pontecorvo, after denying that he was a Communist, but admitting
that he was assuredly a man of the Left, ‘has already toyed with the idea of an
appointment in Rome University, and is at present turning over in his mind an
offer which has come to him from America.’ The latter must have been an
enormous bluff: given the FBI report, the United States would have been the
last place to admit him for employment. This truth of his allegiance was soon
confirmed, with matters became more embarrassing in July. Geoffrey Patterson in
Washington then wrote to Sillitoe informing him that the FBI had learned of
Pontecorvo’s working at Harwell, and had indicated that they had sent messages
to Washington (and maybe London) on three occasions in 1943 describing
Pontecorvo’s communist affiliations. The messages may have been destroyed,
among the files of British Security Co-ordination, after the war. In
Washington, as MI6’s representative, Kim Philby (of all people) could not trace
them – or so he said. MI5 apparently had no record of them.
If
the dons at Liverpool had been briefed on all that had happened, they
presumably would have been even more reluctant to take Pontecorvo on. Yet, the
more dangerous Pontecorvo seemed to be, the more MI5 wanted to plant him at
Liverpool. Using FO 371/84837 and correspondence held in the Liverpool
University Library, as well as the Pontecorvo papers at Churchill College, (none
of which I have personally inspected), Turchetti writes: “From the spring of
1950, Skinner used his recent security investigations to put pressure on his
colleague to accept the new position. He also convinced the university’s
administrators of Pontecorvo’s suitability without making them aware of the
ongoing inquiry.” In addition, with ammunition from Roger Makins from the
Ministry of Supply, Skinner had to wear down objections from university
administrators that Pontecorvo was improperly qualified to teach. Skinner was
clearly receiving instructions from his political masters.
Chadwick
and Cockcroft acted as referees for Pontecorvo, but they could hardly be
assessed as objective, given their involvement in the plot. Chadwick pondered
over whether he should confide in Mountford with the awful facts, and wrote to
him that he would discuss the university’s concerns with Cockcroft, but he did
not follow up. And then, when the final offer was reluctantly made on June 6,
Pontecorvo vacillated, requesting another month to consider. On July 24, the
day before he left on holiday, never to return, he wrote to Mountford,
accepting the offer, and stating that he expected to start work after
Christmas, when he would leave Harwell.
On
October 23, 1950, Liddell had an interview with Prime Minister Attlee. He
glossed over the FBI/BSC issue without giving it a date, and referred solely to
the Swedish source of March 2 as evidence of Pontecorvo’s communism,
conveniently overlooking both the events of December 1949 and February 1950.
All this is confirmed by his memorandum of the meeting on file (KV 2/1887, s.n.
63A). MI5 had been attempting a reconstruction of
Pontecorvo’s activities (KV 2/1288, s.n. 87C), which presumably fed Liddell’s
intelligence. This account (undated, but probably in July or August 1950) omits
both the warning from the FBI in December 1949 (which is confirmed elsewhere in
the file), as well as the information given to Cockcroft at the beginning of
March 1950. It does concentrate, however, on the information from Sweden,
reporting on the discussions that occurred in the following terms: “D.
At. En. [Perrin, at Department of Atomic Energy] decided not to grant
PONTECORVO’s request for promotion and to encourage him to take up the post
offered him at Liverpool by Professor Skinner. This was arranged only after
considerable discussion.” Pontecorvo was thus allowed to leave on vacation in
July without submitting his resignation or formally being taken off Harwell’s
books. And he never returned.
Yet
his whole saga eerily echoes what had happened in a collapsed time-frame with
Klaus Fuchs.
Klaus
Fuchs at Harwell
Klaus Fuchs
Fuchs’s path to Harwell was slightly less erratic, but also controversial. He had been recruited to Tube Alloys, the British codename for atomic weapons research, in 1941, and had moved to the USA at the end of 1943 to work on the Manhattan Project. In June 1946 he was summoned from Los Alamos to head the Theoretical Physics Division at Harwell, working under Herbert Skinner. Skinner had been the first divisional head appointed at Harwell. Fuchs was appointed chairman of the Power Steering Committee at Harwell, and Pontecorvo joined the committee later.
What is extraordinary about Fuchs’s return to the UK is that the first that MI5 learned about it was when Arnold, the security officer, wrote to MI5, in October 1946, about his suspicions that Fuchs might be a communist. He might well have gained his intelligence from Skinner himself, who had known Fuchs from the time they both worked at Bristol University in the 1930s. The political climate by this stage meant that embryonic ‘purge’ procedures (which were solidified in May 1947) would have to be applied to such figures working in sensitive posts. Frank Close, in Trinity, covers very thoroughly these remarkable few months at the end of 1946, when MI5 officers openly voiced their concerns that Fuchs might be a spy. Michael Serpell and Joe Archer (Jane Archer’s husband) were most energetic in advising that Fuchs should be kept away from any work on atomic energy or weapons research. Rudolf Peierls came under suspicion, too, but Roger Hollis countered with a strong statement that it was highly unlikely that the two were engaged in espionage, and gained support in his judgment from Dick White and Graham Mitchell.
The
next three years were thus a very nervous time for MI5 and Arnold, as they kept
a watch on Fuchs’s movements and associations. Yet Fuchs was placed on ‘permanent
establishment’ in August 1948, and Arnold was later to claim, deceitfully, that
Fuchs came under suspicion only in that year, when he was observed speaking
intently to a known communist at a conference. The matter came to a head,
however, in 1949, when the decipherment of VENONA transcripts led the
Washington analysts to narrow down the identity of the spy CHARLES to either
Fuchs or Peierls. Guy Liddell indicates that fact as early as August 9: at the
end of August, the FBI formally told MI5 of its belief that the leak pointed to
Fuchs (because of the visit to his sister in Boston).
MI5
immediately started making connections. It alerted MI6 to the Fuchs case, and to
his Communist brother, Gerhard. (Maurice Oldfield had told Kim Philby of the
discovery before the latter left London for Washington in September 1949.) MI5
identified the close relationship between the Skinners and Fuchs. A report by
J. C. Robertson (B2A) of September 9 (after a meeting between Arnold, Collard,
Skardon and Robertson) runs as follows: “Although FUCHS’ address has until
recently been Lacies Court, Abingdon, he has in fact rarely lived there, but
has chosen to sleep more often than not with his close friends the SKINNERS at
Harwell. He is on more than usually intimate terms with Mrs. SKINNER. The
SKINNERS will be leaving in about six months for Liverpool, where SKINNER
himself is to take up the chair about to be vacated [sic!] by Sir James
Chadwick. At present, SKINNER devotes his time about half and half to Liverpool
and Harwell.”
Robertson
went on to write that Professor Peierls was also a regular visitor at the
Skinners, and that Fuchs was in addition very friendly with Otto Frisch of
Cambridge University. (Frisch, the co-author, with Rudolf Peierls, of the
famous memorandum that showed the feasibility of building a nuclear weapon, had
moved to Liverpool from Birmingham, where Peierls worked, and had been
responsible for the development of the cyclotron developed there. Yet, after
the war, he had taken up work at Harwell as head of the Nuclear Physics
Division, before moving to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1947.) At Harwell, Arnold
alone was in on the investigation: Cockcroft was not to be told yet of what was
going on.
This
is an intriguing document, by virtue of what it hints at, and what it gets
wrong. The suggestion that Fuchs is having an affair with Erna Skinner is very
strong, and the mention of Herbert’s long absences in Liverpool indicates the
opportunities for Fuchs and Erna to carry on their liaison. Yet the transition
of the Liverpool chair remains confusing: Chadwick had moved to Cambridge in
1948; Mountford noted that Skinner had taken up his duties in October 1949, but
also referred (well in retrospect) that there had been an interregnum in the
Physics position for a year, from March 1948 to March 1949. Robertson indicates
that the Skinners will not be moving until about March 1950. Skinner’s own file
at the National Archives informs us that he did not resign from Harwell until
April 14, 1950, which was a very late decision, suggesting perhaps that his preferences
had lain with staying at Harwell as long as possible, and that he might even
have had aspirations of restoring his career there. The files suggest that his
duties at Harwell remained substantial well into 1950. A report by J. C.
Robertson of B2A, dated March 9, 1950, describes Skinner as follows: ’. . .
deputy to Sir John Cockcroft and who has temporarily taken over Fuchs’ post as
head of the Theoretical Physics Division at Harwell’. Skinner then continued to
work in a consultative capacity at Harwell: he wrote to the incarcerated Fuchs
as late as December 20, 1950 that ‘we are definitely at Liverpool but go on
visits to Harwell quite often.’ How could Skinner perform that job if he was
spending so much his time in Liverpool? In any case, it was an exceedingly long
and drawn-out period of dual responsibilities for Skinner.
Fuchs’s
Interrogations
Jim Skardon
Armed with their confidential VENONA intelligence, MI5 prepared for the interrogation of Fuchs, but were not initially hopeful of gaining a successful confession. Thus the thorny question of what they could collectively do to ‘eliminate’ him (in their clumsy expression) quickly arose. Fuchs might decide to flee the country, which would be disastrous, as his Moscow bosses would be able to pick his brains without any restrictions. Liddell continued the theme, showing his enthusiasm for a softer approach against his boss’s more prosecutorial instincts. Liddell doubted that interrogations would be successful in eliciting a confession from Fuchs, and, as early as October 31, 1949, he was suggesting ‘alternative employment’, though being overruled by Sillitoe. At this stage, Peierls and Fuchs were both under investigation, but Liddell was gaining confidence that Fuchs was ‘their man’. (Peierls had come under suspicion in August since he also had a sister in the United States, but he was soon eliminated from the inquiry.)
On
November 28, Liddell noted that he was still thinking in terms of finding
another job for Fuchs, and on December 5, he tried to convince Perrin that the
chances of a conviction were remote, saying that ‘efforts should be made to
explore the ground for alternative work’. At a meeting to discuss Fuchs on
December 15, 1949 (see Close, p 255), Perrin ‘commented that Herbert Skinner
was about to move to Liverpool University, and that a transfer of Fuchs to
Liverpool might be arranged through Skinner, who would probably welcome Fuchs’
presence there.’ (Perrin was presumably unaware then of the Erna Skinner-Klaus
Fuchs liaison.) It seems that the notion of parking Fuchs specifically at Liverpool
University was first aired at this time. (Note that this is exactly the same date when
MI5 learned about Pontecorvo from the FBI.) When Jim Skardon managed to get
Fuchs to make a partial confession on December 21, Liddell was still considering finding him ‘some job at some
University compatible with his qualifications’.
After another interrogation of Fuchs, on
December 30, Liddell met the Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, on January 2,
1950, and informed him of MI5’s resolve to complete the interrogations. Even
Lord Portal (head of Atomic Energy at the Ministry of Supply) was in general harmony,
although reportedly bearing the more cautious opinion that ‘the security risk
of maintaining FUCHS at Harwell could not be accepted, and that some post
should be found for him at one of the Universities’. Attlee seemed ready to
accept Portal’s recommendation. Yet two important players had yet to be brough
into the plot: Cockcroft and Skinner.
When
Cockcroft became involved, matters took an alarmingly different turn. Cockcroft
asked Skinner, on January 4, whether he could find a place for Fuchs at
Liverpool. This would suggest that, unless a deep feint was being played,
Skinner was not aware of the clandestine efforts to dispose of Fuchs, as his
depositions to Liverpool had hitherto been made with Pontecorvo in mind.
Skinner must surely have been bemused, and must have asked why such a step was
being considered. Cockcroft probably said more than he should have. (Cockcroft
had the irritating habit of concealing his opinions in meetings with his
subordinates, and then showing disappointment when his intentions were not
read, but then talking too much in one-on-one conversations.) On January 10, Cockcroft met with Fuchs and
Skinner, separately. Cockcroft told Fuchs ‘that he would help him find a
university post and suggested that Professor Skinner might be able to take
Fuchs on at Liverpool’. It also reinforces the fact that Cockcroft had not been
brought into the Pontecorvo affair. Astonishingly, all the time up until March
1, Skinner was negotiating with Pontecorvo and Mountford behind Cockcroft’s
back, while Cockcroft was pressing Skinner (up until Fuchs’s confession on
January 24) to place Fuchs at Liverpool without bringing Skinner into the full
picture.
Whether Skinner learned about Cockcroft’s offer
to Fuchs from Cockcroft or Erna is not clear, but MI5 reported that Skinner
learned ‘considerably more about the Fuchs affair than he is authorized to know’,
and (as Close writes), ‘in consequence decided to take steps to ensure that
Fuchs stayed at Harwell’. Given the circumstances, this was not surprising.
Skinner already had been promoting Pontecorvo’s case, and because of Erna,
would surely have preferred that Fuchs stayed at Harwell. So much for Skinner
as the enabler of graceful retirement, but he had been placed in an impossible
position. He had been thrust into the middle of these
negotiations, perhaps reluctantly. In the course of one month (January 1950),
Cockcroft applied pressure on him to accept Fuchs at Liverpool, Skinner next
privately tried to talk Fuchs out of the move, and then, even before Fuchs made
his confession, Skinner met with Mountford and Pontecorvo to consider a
position for Pontecorvo at the University. It did not appear that his bosses at
Harwell and the Ministry of Supply were behaving very sensitively to his own
needs. At the same time, they were very anxious to make sure that Skinner kept
to himself anything he may have learned about the predicament that Fuchs – and
the authorities – were in.
Here
also occurred the highly questionable incident of ‘inducement’, highlighted by Nancy
Thorndike Greenspan in her recent biography of Fuchs, whereby Cockcroft
essentially offered Fuchs a free pass if he co-operated, stressing that the
recent appointment of Fuchs’s father to a position in East Germany made Klaus’s
employment at Harwell untenable. Cockcroft also famously suggested that
Adelaide University might be an alternative home, a suggestion which left Dick
White and Percy Sillitoe aghast. Adelaide University happened to be the alma
mater of Mark Oliphant, who had been a colleague of Peierls at Birmingham, and
had also worked on isotope separation at Berkeley. (These connections go deep.)
Oliphant’s biographical record suggests that he returned to Australia after the
war, yet he is recorded by Mountford as attending the fateful meeting in
January 1949 to decide on Skinner as Chadwick’s successor. No ground appeared
to have been prepared for this idea, and the incident, while suggesting Cockcroft’s
political naivety, also hints that Oliphant had been brought into the
discussions some time before. MI5 struggled with the challenge of trying to
coordinate the roles of Arnold, Skinner and Cockcroft, all with different
needs, perspectives, and all being granted only a partial side of the story.
On
January 11, Liverpool University decided to recommend the establishment of a
second chair in Physics: perhaps Mountford was not yet aware that he was about
to face two candidates for one position. On January 18, Skinner brought
Pontecorvo up for a meeting with Mountford. Then some of the pressure was
relieved. On January 24, Fuchs made a full confession to Jim Skardon, in the
fourth interrogation. He was arrested on February 2, sent to trial, and
sentenced to fourteen years’ imprisonment on March 1. For a while, Liverpool
University was saved the embarrassment of being forced to accept one dangerous
communist spy in its faculty. What Adelaide University thought about all this (if
they were indeed consulted) is probably unrecorded.
Herbert
Skinner at Harwell
Herbert Skinner
I wrote about Skinner’s enigmatic career in the second installment of The Mysterious Affair at Peierls. He had enjoyed a distinguished war record, both in Britain in the USA, and merited his appointment as Cockcroft’s deputy at Harwell, where he was apparently a very hard and productive worker. Yet he had some facets to his character and lifestyle that raised security questions – not least the fact that he had married Erna, an Austrian born in Czernowitz, who socialized with openly communist friends. (The unconventional lives and habits of the Skinners assuredly deserve some special study of their own.) Despite their background, it appears (unless some files have been withheld) that MI5 began keeping record on the pair only towards the end of 1949, even though Erna had for a while maintained frequent social contact with her Red friends, including Tatiana Malleson. The statements that Skinner made, when later questioned by MI5, that protested innocence, could be interpreted as the honest claims of a loyal civil servant, or the obvious cover of a collaborator in subversion. (That is the Moura Budberg ploy with H. G. Wells, who, when asked by ‘Aitchgee’ whether she was a spy, told him that, whether she were a spy or not, she would have to answer ‘No.’)
Moreover,
Erna was carrying on an affair with Fuchs, taking advantage of Herbert’s
frequent absences when he was splitting his time between Liverpool and Harwell,
but also acting brazenly when her husband was around. In the last months of 1949, the Erna-Klaus
relationship was allowed to thrive. As Close writes (Trinity, p 244):
“Because Erna’s husband, Herbert, was in the process of transferring from
Harwell to take up a professorship at the University of Liverpool, he was
frequently away from the laboratory, so there were many empty hours for Erna,
which she would pass with Fuchs.” If they were not aware of it before, MI5
could not avoid the evidence when they started applying phone-taps to Fuchs’s
and the Skinners’ telephones. Skinner was thus a security risk himself.
Skinner,
who had known Fuchs since their Bristol days, also made some bizarre and
contradictory statements about Fuchs’s allegiances, at one time, in 1952,
admitting that he had known that Fuchs was an ardent communist when at Bristol,
but did not think it significant ‘when he found Fuchs at Harwell’, having
earlier criticised MI5 for allowing Fuchs to be recruited at the Department of
Atomic Energy. On June 28, 1950, when Skardon interviewed Skinner about Fuchs,
the ex-Special Branch officer reported his response as following: “Dr. Skinner
was somewhat critical of M.I.5 for having allowed Fuchs, a known Communist, to
be employed on the development of Atomic Energy, saying that when they first
met the man at Bristol in the 1930’s he was clearly a Communist and a
particularly arrogant young pup. He was very surprised to find Fuchs at Harwell
when he arrived there to take up his post in 1946. Of course I asked Skinner
whether he had done anything about this, pointing out that we were not psychic
and relied upon the loyalty and integrity of senior officers to disclose their
objections to the employment of junior members of the staff. He accepted this
rebuff.”
Yes,
that response was perhaps a bit too pat, rather like Philby’s memoranda to London
from Washington, where he brought attention to Burgess’s spying paraphernalia,
and later to Maclean’s possible identity as the Foreign Office spy, as a ploy
to distract attention from himself. Fuchs ‘clearly a Communist’ – that should perhaps have provoked a stronger
reaction, especially with Skinner’s assumed patriotism. But his claim was
certainly fallacious: Skinner’s Royal Society biography makes it clear
that he was busy supervising construction at Harwell in the first half of 1946,
substituting for Cockcroft, who did not arrive until June. Fuchs did not arrive
until August, and Skinner must have known about his coming arrival, and even
facilitated it.
In
addition, early in 1951, after Skinner had moved full-time to Liverpool, Director-General
Sillitoe wrote to the Chief Constable of Liverpool, asking him to keep an eye
on the Skinners. A Liverpool Police Report was sent to MI5 on May 10,
indicating that the Skinners had been active members of the local Communist
Party ‘since they arrived in Liverpool from Harwell almost two years ago’. (The
timing is awry.) Faulty record-keeping? The wrong targets? A mean-spirited slur
by a rival who resented Skinner’s appointment? A reliable report on some
foolish behaviour by the new Professor? Another mystery, but a pattern of
duplicity and subterfuge on his part.
Skinner’s
actions are frequently hard to explain. In my recent bulletin on Peierls, I
reported at length on the mysterious meetings that Skinner held with Fuchs in
New York in 1947, when they were attending the Disarmament Conference. This
episode was described at length by the FBI, but appears to have been overlooked
(if available) by all five of Fuchs’s biographers: Moss (1987), Williams
(1987), Rossiter (2014), Close (2019), and Greenspan (2020). More mysteriously,
Skinner’s conversations with Fuchs suggested that he had a confidential contact
at MI6. Was Skinner perhaps working under cover, gathering information on
Communists’ activities?
Thus
it is not surprising that Skinner might not have embraced the prospect of
Fuchs’s joining him (and Erna) at Liverpool once his assignments at Harwell had
been cleared up. Could he not get that ‘young pup’ out of his life and his
marriage? The record clearly shows that, after Skinner had been instructed by
Cockcroft to show no curiosity in what was going on with the Fuchs
investigation, Fuchs admitted his espionage to Erna on January 17, after which
she told her husband. By January 27, Robertson is pointing out that Skinner has
been told too much by Cockcroft (who was not good at handling conflict), and
that Skinner has been trying to persuade Fuchs to stay at Harwell. This
particular crisis was held off by the fact that Fuchs had, shortly beforehand,
made his full confession to Skardon, and the strategy favoured by White and
Sillitoe of proceeding to trial began to take firm shape.
The
files on the Skinners at the National Archives (KV 2/2080, 2081 & 2082) reveal
yet more twists, however, indicating that there were questions about Skinner
much earlier, and also showing a remarkable exchange a couple of years after
the Pontecorvo and Fuchs incidents, when Skinner naively exposed, to an
American publication, the hollowness of the government’s policy.
Skinner’s
Removal?
Sir James Chadwick
We have to face the possibility that Skinner’s move away from Harwell had been planned a long time before. One remarkable minute from J. C. Robertson (B2A), dated July 20, 1950, is written in response to concerns expressed from various quarters about the Skinners’ Communist friends, and includes the following statement: “We agreed that since the SKINNER’s [sic], on their own admission, have Communist friends, they may share these friends [sic] views, and that Professor SKINNER’s removal from Harwell to Liverpool University should not therefore be a ground for the Security Service ceasing to pay them attention.” ‘Removal’ is a highly pejorative term for the process of Skinner’s being appointed to replace the highly-regarded Chadwick. Was this a misunderstanding on Robertson’s part as to why Skinner was leaving? Was it simply a careless choice of words? Or did it truly reflect that the authorities had decided that Skinner was a liability two years before?
The
suggestion that Skinner was ‘removed’ might cause us to reflect on the
possibility that Chadwick was encouraged to take up the appointment at
Cambridge in order to make room for Skinner. What is the evidence? Chadwick was
assuredly an honourable and effective leader of the Tube Alloys contingent in
the USA and Canada. He forged an effective partnership with the formidable
General Leslie Groves, who led the Manhattan Project, but who was very wary of
foreign participation in the exercise. Yet Chadwick became stressed with his
role, conscience-strung by the enormity of what was being created, and not
always being tough enough with potential traitors.
Chadwick
had made some political slip-ups on the way. He had been criticised by Mark
Oliphant for not being energetic enough in the USA, he had provided a reference for Alan Nunn May
for a position at King’s College London
just before Nunn May was arrested, and, in a statement that perturbed many, he
would later openly express his approval of Nunn May’s motives, while saying he
did not support what his friend did. He had also given support to the
questionable Rotblat when the latter announced his bizarre plan to parachute
into Poland. He had appointed another scientist with a questionable background,
Herbert Fröhlich, just before his departure from Liverpool. Moreover, while he
had openly supported Cockcroft’s appointment, he was not overall happy with the
separation of R & D from production of nuclear energy. He and Cockcroft
were both building cyclotrons, and thus rivals, but Cockcroft was gaining more
funding. Rotblat told Chadwick that Harwell was offering larger salaries. The
feud over budgets simmered in the two short years (1946-1948) while Chadwick
was at Liverpool.
He
was reluctant to leave Liverpool, Mountford reported, even though he was admittedly
an exhausted figure by then. His staff did not want him to leave, either, and
he maintained excellent relations with Mountford himself. By 1948, Perrin – who
reported to the strict and disciplined Lord Portal at the Ministry of Supply – and
MI5 were following through Prime Minster Attlee’s instructions to tighten up on
communist infiltration, as the Soviet Union’s intentions in Eastern Europe
became more threatening. Thus installing Cockcroft’s number two at Liverpool
would have allowed the removal of a competent leader who had made an
embarrassing choice of wife, place an ally of Cockcroft’s at the rival
institution, and set up a function that could assimilate unwanted leftists from
Harwell. Overall, Cockcroft trusted Skinner, who had worked for him very
effectively on radar testing in the Orkneys at the beginning of the war, but he
had to be made to understand that Skinner’s wife’s friends were a problem.
Thus,
if Chadwick was pushed out to make room for Skinner, what finally prompted the
authorities to eject him? It looks as if Liddell, White and Perrin were pulling
the strings, not Cockcroft. Arnold, the security officer, stated in October
1951 that Fuchs’s close relationship with Erna Skinner had started at the end
of 1947. November 1947 was the month that the three of them were in New York. The
injurious FBI report may have been sent to MI5, but subsequently buried. Thus MI5
officers, already concerned about Fuchs’s reliability, might in early 1948 have
seen Skinner as a liability as well, arranged the deal with Perrin and
Oliphant, convinced Chadwick (who had, of course, moved on by then) of Skinner’s
superior claim over Rotblat and Fröhlich, and set the slow train in motion. It
was probably never explained to Cockcroft what exactly what was going on.
It
is possible that MI5 had seen the problem of disposing of possible Soviet
agents coming some time before. Chapman Pincher had announced, in the Daily
Express in March 1948, that the British counter-espionage service had been
investigating three communist scientists at Harwell. This triad did not include
Fuchs or Pontecorvo, however, since two months later Pincher reported that all
three had been fired. In a memo written in August 1953, when Skinner was in
some trouble over a magazine article [see next section], R. H. Morton of
C2A in MI5, having sought advice from one of MI5’s solicitors, ‘S.L.B.’
(actually B. A. Hill of Lincoln’s Inn), stated that ‘The Ministry of Supply
should be asked whether Skinner was ever in a position to know during the Fuchs
investigation that although we knew Fuchs was a spy, he was allowed to continue
at Harwell for a time’.
This
is an irritatingly vague declaration, since ‘for a time’ could mean ‘for a few
weeks’ or ‘for a few years’, or anything in between. Yet it specifically states ‘was a spy’, not
‘was under suspicion because he was a communist’. According to the released
archives, that recognition did not occur until September 1949. If the solicitor
and the officer were aware of the rules of the game, and the impossibility of immediate
removal or prosecution, they might have been carelessly hinting at earlier
undisclosed events, and that the Ministry of Supply had initiated
stables-cleaning moves that took an inordinate amount of time to complete.
Skinner’s Venturesinto Journalism
Herbert Skinner in ‘The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’
Herbert Skinner later drew a lot of unwelcome attention to himself in two articles that he wrote for publication. In August 1952, John Cockcroft invited him to review Alan Moorehead’s book, TheTraitors (a volume issued as a public relations exercise by MI5) for a periodical identified as Atomic Scientists’ News (in fact, more probably the American Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists). And in June 1953, Skinner published an article in the same Bulletin, titled ‘Atomic Energy in Post-War Britain’. In both pieces he betrayed knowledge that was embarrassing to MI5.
He
was sagacious enough to send a draft of his book review to Henry Arnold on
September 18, 1952, in particular seeking confirmation of the fact that Fuchs’s
confession to Skardon occurred in two stages, and to verify his impression that
the information that came from Sweden in March of 1950 applied only to Mrs.
Pontecorvo. He wrote: “But I know K confessed to Erna about the Diff. Plant a
day or two prior to Jan. 19th (the date when he was considered for
the Royal Society. This is confidential but did you know it?)” Skinner felt
that Moorehead’s account had been telescoped, and wanted to correct it. As for
the communication from Sweden, Skinner based his recollection on what Cockcroft
had told him, expressing the opinion that, since Pontecorvo had spent so little
time in Stockholm, it was unlikely that data had been gathered about him.
The
initial response from MI5 was remarkably light. Skardon (B2A) cast doubt on the
earlier January 17 confession, and suggested that the claim should be followed
up with Mrs. Skinner. His boss, J. C. Robertson, was however a bit more
demanding, requesting, in a reply to Arnold dated September 24, that an entire
paragraph, about Fuchs’s confessions, and the pointers to a leakage arriving
from the USA, be removed. [The complete text of the draft review is available in
KV 2/2080.] He added: “I understand that you will yourself be pointing out to
SKINNER the undesirability of making any reference to the report from Stockholm
which he quotes at the bottom of Page 9 of his manuscript.”
This
latter observation was a bit rich and ingenuous. All that Skinner did was
attempt to clarify a statement made by Moorehead about the Swedish report, and
Moorehead had obviously been fed that information by MI5. Moorehead’s text (pp
184-185) runs as follows: “Indeed Pontecorvo was not persona grata any
longer, for early in March a report upon him had arrived from Sweden and this
report made it clear that not only Pontecorvo but Marianne as well was a
Communist.” Moorehead went on to write that ‘there was nothing to support this
in England or Canada [or the USA?], but it was evident that he would
have to be closely watched’. Here was an implicit admission that MI5 had blown
its cover by allowing Moorehead to see this information. MI5 wanted to bury all
the intelligence about Pontecorvo that had come in from the USA, and Robertson
clearly wanted to distract attention away from Sweden, too. The Ministry of
Supply also issued a sharp admonition that the item about Sweden in Moorehead’s
book should never have passed censorship. One wonders what Clement Attlee
thought about this anomaly.
The
outcome was that Skinner had to make a weird admission of error. First of all,
he agreed that he found Moorehead’s mentioning of the Swedish reference ‘unfortunate’,
but insisted that he was not in error over Erna’s distress call to him on the 17th,
after Fuchs had confessed to her. This prompted Arnold to raise his game, and
try to talk Skinner out of submitting the review entirely, as he was using
personal information from his role at Harwell, and it would raise ‘a hornet’s
nest’ of publicity. He even suggested to Skinner, after lunching with him and
Erna, that his memory of dates must be at fault. Even though no statement to
that effect is on file, Robertson noted on October 30 that Skinner ‘has now
admitted that he may have been mistaken’. (But recall Robertson’s statement of
January 27, described above, which indicated that Skinner had already tried to
convince Fuchs to stay at Harwell.) Robertson added that ‘we have never been
very happy about Mrs. SKINNER, who was of course FUCHS’ mistress’, but
announced that MI5 no longer need to interview her about the matter. Robertson
alluded to the fact that MI5’s own records pointed to the absence of any
evidence of any ‘confession’ by Fuchs to Mrs. Skinner, but how such an event
would even have been known about, let alone recorded, was not explained.
It
appears that, after this kerfuffle, the review was not in fact published, but
Cockcroft and Skinner did not learn any lessons from the exercise. In the June
1953 issue of the Bulletin appeared a piece titled ‘Atomic Energy in
Postwar Britain’. The article started, rather dangerously, with the words: “I
think that I, who was a Deputy Director at Harwell from 1946 to 1950, am by now
sufficiently detached to write my own ideas without these being confused with
the British official point of view.” Skinner went on to lament the decline in
cooperation between the USA and Great Britain, although he openly attributed
part of the blame to the Nunn May and Fuchs cases. But he then made an
extraordinarily ingenuous and provocative statement: “It is true that we have
had on our hands more than our fair share of dangerous agents who have been
caught (or who are known).”
What
could he have been thinking? Sure enough, the Daily Mail Science
Correspondent J. Stubbs Walker picked up Skinner’s sentence in a short piece
describing how Britain was attempting to convince Washington that its security
measures were at least as good as America’s. Equally predictably, the MI5
solicitor B. A. Hill was rapidly introduced to the case, and, naturally, drew
the conclusion that Skinner’s words implied that there were other agents known,
but not yet prosecuted, at Harwell. He thus asked Arnold, in a meeting with
Squadron Leader Morton (C2A), whether Skinner had read Kenneth de Courcy’s Intelligence
Digest, since de Courcy (a notorious rabble-rouser who was a constant thorn
in MI5’s flesh) had made a similar statement in the Digest of the
preceding March that ‘there were still two professors employed at Harwell who
were sending Top Secret information to the Soviet Union’.
Fortunately
for his cause, Skinner had written to the Daily Mail to explain what he
wrote, and how it should have been interpreted. (He assumed that Stubbs Walker must
have picked up his statement from the UK publication, the Atomic Scientists’
News, which published the same text in July, but, while the archive
contains all the pages of the issue of the American periodical, it does not
otherwise refer to the UK publication.) “The parenthesis was simply put in to
cover the case of Pontecorvo,” he wrote, “and I would like to make it clear
that I have no knowledge whatever of any other agents not convicted.” It was a
clumsy attempt at exculpation: the syntax of the phase ‘who are known’ clearly
indicates a plurality.
Yet
what was more extraordinary is that, again, Skinner had written the article at
the request of the hapless Cockcroft, ‘who read the article before it was
despatched’. Moreover, a copy also was sent to Lord Cherwell’s office, and an
acknowledgment indicated that ‘Lord Cherwell had read the majority of the
article’. Perhaps Lord Cherwell, Churchill’s wartime scientific adviser, and in
1953 Paymaster-General, now responsible for atomic matters, should have read
the article from beginning to end. Perhaps he read all he was given, because
Skinner was able to produce a letter from Cherwell at the end of August,
indicating that he had no comments. Yet what was sent to Cherwell was a ‘draft
of the first half of the paper’. The offending phrase did indeed appear near
the beginning of the article: Skinner was given a slap on the wrists, and sent
away. Whether Cockcroft was rebuked is unknown. A revealing note in Skinner’s
file, dated June 12, 1953, reports that Cockcroft would probably be leaving
Harwell soon, to replace Sir Lawrence Bragg as head of the Clarendon
Laboratory. Morton notes: “Rumours
indicate Skinner in the running to replace him. Arnold considers this most
undesirable ‘for obvious reasons’.” But it is an indication that Skinner still
regarded his sojourn at Liverpool as temporary, and wanted to return to replace
Cockcroft.
The
MI5 solicitor made an unusual error of judgment himself, however. In that
initial memorandum of August 12, when he had evidently discussed the matter
with some MI5 officers, he included the following: “On the other hand it was
not generally thought [note the bureaucratic passive voice] that when he
wrote the article he was in fact quoting DE COURCY, but rather that he had in
mind cases such as Boris DAVIDSON, and what he really meant to say was that
there were persons at Harwell who were suspected of being enemy agents but had
not yet been prosecuted, though they were suspected of acting as enemy agents.”
That was an unlawyerly and clumsy construction – and it should have been
DAVISON, not DAVIDSON – but the implication is undeniable. ‘Cases such as Boris
DAVIDSON’ clearly indicates a nest of infiltrators. And I shall complete this
analysis with a study of the Davison case.
Boris
Davison – from Leningrad to Harwell
Boris Davison in ‘Empire News’
The files on Boris Davison at the National Archives comprise nine chunky folders (KV 2/2579-1, -2 and -3, and KV 2/2580 to KV 2/2585), stretching from 1943 to 1954. They constitute an extraordinary untapped historical asset, and merit an article on their own. (Equally astonishing is that Christopher Andrew’s authorised history of MI5 has only a short paragraph – but no Index entry – on Davison, and nothing about him appears in Chapman Pincher’s Treachery, when Pincher himself was responsible, at the time, for revealing uncomfortable information on Davison’s removal in the Daily Express.) I shall therefore just sum up the story here, concentrating on the aspects of his case that relate to espionage and British universities, and how his convoluted story relates to the problems of dealing with questionable employees in confidential government work.
Davison’s
pilgrimage to Harwell is even more picaresque than that of Fuchs or Pontecorvo.
Boris’s great-grandfather, who was English, had gone to Russia, accompanied by
his Scottish wife, in Czarist times to work as a train-driver in Leningrad.
They returned to Rugby for the birth of Boris’s grandfather, James (the birth
certificate alarmingly states that he was born ‘at Rugby Station’), who was
taken back to Russia at the age of two months, in 1851. James married a
Russian, and their child Boris was born in Gorki as a British subject, in 1885.
The older Boris married a Russian, and the younger Boris was born in 1908. He
studied Mathematics at Leningrad University, and graduated in 1930 with an
equivalent B.SC. degree.
Davison
thereupon worked for the State Hydrological Institute, but, in trying to renew
his British passport, he was threatened by the NKVD. Unwilling to give up his
nationality, he applied to leave for the United Kingdom in 1938, and was
granted a visa. He made his journey to the UK, and succeeded, through his
acquaintance with Rear-Admiral Claxton (whom he had met in the Crimea), to gain
employment in 1939 at the Royal Aircraft Establishment in Farnborough, working
on wind-tunnel calculations. A spell of tuberculosis in 1941 forced his
departure from RAE, but, after a year or so in a sanatorium, Rudolf Peierls
adopted him for his Tube Alloys project at Birmingham, working for the
Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. (Avid conspiracy theorists, a
group of which I am certainly not a member, might point out that Roger Hollis
was also in a sanatorium during the summer of 1942, being treated for
tuberculosis.) Davison joined Plazcek at Chalk River in Canada, alongside Nunn
May and Pontecorvo early in 1945, and, on his return to Britain in September
1947, worked under Fuchs at Harwell, as Senior Principal Scientific Officer.
The
suspicions of, and subsequent inquiries into, Fuchs and Pontecorvo provoked
similar questions about Davison’s loyalties, and he was placed under intense
scrutiny in 1951, after Pontecorvo’s defection. In a letter to A. H. Wilson of
Birmingham University, written from an unidentifiable location (probably the
British mission in New York) on May 3, 1944, Rudolf Peierls had written that
Davison’s ‘best place would be at Y [almost certainly Los Alamos]
provided he would be acceptable there, of which I am not yet sure.’ Davison’s
records at Kew state that he was sent to Los Alamos for a short while at the beginning
of 1945, but indicate that the New Mexico air had not been suitable for
Davison’s tubercular condition, and he had to return to Montreal. It is more
probable that Davison’s origins and career would have been regarded negatively
by the Americans. (Mountain air was at that time
considered beneficial for consumptives.) In his memoir, Peierls also
claimed that ‘Placzek wanted Boris to accompany him to Los Alamos,
but the doctors doubted whether Boris’s health would stand the altitude. He
went there on a trial basis, but after a few weeks had to return to Montreal.’
In
any case, Davison was considered a very valuable asset, especially by Cockcroft,
who declared that Davison ‘knew more about the mathematical theory behind the
Atomic Bomb than any other scientist outside America.’ Nevertheless, or
possibly because of that fact, MI5’s senior officers recommended in the winter
of 1950-1951 that he should be transferred ‘to a university’. They were
overruled, however, by Prime Minster Clement Attlee, who decreed that he should
be allow to stay in place. MI5 continued to watch Davison carefully, but when a
Conservative administration returned to power in October 1951, questions were
asked more vigorously, and Davison was eventually forced to leave Harwell,
after some very embarrassing leaks to the Press, and some unwelcome questions
from the US Embassy. Hearing about the investigations, they would no doubt have
been alarmed that Davison was another who had slipped through security
procedures: the Los Alamos visit becomes more relevant. Davison joined
Birmingham University in September 1953, and a year later found a position in Canada,
whither his wife, Olga (whom he had met and married in Canada), wanted to
return. He died in 1961.
This
barebones outline (derived from various records in the Davison archive)
conceals a number of twists, and raises some searching questions. I have been
poring over the reports, letters and memoranda in the archive, and discovered
some surprising anomalies and missteps. My conclusion is that MI5’s approach to
Davison was highly flawed, and I break it down as follows:
Lack of rigour in tracking Davison’s establishment in the UK: MI5 never investigated
how he passed through immigration, how he provided for himself in the months
after he arrived in 1938, how he was able to apply successfully for a sensitive
position with the Royal Aeronautical Establishment, how he was allowed to join
Peierls’s project supporting Tube Alloys at Birmingham without any vetting, or
how he was allowed to join the Manhattan Project in America. He was teased at the RAE because of his poor
English, and nicknamed ‘Russki’. An occasional question was posed about these
unresolved questions, but it appears that the mere holding of a British
passport was an adequate qualification for the authorities.
Failure to join the dots: When Peierls was viewed as a possible suspect
alongside Fuchs in the autumn of 1949, MI5 might have pursued the
Peierls-Davison connection. Peierls claimed in his autobiography Bird of
Passage that Davison’s name had been sent to him from ‘the central
register’ after Davison completed his spell in a sanatorium, although the event
is undated. Peierls then recruited Davison. I can find no record of any such
communication. There is no evidence that Peierls was ever interviewed over
Davison’s entry to the Tube Alloys project, or that MI5 explored potential
commonalities in the experiences of Genia Peierls and Davison in dealing with
the Soviet authorities. In Bird of Passage, Peierls completely
misrepresented the authorities’ inquiry into Davison’s reliability, suggesting
that it did not get under way until 1953.
Ignorance of Stalin’s Methods: MI5 displayed a shocking naivety about the
methods of the NKVD. Davison was a distinguished scientist, as the authorised
historian of atomic energy, Margaret Gowing, and John Cockcroft both declared.
Rather than allow such a person on specious ‘nationalist’ grounds to leave the
country to abet the ideological enemy, Stalin would have probably confiscated
his UK passport, and forced him to work for the Communist cause. MI5 had failed
to listen to Krivitsky, or gather information on the experiences of other
scientists ‘expelled’ from the Soviet Union. Instead they trusted Davison’s
account of his ‘refusal’ to take Soviet citizenship, even though he gave
conflicting accounts of what happened.
Naivety over NKVD Aggression: One of the experiences related by Davison to
MI5 was that, when his passport problem came up, he was asked by his NKVD
interrogators to spy on his colleagues at Leningrad University. He declined on
the grounds that he was too clumsy to conceal such behaviour, a response that
provoked the wrath of his interrogator. Such disobedience would normally have resulted
in execution or, at least, exile to Siberia. Yet Davison was ‘rewarded’ by such
non-compliance by being allowed to emigrate to his grandfather’s native land,
and spread the news. That sequence should have aroused MI5’s suspicions.
Delayed recognition of the threats of
‘blackmail’: A refrain in the archived proceedings is
that Moscow would have been alerted to Davison’s presence at Harwell by
Pontecorvo’s defection in the autumn of 1950, and that only then would Davison
have been possibly subject to threats. For that reason, his correspondence with
his parents in the Crimea (itself a noteworthy phenomenon from the censorship
angle) was studiously inspected for coded messages and secret writing. MI5
failed to recognize that the threats to his family would probably have been
initiated before Davison was sent on his mission, in the manner that the
Peierlses were threatened. (That is an enduring technique: it is reported as
being used today by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.) Since MI5 and
the Harwell management realised that Communists had been installed at Harwell
for a while, it was probable that the fact of Davison’s recruitment would have
reached Soviet ears already. They ignored the fact that his working closely with Fuchs,
Pontecorvo and Nunn May meant he would not have needed a separate courier, but they
expressed little curiosity in how he would have communicated with Moscow after
Fuchs’s imprisonment.
Unawareness
of the role of subterfuge: MI5 spent an enormous amount of
time and effort exploring Davison’s contacts and political leanings, looking
for a trace of sympathy for communism that might point to his being a security
risk. They even, rather improbably, cited the testimony of Klaus Fuchs from gaol,
Fuchs vouching for Davison’s reliability, and quoted this item of evidence to
the Americans! Yet, if Davison had been a communist, he would probably have
preferred to stay in the Soviet Union, helping its cause, rather than taking on
a role in provoking the revolution overseas, something for which his temperament
was highly unsuited. Even if the lives of his parents had not been threatened,
his most effective disguise would have been to steer clear of any communist
groups or associations.
Clumsy
handling of their target: MI5 and Harwell – and, especially,
John Cockcroft – showed a dismal lack of
imagination and tact in dealing with Davison. Cockcroft was weak, wanted to
hang on to Davison because of his skills, and avoided awkward confrontational
situations. They failed to develop an effective strategy in guiding Davison’s
behaviour, and Cockcroft, when trying to encourage Davison to leave Harwell,
even suggested that he was entitled to have a government job back after his
one-year ‘sabbatical’, because of his civil servant status. Between them,
Harwell and MI5 deluded themselves as to how the account of a Russian-born
scientist expelled from Harwell would manage not to be re-ignited, through idle
gossip, or careless bravado (as turned out to be the case).
Simplistic
views of loyalty: MI5’s perennial problem was that it did
not trust ‘foreigners’, and had no mechanism for separating the loyal and
dedicated alien from the possibly dangerous subversive, or taking seriously the
possible disloyalty of a well-bred native Briton. Davison fitted in to no
established category, and thus puzzled them. In his letter to Prime Minster
Attlee of January 12, 1951, as Attlee was just about to make his decision as to
whether Davison should remain in place, or be banished to a university, Percy
Sillitoe wrote that ‘an
alien or a person of alien origin has not necessarily enjoyed the upbringing
which, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, normally ensures the loyalty
of a British subject’, a sentiment that Attlee echoed a week
later. Four months later, Burgess and Maclean defected.
MI5
were not happy with Attlee’s decision, wanting Davison safely transferred to
academia. They were worried stiff that, if any action were taken, Davison
‘might do a Pontecorvo on us’, and that in that case closer cooperation with
the Americans – an objective keenly sought at the time – would be killed by the
Congressional committee. They thus hoped that matters would quieten down, and
that Davison would behave himself. Yet a meeting held in February 1951 with the
Prime Minister provoked the following minute: “Rowlands, Sillitoe and Bridges
agreed there should be discussion on the proposition that Davison should be
asked what his reactions would be if the Russians brought pressure on him
through his parents. If approach were made, Davison would mark it as a mark of
confidence in his own reliability.” What the outcome of this strange decision
was is not recorded, but the threat to MI5’s peace of mind would turn out to
come from friendlier quarters.
Boris
Davison – after Attlee
Sir John Cockcroft
Attlee made his decision on February 20, 1951. Sillitoe requested a watch be kept on the Skinners in Liverpool. Meanwhile, MI5 officers had a short time to reflect on Davison’s background. Dick White wondered who the other ‘Britishers’ who were deported at the same time as Davison were, and what had happened to them. (Whether this important lead was followed up is not known: the results might have been so uncomfortable that the outcome was buried.) Yet Reed was later imaginative enough to wonder how Davison ‘was able to survive the purges and outbreaks of xenophobia’, suggesting perhaps that further lessons had been learned. “What services were rendered in exchange for immunity?”, he asked, but there the inquiry ended, for 1951 turned out to be an annus horribilis for the Security Service, as the uncovering of the Burgess & Maclean scandal showed the authorities that espionage and treachery were not simply a virus introduced by foreigners. For a while it distracted attention from the quandary of suspicions persons in place at Harwell.
By
that time, however, a series of events began that showed the Law of Unintended
Consequences at work. In February, Chapman Pincher had written a provocative
article about Pontecorvo in the Daily Express, and on March 4 Rebecca
West had published an article about Fuchs, critical of Attlee, in the New
York Times. Perrin and Sillitoe agreed that a counterthrust in public
relations was required, and conceived the idea of engaging the journalist Alan
Moorehead to write a book that would reflect better on MI5’s performance. After
some stumbles in negotiation, Moorehead was authorized to inspect some
confidential information on September 24, and started work.
The
year 1952 progressed relatively quietly. John Cockcroft had revealed to Skinner
in early 1951 that he was considering recommending the South African Basil Schonland
as his successor, and was perhaps surprised to be told by Skinner that
Schonland was not up to the job. This was surely another indication that
Skinner felt himself the better candidate, and wanted to return to Harwell now
that Fuchs and Pontecorvo were disposed of. A possible opening for Cockcroft
appeared in March 1952 at St. John’s College, Oxford, but nothing came of it.
On July 29, Sillitoe announced he would retire at the end of the year. In
August, Davison indicated for the first time that he wanted to leave Harwell.
And in September, as I described earlier, Skinner’s controversial review of
Moorehead’s finished work The Traitors came to the attention of Arnold
and MI5.
While
the Moorehead incident was smoothed over relatively safely, Skinner’s energies
as a literary critic had more serious after-effects in 1953. First of all, Nunn
May had been released in January, an event that brough fresh attention to the
phenomenon of ‘atom spies’. As Guy Liddell reported on January 13, Foreign
Secretary Anthony Eden wanted Nunn May settled into useful employment, but the
scientist was blacklisted by the universities. (After working for a scientific
instruments company for a few years, Nunn May moved to the University of Ghana
in 1961.) Skinner’s observation about other spies being left in place,
unpunished, was a far more serious blow to MI5’s reputation, and his weak
explanation that he was referring solely to Pontecorvo was not convincing.
Privately, he admitted that he had indeed been referring to Davison.
What
was not revealed at the time was the fact that other such agents had been named
in internal documents. One of the Boris Davison files at the National Archives
(KV 2/2579-1, s.n.184A) shows us that Dick White, as early as January 25, 1951,
wrote that there were eighteen known employees at Harwell ‘who have some sort
of a Communist suspicion attaching to them’.
Of these, five were serious. He continued: “Two of the five, SHULMAN and
RIGG are being transferred from Harwell on our recommendation. In the case of a
third, DARLINGTON, we may recommend transfer and so this will almost certainly
be agreed. The remaining two, PAIGE and CHARLESBY, are under active
investigation and if additional information tends to confirm that they have
Communist sympathies we may have to recommend their transfer likewise.”
This
is an extraordinary admission. I have not discovered anything elsewhere on
these characters, although I notice that the first three are cited in the Kew
Index as working at Harwell, as authors or co-authors of papers, in AB 15/73,
AB 15/2383, AB 15/566, AB 15/586, AB 15/1661 and AB 15/1386 (N. Shulman), AB 15/1254
(M. Rigg), AB 15/5531 (M. E. Darlington). Astonishingly, all three papers are
currently closed, pending review. [Moreover, during the few days in which I
investigated these items, they were being maintained and their descriptions
changed. The author of AB 15/24, original given as ‘Rigg’, is now given as
‘Oscar Bunnemann’ [sic], which, in the light of revelations below, poses
a whole new set of questions. Can any reader shed any light on these men?]
Yet it proves that Skinner was correct, and knew too much. And one another link
has come to light. As early as July 12, 1948 T. A. R. Robertson had discovered
that Davison and one Eltenton were in Leningrad at the same time, noting that
Eltenton was already up for an ‘interview’. (The word ‘interrogated’ has been
replaced with a handwritten ‘interviewed’ in the memorandum.) The story of
George Eltenton, who brought some bad publicity to MI5 through his involvement
in the Robert Oppenheimer case in the USA, will have to wait for another day.
The
denouement was swift. Skinner was let off with a warning, but his goose was
essentially cooked. On August 8, 1952, he thanked Arnold for his support, adding
casually that Chapman Pincher had invited him to lunch. A few weeks later, on
August 26, Pincher published his article on Davison in the Daily Express,
and two days later Henry Maule’s piece in the Empire News reported how
‘poor old Boris’ had been banished to the backwaters of Birmingham University,
implicitly indicating that Davison was rejoining his prior mentor and supporter
Rudolf Peierls.
Yet
MI5’s embarrassments were not over. On December 14, 1952, a brief column by
Sidney Rodin in the Sunday Express claimed that Churchill had intervened
in the decision to replace Fuchs at Harwell, and explained that Davison had
been rejected because of his background, and that six others had been passed
over because they were foreign-born. In place (the piece continued), the
28-year-old Brian Flowers had been appointed, and ‘for months his background
was checked.’ This announcement was doubly ironic, since it turned out that the
leaker to Rodin was Professor Maurice Pryce of the Clarendon Laboratories,
Acting Head of the Theoretical Division at Harwell alongside Rudolf Peierls. He
had admitted planting the story as a way of ’distracting attention away from
the “undesirable background of the Buneman case”’. Indeed. For Flowers had for
a while been having an affair with Mary, the wife of Oscar Buneman, who had
been working under Fuchs at Harwell. The future Baron Flowers, who also held a
post at Birmingham University, had married his paramour in 1951, and was now
presumably respectable. Like Fuchs, Buneman had been imprisoned by the Gestapo,
escaped to Britain, and been interned in Canada. Maybe MI5 and Arnold
overlooked this rather seedy side to Flowers’ background: the episode showed at
best a discreditable muddle and at worst appalling hypocrisy at work.
It
was thus Birmingham, not Liverpool, that became the home of a distressed
scientist, one who may never have acquired the status of an official spy, but
who was perhaps a communicator of secret information under duress. A cabal of
Liddell, White and Perrin had plotted, and made moves, without consulting
Cockcroft or Arnold. Skinner never quite realised what was going on, failing to
consider that his wife’s liaisons were a liability, and harboured unfulfillable
designs about returning to Harwell to replace Cockcroft. Skinner would remain
at Liverpool, unwanted by Harwell, and remaining under suspicion. The loose
cannon Cockcroft did not understand why Skinner had been banished, but
considered him a useful ally at Liverpool, and naively encouraged him in his
literary exploits. Fuchs was in gaol:
Pontecorvo in Moscow. By the time Davison had transferred to Birmingham, in
September 1953, Liddell had resigned from MI5, bitterly disappointed at being
outmanoeuvred by his protégé, Dick White, for the director-generalship, and had
taken up a new post – as director of security at AERE Harwell. MI5 still
considered Davison on a temporary transfer ‘outhoused’ to Birmingham, but did
their best to ease his relocation to Canada, perhaps masking his medical problems.
Davison died in Toronto in 1961, at the young age of 52, the year after
Skinner’s death. I do not know whether foul play was ever suspected.
In conclusion, it should be noted that Peierls had his vitally significant correspondence with Lord Portal in April 1951, where he responded to accusations about him, and revealed the links with the Soviet Security organs that he had kept concealed for so long. (See The Mysterious Affair at Peierls, Part 1). Had Peierls perhaps discussed the shared matter of NKVD threats to family with his protégé, and ventured to inform MI5 and the Ministry of the predicament that Davison been in? Or, more probably, had Davison confessed to MI5 about how he himself had been threatened, and, as a possible source of ‘the accusations’, drawn Peierls in? Readers should recall that the decision to interview Davison, to ask him about possible threats to his parents, in the belief that such a dialogue might increase Davison’s confidence in them, was projected to have taken place just before then. The timing is perfect: Davison might well have told his interviewers the full story, and brought Peierls into his narrative.
So
many loose ends in the story are left because of the selective process of
compiling the archive. In 1954, Reed of MI5 referred darkly to a confidential
source who was keeping them informed of Davison’s negotiations with Canada: likewise,
it could well have been Peierls. We shall probably never know exactly what
happened in that 1951 spring, but Portal, previously Air Chief Marshal, was no
doubt shocked by the whole business. He resigned his position at the Ministry
of Supply soon afterwards: Perrin left at the same time. And if Moscow had
discovered that their threats had been unmasked, or that any of their assets
had behaved disloyally, Sudoplatov’s Special Tasks squad would have been
ready to move.
Conclusions
Dick White
What should a liberal democracy do when it discovers spies, or potential spies, working within scientific institutions carrying out highly sensitive work? Is the process of removing them quietly to an academic institution a sensible attempt at resolving an apparently intractable problem, given that trials, however open or closed, are a necessary part of the judicial procedure? Torture or oppressive measures cannot be applied to the targets, backed up by other cruel or mortal threats, as was the feature of Stalin’s Show Trials. Perhaps moving awkward employees to a quiet backwater was the most sensible practice to protect the realm without causing undue publicity?
Attlee’s unfortunately
named Purge Procedure was provoked by the Nunn May conviction, and a Cabinet
Committee on Subversive Activities was set up in May 1947. The topic of the
Procedure, which was established in March 1948, and how it was applied, has
been covered by Christopher Andrew, in Defend the Realm, pp 382-393. Yet
I find this exposition starkly inadequate: it concentrates on the discovery of
communists within the Civil Service, but barely touches the highly sensitive
issue of possibly disloyal scientists working at a secret institution like AERE
Harwell. For reasons of space and time, a proper analysis will have to be
deferred until another report, and I only skim the issue here.
Professor Glees has
informed me that, during an interview that Dick White gave him in the 1980s
(White died in 1993), the ex-chief of MI5 and MI6 impressed upon him ‘the importance of keeping
people away from where they could do harm’, and that the execution of such a
policy was a key MI5 tool. As a counterbalance, the journalist Richard Deacon
informed us that, in the early 1950s, ‘gone to Ag and Fish’ (the Ministry of
Agriculture, Fisheries and Food) meant that an intelligence operative had ‘gone
to ground’. That ministry was the destination for the MI6 agent Alexander Foote
after he had been interrogated. Perhaps he worked alongside civil servants with
communist leanings who had also been parked there.
I find that statement of policy a little disingenuous on White’s
part. For it is one thing to take a discovered Communist off the fast track in
some other Ministry and transfer him out to grass sorting out cod quotas with
Iceland before he does any damage. And it is quite another
to take a known or highly suspected spy from a secret institution like AERE
Harwell, remove him completely from sensitive work, and transfer him to a
university a hundred and fifty miles away. Multiple issues come into play: the
processes of university councils, the creation of posts, preferential treatment
over other candidates, funding, the candidates’ suitability for teaching, language
problems, relocation concerns, even a wife’s preferences – and the inevitable
chatter that accompanies such a disruption.
So what should the
authorities have done in such cases? Civil servants were entitled to a certain
measure of employment protection, and could not be fired without due cause. Being
a communist was not one of those causes, and Attlee was nervous about left-wing
backlash. The primary challenge to taking drastic action in the case of spies
(who were frequently not open communists) thus consisted in the suitability of
the evidence of guilt, however conclusive. Unless the suspect had been caught
red-handed (as was Dave Springhall, although he was not an academic), or he or
she could quickly be convinced to confess (as was Nunn May), the prosecution
probably relied on confidential sources. In the case of Fuchs, the source was
VENONA transcripts: the project was considered far too sensitive to bring up in
court, and its validity as hard evidence might have been sorely tested. Even
with a confession, there were risks associated. A defendant might bring up
uncomfortable truths. With little imagination required, Fuchs could surely have
brought up the matter of his inducement by Skardon/Cockcroft, and he could have
honestly described how he had been encouraged to spy on the Americans while
furthering British objectives.
Moreover,
public trials would draw attention to a security service’s defects:
counter-intelligence units are not praised when they haul in spies, but severely
criticised for allowing them to operate in the first place. And if the suspects
were British citizens, and were threatened to the extent that they felt
uncomfortable, or could not maintain a living, they could not be prevented from
fleeing abroad at any time (‘doing a Pontecorvo’), and had therefore to be
encouraged to feel safe in the country. Thus sending such candidates to a functional
Siberia, in the hope that they would become stale and valueless, yet behave
properly, came to represent a popular option with the mandarins in MI5 and the
Ministries. (On Khrushchev’s accession to power, Molotov was sent to be
Ambassador in Mongolia, while Malenkov was despatched to run a power station in
Kazakhstan. I have not been able to verify the claim that the Russians have a
phrase for this – ‘being sent to Liverpool’.)
Yet it was an
essentially dishonourable and shoddy business. First of all, unless the
authorities were simply scared about what might happen, it rewarded criminal
behaviour. It discriminated unjustly between those who did not confess and
those who did (Springhall, Nunn May, Fuchs, Blake): we recall that Nunn May was
blacklisted by British universities after his release, while Fuchs, with a
little more resolve, might have spent a few calm years considering where he
might be more content, continuing his liaison with Erna Skinner in Liverpool,
or renewing his acquaintance with Grete Keilson in East Germany. The Purge
Procedure allowed suspected civil servants to leave with some measure of
dignity, but the method of transferring suspects to important positions at
universities represented a deceitful, and possibly illegal, exploitation of
academic institutions, and consisted in a disservice to undergraduates
potentially taught by these characters. Moreover, there was no guarantee that such
a move would have put the lid on the betrayal of secrets. The Soviets might try
to extradite a suspect (Moscow thought Liverpool was useless as a home for
Pontecorvo), which, if successful, would have raised even more questions.
Overall, the policy was
conceived in the belief that the suspect would behave like a proper English
gentleman, but that was no certainty, and there were sometimes wives to
consider (such as Mrs. Pontecorvo.) Latent hypocrisy existed, in (for example)
Cockcroft’s hope that Fuchs and Davison might still help the government’s cause.
It was an attempt at back-stairs fixing, and the fact that it was covered-up
indicated government embarrassment at the process. They displayed naivety in
believing that the story would not come out. It was bound to happen, as indeed
it did with Davison, although Skinner’s ‘removal’ appears to have been
successfully concealed.
(I should also note that
a similar process was applied to Kim Philby. He was dismissed from MI6, and
made to feel distinctly uncomfortable, but allowed to pursue a journalistic
career, again in the belief that his utility to his bosses in Moscow would
rapidly disintegrate. Yet he had loyal friends still in the Service, and became
an embarrassment. Some historians claim that Dick White allowed him to escape from
Beirut as the least embarrassing option.)
What
final lessons can be learned? The experiences with Fuchs, Pontecorvo and
Davison (and to a lesser extent, Skinner) reinforce that fact that MI5 was
hopelessly unprepared for the challenge of vetting for highly sensitive
projects. Awarding scientists citizenship does not guarantee loyalty: the
Official Secrets and Treachery Acts will not deter the committed spy. Stricter
checks at recruitment should have been essential, although they might not have
eliminated the expert dissimulator. Vetting procedures should have been
defended and executed sternly, with no exceptions. Yet MI5 also showed a
bewilderingly disappointing lack of insight into how the Soviet Union, and
especially the NKVD/KGB, worked, which meant that they were clueless when it
came to assessing an ‘émigré’ like Davison, who fitted into no known category.
Until the Burgess-Maclean debacle, they continued to believe in the essential
loyalty of well-educated Britons. They continued to ignore Krivitsky’s warnings
and advice, and failed to gather intelligence on the Soviet Union’s domestic
policies, and strategies for espionage abroad. It should instead have built up
a comprehensive dossier of intelligence on the structure and methods of its
ideological adversary, as did Hugh Trevor-Roper with the Abwehr, and
promoted a strong message of prevention to its political masters and
colleagues. That opportunity had faded when its sharpest counter-espionage
officer, Jane Archer, was sidelined, and then fired, in 1940.
The
events surrounding these scientists should surely provide material for a major
novel or Fraynian dramatic work. The line
between inducement and threats, on the one hand, and careful psychological
pressure, on the other, could have had vastly different outcomes, and could
perhaps be compared to the treatment of the homosexuals Burgess and Turing, and
how the former managed to get away with scandalous behaviour, while the latter
was driven to suicide. Perhaps whatever strategy was tried was flawed, as it
was too late by then, but dumping on universities was undistinguished and
hypocritical. Demotion, removal from critical secret work, and removal of
oxygen sent a signal that might have been successful with a more timid
character like Davison, but it would not have worked with a showman like
Pontecorvo.
This
business of counter-intelligence is tough: MI5 was not a disciplined and
ruthless machine, but simply another institution with its rivalries, ambitions,
flaws, and politics to handle. It was poor at learning from experience, however,
and sluggish in setting up policies to deal with the unexpected, instead
spending vast amounts of fruitless time and effort in watching people, and
opening correspondence. It thus muddled along, and found itself having to cover
up for its missteps, and choosing to deceive the government and the public. For
a long time, the ruse appeared to be successful. Seventy years have passed. A
close and integrative, horizontal rather than vertical, inspection of the
released archives, however, complemented by a careful analysis of biographical
records, has allowed a more accurate account of the goings-on of 1950 to be
assembled.
Primary
Sources:
National
Archives files on Pontecorvo, Fuchs, the Skinners, Davison: the Guy Liddell
Diaries
The
Mountford memoir at Liverpool University
Britain
and Atomic Energy by Margaret Gowing
Half-Life
by Frank Close
The
Pontecorvo Affair by Simone Turchetti
Klaus
Fuchs: A Biography by Norman Moss
Klaus
Fuchs: Atom Spy by Robert Chadwell Williams
The
Spy Who Changed the World by Mike Rossiter
Trinity
by Frank Close
Atomic
Spy
by Nancy Thorndike Greenspan
Elemental
Germans by Christopher Laucht
The
Atom Bomb Spies by H. Montgomery Hyde
Scientist
Spies by Paul Broda
Bird
of Passage by Rudolf Peierls
Sir
Rudolf Peierls, Correspondence, Volume 1 edited by Sabine Lee
Cockcroft
and the Atom by Guy Hartcup & T E Allibone
The
Neutron and the Bomb by Andrew Brown
Joseph
Rotblat, Keeper of the Nuclear Conscience by Andrew Brown
[In Part 1 of this segment, I analysed the way in which Rudolf Peierls tried to frame his life and career. He almost managed to conceal a murky connection with the Soviet authorities, but a study of archives, letters and memoirs strongly suggested a hold that Moscow exerted over him and his wife. In Part 2, I investigate how the network of physicists in Britain in the 1930s helped to enable Peierls’s close friend and protégé Klaus Fuchs to thrive, and explore how Peierls tried to explain away Fuchs’s ability to spy under his watch.]
Rudolf Peierls
When those UK public servants who aided or abetted the espionage of Klaus Fuchs were judged, whether they were in academia, government, or intelligence, the investigation essentially boiled down to four questions: 1) Were they incompetent? (‘I never knew he was a Communist’); 2) Were they negligent? (‘I knew he was a Communist, but didn’t think it mattered’); 3) Were they timid? (‘I knew he was a Communist, and was concerned, but didn’t want to rock the boat’); or 4) Were they culpable? (‘I knew he was a Communist, and that is why I recruited/approved him’). The actions of each were highly dependent upon roles and timing: supporting a communist scientist in the 1930s would have been almost de rigueur in physicist circles; in 1941 the Ministry of Aircraft Production was so desperate to beat Hitler that it admitted it had no qualms about recruiting a communist; after Gouzenko’s defection in 1945, and Nunn May’s sentencing, any communist links began to be treated as dangerous; in 1951 Sillitoe and White of MI5 lied to Prime Minster Attlee about Fuchs’s communism in order to save the institution’s skin. In comparison, in 1944 the OSS recruited Jürgen Kuczynski (Sonia’s brother, who introduced Fuchs to a member of Soviet military intelligence) because he was a communist. But the post mortems of the Cold War suggested that warning signals should have been made at every stage of the spy’s advancement to positions where he had access to highly confidential information.
Moreover, Fuchs is often presented in contrasting styles. On the one hand appears the superb master of tradecraft, who effortlessly insinuated himself into Britain’s academic elite, convinced the authorities of his skills and commitment, took up UK nationality, and then, with his keen knowledge of counter-surveillance techniques was able to pass on atomic secrets to his handler, Sonia, and later, in 1949, to give away no clues when he was being watched, being betrayed solely because of the VENONA decrypts, and the tenacity of those who followed the leads. On the other hand we see the clumsy communist, who made no effort to conceal his true affiliations, escaped undetected only because of the incompetence of MI5, but carelessly provided possible clues by visiting his sister in Boston, and contacting a known Communist (Johanna Klopstech) on his return to the UK in 1946. Moreover, he drank ‘like a fish’, according to Genia Peierls. When questioned, he was foolish enough to confess to espionage when anyone else would have brazened it out, with the result that his Soviet spymasters were disgusted with him.
Would
it not have made more sense for Fuchs to soften his communist stance, thus
avoiding a complete volte-face and loss of credibility with his leftist peers
in England, but suggesting he was more of a vague theoretician than a firm
believer in the Stalinist paradise? In this respect the relationship to Fuchs
of Rudolph Peierls, as his mentor and recruiter, is especially poignant. In
this article, I examine what is known about Peierls’s and other scientists’ awareness
of Fuchs’s true political commitment, and how Peierls danced around the issue
in the years after Fuchs’s prison sentencing, and later, when Fuchs was
released, and left the UK for the German Democratic Republic. I expand my
analysis by using the statements and testimony of other scientists who dealt
with the pair.
I
wrote about Peierls in Misdefending the Realm, and it might be useful to
re-present here a few sections from my book that focused on my assessment of
Peierls’s role in recruiting Fuchs to the Tube Alloys project, from Chapter 8:
Peierls’s
account of what happened next is deceptive. In his autobiography he claimed
that, several months after Fuchs’s release, when thinking about technical help
he himself needed in the spring of 1941, he thought of Fuchs. “I knew and liked
his papers, and I had met him”, he wrote, dismissing the relationship as fairly
remote. Yet he had never written about Fuchs beforehand, and he does not
describe the circumstances in which he had met him. His autobiographical
contribution is undermined, however, by what he had told MI5. When he was
interviewed by Commander Burt in February, 1950, shortly before Fuchs’s trial,
he said that he had first met Fuchs “in about 1934, probably at some scientific
conference”, but also stated that “he did not know him very well until Born
recommended him”. Fuchs was later to confirm that he had met Peierls at a
scientific conference “immediately before the war”. An MI5 report of November
23, 1949, states that “Peierls had met Fuchs at a Physics Conference in
Bristol, when Peierls had first suggested that Fuchs should work under him at
Birmingham”. That occasion was clearly before the war: Peierls and Fuchs had
achieved more than merely discuss issues of joint interest, and Peierls clearly
misrepresented the closeness of their relationship when speaking to Burt.
Without explaining how he had learned that Fuchs had been released from internment, and had returned to Edinburgh, Peierls stated that he wrote to Fuchs asking him whether he wanted to work with him, even before he (Peierls) had gained permission to do so. He next asked for official clearance, but was instructed “to tell him as little as possible”. “In due course he [Fuchs] got a full clearance, and he started work in May 1941.” One might conclude that the impression Peierls wanted to give is that it was a fortuitous accident that Fuchs’s availability, and his own need, coincided: he conveniently forgot the previous job offer. Moreover, the “and” in Peierls’s account is troublesome, suggesting a sequence of events that did not in fact happen that way. Fuchs had not received ‘full clearance’ by that time: in another item of correspondence, Peierls admitted that he had to wait. The process was to drag on for several months, and some MI5 personnel were later to express horror that the relevant government ministries had proceeded so carelessly in advancing Fuchs’s career without concluding the formal checks. For example, in June 1940, Peierls had taken Fuchs with him to Cambridge to meet the Austrian expert in heavy water, Dr. Hans Halban, who was a member of the exclusive five-man Tube Alloys Technical Committee: Fuchs’s training was assuredly not being held back.
Moreover,
Peierls’s account does not correspond with other records. It is clear from his
file at the National Archives that Fuchs was recommended for release from
internment in Canada as early as October 14, 1940 (i.e. shortly after the
meeting of the Maud Technical Sub-Committee), and that the termination of his
internment (to return to Edinburgh) was officially approved a few weeks later.
This followed an inquiry by the Royal Society as early as July 1940, since an
MI5 memorandum states that “the Royal Society included Fuchs on list of
scientists they wanted urgently released soon after Fuchs sailed on Ettrick on
July 3, 1940.” An ‘exceptional case’ was made on October 17, and the Home
Office gave Fuchs’s name to the High Commissioner for Canada. These requests
would later appear very provocative, as a defined role for Fuchs appeared to
have been described very early in the cycle. Yet, after his arrival in
Liverpool in January 1941, the Immigration Officer specified very clearly to
the Superintendent of the Register of Aliens that Fuchs would not be able to
“engage in any kind of employment without the consent of the Ministry of
Labour”.
It
would at first glance be quite reasonable to suppose that Peierls had initiated
this action, especially given the curious testimony of Fuchs’s supervisor at
Edinburgh, Max Born. In a letter dated May 29, 1940, Born had written (to whom
is not clear) that, despite Fuchs’s being “in the small top group of
theoretical physicists in this country”, he and the others should not be freed
from internment. Furthermore, Born wrote that “there are strict regulations
that prohibit any liberated internees to return to the ‘protected area’ where
they live”. “Even if they would be released they could not join my department
again”, he added. Either this was a deliberate deception by Born, to provide a
cover-story, or he had a quick change of heart, or he was sincere, but was
overruled, the British government wishing to maintain the fiction that
everything happened later than supposed. The third alternative can probably be
discounted, as Born soon after began writing to influential persons, trying to
gain Fuchs’s release, immediately after his arrest, and himself vigorously
tried to find Fuchs remunerative employment as soon as he learned about Fuchs’s
release from internment. In any case, the earlier statement represented an
unnecessarily severe judgment, made just over two weeks after Fuchs’s
interrogation and arrest, and its only purpose can have been to smooth the path
of Fuchs’s employment elsewhere after his eventual release. [pp 217-218]
And:
In fact, correspondence between Peierls and the pacifist-minded Born suggests that the two collaborated to find Fuchs employment very soon after his release from internment was approved. It appears the two scientists knew each other well. In the summer of 1936, Born (whose position at Cambridge had come to an end) had received an invitation from Kapitza to work for him in Moscow. The fact that Kapitza appeared then to be an unreformed Stalinist, writing in his letter of invitation: “Now, Born, is the time to make your decision whether you will be on the right or the wrong side in the coming political struggle”, did not deter Born. He considered it so seriously that he started taking Russian lessons from Peierls’s wife, Eugenia, but instead assumed the chair of Natural Philosophy at Edinburgh University in October 1936. Laucht’s study of Frisch and Peierls refers to letters exchanged between Peierls and Born in November, 1940, where they explored opportunities for placing Fuchs successfully. This correspondence continued during the spring of 1941, with Peierls expressing extreme dedication towards bringing Fuchs into his camp. “Although it looked initially as if Fuchs would not make the move to the University of Birmingham, Peierls remained tireless in his effort to find a job for the talented physicist at his university. In the end, he succeeded and offered Fuchs a temporary position,” wrote Laucht. Thus Peierls’s version of the recruitment process can be interpreted as another self-serving memoir attempting to distance the author from a traitor. All this was known by MI5: they had gained Home Office Warrants to read the correspondence.
Max
Born, moreover, was far from innocent in helping Fuchs on his mission. In his
two items of autobiography, he relentlessly reminds his readers that he had no
competence in nuclear physics, a convenient pretence for his attitude of
non-participation and pacifism. Yet in his later, more comprehensive volume he
related the episode of a visit to Cambridge in the summer of 1939, where he met
the nuclear physicist Leo Szilard, and how, on his return, he shared with Fuchs
Szilard’s conviction that an atom bomb could be made. He was then unequivocal
that Fuchs knew that the nature of the work he would have to be engaged in was
nuclear weapons research, with the goal of defeating Hitler, as he claimed he
tried to talk Fuchs out of it. Just as Peierls did in his own memoir, Born
concealed the fact of the correspondence between the two exiled scientists at the
end of 1940, supporting the lie that it was Peierls’s sudden request for Fuchs
in May of 1941 that occasioned the latter’s transfer from Edinburgh to
Birmingham. [pp 220-21]
What
new material can shed further light on this story? In some ways, the sources
have become sparser. In recent years, previously available files concerning
atomic weapons and energy research, including vital files on Klaus Fuchs, have
been ‘retained’ by UK government departments for unspecified reasons. (see, for
example:
https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/research-brought-halt-national-archives/ and
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/23/british-nuclear-archive-files-withdrawn-without-explanation ) Very recently, some of the files on
Sonia’s family have been inexplicably withdrawn (’closed while access is under
review’). In his 1997 biography of Professor Chadwick (the head of the British
mission to assist in the Manhattan Project), Andrew Brown wrote: “Some of the wartime
letters between Chadwick and Peierls that have never been released in England
were available at the National Archives, but possibly as a result of the Gulf
War, they were recently recensored by the US authorities” – an
extraordinary admission of foreign interference. The Cleveland Cram archive of
CIA material at Georgetown University has been withdrawn, at the CIA’s request
(see: https://theintercept.com/2016/04/25/how-the-cia-writes-history/).
Sabine Lee’s publication of the Letters of Rudolf Peierls has usefully extracted
a number of communications between the scientist and his colleagues and
contacts, but the emphasis is very much on technical matters, most of the letters
appear in the original German, and the volume is very expensive.
On
the other hand, a careful examination of the archival material of fringe
figures (such as the enigmatic Herbert Skinner), and the articles, book
reviews, memoirs and biographies of scientists who engaged with Peierls and
Fuchs in the 1930s, 40s and 50s can reveal a host of subsidiary detail that
helps to shed light on the process by which Fuchs was allowed to be adopted by
Peierls, and approved for work on Tube Alloys.
The
Physicists
The Physics Department at Bristol
The saga started at the University of Bristol, where a fascinating group of future luminaries was assembled in the 1930s. Klaus Fuchs arrived there, in October 1933, and was introduced to Professor Nevill Mott by Ronald Gunn, who was a director of Imperial Tobacco, was described by many as a Quaker, but was also a strong communist sympathiser. Gunn had visited the Soviet Union in 1932, had met Fuchs in Paris in 1933, and had sponsored his move to Bristol. The university admissions board accepted Fuchs as a doctoral student of Mott, who held the Melville Wills Chair of Theoretical Physics. Mott and Gunn were both alumni of Clifton College, as, indeed, was Roger Hollis, the controversial future chief of MI5. Mott had taken up his new position only in the autumn of 1933, at the young age of twenty-six, and one of his new colleagues was Herbert Skinner, to whom he was indebted for helping focus his research. Professor Tyndall’s history of the Physics Department also credits Skinner with endorsing the selection of Mott.
Skinner was later to become Fuchs’s boss at AERE Harwell, where Fuchs was to conduct an affair with Skinner’s ‘Austrian-born’ wife, Erna, described as ’glamorous’ in one memoir. Skinner had been appointed a Henry Herbert Will Research Fellow at Bristol in 1927, and was given a more permanent position as Lecturer in Spectroscopy in June 1931, which he held until 1946. In October 1934, Rudolph Peierls’s long-time friend, colleague and correspondent Hans Bethe arrived, but he stayed only four months before leaving for the United States to take up a chair at Cornell University. Soon after that, however, Herbert Fröhlich was added to the faculty. (I wrote about his miraculous escape from the Soviet Union in Part 1 of this analysis.) Fröhlich was appointed Lecturer in 1944, and Reader in 1946. He stayed until 1948, when he was appointed as Professor of Theoretical Physics at Liverpool University. Ronald Gurney was another Soviet sympathiser, a member of the local Communist Party, working as a George Wills research associate from 1933 to 1939, and contributing, alongside Fröhlich, to Mott’s research on semiconductors and crystals. (Ironically, Fuchs would later tell the FBI that Gurney was ‘a security risk’ because he and his wife had at Bristol both been members of the Society for Cultural Relations with the USSR.) Alan Nunn May, the other famed ‘atom spy’ was one of those scientists from King’s College, London, evacuated to Bristol at the start of the war.
Other
German-speaking physicists were recruited, and were later, like Fuchs, to
undergo internment during the ‘fifth column’ scare of 1940. Christopher Laucht
writes, in Elemental Germans: “Other German-speaking émigré physicists
who were interned included Walter Kohn and Hans Kronberger, as well as eight
members of the physics department at Bristol University: Walter Heitler and his
brother Hans, Herbert Fröhlich, Kurt Hoselitz, Phillip Gross and Heinz London,
and two of their students Robert Arno Sack and G. Eichholz.” (p 27) Yet it is primarily
the exposures of Mott, Born, Skinner, Gurney and Fröhlich to Klaus Fuchs,
supplemented by the careers of two other important figures, Rotblat and
Plazcek, that concern me here.
Nevill
Mott
Nevill Mott
Nevill Mott was ambivalent in his assessment of Fuchs. Mott was some kind of fellow-traveller himself: in his memoir, A Life in Science, he describes how in 1934 he enthusiastically paid a visit to the Soviet Union, ostensibly to attend a conference celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Mendeleyev. The scientist who invited him, Yakov Frenkel, was the same person who had invited Peierls to Odessa in 1931. Mott had the good (or bad) fortune to be accompanied on the Soviet boat by Sidney Webb. He recorded part of his experiences as follows: “To me, from England at the height of the depression, Russia appeared as a country without unemployment. At any rate, I wanted to believe in it. It was after the ‘dekulakization’ but before Stalin’s purges. ‘What about the Kulaks?’, I asked a Russian physicist. ‘Well, we had to get rid of the half million rich peasants in the interests of the masses, but now that this has been done there will be nothing more like it, and the future is rosy.’ I believed him.”
Mott
could be described as the perfect embodiment of Lenin’s ‘useful idiot’.
Admittedly, far greater persons posed the same question. Winston Churchill also
asked Stalin about the kulaks, in 1942, although it was a foolish impulse, as
the Prime Minister must have known full well by then what the nature and scale
of the massacres, deportations and enforced famine had been, and, if he was not
prepared to challenge the Soviet dictator on the matter, his question would
turn out to be a political victory for Stalin. Mott was naive enough to admit
his gullibility, at least: Peierls remained silent after his more tortured
visit.
Yet
Mott was a little evasive about Fuchs. In a memoir Bristol Physics in the
1930s, he wrote that Fuchs’s ‘views, as we all knew, were very left wing,
and at the time of the Spanish Civil War, the rise of Hitler and Mussolini’s
invasion of Abyssinia, so were those of many of the young physicists’. In A
Life in Science, however, Mott’s awkwardness shines through. First he
introduces Fuchs as ‘a political refugee, with communist sympathies’, not
explaining how he knew that. He next writes that Fuchs was ‘was shy and
reserved and I do not remember discussing politics with him’. But then he
relates the famous incident of the meeting of the local branch of the Society
for Cultural Relations with the Soviet Union, which he and Fuchs – and maybe
others – attended. The description ironically does not comment on those aspects
of ‘cultural relations’ that Mott judged worthy of nurturing.
“In
Bristol in the 1930s, we had a branch of the Society for
Cultural Relations with the Soviet Union. It met from time to time in a
studio in Park Street, which disappeared in 1940 in the first big raid on
Bristol, (during which I remember walking home from a meeting, with
incendiaries falling in the street). We used to dramatize translations of the
Soviet treason trials, but which Stalin appears to have got rid of most of his
possible rivals. They were accused of sabotage in the interests of the Germans.
But my most vivid recollection is of Fuchs in the role of Vishinsky, the
prosecutor, accusing the defendents [sic] with a cold venom that I would
never have suspected from so quiet and unassuming a young man.” The mystery is
a) why Fuchs would go out of his way to express his political sympathies, and
b) why Bristol academia would not consider his behaviour outrageous.
Eventually,
Fuchs moved on – to Edinburgh University, under Professor Max Born. The record
here is again ambiguous. Mott described the action as follows: “After four
years I arranged for him to go to the former leader of the Göttingen theorists,
Max Born, by then Professor in Edinburgh. Born, in his autobiography, writes
that I wanted to get rid of him because he was a communist, but that was not
so; we had many refugees in Bristol and needed to think about permanent posts
for some of them, and we hadn’t the resources to provide for all.”
Max
Born
Max Born
Max Born had escaped from Nazi Germany in 1933, and after taking a position at St. John’s College, Cambridge, was in 1936 appointed to the Tait chair of natural philosophy at Edinburgh University. In an essay in his My Life and Views, Born wrote: “Next, Klaus Fuchs, a highly gifted man who never concealed the fact that he was a communist; after the outbreak of the war and a short internment as an enemy alien, he joined the British team investigating nuclear fission. I think he became a spy not from ulterior motives but from honest conviction.” Apart from the disingenuous claim that ‘ulterior motives’ and ‘honest conviction’ are opposite motivators in the field of espionage, Born makes it quite clear that he knew about Fuchs’s loyalties, writing in My Life about recently arrived scientists at Edinburgh: “One of the first of these was Klaus Fuchs, later so well known through the spy affair in which he was involved,’ as if The Spy Who Changed the World (Michael Rossiter’s clumsy title for his first-class biography, flawed only by its lack of specific references) had been a bit-player in some distasteful society scandal.
This controversy
was intensified, however, when the first biography of Fuchs, by Norman Moss,
titled Klaus Fuchs: The Man Who Stole the Atom Bomb, was reviewed by M.
F. Perutz in the 25 June, 1987 issue of the London Review of Books.
Fuchs had taught Perutz the principles of theoretical physics when both were
interned in Canada in the summer of 1940. In his review, Perutz referred to the
claim made by Prime Minister Attlee in the House of Commons that there had been
no evidence that Fuchs had ever been a Communist, and commented: “When I mentioned this to a veteran physicist
friend of mine recently, he interjected: ‘But Fuchs and I were in the same
Communist cell when we were students at Bristol.’ Max Born, Fuchs’s former
chief at Edinburgh, wrote about Fuchs: ‘He never concealed that he was a
convinced communist. During the Russo-Finnish war everyone’s sympathies in our
department were with the Finns, while Fuchs was passionately pro-Russian.’ On
the other hand, Peierls had no idea that Fuchs was a Communist.”
Norman Moss explained more, in a response
published by the LRB: “In his autobiography My Life, Max Born, who took on Fuchs as a young
researcher, said Sir Nevill Mott told him he sent him away from Bristol
University because ‘he spread Communist propaganda among the undergraduates.’
But there is a footnote containing a comment by Sir Nevill to the effect that
Born must have misunderstood something he said, because he does not remember
his doing any such thing. “In fact, none of Fuchs’s close friends knew he had
been an active Communist in Germany. Fuchs did once defend Russia’s attack on
Finland in 1939 in an argument with Born, as Professor Perutz says in his
review and as I said in my book.”
While this sheds light on the Born-Mott
misunderstanding, the final sentences would seem to be a non sequitur.
It is worth examining Born’s text more closely. In fact he admitted surprise at
the written reasons Mott gave for passing Fuchs on to him, which stressed
Mott’s desire to learn more about Born’s ‘special methods’. Born felt that Mott
understood such methods very well, and could have thus passed them on to Fuchs
himself. The message that Mott later denied was delivered orally at a meeting
in London. According to Born: “I enjoyed working with Fuchs so much that I
wondered why Mott had sent him away. This was explained when I encountered Mott
at a meeting in London. He asked me how I was getting on with Fuchs, and when I
answered ‘splendidly’, and praised his talent, Mott said ‘What a pity I had to
get rid of him. He spread communist propaganda among the undergraduates’. Mott
told me that he had arranged for his own contribution to the general refugee
fund to be directed to Fuchs, a generous gesture which possibly also showed how
much he was afraid of communist propaganda.”
Does that last statement indicate that Mott
was trying to buy Fuchs off? What did it mean that Mott (or Bristol) could not
afford to pay Fuchs, but could cover his expenses at Edinburgh? It does not
appear to make much sense. In any case, Mott apparently had a chance to review
Born’s script before publication, as he was allowed to comment, in the footnote
cited by Moss, as follows: “I must have made a remark which Born misunderstood
or took more seriously than I intended. I do not remember believing that Fuchs
spread communist propaganda among the students, and at a time when Hitler was
the enemy I could not have worried unduly if he had. What happened was this. In
Bristol we had research funds from the generous gifts of the Wills family, and
with these and help from the Academic Assistance Council we built up a very
strong group of physicists who had left Germany in 1933. Some we wished to
keep; but established positions then as now were few and far between and for
others we helped as we could to find jobs elsewhere. This is how we acted about
Fuchs.”
A strong measure of truth may have
accompanied that last claim, but how come Born could not have been apprised of
it from the outset? Why did Mott beat about the bush? And why did he so
carelessly misrepresent Nazi Germany’s status as of 1937, when Fuchs moved to
Edinburgh? At that time, Hitler may have been a grossly unpleasant threat to
leftist scientists like Mott, but he was no more ‘the enemy’ than Stalin was.
It was a typically disingenuous footnote by Mott.
Many witnesses seem to be behaving
economically with the truth here, including, of course, Clement Attlee, who had
been lied to outrageously by Percy Sillitoe, the head of MI5. Yet the most
startling item of evidence is the statement by Perutz’s ‘veteran physicist
friend’, who talks about membership of communist cells as casually as a British
diplomat might refer to his house at Marlborough or Wellington. Who was this
friend? And why would Perutz treat his friend’s confession so lightly?
Herbert Fröhlich
Herbert Froehlich
The friend cannot have been Skinner, as Skinner had died while attending a conference in Geneva in 1960. Ronald Gurney had been a member of the CPGB, but he had left for the United States, where he died in 1953. If we are looking for a prominent physicist, of suspected communist affiliation, present at Bristol between 1934 and 1937, still alive in 1987, and a probable friend of Max Perutz, it would be Herbert Fröhlich. And the communist cell may not have been a unit of the Communist Party of Great Britain: it was much more likely to have been the German branch (the KPD). Fuchs regarded himself still as a member of the KPD when in the United Kingdom, and he had made contact with Jürgen Kuczynski, Sonia’s brother, who had arrived in London in 1933, and re-energised the KPD through the front of the Free German League of Culture. Jürgen became head of the KPD in Britain, and was in contact with the GRU representative in London, Simon Kremer.
You will not find a reference to Fröhlich in
the biographies of Fuchs by Moss, Edwards, Rossiter or Close. Christopher
Laucht, in Elemental Germans, records the contribution to the Maud Committee
that Fröhlich made with Walter Heitner, in the field of spontaneous fission in
uranium. Yet he glides smoothly over Fröhlich’s time in the Soviet Union,
remarking solely that he experienced problems in getting his visa renewed.
Laucht does note, however, that Fröhlich also lodged with the Peierlses, and
that Peierls managed to gain funding for Fröhlich from the Academic Assistance
Council.
G.J. Hyland’s biography of Fröhlich (A
Physicist Ahead of His Time, published in 2015) provides the details on
Frohlich’s experiences in the Soviet Union, whither he had also been invited by
the ever-present Frenkel. Yet Hyland is comparatively bland on the physicist’s
career after that, providing a text that is very much directed at the specialist.
He does not mention any Maud work, although he does record that Fröhlich, after
being released from internment in September 1940, returned to Bristol, but was
prohibited from working on nuclear fission – an intriguing contrast to how
Fuchs was sought out and approved. During the remainder of the war, Fröhlich
‘was occupied in part-time research for the Ministry of Supply, working
initially on an image converter instrument for use on tanks to extend night
vision’. Fröhlich was not naturalised until August 1946, but was then offered
the position of Head of the Theoretical Physics Division at Harwell. “He
declined this offer, however, not wanting to be involved with any work that
might further nuclear warfare,” writes Hyland, adding: “Klaus Fuchs was
appointed in his place!”
(I welcome any other suggestions as to who
Perutz’s communist friend might have been.)
Herbert Skinner
Herbert Skinner
The most mysterious figure in this whole farrago is Herbert Skinner, since he owned an unmatched intimacy and longevity in his relationship with Klaus Fuchs, but his career is the least well documented of all. While his presence at Bristol University in the 1930s has been clearly described, his period in the war years has been sparsely addressed. His biographical memoir as a Fellow of the Royal Society indicates that, from 1939, he performed very valuable work on the detection of submarines by microwave radar, and after experiments in the Shetlands pursued the deployment of the technology at the Telecommunication Research Establishment at Malvern. (Ironically, this type of work was so secret, and so critical to the defence of the nation, that Skinner’s German-born colleagues were prohibited from working on it.) Skinner was then recruited, in 1943, to work as Oliphant’s deputy in California. Mike Rossiter simply notes that Skinner had contributed to the Manhattan Project at Berkeley ‘on electromagnetic separation with Lawrence’, and Frank Close similarly – but not strictly correctly – writes that ‘Herbert Skinner had also spent the war in the Berkeley team, which had studied separation of isotopes and investigated the physics of plutonium’. Skinner merits only one mention in Volume 1, 1939-1945) of Margaret Gowing’s history of Britain and Atomic Energy, when she refers to a Harwell planning meeting he attended in Washington in November 1944. Skinner does not appear in Graham Farmelow’s Churchill’s Bomb.
Skinner came to life again on his appointment
at Harwell after the war as head of the General Physics Department. He was also
John Cockcroft’s deputy, and in the first half of 1946 selected staff and
guided the construction, while Cockcroft was still in Canada. Fuchs was one of
those appointments, arriving at Harwell in June 1946. Before the sordid
business in the late forties, however, when Fuchs conducted his affair with Erna
Skinner, a liaison closely surveilled by MI5 and Special Branch, Skinner appeared
with Fuchs in a very strange episode in New York. I introduced this event in my
Letter to Frank Close, but it merits deeper coverage here.
The two of them had travelled to Washington
in November 1947, in order to attend a declassification conference (November
14-16) where the implications of the McMahon Act on release of information on
atomic weaponry and energy were to be discussed. Evidence supplied in 1950 to
the FBI is so bizarre that I decided to transcribe here the main section of the
report. (I do not believe it has been reproduced anywhere before this. See https://vault.fbi.gov/rosenberg-case/klaus-fuchs/klaus-fuchs-part-05-of/view .) On
February 4, 1950, Dr. Samuel Goudsmit * informed the FBI that Dr. Karl Cohen,
who was head of the Theoretical Physics Division, and thus Fuchs’s counterpart
in the Atomic Energy Program, had described to him how Fuchs, after meeting
Cohen at a restaurant, had later called his counterpart, asking him to pick up
a hat he had left at the restaurant and return it to the person from whom he
had borrowed it on West 111th Street.
[* Goudsmit had been the head of the Alsos
project, which set out to determine how close the Nazis were getting to the
creation of an atomic bomb. After the war, he appears to have been a regular
contributor to the FBI, the CIA and SIS. His name comes up as an informant in
the Pontecorvo archive.]
The FBI interviewed Cohen on February 9,
1950. He described his encounters with
Fuchs at Columbia University and in Los Alamos, and then went on to explain
that he had no further meeting with Fuchs until the declassification conference.
His testimony is presented as follows:
“Cohen was told by Dr. Willard Libby of the
Atomic Energy Commission that he should discuss with Fuchs the declassification
of a certain document and make his recommendations to the conference. Cohen
received a phone call from a woman who explained that she was a good friend of
Fuchs, that Fuchs was staying either at the Henry Hudson Hotel or Park Central
Hotel, and that Fuchs wanted to see Cohen. Thereafter Cohen called Fuchs and
invited him to his home, which invitation Fuchs declined. He and Fuchs,
however, had dinner at a restaurant of Cohen’s choosing, during which time they
discussed the declassification of the document, Cohen recommending that it be
declassified and Fuchs opposing. Cohen stated that some time after leaving the
restaurant, Fuchs realized he had left a hat in the restaurant, which had
belonged to the person with whom he had been staying. He asked Cohen to pick it
up and return it since he, Fuchs, was leaving town. Cohen said that he regarded
this request out of line, but agreed to call the people and tell them where
they could obtain the hat. He did this, but the woman declined to retrieve the
hat and consequently, a few days later, Cohen obtained it and returned it. It
was Cohen’s recollection that Fuchs’ contact was a Dr. Cooper or Dr. Skinner,
attached to the British Delegation that was in the United States for the
Declassification Conference and who was staying with his wife and her father on
West 111th Street. He said that when he returned the hat he met the
scientist’s wife and her father. He described the wife as being typically
English, but stated that her father was of European extraction and spoke with
an accent. He said that on the bell to the apartment house there was the name
Cooper or Skinner, as well as the name of the father-in-law. He commented that
he would have forgotten this incident had it not been for the recent publicity
on Fuchs.” The FBI later confirmed that the names on the bell of 536 West 111th
Street appeared as Skinner, Hoffman and Kirsch, and that the apartment was
owned by Mrs. Skinner ‘who is presently living in Connecticut’. The report
added that ‘she had rented out this apartment to various roomers for the past
six years’.
What is one to make of this extraordinary
tale? Why was there such a performance around a simple hat? Was there any
significance in Erna’s accompanying her husband to New York at that time? What
was the role of her father, named Wurmbrand? (Her father was Moishe Michael
Wurmbrand, who was born in Sadhora, a suburb of Czernowitz, in 1883 and died in
New York in 1952. The claim that Erna was ‘Austrian’, as represented at the
National Archives, may have been a convenient fiction, but Bukovina was
governed by the Austrian Empire until 1918, after which it lay under Romanian
rule until 1940. Skinner’s Wikipedia entry gives her maiden name as
‘Abrahamson’.) Why did Fuchs have to borrow a hat, and why could the Skinners
not have picked it up themselves?
A former intelligence officer tells me that
he regards the whole episode as an example of complex tradecraft, but, given
Cohen’s sure innocence (else he would not have alerted the authorities), it
seems a very clumsy effort by Fuchs that risked exposing contacts to the FBI. As
I pointed out earlier, when speaking to the FBI, Fuchs identified the property
as belonging to Mrs. Skinner, overlooking her husband’s presence. (I believe I
misjudged the knowledge of the FBI about Cohen, and his role, in my earlier
piece. And the FBI surely was aware of the joint mission of Fuchs and Skinner,
although the report, rather dimly, states that ‘it would appear probable that
Mrs. Skinner is the wife of Dr. W. H. B. Skinner . . . who was one of the
members attending the Declassification Conference . . .’) Perhaps Cohen was used, as an
unwitting and innocent accomplice, to send a message about a completed project
from the restaurant to the Skinners – or Erna’s father. Fuchs may have left a
message at the restaurant chosen by Cohen, but wanted confirmation of its
receipt to be delivered to Erna and her father by an unimpeachable medium. In
any case, the incident shows that all the biographers of Fuchs have failed to
exploit the considerable information about him in the FBI Vault.
How much did Herbert Skinner himself know
what was going on? Why would he not have mentioned this incident to MI5 himself,
given the suspicions he later claimed to have had about Fuchs? And why would
the FBI not have made some connection? I have found no evidence of it in the
obvious places. The FBI’s Robert Lamphere came to London with Hugh Clegg in May
1950, after Fuchs’s conviction, to interview the spy, and extracted from him
the photographic recognition of his contact Harry Gold. Lamphere reports that
Clegg, who was not familiar with the case, brought a copy of the whole Fuchs
file with him, and read it on the plane. But Lamphere does not even mention
Skinner in his book, The FBI-KGB Wars.
Skinner comes across as a very complex
character. Rudolf Peierls has this to say about him, in Bird of Passage:
“His [Cockcroft’s] second-in-command was
Herbert Skinner, a well-known experimental physicist, whom we had known since
the thirties. He was more forceful in conversation than Cockcroft; he tended to
hold strong opinions, often more conservative than those of most physicists,
and was never reluctant to make them known. His lively personal contacts with
the staff at Harwell made up for Cockcroft’s detachment.” Cockcroft presented
him as somewhat self-important, with a tendency to regard himself and his
family as specially entitled. Others have described the Skinners’ boisterous
parties at Harwell, which were less inhibited than those of the
Cockcrofts. Close describes him as
follows: “A lean man with tousled hair, he and his wife Erna
shared a bohemian outlook. She had grown up in Berlin between the wars. Both
were socialists, like many of the scientists who had worked on the atomic bomb
programme, but they also had a cosmopolitan circle of friends in London, all of
which interested MI5.”
‘Bohemian’
and ‘cosmopolitan’ – dangerous epithets in the world of security. Yet how are
the contrary ideas of ‘conservative’ and ‘socialist’ explained? Was Skinner a
dissembler, working perhaps for some other organisation himself, and playing
Philbyesque roles of communist one day, fascist sympathiser the next? Rossiter
describes the two occasions, in December 1947 and February 1949, where Skinner
confided to Fuchs that he had seen two separate reports from MI6 that indicated
that German nuclear scientists had been detected working on a Soviet nuclear
bomb at Sukhumi on the Black Sea coast, immediately putting Fuchs on his guard.
Why and how would MI6 (SIS) have introduced such reports to a socialist like Skinner?
Why would they not have gone to Cockcroft, and why did Skinner think it was
suitable to show them to Fuchs, given the suspicions he admittedly harboured
about him? Is there another narrative, with Skinner involved as some secret
channel by SIS, to be uncovered here? So many questions, still.
It
is true that MI5 did maintain a file on Herbert and Erna (see KV 2/2080, 2/2081
& 2/2082 at The National Archives). Yet it was not opened until the end of
1949, when the Fuchs affair was brewing, and MI5 noticed that Erna was
associating ‘with a proven Soviet spy’ as well as ‘with persons who are
potential spies’. (It was not unknown for MI5 to maintain files on MI6
operatives about whom they were not told anything.) Input from the FBI would
have been very appropriate at that time, and it was careless of MI5 not to have
recalled the 1947 visit to New York. It would also have been odd if Robert
Lamphere did not mention the incident while he was in England. (Maybe he did,
of course, but nothing was recorded.) One would think that any possible link that had an aspect of
subterfuge should have been followed up. That was what ‘intelligence-sharing’
was about.
In
any case, MI5 had by then demanded that Commander Henry Arnold, the Security
Officer at Harwell, warn Skinner about such undesirable contacts. The Skinners
admitted that they had communist friends, and MI5 considered that it would be
safer to move Skinner to Liverpool, thus indicating that MI5’s discomfort over
him anteceded Cohen’s revelations. (I shall investigate the whole story about the
role of Liverpool University as a rest-home for distressed spies, and how MI5
misrepresented the project to Prime Minister Attlee, in a future article.)
On
June 28, 1950, William Skardon interviewed Skinner at Liverpool, and elicited
an extraordinary statement from him: “Dr. Skinner was somewhat critical of
M.I.5 for having allowed Fuchs, a known Communist, to be employed on the
development of Atomic Energy, saying that when they first met the man at
Bristol in the 1930’s he was clearly a Communist and a particularly arrogant
young pup. He was very surprised to find Fuchs at Harwell when he arrived there
to take up his post in 1946.” One might ask what Skinner had done about this,
in the fraught post-war world of 1946, with the Cold War under way, and Nunn
May having been sentenced a few months before. Skinner was surely responsible
for making the key appointments at Harwell. Skardon did in fact ask him, as his
report shows: “Of course I asked Skinner whether he had done anything about
this, pointing out that we were not psychic and relied upon the loyalty and
integrity of senior officers to disclose their objections to the employment of
junior members of the staff. He accepted this rebuff.”
Skinner
echoed this opinion in a review of Alan Moorehead’s Traitors in The
Atomic Scientists’ News : “We should not take on another Pontecorvo, who had
never lived in England, or another Fuchs, whom we knew to have been a communist
in Germany and who all through the 8 years of his stay in Britain until his
employment on the project, had continually consorted with extreme left-wing
groups without any attempt to disguise the fact.” This was a remarkably naïve position for
Skinner to take, given his prominence in atomic affairs, and his leading role
at Harwell. More alarming, perhaps, was a Liverpool police report from May 10,
1951, sent to Sir Percy Sillitoe, the head of MI5, that the Chief Constable had
received information, from ‘a hitherto most reliable and trustworthy source’,
that the Skinners were attending Communist Party meetings. Were they working under
cover?
Skinner
died in 1960, at the relatively young age of fifty-nine, at a conference in Geneva.
Was there anything suspicious about his death? None appears to have been
raised. But he was a very paradoxical character, and I do not believe the last
word has been uttered on exactly what his role in atomic espionage – either
abetting it, or trying to prevent it – had been.
Joseph
Rotblat
Joseph Rotblat
Joseph Rotblat never served on the faculty at Bristol, but his career is so interwoven with that of Peierls and the other émigré scientists that he merits a section here. His life was scarred by an unspeakable tragedy, but he came under suspicion by the FBI when he was posted to Los Alamos.
Rotblat
was born in 1908 in Poland. He left Warsaw for Great Britain in 1939,
travelling to Liverpool to learn more about the cyclotron being constructed
there under James Chadwick’s direction. Chadwick soon awarded Rotblat a
fellowship, which now meant that he could afford to bring Ewa, his wife, to the
U.K. With the prospect of war looming, he returned to Poland in order to pick
up Ewa. She was ill with appendicitis, however, so he reluctantly returned
without her. Strenuous efforts to bring her out after the outbreak of war
failed. She was killed at Belzec concentration camp, although Rotblat was not
to learn this for several years.
Rotblat
worked on the Tube Alloys project, although he had never became naturalised. He
was nevertheless still allowed to join the Manhattan project at Los Alamos in January
1944, after a waiver had been granted. Committed to the project out of fear
that the Germans would acquire the atomic bomb, Rotblat asked to be released
when it seemed that the Germans would fail: he reputedly heard from General
Groves that the Soviets were now the potential enemy, and his pro-Soviet
sympathies rebelled at this prospect.
By
this time he had come under suspicion. When he told Chadwick of his desire to
return to the UK, Chadwick contacted General Groves, who showed him the contents
of the FBI file on him, now available on-line. Exactly what happened cannot be
determined from the file, as so many retractions and denials concerning its
content occurred later. But Rotblat’s name was later found in Fuchs’s address
book, which led to renewed investigations. Rotblat had met in the course of his
year at Los Alamos a lady friend from England, in love with Rotblat, who at
first indicated to the FBI that Rotblat had had communist sympathies, and
wanted to train with the RAF so that he could parachute into Soviet-occupied
Poland. That would have been unthinkable, given what he knew. The lady later
retracted some of her testimony, and Rotblat apparently managed to convince the
authorities that the accusations were baseless.
One
final twist on the story is that Rotblat, leaving Los Alamos on Christmas Eve 1944
on a train to Washington and New York, packed a large box with all his personal
records in it. After staying with Chadwick in Washington, he discovered in New
York that the box was missing. Yet Martin Underwood, in an article for Science
and Engineering Ethics in 2013 (‘Joseph Rotblat, the Bomb, and Anomalies
for his Archive’) points out that highly confidential papers concerning
critical developments at Los Alamos turned up in Rotblat’s archive at Churchill
College in Cambridge, showing that Rotblat probably did engage in important
work (despite his claim that he was bored and underutilised), and that thus not
all his papers were in that mysterious lost box.
Rotblat
was a complex character, and his work for the Pugwash Conference led him to a
Nobel Prize. He worked closely with Peierls, who had been instrumental in
setting up the Soviet-friendly British Association of Atomic Scientists in the
early postwar years. Moreover, he was one of those scientists involved in the
musical chairs at Liverpool. In 1946 he took up British citizenship, and was
appointed acting director of nuclear physics at Liverpool. After Chadwick moved
on to become Master of Gonville and Caius College at Cambridge in 1949, and
Skinner was appointed his replacement, Rotblat, against Chadwick’s stern
advice, left Liverpool to become Professor of Physics at St Bartholomew’s
Hospital in London. By then he had learned that Ewa was dead. He was made a
Fellow of the Royal Society at the age of eighty-seven, in 1995.
George
Placzek
George Plazcek
George Placzek deserves a mention because he was a close collaborator with Peierls. As a resident scientist in Kharkov, working with Landau, he also attended the fateful 1937 conference in Moscow [but see below: the evidence is contradictory]. Yet he is distinctive mainly because he retained a fiercely critical opinion of the Stalinist oppression of scientists, and was outspoken about it when he returned to the West. Placzek was born in 1902 in Moravia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and after working in Prague and Vienna, joined Lev Landau’s circle in Kharkov in 1937. There he witnessed some of the persecutions of scientists by Stalin, such as Houtermans, Ruhemann, Weisskopf, and Landau himself. Blessed with a sardonic wit, and a sense of humour, Placzek got himself into trouble. (As a fascinating but irrelevant sidenote in this whole saga of intelligence, Plazcek was to marry Els, the first wife of Hans Halban, the Austrian physicist: Isaiah Berlin married Halban’s second wife. For details, please read Isaiah in Love. Placzek was also involved in performing a security check on Pontecorvo at the time the latter was recruited, on Halban’s recommendation, in Montreal: correspondence from British Security Coordination in Washington was sent to him in March 1943.)
In
the book he edited about the travails of scientists in the Soviet Union, Physics
in a Mad World, Mikhail Shifman relates an anecdote about Placzek where his
subject, having been offered a permanent chair in Kharkov, named five
conditions that would have to be fulfilled for him to accept it. The last was
that ‘the Khozyain must go’, with a scarcely veiled reference to the Boss,
Stalin himself. While most of the small gathering that heard his playful speech
were amused, the incident was reported by Ruhemann’s wife, Barbara, to the
local Communist Party chief. It thus got back to Stalin, who immediately dubbed
him as a Trotskyist. Plazcek managed to get away, unlike some of his colleagues,
but he was a marked man.
The difference was that, when Placzek returned to the West, he ruthlessly warned his colleague of the dangers of Stalinism, unlike, for example, Ruhemann, who immediately joined the Communist Party, or Peierls, who maintained an undignified silence. As Shifman writes in Love and Physics: “In England, Fuchs could have discussed the situation with David Shoenberg, professor at the Mond Laboratory at Cambridge, who spent a year in Moscow (from September 1937 to September 1938) and had witnessed the arrest of Landau and hundreds of other innocent scientists and the onset of the Great Terror. Also, he could have spoken with George Placzek, who returned from Kharkov in early 1937; before his departure for the US in 1938 he stayed some time in Copenhagen, London, and Paris to explain the consequences of the communist ideology to the left-leaning colleagues he was in contact with.”
What
is especially poignant is the fact that Placzek made several appeals to Peierls
to intervene in the cases of incarcerated scientists in the Soviet Union. On September 4, 1938, he wrote to him from Pasadena: “Zunächst
möchte ich Sie fragen, was mich der seelige Bucharin fragte, als ich ihn einmal
sozusagen im Namen der internationalen Wissenschaft bat, sich dafür
einzusetzen, dass Landau ab und zu ins Ausland gelassen werde, nämlich: Ist Ihre
Demarche offiziell, offiziös, oder inoffiziell?” (My translation: “I
would next like to ask you the question that the late Bukharin asked me, when
once, in the name of international science I begged him to stand up for
Landau’s being allowed to travel abroad occasionally, namely: Is your
initiative official, semi-official, or unofficial?” In his biography of Plazcek,
Shifman translates the passage as follows: “First of all, may I ask you, as
blessed Bukharin asked me (when once I, so to say, personally represented
international science and solicited for Landau, trying to convince Bukharin
that they should now and then let him travel abroad), namely: is your démarche
official, officious, or unofficial?”) And, with a little more desperation, from Paris on
October 17, 1938: “Ich höre dass der Schönberg jetzt in Cambridge sein soll,
wissen Sie etwas authentisches über Dau???” (“I hear that Shoenberg
is supposed to be in Cambridge by now, do you know anything authoritative about
Landau???”)
Peierls’s
response from Birmingham on October 22 was lapidary and vague. “Shoenberg habe ich gesprochen. Ueber Dau hatte er nicht
mehr zu berichten, als wir schon wussten (oder jedenfalls befürcheteten). In
dieselbe Gruppe gehören auch Rumer und Hellman. Hier in England läuft der
Zehden herum, der via Berlin hierher vorgedrungen ist, aber seine russische
Frau mit Kind in M. zurücklassen musste, und seit Monaten nicht mehr mit ihr
korrespondiert. Es ist eine schöne Welt.” (In Shifman’s
translation, from his biography of Placzek: “I spoke to Shoenberg. On Landau, he
had nothing more to report than we already knew (or feared). Rumer and Hellman
belong to the same group. [Walter] Zehden is running around here in England; he
got here via Berlin, but had to leave his Russian wife and child in M[oscow],
and hasn’t corresponded with her for months. What a world we live in.” Indeed,
Sir Rudolf. [Shifman notes that Hellman, a German-born quantum scientist, had
worked at the Karpov Institute in Moscow, was arrested on charges of espionage
in March 1938, and shot in May 1938.] Later in the same letter, Peierls says:
“I’d rather not write about the political situation. It’s just too annoying. [‘ . . .man ärgert sich doch zu sehr.’]”
That was an
understatement, but a revealing one. Hitler’s persecutions and Stalin’s purges
– a very tiresome business.
Plazcek
also worked at Los Alamos on the Manhattan project. Later, in 1947, he tried to
inject a dose of reality into the attempts to gain agreement with the Soviets
over mutual inspection of installations working on nuclear weaponry, pouring
cold water on the statement, expressed by Gromyko, that foreign inspectors
would be allowed to pry around on Soviet territory. It appears he trusted
Peierls to the end. And what was his end? He met a premature death in a hotel
in Zürich in 1955, at the comparatively young age of fifty. His biographers Gottwald
and Shifman ascribe his death to suicide, but was the long arm of Soviet
intelligence behind his demise? Did they recall his heretical comments from
1937, and were waiting to pounce? Like Skinner, an unexplained death, far from
home, in a Swiss hotel.
Rudolf
Peierls
Rudolf Peierls
It thus seems inconceivable that Peierls could have not been aware of Fuchs’s communist allegiance. He worked with him closely, Fuchs lodged with him, they were friends. Frank Close describes Fuchs as ‘like a son’ to Peierls. So how did Peierls explain the situation? I analyse a few of his statements:
“I
can believe now that he may have had so much self control as to deceive all
those who believed to be his friends. I asked him whether he really believed in
the superiority of the Soviet system. His reply was, ‘You must remember what I
went through under the Nazis’. I said I quite understood this but I was
surprised he still believed in all this at the time we were in America.” (from
letter to Commander Burt, received February 6, 1950)
“If
one takes these statements as genuine, and it is very hard to believe anything else,
he has lived all these years hiding his real allegiance, yet at the same time
acquiring a genuine and almost passionate interest for his job and building up
personal relationships and friendships which were kept quite separate from his
secret contacts. One can believe that a man should hold political views of such
strong, almost religious, conviction that he should let them override all other
considerations, but it is incredible that, at the same time, a man who had
never thought for himself and was always ready to go to enormous lengths in the
interest of others, should allow himself to become so attached to the people
and to allow other people to become so attached to him without seeing what he
was doing for them.” (from letter to Niels Bohr, February 14, 1950)
“I
knew he had left Germany because of his opposition to the Nazis and I respected
him for this. I knew of his connection with left-wing student organizations in
Germany since at that time the communist controlled organizations were the only
ones putting up any active opposition . . .
During
all these years we saw much of him. Shy and retiring at first he made many
friends and in many conversations politics was, of course, a frequent topic.
His views seemed perhaps a little to the left of ours, but he seemed to share
the attitude to Communism – and to any kind of dictatorship – of most of his
friends. I remember an occasion when he talked to a young man who was in
sympathy with communism and in the argument Fuchs was very scornful of the other’s
dogmatic views.
When
I heard of his arrest I regarded it as quite incredible that anyone should have
hidden his real beliefs so well. Looking back it seems that at first he shared
in the life of his colleagues and pretended to share their views and attitude
only in order to hide his own convictions. But gradually he must have come to
believe what was at first only pretence. There must have been a time when he
shared one attitude with his colleagues and friends and another with the agents
to whom he then still transmitted information, and when he was himself in doubt
which of the two was conviction and which was pretence. I do not want to enter
into speculations about the state of his mind during all this time. Some have
described it as a superb piece of acting, but either way it was certainly quite
exceptional.
In
the case of Fuchs, they would have had to probe very deeply to disclose his
continued adherence to the communist cause and that would have required a depth
of human insight that is very hard to achieve.” (from memorandum ‘The Lesson of
the Fuchs Case’, March 1950)
“The main point was Fuchs had then, although he
had changed his mind and allegedly or at least claimed not to be pro-Communist
anymore, he still out of a sense of chivalry was refusing to name his contacts
and so on, and they thought this was foolish and they expected I would think it
foolish too, and they wanted me to urge him to do that – which I tried. I don’t know whether this
was a success. Anyway, in the course of this conversation, Commander Burt of
Scotland Yard, asked me what sort of man Fuchs had appeared to be and whether
we realized what his views were. I said, ‘No, he didn’t say much on political
things, but he gave the impression of agreeing with everybody else, being
perhaps a little to the left of most of us but not drastically.’ Of course, I knew
that as a young man he had been mixed up with a Communist student organization
in Germany, but that was understandable and this was very common with young
people.” (from interview with Charles Weiner, 1969)
“But I needed regular help – someone with whom
I would be able to discuss the theoretical technicalities. I looked around for
a suitable person, and thought of Klaus Fuchs. He was a German, who as a
student had been politically active as a member of a socialist student group
(which was essentially communist) and had to flee for his life from the Nazis.
He came to England, where he worked with Neville Mott in Bristol, completed his
Ph. D., and did some excellent work in the electron theory of metals and other
aspects of the theory of solids. I knew and liked his papers, and had met him.
He also asked me whether Fuchs’s pro-communist
views had been evident. ‘No’, I said, ‘he never talked much about his political
views, but gave the impression he shared our general views. I knew, of course,
that he had been strongly left-wing as a student, but that is very common with
young people.
I formed the impression that his conversion
from communism was genuine. His communist friends in Germany must have
instilled in him a rather unfavourable picture of Britain, which life in
Bristol and Edinburgh, where he perhaps still associated with left-wing
friends, did not dispel.
Perhaps the process of understanding took so
long because in our intellectual circles we are curiously shy about saying what
we believe. Our style is not to use any words with capital letters. We don’t
mind talking about what is wrong and what we want to fight, but we find it much
harder to talk about moral principles and about what is right. Our behavior
follows quite firm rules, but somehow we feel it is bad taste to spell them
out, and they have to be discovered by observing how we act.” (from Bird of
Passage, 1985)
It is instructive to examine the probable
evolution of Peierls’s thoughts.
At the time of A) he knows that he is under
suspicion as well (telephone taps have revealed Genia’s fears). He deems it
appropriate to show some initiative with Commander Burt of Special Branch,
knowing that the policeman will probably not be familiar with the background of
Nazi and Soviet oppression of opposition elements. Peierls no doubt believes
that Fuchs’s blatant demonstrations of pro-Soviet views may be forever
concealed, so he confidently ascribes Fuchs’s deception of his friends to
superlative self-control, thus absolving Peierls (who after all, is a very
bright man) of any responsibility for not seeing through his subterfuge. In
expressing sympathy for what Fuchs went through Peierls conveniently overlooks
what his wife’s family, and the physicists who were murdered by Stalin, underwent,
which dwarfed the actual sufferings of Klaus Fuchs.
A little later, in B), he is more reflective.
Fuchs’s confession of January 27 made a claim that the spy was subject to a
‘controlling schizophrenia’ which allowed his life to be strictly
compartmentalized. This is Fuchs’s excuse for letting down his friends. So
Peierls can jump on this self-assessment to his own advantage, while at the
same time expressing some sympathy for Fuchs’s commitment and earnestness. Yet
the suggestion, to a fellow ‘peace-loving’ scientist, Bohr, that Fuchs
possessed some kind of saintly altruism and selflessness is disturbing and
irresponsible. It is not surprising that Peierls apparently did not share this
confidence with anyone else.
A few weeks later, a more measured statement is
required, in C). As an astute political watcher, Peierls has to show a greater
awareness of the facts of life, and a slippery equivalence of ‘left-wing’ and
‘communist’ is even admitted. He has to admit that he and Fuchs talked
politics: after all, the Peierls household saw such lodgers as Bethe, Fröhlich, Frisch, G. E. Brown, even the recently
deceased Freeman Dyson, as well as Fuchs, so it would have been difficult to
steer the conversation away from politics. Now he indulges in some very fine
distinctions: Fuchs’s views are ‘a little left’ from those of the Peierlses,
but, in an unlikely aside, Peierls indicates that Fuchs was ‘very scornful’ of
a dogmatic communist. In this, he directly contradicts Born’s evidence. Significantly,
the episode is undated: in the thirties, through the Spanish Civil War, right
up until the Nazi-Soviet pact, it would have been very appropriate in
intellectual circles for enthusiasm for Communism as the ‘bulwark against
Fascism’ to be expressed.
So what were Fuchs’s ‘real beliefs’ that he hid
so well from Peierls? A loyalty to Stalin instead of an honest commitment to
principles of the Bolshevik revolution? This reflection allows Peierls to make
an artificial distinction between ‘his colleagues and friends’ and ‘the agents
to whom he still transmitted information’, when Peierls must have known that
there would not have been much time for idle political chit-chat during the
encounters when Fuchs passed on his secrets, and was aware that he still
mingled with communist sympathisers, and
had promoted his views unrestrainedly, such as at Bristol and Edinburgh
universities, and in the internment camp in Canada. Thus he creates a cover for
himself, suggesting that the authorities would have had to be very tenacious to
detect Fuchs’s adherence to the communist cause when a relatively simple
investigation would have revealed his political cause.
By the time of D), the crisis has blown
over. The complete text of the interview
shows that Weiner was a very persistent interrogator, but he was not
well-prepared on the Fuchs case. Peierls can dispose of Fuchs’s communism as a
student entanglement, and represents the state of being ‘strongly left-wing’ as
an affectation of young people, predominantly, calmly overlooking the fact
that, in the 1930s, it was almost a required disposition of the intellectually
‘progressive’ academic body. In contrast to his statement of almost twenty
years before (when politics was a ‘frequent topic of conversation’) Peierls now
minimizes the time he and Fuchs talked politics, since Fuchs ‘didn’t say much
on political things’. Moreover, he can diminish Fuchs’s involvement with the
communist organisation in Germany, describing Fuchs’s role as being ‘mixed up’
with it, as if he were a respectable youth who had, ‘fallen in with the wrong
crowd’, and become a delinquent, as one occasionally reads in the words of
regretful parents. Yet such persons are part of the crowd, and are thus
responsible.
This strain continues in Peierls’s
autobiography in E), written sixteen years later. Moreover, Peierls can now
afford to be cavalier with the chronology. His comment about looking around for
‘a suitable person’ overlooks the fact that Fuchs had been identified for early
deportation from Canada in the summer of 1940, that Peierls and Born had
discussed his recruitment, and that Fuchs knew, as early as January 1941, when
he first met Simon Kremer, that he would have access to important information
on nuclear physics. On the other hand, it is true that Peierls met Fuchs at
Bristol, and collaborated with him. A letter from Nevill Mott to Peierls, dated
December 4, 1936, invites Peierls to add his name to a paper produced primarily
by Fuchs. Peierls declines.
And Peierls reinforces the illusion of
political discussions, let alone articulation of extreme views. He echoes the
notion that strong left-wing views are primarily the province of young people,
and gives the impression that the young firebrand had mellowed, and shared the opinions
of Peierls’s circle – ‘our general
views’. But again, he provides no date, and Peierls had gained a reputation for
encouraging and harbouring communists at Birmingham University. He continues
the lazy distinction between ‘left-wing’ and ‘communist’, but then indulges in
some very complacent pipe-dreaming. Peierls is by now part of the
establishment, the academic elite: he is an English gentleman. Thus he
romantically starts to refer to ‘our intellectual circles’ – the senior common-room at New College, Oxford,
in the 1970s, presumably – as if it were
indistinguishable from the 1930s hothouses of Bristol, Cambridge, or
Birmingham. That delicate English sensitivity in refraining from hard
ideologies now provides cover for his group’s not quickly winkling out Fuchs’s
traitorous impulses. Peierls is now safe.
Thus Peierls, in the multiple roles of his
public, private and secret lives, experienced all four of the traits I listed
above. He had to present to the outside world the notion that he was not aware
that Fuchs was a Communist. He had to convince the authorities selecting the
Tube Alloys team that any suspicions of Fuchs’s ultra left-wing views did not
present a danger, or reason for disqualification. He had to recoil from any
exposure of Fuchs’s activities because of the threats that the Soviet regime
made on Genia’s family. He had to conceal his own very real preferences for
recruiting communist sympathisers to his team.
Peierls’s Naturalization
The last, highly important item, in the case
against Peierls is his failure to tell the truth in his application for British
citizenship. I pointed out, in Chapter 1 of this report, how a 1989 letter of
his, to L. I. Volodarskaya, admitted that he had travelled to the Soviet Union
several times in the 1930s. These visits had probably been concealed by dint of
their being inserted into extended journeys to Copenhagen, to see Bohr and
Placzek. In his statement (undated, viewable at KV 2/1658-1, but certainly
accompanying his May 17, 1938 application for naturalisation), Peierls records the
visits he made abroad between 1933 and 1938. The list includes a ‘holiday trip
to the Caucases’ [sic] in 1934, and attendance at a Conference on
Nuclear Physics in Moscow in 1937. He had much to hide.
It is worthwhile trying to define the sequence
of events that led to his naturalization. For some reason, in Bird of
Passage, Peierls does not describe the application. He writes of it only:
“Our position improved further, quiet unexpectedly, when in February 1940 my
naturalisation papers came through.” Yet in a letter to Professor Appleton,
dated September 13, 1939 (written thus by a German subject after the outbreak
of war), he explains that he first made his application in May 1938. We should
recall that that date was immediately after his return from a holiday in
Copenhagen, where an observant customs officer noticed the 1937 Soviet stamp in
his German passport, and Peierls had been very evasive over the reason for his
visit. He had got away with it, but perhaps that was an alarm call. Maybe
Moscow had told him to acquire UK citizenship. Peierls never explained why or
when he made the decision.
One might imagine that the idea of reprisals
governed the timing. While Genia’s family was evidently undergoing threats in
the Soviet Union, Rudolf’s father, Heinrich, and second wife, Else, were still
resident in Nazi Germany in 1938. A too precipitous rejection of German
citizenship might have caused repercussions for Heinrich and Else. Yet,
according to Sabine Lee, Rudolf’s father and step-mother did not get permission
to leave Germany, and be admitted to the UK, until early 1939. Peierls wrote
that his father had been reluctant to leave Germany, because of his age,
health, and lack of other languages, but that ‘in 1938, he finally decided to
leave’. It does not seem as if it was as simple as that, but Heinrich and Else
were able to join Heinrich’s brother, Siegfried, in New York in 1940.
The processing of the application took an
inordinately long time. Peierls clearly believed that he would have to record
the 1937 visit in his outline of foreign travel, and thus more boldly described
the conference in Moscow about which he had been so sheepish a month before. He
would have had, at some stage, to submit his German passport (which was to
expire on May 17, 1939) to the UK authorities, but that apparently did not
happen for some while, as the record from the Letters indicates he paid at
least two more visits to Copenhagen that year. Peierls himself twice states, in
his memoir, that he paid ‘several visits to Copenhagen’ in 1938). Yet, if his
own admission elsewhere is correct about other undocumented visits to the
Soviet Union in the 1930s, they must have been undertaken with a forged Soviet
passport in order to leave and return to Copenhagen. (One wonders, also,
whether an alien in the process of applying for citizenship would have been
allowed to leave the country at all.)
The archive is very sketchy about what happened
next, and some of the few documents that have survived have been redacted. One
letter of December 8, 1938, reporting to the Chief Constable of Cambridge, lays
out the positive outcome of an inquiry into Peierls’s credentials. Page 2 of a
chronology laying out the processing of the request appears, and runs as
follows (enigmatically, Page 1 is missing):
19.12.38 Confirms residence at Stockport
13.5.39 Positive interviews with Peierls’s
referees
31.8.39 Application from Peierls for permit to
join in A. R. P. (Air Raid Precaution) work
10.10.39 Peierls and wife exempted from
internment
21.2.40 Fee of £9 paid for Certification of Naturalization
23.3.40 Oath of Allegiance received from
Peierls
2.4.40 Naturalization granted
On July 18, 1939, Peierls wrote to the German
Embassy, asking whether he could renounce his German citizenship before his
naturalization papers came through, but received a dampening reply that he
could only do that if he submitted birth certificates, which were, of course, already
in the hands of the British authorities. And then, a remarkable revelation
appears: on August 31, Peierls wrote to the Home Office, with some obvious –
but subdued – frustration, trying to determine where his application stood.
(This is presumably what the item above refers to.) “I am therefore writing now
to ask whether there is any way of obtaining a statement to the effect that my
application for naturalization is being considered, or some other statement
which might make it possible for me to enroll [in any ARP service]”, he wrote.
Was it really possible that, after fifteen months, Peierls had received no
acknowledgment that his application was even being considered? Peierls does not
record these events, either.
Perhaps the only conclusions that can be drawn
from this saga is that there existed a strong reluctance to naturalize German
scientists until war was imminent, or even under way. Yet a period between May
1938 and the outbreak of war in September 1939 for sitting on an application,
with neither a rejection nor an approval, seems very odd. Were there some
witnesses who made objections, aware perhaps of his connections and sympathies
– even of his unadmitted travel to the Soviet Union? After all, someone decided
to place the customs officer’s report on file –
a highly selective but broad hint from the authorities to us
researchers, perhaps. Peierls again is very coy: he does not comment on the
long period of waiting, or even suggest to Appleton that the delay is
unreasonable. He must have been anxious not to appear peevish or querulous, as
any more detailed inquiry might have upset the applecart. As it was, his collaboration
with Frisch, and Appleton’s important role as Secretary of the Department of
Scientific and Industrial Research, and awareness of what he and Frisch were
doing, saved him.
In their book A Matter of Intelligence, MI5
and the Surveillance of anti-Nazi Refugees 1933-1950, Charmian Brinson and
Richard Dove sum up the episode as follows: “Peierls’ perceived importance in
British atomic research can be measured by his successful application for
British naturalisation. His work was considered so valuable to the war effort
that he was granted British citizenship as early as [sic!] March 1940: a
rare distinction, since naturalisation had been formally suspended for the
duration of the war and was permitted only in exceptional circumstances.” Given
what we know now (but which Peierls himself did not reveal), we might ask
instead: ‘What took them so long?’
Conclusions
What was it that drew so many scientists to the
communist cause? Winston Churchill spoke of the Nazis’ use of ‘perverted
science’ in his ‘Finest Hour’ speech, but at that time the observation could
more appropriately have been directed at Joseph Stalin. It was as if the slogan
‘the communist experiment’, in which millions of human beings were treated like
laboratory rats in the quest to build Soviet man took on a respectability that
merited the endorsement of the western scientific world. Yet an initiative to
exploit their naivety was surely undertaken.
If I were an avid conspiracy theorist, I would
be tempted to point out some alarming coincidences in the events that led to
Fuchs’s betrayal of his naturalised allegiance, and his passing on of atomic
secrets to the Soviets. I would refer to Ronald Gunn’s predecessor visit to the
Soviet Union in 1932, and his sponsorship of Fuchs’s establishment in the UK. I
would allude to the fact that Yakov Frenkel invited Peierls, Mott and Fröhlich to the conference in Odessa in 1934. I
would point out that some unusual circumstances allowed all three to be
installed in influential academic positions that they might otherwise not have
achieved. Peierls was able to use the funding released by Kapitza’s forced
detention in the Soviet Union to gain his position at the Cavendish Laboratory.
Mott was appointed professor, at a very young age, for a position for which he
had to receive technical guidance from Skinner at Bristol, because of the
influence of his schoolfriend, Ronald Gunn, and the encouragement of Skinner himself.
Peierls helped locate funding for Fröhlich to work under Mott after Fröhlich’s extraordinary escape from the Soviet
Union. And then Gunn introduced Fuchs to Mott, who protected him, and then
arranged his transfer to Edinburgh, again using special funding.
Rudolf Peierls was thus caught up in this
maelstrom. True, he made some personal questionable decisions (as well as some
good ones), but he was also inveigled into a conspiracy not of his direct
choosing. This resulted, I believe, in his living a lie, and I know that he
wrote a very dishonest memoir. I suspect the internal pressure on him may have
been even greater than that on Fuchs, who, despite some superficial softening
in his exposure to a liberal democracy, remained a hardened communist. Yet
Peierls’s career, for all its achievement, was essentially dishonourable.
I received several notes of appreciation after
I published Part 1 of this report on Peierls. I did not receive – even
confidentially – any complaints over, or criticisms of, my conclusions about
the probable explanation for the strange behavior of Rudolf and Genia. That may
have been, of course, because no one who might challenge my thesis actually
read the piece. Or it might mean that they read it, but did not want to draw
any undesirable attention to it. (I suspect that Frank Close and Sabine Lee have
read it, and even introduced it to the Peierls offspring. But maybe not.) My
intention has not been to single Peierls out, and malign him, for the sake of
rabble-rousing, and I have expressed a measure of sympathy for his probable
plight. My goal, however, has been to stir up the complacent and lazy official
and authorised historians, and the fawning biographers, and the custodians of
MI5’s official memory. I want to encourage them to reach beyond the obvious, and
question the very misleading memoirs, autobiographies and testimonies to their
biographers made by such as Peierls, Berlin, White, Jebb, Philby, Foote,
Sillitoe, Wright, etc. etc., instead of treating them as reliable archival
material. I want them to amend their incomplete and erroneous accounts of how
the realm was let down by a very shoddy security and counter-espionage system,
and that continuing to try to conceal the facts performs a gross disservice to
the historiography of British Intelligence. But not just that – to the history
of the United Kingdom itself.
[An imagined conversation between Stewart Menzies, SIS Chief, and Richard Gambier-Parry, head of Section VIII, the Communications Unit in SIS, in early March 1941. Both attended Eton College, although Gambier-Parry was there for only one ‘half’ (i.e. ‘term’): Menzies is four years older than Gambier-Parry. Menzies replaced Admiral Sinclair as chief of SIS in November 1939, on the latter’s death. Sinclair had recruited Gambier-Parry from industry in April 1938. At this stage of the war, Menzies and Gambier-Parry were both Colonels.]
Stewart MenziesRichard Gambier-Parry
SM: Hallo, Richard. Take a pew.
RG-P: Thank you, sir.
SM: I expect you are wondering why I called you in.
RG-P: Mine not to reason why, sir. Hope I’m not in trouble.
SM: Dammit, man. Of course not. Some news to impart.
RG-P: Good news, I trust.
SM: Fact is, our man has gone over to the enemy.
RG-P: The enemy, sir? Who?
SM: [chuckles] Our Regional Controller in the Middle East.
Petrie. He’s agreed to become D-G of MI5.
RG-P: Very droll, sir! But that wasn’t a surprise, was it?
SM: Well, Swinton always wanted him. Petrie went through the
motions of performing a study of ‘5’ first, but there was no doubt he would
take the job.
RG-P: I see. So how does that affect us, sir?
SM: First of all, it will make it a lot easier for us to work with
MI5. No longer that clown Harker pretending to be in charge . . .
RG-P: Indeed. But I suppose Swinton and the Security Executive are
still in place?
SM: For a while, yes. But there are other implications, Richard. [pauses]
How is Section VIII coming along?
RG-P: Fairly well, sir. We had a tough few months in 1940 learning
about the struggles of working behind enemy lines, but our training efforts are
starting to pay off, and our ciphers are more secure. Moving the research and
manufacturing show from Barnes to Whaddon has worked well, and it is humming
along. As you know, the first Special Signals Units are already distributing
Ultra.
SM: Yes, that seems to have developed well. Swinton signed off on
Section VIII’s readiness a few weeks ago. [pauses] How would you like to
take over the RSS?
RG-P: What? The whole shooting-match?
SM: Indeed. ‘Lock, stock and barrel’, as Petrie put it. The War
Office wants to rid itself of it, and MI5 feels it doesn’t have the skills or
attention span to handle it. Swinton and Petrie want us to take it over.
RG-P: Dare I say that this has always been part of your plan, sir?
Fits in well with GC&CS?
SG: Pretty shrewd, old boy! I must say I have been greasing the
wheels behind the scenes . . . Couldn’t
appear to push things too hard, though.
RG-P: Indeed, sir. I quite understand.
SG: But back to organisation. Petrie has a very high opinion of
your outfit.
RG-P: Very gratifying, sir. But forgive me: isn’t RSS’s charter to
intercept illicit wireless on the mainland, sir? Not our territory at all?
SM: You’re right, but the latest reports indicate that the German
threat is practically non-existent. We’ve mopped up all the agents Hitler has
sent in, whether by parachute or boat. The beacon threat has turned out to be a
chimera, as the Jerries were using guidance from transmitters in Germany for
their bombers, and our boffins have worked out how to crack it. The really
interesting business is picking up Abwehr transmissions on the Continent.
Therefore right up our street.
RG-P: I see. That changes things.
SM: And it would mean a much closer liaison with Bletchley.
Denniston and his crew at GC&CS will of course decrypt all the messages we
pick up. Dansey’s very much in favour of the move – which always helps.
RG-P: Yes, we always want Uncle Claude on our side. I had wondered
what he had been doing after his organisation in Europe was mopped up . . .
SM: You can never be sure with Colonel Z! He’s got some shindig underway
looking into clandestine Russian traffic. He’s just arranged to have a Soviet
wireless operator from Switzerland arrive here, and wants to keep an eye on
her. He’ll be happy to have RSS close by on the ranch.
RG-P: Fascinating, sir. Should I speak to him about it?
SM: Yes, go ahead. I know he’ll agree that the move makes a lot of
sense. Learning what the enemy is up to is a natural complement to designing
our own systems.
RG-P: Agreed, sir . . . But
isn’t RSS in a bit of a mess? All those Voluntary Interceptors, and all that
work farmed out to the Post Office? And didn’t MI8 want MI5 to take it over?
SM: Yes, they did. So did Military Intelligence. But once Simpson
left, MI5 lost any drive it had.
RG-P: Ah, Simpson. The ‘Beacon’ man. I spoke to him about the
problem back in ‘39.
SM: Yes, he went overboard a bit on the beacons and criticized the
GPO a bit too forcefully. He wanted to smother the country with interceptors,
and set up a completely new organisation with MI5 at the helm. MI5 had enough
problems, and wouldn’t buy it. Simpson gave up in frustration, and went out
East.
RG-P: So what does Military Intelligence think?
SM: As you probably know, Davidson took over in December, so he’s
still learning.
RG-P: Of course! I do recall that now. But what happened to
Beaumont-Nesbitt? He’s a friend of yours, is he not?
SM: Yes, we were in Impey’s together. Good man, but a bit of a . .
.what? . . . a boulevardier, you might
say. I worked with him on the Wireless Telegraphy Committee a year ago. He
seemed to get on fine with Godfrey then, but maybe Godfrey saw us as ganging up
on him.
RG-P: Godfrey wanted your job originally, didn’t he?
SM: Indeed he did. And, as the top Navy man, he had Winston’s
backing. I managed to ward him off. But later things turned sour.
RG-P: So what happened?
SM: Unfortunately, old B-N made a hash of an invasion forecast
back in September, and the balloon went up. Put the whole country on alert for
no reason. Godfrey pounced, and he and Cavendish-Bentinck used Freddie’s guts
for garters. The PM was not happy. Freddie had to go.
RG-P: Well, that’s a shame. And what about Davidson?
SM: Between you and me, Richard, Davidson’s not the sharpest knife
in the drawer. I don’t think he understands this wireless business very well.
RG-P: I see. What did he say?
SM: Not a lot. He was initially very sceptical about the transfer.
Didn’t think we had the skills, but wasn’t specific. He’s probably still
seething about Venlo.
RG-P: Is Venlo still a problem, sir?
SM: Always will be, Richard. Always will be. But it damaged Dansey
more than me. Partly why I am here, I suppose. And it makes Bletchley – and RSS
– that more important.
RG-P: Access to the PM?
SM: Precisely. Ever since he set up those blasted cowboys in SOE,
it has become more important. They’ll go barging in on their sabotage missions,
raising Cain, and make our job of intelligence-gathering more difficult. I see
Winston daily now, which helps.
RG-P: I see. And Gubbins is starting to make demands on our
wireless crew. Should I slow him down a bit?
SM: I didn’t hear you say that, Richard . . .
RG-P: Very good, sir. But I interrupted you.
SM: Where was I?
RG-P: With Davidson, sir.
SM: Yes, of course. He did come up with a number of better
questions about the proposed set-up a few weeks ago, so maybe he’s learning. He’s
probably been listening to Butler in MI8. And I think he’s come around. Swinton
has been working on him, and I don’t think he wants to upset the apple-cart.
But you should try to make an ally of him. I don’t trust him completely.
RG-P: Very well, sir. I wouldn’t want the Indians shooting arrows
at me all the time. And, apart from Petrie, is MI5 fully behind the move?
SM: Very much so. Liddell is all for it. They still have this BBC
chappie Frost making a nuisance of himself. His appointment as head of the
Interception Committee went to his head, I think. I gather he has upset a few
people, and even Swinton – who brought him in in the first place – is getting fed up with him.
RG-P: I think I can handle Frost. I knew him at the BBC. I agree:
he needs to be brought down a peg or two. But he has enough enemies in ‘5’ now,
doesn’t he?
SM: So I understand. Wants to build his own empire: Liddell and
co. will take care of him. Your main challenges will be elsewhere.
RG-P: Agreed. The RSS staff will need some close attention.
SM: Yes, it will entail a bit of a clean-up. Augean stables, and
all that, don’t you know. That is why I am asking you to take it over . . .
RG-P: Well, I’ve got a lot on my plate, sir, but I am flattered.
How could I say ‘No’?
SM: That’s the spirit, man! I knew I could rely on you.
RG-P: I may need to bring in some fresh blood . . .
SM: Of course! We’ll need our best chaps to beat the Hun at the
bally radio game. And you’ll need to speak to Cowgill. The W Board has just set
up a new committee to handle the double-agents, run by a fellow named
Masterman. One of those deuced eggheads that ‘5’ likes to hire, I regret. But
there it is. Cowgill is our man on the committee.
RG-P: Very good, sir. What about the current RSS management?
SM: Good question. Those fellows Worlledge and Gill are a bit
dubious. Worlledge is something of a loose cannon, and I hear the two of them
have been arguing against an SIS takeover.
RG-P: Yes, I had a chat with Worlledge a few weeks ago. He asked
some damn fool questions. But I didn’t take them too seriously, as I didn’t
think we were in the running.
SM: Well, he was obviously testing you out. Quite frankly, he
doesn’t believe that you, er, we . . .
have the relevant expertise. Not sure I understand it all, but I have
confidence in you, Richard.
RG-P: Very pleased to hear it, sir. Anyway, I think Worlledge’s
reputation is shot after that shambles over the Gill-Roper decryptions.
SM: Oh, you mean when Gill and Trevor-Roper started treading on the
cipher-wallahs’ turf at Bletchley with the Abwehr messages?
RG-P: Not just that, which was more a matter for Denniston.
Worlledge then blabbed about the show to the whole world and his wife,
including the GPO.
SM: Yes, of course. Cowgill blew a fuse over it, I recall.
RG-P: Worlledge clearly doesn’t understand the need for secrecy. I
can’t see Felix putting up with him in SIS.
SM: You are probably right, Richard. He’d be a liability. But what
about Gill?
RG-P: Can’t really work him out, sir. He definitely knows his
onions, but he doesn’t seem to take us all very seriously. Bit flippant, you
might say.
SM: H’mmm. Doesn’t sound good. We’ll need proper discipline in the
unit. But if you have problems, Cowgill will help you out. Felix used to work
for Petrie in India, y’know. Now that he has taken over from Vivian as head of
Section V, Felix is also our point man on dealing with ‘5’. He won’t stand any
nonsense.
RG-P: Will do, sir.
SP: What about young Trevor-Roper? Will he be a problem, too?
G-P: I don’t think so. He got a carpeting from Denniston after the
deciphering business with Gill, and I think he’s learned his lesson.
SP: Cowgill told me he wanted him court-martialled . . .
G-P: . . . but I intervened
to stop it. He’s a chum of sorts. Rides with us at the Whaddon. Or rather falls
with us!
SP: Ho! Ho! A huntin’ man, eh? One of us!
G-P: He’s mustard keen, but a bit short-sighted. We have to pick
him out of ditches now and then. I think I can deal with him.
SP: Excellent! But you and Cowgill should set up a meeting with
Frost, White and Liddell fairly soon. Make sure Butler is involved. They will
want to know what you are going to do with the VIs. They have been losing good
people to other Y services.
RG-P: Very good, sir. (pauses) I think Worlledge and Gill
will have to go.
SP: Up to you, Richard. Do you have anyone in mind to lead the
section?
RG-P: H’mmm. I think I have the chap we need. My Number Two,
Maltby. He was at the School as well, and he has been in the sparks game ever
since then. He’s a good scout. Utterly loyal.
SP: Maltby, eh? Wasn’t there some problem with the army?
RG-P: Yes, his pater’s syndicate at Lloyd’s collapsed, and he had
to resign his commission. But he bounced back. I got to know him again after he
helped the Navy with some transmission problems.
SP: And what about that business in Latvia? Didn’t we send him out
there?
RG-P: Yes, he reviewed operations in Riga in the summer of ‘39.
And it’s true we never received any intelligible messages from them. But I
don’t think it was Maltby’s fault. Nicholson and Benton didn’t understand the
ciphers.
SP: I see. So what is he doing now?
RG-P: He’s running the Foreign Office radio station at Hanslope
Park. I know I shall be able to count on him to do the job. He also rides with
the Whaddon.
SM: Capital! Have a chat with him, Richard, and let me know. All
hush-hush, of course, until we make the announcement in a week or two.
RG-P: Aye-aye, sir. Is that all?
SM: That’s it for now. We’ll discuss details later. Floreat
Etona, what, what?
RG-P: Floreat Etona, sir.
Edward Maltby
“Maltby, who seemed to have started his military career as a colonel – one has to begin somewhere – was also an Etonian, but from a less assured background, and he clearly modelled himself, externally at least, on his patron. But he was at best the poor man’s Gambier, larger and louder than his master, whose boots he licked with obsequious relish. Of intelligence matters he understood nothing. ‘Scholars’, he would say, ‘are two a penny: it’s the man of vision who counts’; and that great red face would swivel round, like an illuminated Chinese lantern, beaming with self-satisfaction. But he enjoyed his status and perquisites of his accidental promotion, and obeyed his orders punctually, explaining that any dissenter would be (in his own favourite phrase) ‘shat on from a great height’. I am afraid that the new ‘Controller RSS’ was regarded, in the intelligence world, as something of a joke – a joke in dubious taste. But he was so happily constituted that he was unaware of this.” (Hugh Trevor-Roper, quoted by Edward Harrison in The Secret World, p 6)
“Peter Reid considers Gambier-Parry, Maltby & Frost as
bluffers, and to some extent charlatans.” (from Guy Liddell’s diary entry for
June 9, 1943)
* * * * * *
In preparation for this month’s segment, I was organizing my notes on the Radio Security Service over the holiday in California, when I discovered that a history of the RSS, entitled Radio Wars, had recently been published by Fonthill Media Limited, the author being one David Abrutat. I thus immediately ordered it via amazon, as it seemed to me that it must be an indispensable part of my library. I looked forward to reading it when I returned to North Carolina on January 2.
For some years, I have
been making the case on coldspur that a serious history of this much
under- and mis-represented unit needed to be written, and hoped that my
contributions – especially in the saga of ‘The Undetected Radios’ – might
provide useful fodder for such an enterprise. Indeed, a highly respected
academic even suggested, a few weeks ago, that I undertake such a task. This
gentleman, now retired, is the unofficial representative of a group of wireless
enthusiasts, ex-Voluntary Interceptors, and champions of the RSS mission who have
been very active in keeping the flame alive. He was presumably impressed enough
with my research to write: “The old stagers of the RSS over here would be delighted
if you were to write a history of the RSS.”
I told him that I was
flattered, but did not think that I was the right candidate for the task. My
understanding of radio matters is rudimentary, I have no desire to go again
through the painful process of trying to get a book published, and, to perform
the job properly, I would have to travel to several libraries and research
institutions in the United Kingdom, a prospect that does not excite me at my
age. Yet, unbeknownst to my colleague (but apparently not to some of the ‘old
stagers’, since Abrutat interviewed many of them), a project to deliver such a
history was obviously complete at that time. My initial reaction was one of
enthusiasm about the prospect of reading a proper story of RSS, and possibly communicating
with the author.
The book arrived on
January 4, and I took a quick look at it. I was then amazed to read, in the
brief bio on the inside flap, the following text: “David Abrutat is a former
Royal Marine commando, RAF officer, and zoologist: he is currently a lecturer
in international relations and security studies in the Department of Economics
at the University of Buckingham. He has long had a passionate interest in
military history.” How was it possible that an academic at the institution
where I had completed my doctorate was utterly unknown to me, and how was it
that we had never been introduced to each other, given our shared interests,
his research agenda, and the record of my investigations on coldspur?
What was more, the book
came with a very positive endorsement from Sir Iain Lobban, Director of GCHQ
from 2008-2014. He referred, moreover, to the author as ‘Dr Abrutat’, and
finished his Foreword by writing: ‘I commend Radio War to all
students of the strategic, operational, and tactical difference that
intelligence can make in conflict and what passes for peacetime’. My interest
heightened, I flipped through the book quickly, but then decided I needed to
know more about the author.
His Wikipedia entry is
inactive, or incomplete. I then discovered his personal website, at https://www.abrutat.com/. This confirmed his
biography, but added the factoid that he also held the post of’ ‘Associate
Fellow’ at Buckingham University. So I then sought out the Buckingham
University website, but was puzzled to find that he was not listed among the
faculty staff. Was the information perhaps out of date? I noticed that in 2018 Abrutat
had delivered a seminar at Prebend House (the location where I had delivered my
seminar on Isaiah Berlin), but I could not find any confirmation that he was a
permanent member of the faculty. I thus posted a friendly message under the
‘Contact’ tab on his website, explained my background and interests, introduced
him to coldspur, and indicated how much I looked forward to
collaborating with him.
While I was waiting for
his response, I reached out to Professor Anthony Glees, as well as to Professor
Julian Richards, who now leads the Security and Intelligence practice (BUCSIS) after
the retirement of Glees (my doctoral supervisor) last summer. Indeed, Professor
Glees’s initial reaction was that Abrutat must have been signed up after
his retirement, as he knew nothing of the engagement. I very gently pointed out
to Richards the anomalies in the record, and stated how keen I was to know more
about the doctor whose research interests so closely overlapped with mine. I
also contacted my academic friend, whose ‘RSS’ colleagues appeared to have
contributed much of the personal reminiscences that are featured in Abrutat’s
book.
What happened next was
rather shocking. Professor Richards admitted that Abrutat has been recruited as
an occasional lecturer, but was not a member of the faculty. He insisted that
Abrutat’s bona fides were solid, however, encouraging me to contact
Abrutat himself to learn more about his qualifications, including the nature of
his doctorate. After an initial warm response, Abrutat declined to respond
further when I asked him about his background. Yet he did indicate that he had
been appointed ‘Departmental Historian’ at GCHQ, a fact that was confirmed to
me by another contact, who said that Arbutat was replacing Tony Comer in that
role. An inquiry at GCHQ, however, drew a highly secure blank.
Thus I had been left out
in the cold. But the information gained was puzzling. How was it that Abrutat
had been engaged as some kind of contract lecturer without Professor Glees
being in the know? And why would Abrutat claim now that he was a member of the
faculty when he had indicated to me that his lecturing days were in the past?
Why would the University not challenge Abrutat’s claims, and request that he
correct the impression he had been leaving on his website and in his book that
he was a qualified member of the faculty? And why would he give the impression
that he had a doctorate in a relevant subject?
A few days later, I was
just about to send a further message to Richards, when I received another email
from Abrutat, in which he said that he had indeed been involved in some ad
hoc engagements as a lecture at Buckingham, but had insisted on secrecy and
anonymity because he was working for British Intelligence at the time. Now,
such an explanation might just be plausible, except that, if Richard was hired
in 2018, after his guest seminar at Prebend House in March, he was at exactly
the same period publicising his relationship with the University to the world
beyond. His website page declaring the affiliation was written in 2018, as it
refers to a coming book publication date in May 2109, and one can find several
pages on the Web, where, in 2018 and 2019, Abrutat promotes another book of his
(Vanguard, about D-Day), exploiting his claimed position on the faculty
of Buckingham University. So much for obscurity and anonymity! Moreover, the
blurb for Radio Wars describes his current role as a lecturer ‘in
the Department of Economics’ at Buckingham, even though Abrutat implied to me
that even the informal contract was all in the past.
I thus replied to
Abrutat, pointing out these anomalies, and suggesting that he and Professor
Richards (who had taken five days to work out this explanation) might care to
think again. Having heard nothing in reply, on January 13 I compiled a long
email for Richards, expressing my dismay and puzzlement, informing him of my
intentions to take the matter up the line, and inviting him thereby to consult
with his superiors to forestall any other approach, and thus giving him the
opportunity to take corrective action. My final observation to Richards ran as
follows: “It occurs to me that what we might have here is what the business
terms a ‘Reverse Fuchs-Pontecorvo’. When the scientists at AERE Harwell were
suspected of spying for the Soviet Union, MI5 endeavoured, out of concern for
adverse publicity, and in the belief that the miscreants might perform less
harm there, to have them transferred to Liverpool University. The University of
Buckingham might want to disencumber itself from Abrutat by facilitating his
installation at GCHQ.”
After more than a week,
I had heard nothing, so on January 21 I wrote to the Dean of the Humanities
School, Professor Nicholas Rees, explaining the problem, and attaching the letter
I had sent to Richards. A few days later, I received a very gracious response
from Professor Rees, who assured me he would look into the problem.
On January 29, I
received the following message from David Watson, the Solicitor and Compliance
Manager at Buckingham:
“Dear Dr Percy
I refer to your email to Professor
Rees of 21st January, which has been referred to me for response. I advise that
Dr Abrutat, who has recently been appointed the official historian at GCHQ, is
an Honorary Associate Fellow of the University of Buckingham (“the University”)
and he does occasionally lecture at the University. The University intends for
this relationship to continue and does not consider Dr Abrutat to have made any
representations regarding his relationship with the University that would be
harmful to the University’s reputation. In the circumstances, the University
does not intend to take this matter any further.
As an alumni [sic!] of the
University, as well as having been a student in the BUCSIS Centre, we would
like to maintain close contacts and good relations with you. As in all matters
academic, there are some matters of academic judgement involved, and is
important to respect the views of those with whom we might not always
agree.
I note your comment to the effect
that you will “have to change your tactics” if the University does not act upon
your concerns. Whilst it is not clear what you mean by this, I trust that
you do not propose to engage in any activities, which might be considered
defamatory to the University and would request that you refrain from making any
statements that go beyond the realm of reasonable academic discourse and which
could potentially damage the University’s reputation (this includes ad hominem
attacks on the University’s academic staff and/or associates).
I trust that the University’s
position has now been made clear and advise that the University does not
propose to enter into any further communications with yourself on this matter.
Yours sincerely
David Watson”
I leave it at that. I
have presented most of the facts, though not all.
Lastly, I have now read
Abrutat’s Radio War. I decided that I needed to see what the author had
to say, and the method he used to tell his story, before concluding my
investigation of his relationship with Buckingham University. The experience
was not good: it is a mess. I have, however, not addressed the book thoroughly,
or taken notes – yet. I wanted to keep this segment exclusively dependent on my
own research, and I shall defer a proper analysis of Abrutat’s contribution to
the story of RSS for another time.
* * * * * *
This segment of ‘The Mystery of the Undetected Radios’ is something of an aberration, designed to amplify statements and conclusions I made some time ago. It has been provoked by my access to a large number of National Archives files, non-digitised, and thus not acquirable on-line. This inspection was enabled by the efforts of my researcher Dr. Kevin Jones, photographing the documents at Kew, and sending them to me. I wish I had discovered Dr. Jones, and been able to us these files, earlier in the cycle, as this analysis would have found a better home in earlier chapters, especially Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 of the saga, and it should probably be integrated properly later. Readers may want to refresh their memories of my earlier research by returning to those segments, or reading the amalgamated story at ‘The Undetected Radios’. There will be some repetition of material, since I believe it contributes to greater clarity in the narrative that follows. It covers events up to the end of 1943.
The following is a list
of the files that I relied on extensively for my previous research: WO/208/5096-5098,
HW 34/18, HW 43/6, CAB 301/77, ADM 223/793, and FO 1093/484
For
this segment, I have exploited the following files: DSIR 36/2220, FO 1093/308, FO
1093/145, FO 1093/484, HO 255/987, HW 34/18, HW 34/19, HW 34/30, HW 40/190, HW
62/21/17, KV 3/7, KV 3/96, KV 3/97, KV
4/27, KV 4/33, KV 4/61, KV 4/62, KV 4/97, KV 4/98, KV 4/213, KV 4/214, MEPO
2/3558, WO 208/5095, WO 208/5099, WO 208/5101, WO 208/5102, and WO 208/5105.
This
list is not complete. In my spreadsheet that identifies hundreds of files
relevant to my broader inquiries, I have recorded several concerning RSS and
wireless interception that my researcher/photographer in London has not yet
captured. At the same time, Abrutat lists in his Bibliography many of the files
that I have inspected, as well as a few that I did not know about, or had
considered irrelevant. I have added them to my spreadsheet, and shall
investigate those that relate to my period. (I have spent little time studying
RSS’s story after the D-Day invasion, and have steered clear of its activities
overseas.) On the other hand, I note several files used by me that have
apparently escaped Abrutat’s attention. Thus some further process of synthesis
will at some future stage be desirable.
One
of the files (FO 1093/308) I received only at the end of January, just in time
for me to include a brief analysis. This file, in turn, leads to a whole new
series, the transactions of the Wireless Telegraphy Board (the DEFE 59 series),
which should provide a thorough explanation of how the organisational decisions
made on Wireless Telegraphy (‘Y’ services) in early 1940 affected wartime
policy. That will have to wait for a later analysis.
I
should also mention that E. D.R. Harrison’s article, British Radio Security
and Intelligence, 1939-43, published in the English Historical Review,
Vol. CXXIV No 506 (2009) continues to serve as a generally excellent guide to
the conflicts between MI5 and SIS, although it concentrates primarily on the
control over ISOS material, and does not (in my opinion) do justice to the
larger issue of Signals Security that caused rifts between MI5 and RSS. I note,
however, that Harrison lists some important files (e.g. HW 19/331) that I have
not yet inspected.
I
have organized the material into seven sections: ‘Tensions Between MI5 and RSS,
Part 1’ (1940-41); ‘Tensions Between MI5 and RSS, Part 2’(1942-43); ‘The Year
of Signals Security’; ‘Mobile
Direction-Finding’; ‘The Management of RSS’; ‘The Double-Cross Operation’, and
‘Conclusions’.
Tensions between MI5 & RSS, Part
1 (1940-41)
The overall impression given by various histories is that the transfer of control of RSS from MI8 to SIS in the spring of 1941 all occurred very smoothly. This tradition was echoed in the Diaries of Guy Liddell, who was initially very enthusiastic about the change of responsibility, since he knew that the Security Service was hopelessly overburdened with the challenges of sorting out possible illegal aliens and ‘Fifth Columnists’ at a time when the fear of invasion was very real. MI5 was deficient in management skills and structure, and Liddell initially had great confidence in the capabilities of Gambier-Parry and his organisation. It is true that, as the war progressed, Liddell voiced doubts as to whether SIS’s Section VIII was performing its job properly, but his complaints were generally very muted.
An early indication of MI5’s exclusion
from the debates can be observed in the early wartime deliberations (January
and February, 1940) of the Wireless Telegraphy Board, chaired by Commander
Denniston of GC&CS (visible at FO 1093/308). Maurice Hankey, Minister
without Portfolio in Chamberlain’s Cabinet, called together a task force
consisting of the Directors of Intelligence of the three armed forces, namely
Rear-Admiral Godfrey (Admiralty), Major-General Beaumont-Nesbitt (War Office),
and Group-Captain Blandy (acting, for Air Ministry), Colonel Stewart Menzies,
the SIS chief, and the Zelig-like young Foreign Office civil servant, Gladwyn
Jebb. The group recommended a full-time chairman for a task that had changed in
nature since war broke out, what with such issues of beacons, domestic illicit
wireless use, and German broadcasting complicating the agenda. Yet what was
remarkable was that the Group seemed to be unaware that Y services were being
undertaken outside the armed forces. Moreover, there was no room for MI5 in
this discussion, even though Lt.-Colonel Simpson was carrying on an energetic
campaign to set up a unified force to handle the challenge of beacons and
illicit domestic transmissions. Amazingly, the Board appeared to be completely
unaware of what was going on inside MI5, or the negotiations it was having with
MI8.
MI5 was in danger of losing its
ability to influence policy. A year later the transfer of RSS took place,
despite the fact that influential figures had challenged SIS’s overall
competence. Major-General Francis Davidson, who had replaced Beaumont-Nesbitt
as Director of Military Intelligence in December 1940, in February 1941 first
questioned Swinton’s authority to make the decision to place RSS under Section
VIII. (Beaumont-Nesbitt, who held the position for only eighteen months, was probably
removed because he was notoriously wrong about a predicted German invasion, in
a paper written on September 7, 1940. Noel Annan indicated that Admiral Godfrey
did not rate ‘less gifted colleagues’ such as him highly, and in Changing
Enemies Annan witheringly described
him as ‘the charming courtier and guardsman’.) Davidson apparently knew more
about MI5’s needs than did his predecessor, and, as WO 288/5095 shows, he
subsequently expressed major concerns about SIS’s ability to understand and manage
the interception of signals, and to deal with the Post Office. He regretted
that Petrie had apparently not yet spoken to Worlledge, or to Butler in MI8.
(Handwritten notes on the letters suggest that Davidson was getting tutored by
Butler.) Davidson’s preference echoed Simpson’s ‘unified control,’ but he was
perhaps revealing his naivety and novelty in the job when he stated that MI5
(‘our original suggestion’) was the home he preferred for RSS, being unaware of
MI5’s deep reluctance to take it on. He nevertheless accepted Swinton’s
decision.
Colonel Butler had been particularly
scathing about Gambier-Parry’s understanding of wireless interception issues.
Before the decision was made, he stated (WO 208/5105) that Gambier-Parry had ‘little
or no experience of this type of work’, and on March 23 reported Gambier-Parry as
saying that, if RSS were under his control in the event of an invasion, he could
not be held responsible for the detection of illicit wireless within the Army
Zone, and had suggested a new organisation under GHQ Home Forces. “Colonel
Gambier-Parry refers to operational agents and static agents but I do not know
how one can differentiate between the two when heard on a wireless set,” wrote
Butler. Both Butler and Worlledge thought that Petrie did not have full
knowledge of the facts – a justifiable complaint, it would seem.
Worlledge
had written a very sternly worded memorandum on February 14, 1941, where he
stated: “It is not clear to me that anything would be gained by the transfer of
R.S.S. ‘lock, stock, and barrel’ to any other branch unless that branch is in a
position to re-organize R.S.S. completely on a proper military basis. In my
opinion, R.S.S. should be organized as one unit, preferably a purely military
unit though I would not exclude the possibility of a mixed military and
civilian unit.” He was chafing more at the frustrations of dealing with the
Post Office rather than the reliance on a crew of civilian interceptors, and
his concerns were far more with the threat of soldiers in uniform invading the
country, bearing illicit radio transmitters, than with the possibility of
German agents roaming around the country. His voice articulated the broader
issue of Signals Security that would rear its head again when the circumstances
of war had changed.
And in April, 1941 (after the
decision on the transfer was made, but before the formal announcement) when the
threat of invasion was still looming, Butler had to take the bull by the horns,
and inform the General Staff that RSS was incapable of providing the mechanisms
for locating possible illicit wireless agents operating in the area of active
operations, and that military staff should take on that responsibility, using
some RSS equipment. Butler showed a good insight into the problem: “Apart
from actual interception, the above involves a number of minor commitments such
as the control of some wireless stations erected by our Allies in this country,
monitoring of stations in foreign Legations in London, checking numerous
reports of suspected transmissions and advising the Wireless Board and G.P.O on
the control of the sale of radio components.” Fortunately, the threat of
invasion was now receding, and Operation Barbarossa on June 22 confirmed it.
The problem of ‘embedded’ agents was deferred, and the General Staff relaxed.
A valuable perspective on the
challenges of the time was provided by one R. L. Hughes. In 1946, Hughes, then of
MI5’s B4 section, submitted a history of the unit he had previously occupied,
B3B, which had been a section in Malcom Frost’s group (see KV 4/27), and had
played a large role in the exchanges of the time. What was B3B, and what was
its mission? The exact structure of B3 between the years 1941 (after Frost’s W
division was dissolved, and B3 created), and 1943 (when Frost left MI5, in
January, according to Curry, in December according to Liddell!) is elusive, but
Curry’s confusing organisation chart for April 1943, and his slightly
contradictory text (p 259), still show Frost in charge of B3A (Censorship
Issues, R. E. Bird), B3D (Liaison with Censorship, A. Grogan), B3B (Illicit
Wireless Interception: Liaison with RSS, R. L. Hughes), B3C (Lights and
Pigeons, Flight-Lieutenant R. M. Walker) and B3E (Signals Security, Lt. Colonel
Sclater).
The confusion arises because Curry
added elsewhere that Frost had taken on ‘Signals Security’ himself, and B3E was
created only when Frost departed ‘in January 1943’. The creation and role of
B3E needs to be defined clearly. B3E does not appear in the April 1943
organisation chart which Curry represented, and Frost did not depart
until the end of November 1943. As for Sclater, the Signals Security expert, Colonel
Worlledge had appointed him several years
before as his ‘adjutant’ (according to Nigel West) at MI8c, and he thus may
have been a victim of the ‘purge’ after Gambier-Parry took over. But a valid
conclusion might be that Frost was unaware of how Sclater was being brought
into MI5 to replace him, and saw his presence as a threat, even though Signals
Security was nominally under his control. That Sclater would effectively
replace Frost was surely Liddell’s intention, as Signals Security once again
became a major focus of MI5’s attention.
Thus Hughes was right in the middle
of what was going on, liaising with RSS, and he adds some useful vignettes to
the tensions of 1940 and 1941, echoing what Lt.-Colonel Simpson had articulated
about the importance of Signals Security. For example: “Colonel
Simpson reported on the 15th September, 1939 on the condition of
affairs at that time. He considered it quite unsatisfactory and suggested that
the assistance of Colonel xxxxxxxxx should be sought. It is interesting to note
that he stressed the importance of Signals Security and recommended that there
should be a monitoring service studying our own Service transmissions. He also
stressed the importance of the closest possible collaboration between the
Intelligence Organisation, M.I.5. and the technical organisation, R.S.S. He
drew a diagram which pictured a wireless technical organisation in close
liaison with the Services, G.C.& C.S., M.I.5., R.S.S. (then known as
M.I.1.g.) and, through Section VIII, with M.I.6. M.I.5.was to provide the link
with police and G.P.O. It may be noted that during the latter part of the war
the organisation approximated to this, as Section V of M.I.6. established a
branch working with R.S.S. under the name of the Radio Intelligence Section
(R.I.S.) . . .”
Why the name of the Colonel had to be redacted is not clear. As I have written before, it was probably Gambier-Parry himself, as the names of all SIS personnel were discreetly obscured in the records, and Curry in a memorandum indicated that Simpson had indicated that the Colonel was in MI6 (SIS). Gambier-Parry was not known for his shrewd understanding of signals matters, however, and at this stage Simpson would more probably have been invoking support from his true military colleagues. In any case, it is salutary that Simpson was so early drawing attention to the failings of security procedures within the armed forces, as this would be an issue of major concern later in the war, in which Frost would take a keen interest. Simpson’s message of ‘Unified Control’ is clear, and Hughes states that this issue caused a breakdown in negotiations between MI5 (then represented by Simpson) and RSS/MI8c. He goes on, moreover, to describe how Malcolm Frost had responded to Walter Gill’s memorandum describing the functions of RSS by making a bid to manage the whole operation. This was a somewhat audacious move, as Frost had been recruited from the BBC to investigate foreign broadcasts, and he had nothing like the stature or reputation of Simpson.
Malcolm Frost is one of the most
interesting characters in this saga, as his role has been vastly underrepresented.
He may be one of those public servants whose contributions were sometimes diminished
by jealousy, or personal dislike – perhaps like Felix Cowgill in SIS, or Jasper
Harker of MI5 – and whose reputations have suffered because they were not
invited to tell their side of the story. He was certainly a favourite of Lord
Swinton for a while, as Swinton appointed him from the BBC, where he had been
Director of Overseas Intelligence, to chair the important Home Defence Security Intelligence
Committee, which included
wireless interception. This promotion apparently went to his head a bit, and
his ambitions and manœuverings quickly got under the skin of Liddell – and
eventually Swinton himself. Yet, even though Swinton was recorded as saying, at
the end of 1940, that Frost’s days at MI5 were numbered, Frost was a survivor,
and proved to be an important thorn in the flesh of Gambier-Parry and RSS for
the next couple of years. He seemed to be a quick learner, an analytical
thinker, and a painstaking recorder of conversations, an operation that may
have been designed to cover himself should his enemies turn against him more
volubly. And indeed he had many enemies, probably because he behaved so
antagonistically when trying to work through differences of opinion with
anyone.
Ironically, however, the primary
challenge to RSS’s governance in mid-1940 had come from the Post Office. What
might have pushed Simpson over the edge was the GPO’s insistence that it had a
charter to provide personnel and materials to MI8c, granted by the War Office,
and approved by the Cabinet. When it was challenged on the quality of such, and
on its sluggish bureaucracy, however, its representative dug his heels in, and
reminded MI8c and MI5 that it was exclusively responsible for the detection of
illicit wireless transmitters and would pursue that mission on its own terms.
That charter was a legacy of peacetime operations, when it needed to track down
pirate operators who might have been interfering with critical factory
operations, or public broadcasting. Yet it was an argument doomed to failure.
Yet the GPO was not the only fly in
the ointment. As the military threat increased, and Swinton soured on MI5’s
capabilities, competent critics sighed over the apparent muddle. Before the SIS
takeover, RSS had set up regional officers at exactly the same time (June 1940)
that MI5 had established its own Regional Security Liaison Officers (RSLOs),
leading to conflicts in searches and reporting. Both the military and the
police were confused as to who exactly was in charge. And while the
responsibility was more clearly defined with the transfer to SIS, several
observers expressed their doubts about Gambier-Parry’s understanding of the
true problem. As I have showed, the Director of Military Intelligence,
Major-General Francis Davidson, newly appointed to the post, expressed his
strong concerns to Swinton in January 1941, before the official decision was
announced. Swinton tried to assuage him, but he was still expressing doubts in
May 1941.
At the same time, Worlledge, having had
a meeting with Gambier-Parry, also thought that the future new owner of the
unit did not understand the technical issues well. Likewise, Colonel Butler of
MI8c concluded that Gambier-Parry had ‘little or no experience’, and pointed
out that Gambier-Parry had told him that he did not think that RSS would be
responsible for any detection of illicit wireless in the event of an invasion –
an appalling misjudgment. (At this stage of the war, there was a deathly fear
of the possibility of German wireless agents working on English soil, assisting
the invaders, with their traffic inextricably entwined with military
communications.) But Butler was not to last long: he was feuding with Gordon Welchman
of GC&CS at the time, and was let go in June 1941, perhaps another victim
of Gambier-Parry’s purge.
What is fascinating is that Frost,
despite his being logically discarded by his sponsor, Lord Swinton, in December
1940, evolved to be the main agent pestering Gambier-Parry over his inadequate
machinery for tracking illicit transmitters in the UK – the core mission of
RSS. KV 4/97 and KV 4/98 show how, after the year of acquaintanceship in 1941, when
committees were setup, and procedures defined, the distrust began to establish
itself in 1942. Liddell had already clashed with Gambier-Parry in May 1941 over
possible undetected transmissions, Gambier-Parry holding on to the Gillean line
that they would have to be two-way, and using this argument to deny that any
could exist. (He was probably politically correct, but technically wrong, but
at that stage of the war, a German invasion had not been excluded from
consideration.) Trevor-Roper, performing brilliant work in developing schemata
of the Abwehr’s operations, but now forced to work formally under Cowgill, was
by now chafing at his boss’s obsession about control, as Cowgill was unwilling
to distribute Trevor-Roper’s notes to MI5 or even to GC&CS, and a series of
meetings attempted to resolve the impasse.
Then, on November 19, Frost made a very
puzzling comment to Liddell, informing him that ‘Gambier-Parry & Maltby
deprecated his departure to the B.B.C.’ It would appear from this item that
Frost was at this stage on the way out, and it might partly explain why Curry
(who had moved on to a position as Petrie’s aide in October 1941) later wrote
in his ‘History’ that Frost left MI5 in January of 1943, which was admittedly
over a year later, but still a long time before Frost’s eventual departure. This
show of remorse was certainly one of crocodile tears from Gambier-Parry and
Maltby, and maybe Frost, under attack on all sides, was making a plea to
Liddell that his talents were still needed. By this time, Liddell, who was
beginning to get frustrated by illicit wireless transmissions (mostly from
foreign embassies), may have concluded that, while he continued to complain to
Vivian at SIS of the problem, he needed a dedicated pair of hands working below
decks, and, with Frost having had his ambitious wings clipped, the BBC-man
gained a stay of execution. Indeed, Liddell did later plan to liquidate Frost’s
division: on February 9, 1943, however, he wrote that that move had been
shelved, and Frost was not to leave until the end of November of that year.
Liddell was probably already looking for a replacement.
Tensions between MI5 & RSS, Part
2 (1942-43)
Thus, despite the efforts to move him out,
Frost survived, and 1942 was his most significant year in MI5. KV 4/97 shows a
fascinating account of his perpetual tussles with Gambier-Parry and Maltby. In
December 1941 and January 1942 he harangued Maltby over the problems and
responsibilities of the mobile units, and argued with Morton Evans over
transferring receivers to them. He asked questions about the distribution and
equipment of personnel and equipment, which caused Morton Evans to rebuke him
for being nosy. He became involved with the abortive exercise to exchange
details of codes and frequencies with Soviet intelligence, and asked Maltby to
disclose SIS secrets. Gambier-Parry had to lecture him that everything was
under control. He wrote a detailed report on the state-of-the-art of
interception, again suggesting that RSS did not really understand it. On
September 20, he submitted a report to Liddell that criticised the clumsiness
of current mobile detection devices, and his text indicates that at this stage
MI5 was performing some experimental work of its own. A meeting was set up with
Liddell and Maltby just over a week later, and soon afterwards Maltby was
forced to admit that current coverage in the UK was inadequate. Frost pointed
out problems with Elmes, one of Maltby’s sidekicks, and had to inform Liddell
that the minutes of one RSS meeting needed to be corrected to include the
mission of identifying illicit wireless in the British Isles – the perpetual
blind spot of Gambier-Parry’s team.
All this resulted in a spirited defence by
Major Morton Evans, who submitted a carefully argued paper on March 3, 1942
about the conflicts between the demands of watching and recording the
undeniably real traffic of the enemy, and the need to uncover any wireless agents
on the mainland (the ‘General Search’ function), concluding that a necessary
balance was maintained that could not ensure both goals were perfectly met. He
introduced the challenge of domestic illicit interception by writing: “By
working at full pressure it is only possible to take about one hundred
effective bearings a day, which means that only a very small percentage of the
signals heard can be D/F’d, since the number of transmissions taking place
throughout the day is in the order of tens of thousands. It therefore becomes
necessary to narrow the field of those signals which are to be put up for
bearings, and this means that the signal has to be heard more than once before
it can be established that it is unidentified and therefore suspicious. The D/F
stations are therefore employed largely by taking bearings on signals which
have been marked down for special investigation, and when this is not a full
time job the remainder of their time is spent on taking bearings of all
suspicious signals which may be put up at random.”
This is a highly important report which shows
the stresses that were placed on the Discrimination Unit that passed out
instructions to the VIs, and how ineffective the Mobile Units would have been
if they had to wait for multiple suspected transmissions, and then organize
themselves to drive maybe hundreds of miles in the hope of catching the pirate
transmitting again from the same location. It is also presents a provocative
introduction to the claims made by Chapman Pincher about what Morton Evans told
him about the traffic suspected as being generated by Sonia, and what Morton
Evans was supposed to have done with it. As I shall show in a later piece,
Morton Evans’s career makes Pincher’s testimony look highly dubious.
All this pestering by Frost, however, must have
caused immense irritation to Gambier-Parry, Maltby and Cowgill, and may well
have contributed to SIS’s suggestion (made through Vivian) that the RSS
Committee be abolished. At a meeting on December 2, all except Maltby and
Cowgill voted that the committee should not be discontinued, however, and
a useful compromise, whereby the committee was split into two, a high-level and
a low-level group, was eventually worked out. But, by now, the planning
emphasis was much more on signals protection and detection of ‘stay-behind’
agents on the Continent when the inevitable Allied invasion of Europe took
place, and Frost’s attention to domestic mobile units was beginning to sound
wearisome.
In 1943, Frost took up the cudgels again, as KV
4/98 shows. A note by Frost to Liddell, dated January 27, 1943, indicates that
Frost has now immersed himself into the techniques of broader signals security,
and violently disagrees with Vivian and Gambier-Parry. Frost wrote: “He
[Vivian] appears to presume that Gambier-Parry and S.C.U.3 are responsible for
all functions which can be included under the heading ‘Radio Security’. This is
false. Radio security involves not only the technical interception of suspected
enemy signals, which is the function of R.S.S., but the planning of our own and
Allied radio security measures and the investigation of illicit wireless
activities from an intelligence angle. Parry frequently implies that he is
responsible for all these activities. In fact, many bodies other than R.S.S.
and the Security Service are engaged on radio security work under one heading
or another, including the British Joint Communications Board, the Wireless
Telegraphy Board, the Censorship, and the Signals Department of the Three
Services.” Thus Gambier-Parry was
accused of two crimes: ineffectiveness in illicit wireless detection, a
function he denied having, and misunderstanding the scope of Signals Security,
a responsibility he thought he owned.
Frost
goes on to mention Gambier-Parry’s excuse that he needs more funding: Frost
asserts that Gambier-Parry has plenty of money for his own pet projects. Two
weeks later, Frost is making demands to be on the high-level committee, and that
Gambier-Parry should be removed – a bold initiative, indeed. This echoes the
statement that Liddell had made to Petrie in December 1942, that ‘the plumbers
(i.e. Gambier-Parry and Maltby) were directing intelligence, rather than the
other way around’. Yet there was a further problem: while Vivian may have been
declaring Gambier-Parry’s overall responsibility, Gambier-Parry was becoming a
reluctant warrior on the broader issue of civil and military signals security.
Gambier-Parry’s chief interest was in technology, in apparatus and codes, and
some of the more complex and political aspects of radio security eluded him.
By now Frost was being
eased out. Vivian’s proposal to Liddell on participants on the low-level
committee excludes Frost, with Dick White and Hubert Hart suggested as members instead.
Liddell and Vivian argue, about Frost and the Chairmanship, as well. Even
Petrie agrees that MI5’s radio interests are not being adequately represented.
The record here goes silent after that, but an extraordinary report in KV 4/33 (‘Report
on the Operations of B3E in Connection with Signals Security & Wireless
Transmission during the War 1939-1945’), written in May/June 1945 (i.e. as
Overlord was under way) suggests that MI5 thereafter effectively took control
of signals security through the efforts of Lt.-Colonel Sclater, a probable
reject from Maltby’s unit at Hanslope, who at some stage led the Signals
Security Unit within MI5.
The Year of Signals
Security
A close reading of Liddell’s Diaries gives a better insight into the machinations of this period than does anything that I have discovered at Kew. 1943 was the Year of Signals Security, and the matter had several dimensions. The overall consideration was that, as the project to invade Europe (‘Overlord’) developed, the security of wireless communications would have to become a lot tighter in order to prevent the Nazis learning of the Allies’ battle plans. The unknown quantity of dealing with possible ‘leave-behind’ Abwehr wireless agents in France would require RSS to turn its attention to direction-finding across the Channel. Moreover, there were military, civil, and diplomatic aspects. While the Navy and the Air Force had adopted solid procedures for keeping their traffic secret, the Army was notoriously lax, as the General Staff had learned from decrypted ULTRA messages. * Much government use of wireless was also sloppy, with the Railways particularly negligent. When troops started to move, details about train schedules and volumes of personnel could have caused dangerous exposures. Governments-in-exile, and allied administrations, were now starting to use wireless more intensively. The JIC welcomed the intelligence that was gained by intercepting such exchanges, but if RSS and GC&CS could understand these dialogues, why should not the Germans, also?
[* The frequently made claim
that naval ciphers were secure has been undermined by recent analysis. See, for
example, Christian Jennings’s The Third Reich is Listening]
These issues came up at the meetings of the high-level Radio Security Committee. Yet, as Liddell reported in March 1943, Gambier-Parry was very unwilling to take the lead. He refused to take responsibility for signals security (suggesting, perhaps, that he had now taken Frost’s lesson to heart), and used delaying tactics, which provoked Frost and Liddell. Liddell believed that the JIC and the Chiefs of Staff should be alerted to both the exposures caused by lax wireless discipline and Gambier-Parry’s reluctance to do anything. As Liddell recorded on April 12: “G-P has replied to the D.G. on the question of Signals Security. His letter is not particularly satisfactory and we propose to raise the matter on the Radio Security Committee. Parry is evidently afraid that it may fall to the lot of R.S.S. to look after Signals Security. He is therefore reluctant to have it brought to the notice of the Chiefs of Staff that the Germans are acquiring a considerable knowledge about the disposition of our units in this country and elsewhere through signals leakages.” What is perplexing, however, is that Liddell does not refer in his Diaries to the April 1943 report put out by Sclater [see below], which presumably must have been issued before Sclater was officially hired to MI5.
Another trigger for action (May 31) was the
discovery that agent GARBO had been given a new cipher, and that he had been
given instructions to use the British Army’s procedure (callsigns, sequences) in
transmitting messages. While this news was encouraging in the confidence that
the Abwehr still held in GARBO, it was alarming on two counts. It indicated
that the Germans were successfully interpreting army traffic, and it indicated
that it would be a safe procedure as RSS had not been able to distinguish real
army messages from fake ones. (Astute readers may recall that agent SONIA
received similar instructions: the Soviets probably learned about it from
Blunt.) This was of urgent concern to MI5, since, if RSS could not discriminate
such messages, unknown Abwehr agents (i.e. some not under control of the XX
Operation) might also be transmitting undetected. Even before this, the Chiefs
of Staff realised that special measures need to be taken. In classic Whitehall
fashion, they appointed a committee, the Intelligence Board, to look into the
question. But in this case, they selected a very canny individual to chair the
committee – one Peter Reid, who was a close friend (and maybe even a relative)
of Guy Liddell.
On June 9, Liddell had a long chat with Reid,
and informed him of the details of Garbo’s new cipher. Reid was
characteristically blunt: “Reid considers G-P, Maltby & Frost as bluffers,
and to some extent charlatans”, wrote Liddell. Reid thought that the Army
ciphers and operations had to be fixed first: fortunately the Army staff now
recognised the problem. A couple of weeks later, Reid was telling Liddell that
MI5 should ‘logically control RSS’. He thought Frost was not up to the mark,
technically inadequate, and probably recommended at this stage an outsider for
Liddell to bring in, which might explain the eventual recruitment of Sclater.
Reid’s committee also inspected RSS’s operation itself: Frost told Liddell that
Reid might be looking into the communications of SIS and SOE, which had been
Gambier-Parry’s exclusive bailiwick, and of which the head of Section VIII was
particularly proprietary. Reid is much of a mystery: where he came from, and
what his expertise was, are not clear. It is difficult to determine whether he
is offering strong opinions based on deep knowledge of the subject, or
energetic fresh views deriving from relative ignorance. (He was not the P.R.
Reid who escaped from Colditz, and wrote of his exploits.) On August 20,
Liddell recorded that Reid was ‘almost violent about the stupidity in handling
intercept material’.
While Gambier-Parry was becoming increasingly
under siege, Frost also appeared to have received the message that a career
move was imminent. He told Liddell on August 7 that he was investigating a job
with the Wireless Board. He was unhappy with his salary, and said ‘he should
give another organisation the benefit of his services’, an observation that
defines well his pomposity and high level of self-regard. Soon after this, one
finds the first references to Sclater in Liddell’s Diaries. Yet Sclater is
talking to Liddell ‘in the strictest confidence’ on August 26, which suggests
that his appointment has not yet been regularized. It suggests that Sclater was
frustrated with working at RSS (as any man of his calibre reporting to Maltby
must surely have been): similarly, one can never see him accepting a job under
Frost, to endure the same insufferable management style.
A few paragraphs in Sclater’s post-war History
of the unit, submitted to Curry, gives a hint of how Sclater’s influence
started. He claims that MI5’s initiative, in raising questions about possible
leaks from civilian authorities, such as the Police and Railway Lines, resulted
in the collection of ‘all possible details from other departments thought to be
using radio communications’. MI5 then requisitioned the services of some RSS
mobile units to monitor them. But the outcome was not good. “The results of
monitoring some Police and Railway communications indicated a deplorable lack
of security knowledge and some examples were included in a report which
eventually reached the Inter-Department W/T Security Committee.” MI5 then
succeeded in expanding the scope of the committee to include civilian use, the
Committee having its name changed to ‘W/T Security’. This new Committee then
issued the report that appeared on April 28, under Sclater’s name. Thus it is
probably safe to assume that Sclater was at this time on secondment, since he
did not appear in Curry’s organisation chart of April 1943, and would hardly
have been nominated to criticize RSS from within the unit. Frost, however,
should be credited with keeping the matter alive, even if he did not show mastery
over the subject, or display tact when pursuing his investigations. (Harrison
states that Sclater was not officially recruited by MI5 until January 1944.)
Liddell here records some shocking details of
Sclater’s conclusions about RSS: “He told me in the strictest confidence that
they had 3 M.U.s [mobile units] which had been carrying out exercises under
McIntosh. He does not however think that the latter is a suitable person to
conduct a search. He also told me that RSS in d.f.ing [direction-finding] an
alleged beacon near Lincoln had given an area of several hundred square miles
in which the search would have to be made. Their methods in d.f.ing continental
stations were improving but they reckon on an error of 1% per hundred miles.
This would mean a transmitter could only be located within an area of some 400
sq. miles. He also told me confidentially that he believed RSS were attempting
to d.f. certain stations in France which only came up for testing periodically
since they are believed to be those which will be left behind in time of
invasion. RSS have said nothing to us about this officially. All this of course
will have to come out when we get down to I.B. [Intelligence Board] planning.”
This exchange shows the high degree of
confidence that Sclater had in Liddell and MI5 assuming the responsibility for
Signals Security, but also his disillusion with Gambier-Parry. (A few weeks
later, Gambier-Parry was to suggest that mobile units should not be taken
across the Channel until the RSS had detected an illicit transmitter. A rather
feeble interpretation of ‘mobility’ . . . Gambier-Parry
certainly did not understand the problem of mobile illicit wireless use.) Yet
Sclater’s willingness to criticize the RSS’s direction-finding capabilities
implicitly suggests that the acknowledged expert on direction-finding, Major
Keen, who also reported to Maltby, was not being used properly. Did Keen
perhaps have something to do with Sclater’s move away from RSS?
Sclater’s arrival must have boosted Liddell’s
knowledge – and confidence. An entry in his diary from September 10 is worth
citing in full. The first significant observation is that he records that
Vivian appeared not to be aware of RSS’s mission in detecting illicit wireless
from the UK, thus providing solid reinforcement of the signals that
Gambier-Parry had been issuing. In the only chapters of substance covering RSS
(that I have found, before Abrutat), namely in Nigel West’s Sigint Secrets,
suggests that RSS’s straying into counteroffensive operations at the expense of
defensive moves was a result of Guy Liddell’s success, and that he himself
initiated it (p 154). Since West mistakenly informs us that RSS was in fact created
by MI5, and given the identity of MI8c ‘as a security precaution’, one has to
remain sceptical of the author’s conclusions, while understanding how he might
have contributed to the confusion about RSS
Newly emboldened, Liddell then wrote: “The
other question to be decided is the security of the communications of allied
Govts. This can be divided into three parts: allied forces, allied diplomatic
and allied secret service. Vivian takes up a rather non possumus
attitude on this question by saying that monitoring of the services of allied
forces can easily be evaded by the transfer of the traffic to diplomatic
channels. If this possibility exists, and obviously it does, we should monitor
the diplomatic channels. All we are really asking is a clear statement of the
facts. The services are supposed to be responsible for the security of the
signals of allied services. What in fact are they doing about it? The Secret
Service communications of allied Govts’ are supposed to be the responsibility
of SIS. Have they the cyphers? Do they know the contents of the messages? If the
cyphers are insecure what steps have been taken to warn the governments
concerned? Do SIS ever take it upon themselves to refuse to send certain
communications? If so is it open to government concerned to have them sent
either through military or diplomatic channels? Our sole locus standi in
this matter is that when a leak occurs we may well be looking all over the
country for a body whereas in fact the information is going out over the air.”
He followed up with a trenchant analysis of the R.S.C. committee meeting on September 14,
encouraging the RSS to deal with the Reid committee directly.
Realising that Frost was not a good ambassador
for MI5, Liddell at this point tried to harness his involvement with the Reid Committee until his
new position was confirmed. “It was agreed at that meeting that RSS should
monitor the civil establishments as and when they were able and turn in the
results to the Reid Committee on which are represented Min. of Supply, MAP,
GPO, Railways, and Police. All these bodies are on occasions co-opted to the
Reid Committee. The reason why I did not press this matter at the meeting at
Kinnaird House was that I did not want to build Frost up in a new job where he
would again be at logger-heads with everybody. Had he not been there I should
have pressed hard for our taking over the educational side and urged that RSS
as our technical tool should monitor from time to time and turn in the products
to us”, he recorded on November 12. The next day, Reid told Liddell that Frost
had accepted a job with the BBC in connection with broadcasting from the Second
Front. Frost’s swansong was to try to ‘liquidate’ the whole Barnet operation,
and told his staff, before he left, of that drastic action. But, after his
departure, Sclater was able to take on his role in B3E officially, and consider
more humane ways of dealing with the problems at RSS. By then, with Frost gone,
Maltby was sending out conciliatory signals to Sclater and Liddell about
wanting to cooperate.
The
relevant files on B3E (KV 4/33) can thus now be interpreted in context. The unit was stationed close to RSS’s Barnet
headquarters, an outpost of MI5 in RSS territory, and Sclater maintained close
contacts with parties involved with wireless, including the GPO Radio Branch,
the Telecommunications Dept., responsible for Licenses, the Inspector of
Wireless Telegraphy (Coast Stations), the Wireless Telegraphy Board, as well as
the RSIC, the low-level RSS committee. Sclater’s main point was that the
lessons of listening to the Abwehr, with their lack of discipline to names,
identities, repeated messages, en clair transmissions, etc. were not
being applied to British military or civilian communications in 1942. He
pointed out that MI5 also had no official knowledge of all the many organisations
that were using transmitters legally, which must have inhibited the effectiveness
of any interception programme, whoever owned it. He identified appalling lapses
of security, especially in the Police and Railways. The outcome was the report
published on April 28, 1943, which made some urgent recommendations. Yet it
must be recalled that B3E was apparently not established until after Frost left
in December 1943, so Sclater’s account is not strictly accurate in its
self-representation as an MI5 document.
This report therefore (with some allowances,
perhaps, for the author’s vainglory) makes the claim that MI5 effectively took
over control of RSS, ‘rooting out undisciplined use’, especially in the Home
Guard. RSS was given strict instructions on how to deploy resources to cover
Civil or Service traffic ‘as shall appear to the Security Service desirable’.
MI5 was now represented on all bodies to do with radio interception, and
exerted an influence on the JIC and SHAEF. MI5 co-authored with the Home Office
instructions to all civil units, which were copied to the RSS. This file contains
a fascinating array of other information, including examples of flagrant
breaches of security, and it demands further attention. Signals Security had
come full circle from Simpson to Sclater in five years. The ascent of Sclater
marked the demise of Frost. Can it all be trusted? I don’t know. You will not
find any reference to ‘Sclater’ or B3E’ in Christopher Andrew’s Defence of
the Realm, but that fact will perhaps not surprise anybody.
Mobile Direction-Finding
The course of mobile direction-finding
(and, implicitly, location-finding) during the war was not smooth. It was
partly one of technology (miniaturizing the equipment to a degree that vans, or
even pedestrians, could pick up signals reliably), and partly one of resources
and logistics (to what extent was the dedication of personnel to the task
justifiable when the threat seemed to diminish). Thus the years 1941-1943 can
be seen in the following terms: a year of sustained concern about the threat of
an invasion (1941); a year of relative quiet, and thus reflection, on the
mainland, while the outcome of the war generally looked dire (1942); and a year
of earnest preparation for the Allied invasion of Europe, when security of
radio traffic, and the threat of illicit broadcasts, again rose in importance
(1943).
The GPO had begun serious
experiments as early as 1935, as is shown in DSIR 36/2220. The fact that a
problem of ‘illicit radio transmissions’ in rural districts was considered a
threat at this stage, even before Hitler had occupied the Rhineland, is
breathtaking. Hampshire was chosen as the locality, and the exercise led to
some dramatic conclusions. Negotiating country roads, and relying primarily on
1” scale maps (since cars had no built-in compasses) required much visual indication,
and constant changing of direction to take fresh bearings. It was estimated
that forty minutes of transmitting-time were required for any successful
pursuit. Market-day interfered with the activity, and night operations required
stationary observations at main road crossings, ‘as these are the most easily
identifiable landmarks’. This was, for 1935, a remarkably imaginative exploit
by the Post Office, and showed some important lessons to be built on.
By 1938, the War Office and the GPO,
assuming war was imminent, were bringing the role of mobile operations to the
forefront. Colonel Ellsdale of the Royal Engineer and Signals Board submitted a
very detailed report (WO 208/5102, pp 68-74) of the perceived threat from
agents operating in Britain, even ascribing to them a degree of mobility that
was far beyond capabilities at the time. In March 1939, the War Office agreed
to a considerable investment in Illicit Wireless Interception, including
significant investment in mobile stations (see HW 62/21/17). Yet the focus by
November 1939 had very quickly switched to beacon-finding, in the erroneous
belief that Nazi sympathisers or German agents in Britain would be using such
signals to help direct bombers to their targets. Thus the GPO’s annual
expenditure in detection was planned to rise from £27,058
in 1939 to £343, 437 in 1940, and capital expenditures to increase from £13,425
to £211,325. A rapid-response squad was envisaged, with up to one hundred vans
operating, and identifying the target in a period of between thirty and ninety
minutes.
Fortunately,
this investment was quickly shelved, as interrogations of prisoners-of-war
indicated that there were no beacons operating from British territory. The
direction of flights was maintained by tail bearings in Germany. Despite the
generic concern about illicit transmissions, and MI5’s lack of knowledge of
what licit transmissions were occurring, Beaumont-Nesbitt, the Director
of Military Intelligence, called for a slowdown because of the costs. The GPO
continued to make investments, but drew criticism from other quarters because
of its inefficiencies and bureaucracy. By October 14, 1939, a meeting revealed that the GP had 200
mobile units in operation, but Simpson complained that the staff operating them
were not competent. It was this background which prompted
Colonel Simpson’s energetic response, but, since he was the individual most
closely associated with the Beacon Scare, his voice was not always attended to
seriously enough. In all probability, the units were disbanded, the staff was
moved elsewhere, and the equipment was put in storage.
After
the transfer of RSS to SIS in May 1941, MI5 actually started cooperating with
the GPO on the creation of its own mobile units. In a history of B3B written by
a Captain Swann (and introduced by R. L. Hughes of B3B – see KV 4/27), can be
found the following statement: “Two mobile D/F and interception units were
designed and constructed in co-operation with the G.P.O. Radio Branch, for use
in special investigations outside the scope of the R.S.S. units. [What this
means is not clear.] These cars were provided with comprehensive monitoring
and recording facilities, and proved very useful in connection with the special
monitoring assignments involved in the campaign to improve the Signals Security
of the country’s internal services.” A
laboratory and workshop were set up, using contents of a private laboratory
placed at the section’s disposal by one of the MI5 officers. The author said
that it was cost-effective, supplemented by GPO apparatus. Hughes comments that
this enterprise was a mistake, as it competed with RSS, and earned their
enmity. (RSS obviously learned about it.) But ‘it filled the gap that RSS
declined to stop’. Units and laboratories were supplied and equipped by the GPO:
they were not handed over to RSS until March 1944. Thus another revealing
detail about how RSS was seen to be unresponsive to MI5’s needs has come to
light.
I
shall consider Maltby’s approach to the problems of the mobile units later,
when I analyse the minutes of his meetings. Malcolm Frost, meanwhile, was
making constant representations to Liddell about the failings of the operation,
and how it was having a deleterious affect on RSS-MI5 relationships (see KV
4/97). He reported on October 18, 1942, on a meeting with Gambier-Parry, which
resulted in a commitment to provide greater local detection capabilities, but
still using equipment and research facilities from the GPO. A few days later,
Maltby, Elmes and Frost discussed moving MU bases from Leatherhead and
Darlington to Bristol and Newcastle respectively. This was the period (as I
discussed above), where Maltby was reluctantly admitting that little had been
done with the units since RSS took them over from the GPO in the summer of
1941. The record is important, since it shows that Frost was capable of making
some very insightful comments about the state-of-the-art of wireless
interception. On September 8, 1942, he submitted a long report to Guy Liddell
on the implications of signals security in the event of an allied invasion.
Moreover,
policy in the area of follow-up remained confusing. Frost was also energetic in
ensuring that local police forces did not act prematurely when illicit
transmissions were detected – presumably to safeguard the sanctioned traffic of
the double-agents around the country, and to ensure they were not arrested and
unmasked. Regulations that MI5 had to be consulted in all cases had been set up
on August 9, 1941, but they were not being obeyed faithfully. HO 255/987
describes some of the incidents where Frost had to remind the authorities of
the law. “The Home Office has instructed Police that they may not enter houses
of people suspected of possession of illicit wireless transmitters, without
prior reference to MI5.” The exception was the case of suspected mobile
illicit transmitters, since all double agents were stationary. Though even this
policy had its bizarre aspects, as another memorandum notes: “An Individual
apparatus is not enough for impounding; there have to be sufficient components
to form a complete transmitter.” And Frost sometimes received his rewards. One
notorious case (the Kuhn incident, wherein an employee of the Ministry of
Supply was discovered using a radio illegally in Caldy, Cheshire) resulted in
Frost’s receiving an obsequious letter of apology by a Post Office official.
Lastly,
a section of the report on B3E gives a glimpse of how MI5 was at some stage
strengthened by the arrival of personnel from RSS. In a report titled ‘Liaison
with R.S.S. Mobile Units’, the author confirms that MI5 was deploying a
parallel organisation. “For this purpose,’ the report runs, ‘in addition to the
main D/F stations belonging to R.S.S., there was a Mobile Unit Organisation
with 4 bases, namely Barnet, Bristol, Gateshead and Belfast. At each base were
station cars fitted with direction-finding apparatus for the search after the
fixed D/F Stations had defined the approximate area in which it was thought the
agent’s transmitter was situated. It was the duty of B.3.E. to co-operate with
R.S.S. Mobile Unit Section at all times and, if necessary, supply an officer to
accompany the units on any operation which might take place in the U.K.” Such
cases came two ways: through RSS interception, and from MI5 evidence. The MI5
officers on whom liaison duty evolved were all ex-RSS employees.
This
is a strange account, for, if B3E was indeed not established until January 1944
(as Harrison asserts), the threat of detection of domestic illicit wireless
agents (the ‘purpose’ referred to above) was at that time negligible. Is this
another example of grandstanding, in this instance by Sclater? By now, the
primary and consuming focus was to on the challenges of mobile units in Europe,
on ‘the Second Front’, as Liddell and all irritatingly continued to call it,
echoing Stalin’s propaganda. Illegal transmissions would continue to be an
irritant, as HW 34/18 displays, but they would occur when the war was virtually
over, and then won, such as in foreign embassies. One entry from December 20,
1945 even states that ‘Much useful information was passed on to Discrimination
as a result of further transmissions from the Soviet Embassy, only 100 yards
from Colonel Sclater’s home, from where the MU detachment worked.’ The fact
that those who are entrusted with the task of writing the history may distort
it to their own benefit is once again a possibility.
The
Management of RSS
Was Maltby unfairly maligned by Trevor-Roper? The historian’s experiences in dealing with the Controller of the RSS are, it appears, a rare impression. Trevor-Roper’s waspish comments about members of the military whom he encountered during the war may not be entirely fair: he accused Gambier-Parry of ‘maintaining a fleet of Packards’ at Whaddon , without indicating that it had been acquired in order to provide mobile units equipped with wireless to accompany the major command headquarters of the Army with capabilities for Ultra intelligence to be distributed. It is true that the seventy or so 1940 Packard Coupes included three that Gambier-Parry reserved for himself, Maltby and Lord Sandhurst, as Geoffrey Pidgeon’s Secret Wireless War informs us. When the first models were shipped out to North Africa, they were however found to be unsuitable for off-road use, and in 1943 the equipment was installed in existing army vehicles instead. This perhaps echoed the unfortunate experiences of wireless equipment that could not survive parachute jumps.
An equipped RSS Packard in Alexandria
Yet Pidgeon’s fascinating compendium does provide some other hints to Maltby’s character and prowess. He was apparently not the sharpest technical officer, and relied largely on Bob Hornby: the episode of his travelling to Latvia to coach embassy staff (cited by Nigel West in GCHQ) is confirmed by Philip J. Davies, in MI6 and the Machinery of Spying, but does not reflect well on his technical competence. Davies states that Maltby made a ‘cameo appearance’ in the memoir by Leslie Nicholson, the Passport Control Officer (cover for SIS) in Riga, which was confirmed by Kenneth Benton, Nicholson’s deputy. Pidgeon describes how the ace technician, Arthur ‘Spuggy’ Newton, made several trips to Europe before and during the war to install two-way wireless links. Between 1938 and the end of 1941 he was constantly travelling, and one of these assignments involved Nuremberg, Prague, Warsaw, Tallinn, Helsinki and Stockholm. It is probable that Riga was another capital he visited, although one John Darwin was also involved. Maltby may have toured Europe after Newton, checking on the field networks. Pat Hawker recorded how Maltby was more ‘in his element’ showing VIPS around the premises at Whaddon, and Pidgeon claims that Arkley (the headquarters of RSS), ‘although nominally under Maltby, was actually run on a daily basis by Kenneth Morton-Evans’, his deputy.
Maltby
was generally not popular. At one stage there were three candidates in the
running for the position as Gambier-Parry’s second-in-command, Maltby, Micky
Jourdain, and John Darwin. On June 6, 1939, Darwin wrote that he took Maltby
out to lunch, writing: “I think we will get on well together but if I am to be
Gambier’s second-in-command, it is going to be a trifle difficult.” Pidgeon
states that harmony between all three deputies did not last. Squabbling between Gambier-Parry’s wife and
Mrs. Jourdain broke out openly, with the result that Jourdain had to be
transferred. Darwin was in fact mortally
ill, and had to leave the unit in January 1940, so Maltby rose by default to
his post as Gambier-Parry’s deputy.
After
Maltby’s appointment as chief of RSS, Lord Sandhurst, who had been responsible
for assembling the troupe of Voluntary Interceptors, indicated he disapproved
of Maltby’s appointment as Controller of RSS. Pat Hawker, one of the VIs, wrote
the following: “‘Sandy’ was no longer in a position directly to influence RSS
policy; indeed both he and particularly his wife had little affection for
[Colonel] Ted Maltby who had been made Controller, RSS by Gambier-Parry. Unlike
most of the original Section VIII senior personnel, Maltby had not come from Philco
(GB) but had been chief salesman to a leading London hi-fi and recording firm
well used to ingratiating himself with his customers and superiors.” It is
perhaps surprising how the wives were integral to the career prospects of such
officers, and there may be some disdain for commerce behind these opinions, but
the indications are that Maltby was better at public relations than he was in
intelligence matters or leadership.
He
left a remarkable legacy, however. The National Archives file at HW 34/30 offers
a record of all Maltby’s staff meetings from 1941 to 1944. The first noteworthy
aspect of this is that the minutes exist – that a highly secret unit would
perform the bureaucratic task of recording discussions and decisions made. The
second is the manner in which Maltby went about it. He was clearly a lover of
protocol, and believed that his primary job was recording decisions made in
order to improve communications, and the understanding of responsibilities by
his staff. Moreover, each meeting is numbered, so the record can be seen to be
complete. (No meetings were held in 1944 until after D-Day, which is a solid
signal that security was tightened up everywhere.)
The
first meeting of the Senior Officers’ Conference was held on September 29,
1941, and sessions were held each Tuesday in Maltby’s office at Barnet. The
initial intent was to hold meetings weekly: this apparently turned out to be
excessive, and the frequency diminished, with intervals of up to several weeks,
on occasion, but each meeting was still numbered sequentially. Maltby’s
obsession with recording every detail shows an organizing mind, but also
betrays that he really did not distinguish between the highly important and the
trivial: thus the ordering of gumboots for the mobile unit personnel in Thurso,
Scotland, the construction of womens’ lavatories, the ordering of photocopying
equipment, and the precise renaming of Trevor-Roper’s unit as 3/V/w/ are given
exactly the same prominence as the major problem of trying to make the Post Office
deliver the secure lines required for communication between Hanslope and
Whaddon. Maltby is not one who can make things happen behind the scenes: he
likes to delegate, but does not intervene when tasks cannot be accomplished on
time, which probably frustrated many of his team. Lord Sandhurst, for instance,
was an active participant for the first few months, but left to take up a
senior post elsewhere in SIS by the end of 1941.
The authorised historian
(whoever that will be) will do proper justice to these minutes, and maybe they
will be transcribed and published one day. I here simply extract and analyse a
few items that touch the question of the detection of illicit wireless in the
United Kingdom, and shed light on Maltby’s management style. One sees glimpses
of the recognition that a more disciplined approach to classifying suspicious
traffic was needed. Hence a meeting of November 9, 1941 focuses on the matter
of General Search, ‘to ensure that any new and unidentified signal shall be
heard and reported’. The VI, ‘having found a new transmission he should
continue to watch it whenever heard, until his initial report has been returned
with instructions.’ ‘Normally signals such as (i) a known R.S.S. Service. (ii)
Army, Navy and Airforce traffic of all nations. (iii) known commercial
stations. (iv) transmissions previously reported but identified as unwanted by
R.S.S. are not suspicious. But the V.I. should bear in mind that an illicit
signal might be an imitation of (i) or (iii).’ The effort is considered
tedious, but very important. Yet the issue is left dangling, and it was
behaviour like that which must have frustrated Frost and Liddell in MI5. (This
analysis was picked up by Morton Evans in the report mentioned earlier.)
What puzzles me is that a complete register of known approved and official transmitters of wireless messages, with their schedules, callsigns, frequencies, patterns, etc., was not compiled at the outset. (This was a problem that Sclater had identified, noting in his report that at the beginning of the war, ‘MI5 had no official knowledge of many organisations using transmitters: Experimental Stations of the Ministry of Supply, Ministry of Aircraft Production, Police, Fire Brigade, Railways, in addition to all the G.P.O. and Cable and Wireless Stations.’ Sclater estimated a thousand transmitters in operation, excluding the supply ministries and the services.) A forceful leader would have overcome the security objections that would no doubt have been raised, and accomplished such a project, thus making it much easier to detect signals that were not covered by the register. And if an earlier motion had been made in demanding the improvement of Army Signals Security, the troublesome matter of alien transmissions imitating Army procedures could have been forestalled. Indolence in that area led to the departure of Sclater to work on the problem for the Intelligence Board, and then MI5.
Another example involves
Major Keen, the acknowledged worldwide expert on direction-finding. At a meeting on October 7, 1942 (Number 26),
under the line item ‘VHF – DF Equipment’, it is recorded: “Major Keen reported
that he had been in touch with Marconis regarding the delivery of this
equipment, and had found that the holdup was not due to non-availability of
vibrator units but to the fact that Marconis were prone to concentrate on the
orders of those who badgered them most.” The Controller (always identified as
such) responded in less than helpful terms: “The Controller suggested that
Major Keen should apply pressure to expedite delivery and that, if necessary,
he would himself call and see Admiral Grant. It was decided that he would not
do this until Major Keen had made further efforts to expedite delivery.” Major
Keen was not suited to such work, and it was inefficient to make further
demands on him in this role: the matter should have been sorted out at the
Gambier-Parry level.
The file is replete with
such gems. My conclusion is that Trevor-Roper was probably justified in
describing Maltby as he did. He was unsuitable in the post, and resembled an
Evelyn Waugh figure from Men at Arms, promoted above his due by the
fortunes of war, and the fact that Gambier-Parry seemingly found his company
congenial. Moreover, I can find no reference to Major Sclater, Worlledge’s
adjutant. The minutes of the first few meetings include the ‘Deputy Controller’
as one of the attendees, and since most of them were Majors, one might expect
Sclater to have been on the team in that function. Yet the indication is that Lt.-Colonel
Lacey filled that role, as his name appears in the minutes, but he is not
identified separately as attending. (In 1942, Major Morton Evans would become
Deputy Controller: after the war, he joined MI5, and would work in B Division,
as his name appears as ‘B2B’ in the Foote archive. At some stage, in 1950 or
later, he was appointed Security Adviser to the Atomic Energy Authority at
Harwell, since Nigel West states that, when Liddell retired, he replaced Morton
Evans in that role.) As former adjutant, Sclater may have been listed as ‘C/
i/c Administration’, with access to the minutes, but not invited to the
conference. Further investigations may show us the facts, but, in any case, one
cannot see Sclater lasting long under Maltby’s leadership. Worlledge had
resigned, or been forced to move out, in the summer of 1941, and maybe Sclater
soon followed him.
The Double-Cross Operation
A few important activities have come
to light in a perusal of KV 3/96 and 3/97, HW 40/90, KV 4/213 and KV 3/27.
A decryption of Abwehr traffic from
August 13, 1940, made on September 20, indicated that General Feldmarschall
Milch had reported that thirty spies were then in training to be sent to the
United Kingdom. Soon afterwards, Vivian of SIS informed Dick White (assistant
director of B Division) that the Germans claimed to have efficient agents in
many British harbour towns who were supplying information on shipping
movements. This advice may have alarmed White, but it was probably unreliable.
Vivian was able to provide much more useful information in December, when an
agent in Budapest telegraphed that the Germans were planning to insert several
Sudetenland Germans into the country under the guise of being Czech refugees.
This confirmed the German policy of not sending German nationals as part of the
LENA spies, as their cover stories would not hold up so well, and the Nazis may
have judged non-German natives might well escape the direst prosecution of
‘working for the enemy’.
Another item shows that DMI Davidson
was learning – slowly.
KV 4/213 provides great insights into
MI5’s thoughts as to how the double agents should be most effectively used, and
indicates that after the threat of invasion had passed, and plans for using
them for deception proposes to support OVERLORD were not yet relevant, there
was much discussion as how they might be sued for propaganda purposes. (It was
not until July 1942 that operational plans were advanced enough for the
double-agents to be considered suitable for deception purposes.) After one
meeting in mid-February, 1941, when Masterman had been educating members of
government about the project, he added a fascinating observation to his
memorandum to his boss: “D.M.I. asked me after the meeting whether R.S.S.
picked up the messages of our agents. He made the point that, if they did not,
it was an alarming criticism of their efficiency and utility. If, however, they
did, it was equally alarming, because our messages would then be known to a
large number of people, including many of the voluntary interceptors.”
Davidson was groping towards an
important truth. As Masterman pointed out to him (although the record shows
that Masterman himself was not really familiar with the details, since he
admitted that he was not sure how often RSS picked up their messages). ‘it
would be difficult for the voluntary interceptors to decode the messages.’ In
fact it would have been impossible, owing to skills and time pressures, but,
the major point was that, if RSS could pick them up, then certainly German
Intelligence Services would have been able to. That was the perpetual dilemma
that MI5 had to deal with throughout the war.
Lastly, KV 4/27, outlining the
achievements of B3B, contains some rich accounts both of Illicit Wireless
activity investigated by MI5 from 1939-1945, as well as the duties that the
unit assumed in liaising with B1A in controlling double agents, based on interceptions
reported from RSS. The former report is worthy of deeper analysis another time,
but the author reported that about 2,400 incidents were investigated during the
course of the war, and some were of B1A double-agents whose activity had raised
suspicions by housewives, window-cleaners, etc. R. L. Hughes, B4 in August
1946, included the following paragraphs, when describing how he kept RSS
informed of what B1A’s agents were doing: “B.3.B maintained records of no less
than 14 agents who came into this category. The work involved reporting back to
B.1.A.the results of R.S.S. monitoring of any suspicious stations noted and was
undoubtedly of value to both parties. Full details of these cases concerned
will be found in the B.1.A. records referring to ZIGZAG, TATE,
ROVER, SNIPER, BRUTUS, FATHER, MUTT & JEFF, SPRINGBOK, TRICYCLE, DRAGONFLY,
MORIBUND, GARBO, IMMORTAL and MOONBEAM.” Rather mournfully, he added: “The
B.3.B. papers concerning these activities have been destroyed.” The list is
fascinating, as little is known about ROVER or MOONBEAM (apparently based in
Canada), and I have not come across IMMORTAL or MORIBUND before.
Conclusions
In January, 1946, Sir Samuel
Findlater Stewart wrote a report on the achievements of RSS, with
recommendations for its future disposition (see FO 1093/484). His DNB
entry states that, during the war he had been ‘chairman of the Home Defence
Executive and chief civil staff officer (designate) to the commander-in-chief,
Home Forces. He was also appointed chairman of the Anglo-American co-ordinating
committee set up to deal with the logistic problems of the establishment of the
United States forces in Britain, and ‘played a significant part during this
period in dealing with the problems of security’. Findlater Stewart also had to
approve the information to be passed on by the double agents of the XX
Operation. He was thus in all ways in an excellent position to assess the
mission and contribution of RSS. I shall return to Findlater Stewart’s report
in my final chapter, and merely highlight a few of his observations here.
The report is drafted with typical
civil servant vagueness, with heavy use of the passive voice. The author does,
however, indicate that it had originally (when?) been intended (by whom?) that
the RSS should report to Menzies’s Communications Section, because of the
natural affinity between the latter’s establishment of secret radio
communications, and the RSS’s need to detect them, but that Swinton wanted to
wait until Section VIII had matured. Findlater Stewart then went on to write: “The
new system attempted a much greater precision. It started from the proposition
that the basis of an efficient service must be as complete an identification of
all the traffic capable of being received in this country. When this had been
done the task of identifying illicit transmission would be simplified, because
almost automatically the suspect station would be thrown up as one which did
not fit into the pattern of licit transmissions the Service had drawn.”
This is, to me, an astonishing misrepresentation
of the problem and the response. Apart from crediting too much to the level of
systematization achieved, the emphasis on reception in the UK, rather
than transmission from it, betrays a lack of understanding of the
challenge. To assert that all traffic from around the world that was
perceptible by monitoring stations in the UK could be catalogued, and sorted
into licit and illicit transmissions is ridiculous: the volume was constantly
changing, and the notions of ‘licit’ and ‘illicit’ have no meaning on
international airwaves. Moreover, many of the UK’s interception (Y) stations
were overseas. What might have been possible was the creation of a register of
all licit transmitting stations in the UK, so that apparently unapproved
stations – once it could be shown that they were operating from UK soil,
which almost exclusively required detection of the groundwave – could be
investigated. Maybe that was what Findlater Stewart meant, but on this occasion
‘his sound practical judgment of men and things; his capacity to delegate; his
economy of the written word’ (DNB) let him down. And even if we grant
him license for the occasional muddling of his thoughts, he greatly overstated
the discipline of any such system. What he hinted at would have made obvious
sense, and it may have been what he was told at Security Executive meetings,
but it definitely did not happen that way.
Thus, as the story so far covers events
up until the end of 1943, I would make the following conclusions:
Military Intelligence wanted to cast off RSS (MI8c), because of a)
the problems of managing civilian staff, b) the struggles in dealing with the
General Post Office, and c) the responsibility of a mission for civilian
protection. Yet it neglected its responsibility of wireless security in the
military. Worlledge and Sclater were champions of the latter, but lost out.
Worlledge’s pressing for MI5 after Simpson left, however, was foolish. If Military
Intelligence couldn’t solve the GPO supply problem, why did it think MI5 or SIS
could do so?
Y (interception) services were surpassingly scattered, among the
GPO, RSS (professional stations as well as Voluntary Interceptors), the Army,
Navy and Air Force, Marconi’s Wireless Telegraph Company, and even GCHQ itself.
This was probably not an efficient method of organizing the collection of
potentially harmful messages and valuable enemy traffic. Simpson’s energies
within MI5 and the efforts of the high-level Y investigation in 1940 appeared
to proceed in parallel, without any cross-fertilisation. The new Y Committee,
set up in 1941, was not an effective force. The VIs were allowed to drift into
concentrating more on Abwehr signals, and the domestic threat was not
approached in a disciplined fashion. Gambier-Parry’s and Vivian’s repeated
denials of responsibility for interception are very provocative in their
disingenuousness. (Even such an accomplished historian as David Kenyon has been
swept into this misconception: in his 2019 book, Bletchley Park and D-Day,
he describes RSS as ‘a body tasked with the interception of
Abwehr wireless traffic’.)
RSS was weakly led, but it did not receive much direction – not from Maltby, not from Gambier-Parry (whose
preferences were more in design of equipment), not from Menzies (who, according
to JIC chairman Cavendish-Bentinck, would not have survived for more than a
year had it not been for GC&CS), not from the JIC, not from the General
Staff, and certainly not from the Foreign Office or the Home Office. Findlater
Stewart of the Security Executive was confused, as was Davidson, the Director
of Military Intelligence.
Gambier-Parry’s
Section VIII did some things very well (the secure
distribution of ULTRA), but others not so well (manufacturing of equipment for
SIS and SOE agents, and providing mobile units to accompany the army).
Signals Security did not appear to be the responsibility of
Section VIII or RSS, but it took an ex-RSS adjutant, working independently for
the Intelligence Board, and then for MI5, to get matters straightened out. A
History of Signals Security needs to be written: not just RSS (but other Y),
not just GC&CS, not just SIS (where Jeffery fails). It would analyse MI5,
SIS, including RSS & GC&CS, the armed forces, the GPO, the BBC, the
JIC, the General Staff and Military Intelligence, the Foreign Office and
Governments-in-exile.
The practice of domestic
illicit wireless was never tackled properly, especially when it came to a
disciplined approach of tracking it down. What mobile units were supposed to
achieve was never defined, and they remained a gesture of competence,
frequently inventive, but too sparse and too remote to be a rapid task-force.
Fortunately, they were never really required.
MI5 was caught in a Morton’s Fork over its double agents, but got
away with it. It desperately did not want them to be casually discovered, and
the whole secret to come out in public. It wanted RSS to be able to detect
their transmissions, even when they were masked as official military signals,
as it was important that MI5 became aware of any unknown German agents who had
infiltrated the country’s defences, and were transmitting back to Germany. Yet,
if RSS did indeed pick up and discern these transmissions, it meant that the
Germans might in turn be expected to wonder why its agents were so remarkably
able to broadcast for so long undetected.
There was a tendency, once the war was won, to praise every
section enthusiastically. The RSS VIs did well, and so did GCHQ, but SIS and
Section VIII had a very mixed track-record, and the Double Cross operation was
exaggeratedly praised. A remarkable number of persons and officers were
unsuited to their jobs, and, despite the coolness with which the authorised
histories describe events, the conventional array of jealousies, feuds,
ambitions, rivalries and even blunders exerted a large influence on
proceedings.
The last chapter of the saga will describe the events of the first six months of 1944, when the FORTITUDE deception campaign led to the successful invasion of Normandy.
This month’s Commonplace entries can be found here.
One of the most stressful days of my life occurred at the end of July 1980. I had been spending the previous few months commuting between the UK and the USA, courtesy of Freddy Laker, spending three weeks in Connecticut before a break of a week at home in Coulsdon with Sylvia and the infant James, and then flying back to the USA for another sojourn. For some months, we had been trying to sell the house, while I looked for a place to live in Norwalk, CT., and began to learn about US customs, banking practices, documentary requirements for applying for a mortgage, etc. etc.. Meanwhile, I started implementing the changes to the Technical Services division of the software company I was working for, believing that some new methods in the procedures for testing and improving the product with field enhancements, as well as in the communications with the worldwide offices and distributors, were necessary. Sylvia successfully sold the house. I had to arrange for our possessions to be transported and stored, and decide when and how we should eventually leave the UK. On the last decision, Sylvia and I decided that using the QEII for the relocation would be a sound choice, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, perhaps, and one that would be less stressful for the three of us. We thought we would stay in the USA for a few years before returning home.
And then, three days
before we were due to sail, I discovered that our visas had still not come
through. I had been told by my boss (the CEO of the company) that an attorney
who specialised in such matters would apply for an L-1 visa (a training visa,
of limited duration), and that it would later be upgraded to a resident alien’s
visa. I had met the attorney, and given him all the details, and he had
promised me that I would be able to pick it up at the American Embassy in
London. But when I went there, the officials knew nothing about it. Some
frantic phone-calls across the Atlantic followed, and I was eventually able to
pick up the visas the day before we left Southampton. Such was the panic that I
cannot recall how we travelled from home to Southampton, or how we packed for
the week’s cruise with a ten-month old son, but we made it. The cruise itself
turned out to have its own nightmares, as my wallet was stolen (probably by a professional
pickpocket who funded his trips by such activities), and I spent the last three
days on the ship desperately looking for it, since it contained my driving
licence (necessary for applying for a US driver’s license), as well as a few
other vital items. It was not a comfortable start to our new life.
Fortunately, we still had our passports and visas intact. We were picked up in New York, and I was able to show Sylvia her new house (which, of course, she had never seen before). If she had any qualms, she was very diplomatic in suppressing them. We settled in: the neighbours were kind. They were Jews originally from Galicia, Bill and Lorraine Landesberg. I recall that Bill named ‘Lemberg’ as his place of birth – what is now known as Lvov, in Ukraine. (Incidentally, I recall a school colleague named Roy Lemberger. I conclude now that his forefathers must have moved from Lemberg some generations before in order for his ancestor to be given the name ‘the man from Lemberg’.) I suspect that the Landesbergs found us a bit exotic, even quaint.
I recall also that my
boss had encouraged me to rent, not buy (‘Interest rates will come down in a
couple of years’), but I had thought that he was probably trying to cut down on
relocation expenses. That conclusion was solidified by another incident. During
the summer, he had succeeded in selling his outfit to a local timesharing
company (‘timesharing’ being what was not called ‘cloud computing’ at the
time). I obtained a copy of the parent company’s Personnel Policies, and
discovered that it offered a more generous overseas relocation allowance, and
presented my findings to my boss. He was taken by surprise, and somewhat
crestfallen, as he knew nothing of the policy, and the expenses had to come out
of his budget.
In any case, this windfall
helped with the acquisition of new appliances, required because of the voltage
change. I must have applied for a re-issue of my UK licence, and soon we
acquired two cars. We chose General Motors models, a decision that my
colleagues at work also found quaint, as they were buying German or Swedish
automobiles, and stated that no-one would buy an American car those days.
Gradually, we found a pace and rhythm to life, a reliable baby-sitter, and the
changes I had made at the company seemed to have been received well –
especially by the support personnel I had left behind in Europe. My parents
were coming out to visit us that Christmas.
Indeed, I was next
recommended (by my predecessor) to host and speak at the key product Users’
Group being held that autumn/fall. I later learned that relationships between
the company management and the Users’ Group were very strained, because of
failed promises and indifferent support, and I was thus a useful replacement to
address the group – a fresh face, with a British accent, an expert in the
product, with no corporate baggage. I thus quite eagerly accepted the
assignment, prepared my speeches, and set out for Toronto, where the meeting
was being held. It all went very well: the group seemed to appreciate the
changes I was making, and I was able to offer several tips on how to diagnose
the system expertly, and improve its performance.
Thus I made my way back
through Toronto airport with some glow and feeling of success. Until I
approached the US customs post, after check-in. There I was told that I was not
going to be allowed to re-enter the United States, as I was in possession of an
L-1 visa, and as such, had committed an offence in leaving the country, and
could not be re-admitted. (My visa had not been checked on leaving the US, or
on entry to Canada, where my British passport would have been adequate.) I was
marched off to a small room to await my fate. Again, the experience must have
been so traumatic that I don’t recall the details, but I believe that I
pleaded, and used my selling skills, to the effect that it had all been a
harmless mistake, and Canada was really part of the North-American-GB alliance,
and it wouldn’t happen again, and it was not my fault, but that of my employer,
and I had a young family awaiting me, so please let me through. The outcome was
that a sympathetic officer eventually let me off with an admonishment, but I
could not help but conclude that a tougher individual might not have been so
indulgent. What was the alternative? To have put me in a hotel, awaiting a
judicial inquiry? This could not have been the first time such a mistake
occurred, but maybe they didn’t want to deal with the paperwork. And I looked
and sounded harmless, I suppose.
I eventually acquired the much cherished ‘Green Card’, which gave me permanent resident status, and the ability to change jobs. (That became important soon afterwards, but that is another story.) This was an arduous process, with more interviews, forms to fill out, travelling to remote offices to wait in line before being interrogated by grumpy immigration officials. Many years later, we repeated the process when we applied for citizenship. It was something we should have done before James reached eighteen, as he had to go through the process as well on reaching that age. One reason for the delay was that, for a period in the 1990s, adopting US citizenship meant a careful rejection of any other allegiance, and we were not yet prepared to abandon out UK nationality. At the end of the decade, however, we were allowed to retain both, so long as we declared our primary allegiance to the USA. (Julia was born here, so is a true American citizen, as she constantly reminds us.) More questions, visits to Hartford, CT., citizenship tests on the US constitution and history, and then the final ceremony. I noticed a change: when I returned from a visit abroad, and went through the ‘US Citizens’ line, the customs official would look at my passport, smile and say ‘Welcome Home’.
Illegal Immigration
All this serves as a
lengthy introduction to my main theme: what is it about ‘illegal immigration’
that the Democratic Party does not understand? I know that I am not alone in
thinking, as someone who has been through the whole process of gaining
citizenship, that such a firm endorsement of an illegal act is subversive of
the notion of law, and the judicial process itself. When, at one of the early
Democratic Presidential Candidate debates held on television, all the speakers
called not only for ‘open borders’ but also for providing free healthcare to
all illegal immigrants and asylum-seekers, I was aghast. Did they really think
that was a vote-winner, or were they all simply parading their compassionate
consciences on their sleeves, hoping to pick up the ‘progressive’ or the
‘Hispanic’ vote? For many congresspersons seem to believe that all ‘Hispanics’
must be in favour of allowing unrestricted entry to their brethren and sisterhood
attempting to come here from ‘Latin’ America. (Let us put aside for now the
whole nonsense of what ‘Hispanic’ or ‘Latino’ means, in relation to those
inhabitants of Mexico and South America who speak Quechua, Aymara, Nahuatl,
Zapotec, German, Portuguese, etc. etc.) Many ‘Hispanic’ citizens who are here
legally likewise resent the entitlements that others from south of the border
claim, suggesting that it is somehow their ‘right’ to cross the border
illegally, and set up home somewhere in the USA. There should either be a
firmer effort to enforce the law, as it is, or to change it.
Moreover, the problem is
by no means exclusively one of illegal immigration. It concerns authorized visitors
with temporary visas who outstay their welcome. Almost half of the undocumented
immigrants in the USA entered the country with a visa, passed inspection at the
airport (probably), and then remained. According to figures compiled by the
Center for Migration Studies, ‘of the roughly 3.5. million undocumented
immigrants who entered the country between 2010 and 2017, 65% arrived with full
permission stamped in their passports.’ The government departments responsible
can apparently not identify or track such persons. I read this week that an
estimated 1.5 million illegal immigrants reside in Britain.
The problem of mass
migration, of refugees, of asylum-seekers affects most of the world, in an
environment where asylum was conceived as a process affecting the occasional
dissident or victim of persecution, not thousands trying to escape from poverty
or gang violence. But we do not hear of throngs of people trying to enter
Russia, China, or Venezuela. It is always the liberal democracies. Yet even the
most open and generous societies are feeling the strain, as the struggles of EU
countries trying to seal their borders shows. It is not a question of being
‘Pro’ or ‘Anti’ immigration, but more a recognition that the process of
assimilation has to be more gradual. A country has to take control of its own
immigration policy.
I was reminded that this cannot be made an issue of morality, instead of political pragmatism, when I recently read the obituary of the Japanese Sadako Ogata, the first woman to lead the U.N. Refugee Agency. She was quoted as saying: “I am not saying Japan should accept all of them [people escaping from Syria]. But if Japan doesn’t open a door for people with particular reasons and needs, it’s against human rights.” The statement contained the essence of the dilemma: Ogata recognised presumably inalienable human ‘rights’ to move from one country to another, but then immediately qualified it by suggesting that only ‘particular reasons and needs’ could justify their acceptance. And who is to decide, therefore, which reasons and needs are legitimate? Not an Open Borders policy, but some form of judicial investigation, presumably.
. . . and Healthcare
The Democratic candidates then compounded their confusion by their demonstration of ‘compassion’ for claiming that they would allow such illegal immigrants free access to healthcare. Now here is another controversial example of the clash between ‘rights’ and pragmatism. Heaven knows, the healthcare ‘system’ in this country is defective and ‘broken’, but then I suspect that it is in any other country where, alternatively, medical treatment is largely controlled by the state. I read last week that Britain’s National Health Service has 100,000 vacancies, and that 4.4 million persons are now on waiting lists. (We have the antithesis of the problem over here. While a patient needing a knee-replacement has to wait six months or more in the UK, when I was referred to a knee specialist a few months ago, within ten minutes, without even calling for an MRI, the doctor recommended, because of arthritis showing up on X-Rays, that I needed a knee-replacement, and, before you could say ‘Denis Compton’, he would probably have fitted me in for the operation the following week if I had pursued it. His prosperity relies on his doing as many operations as possible. I am successfully undertaking more conservative treatments. Moreover, the American insurance system is littered with incidents where insurance companies pay absurd sums for processes that never happened.) France, I read, is having similar problems as the UK: is Finland the current model for how welfare and enterprise coexist successively? Maybe we should all migrate to Finland.
‘Medicare for all’. Apart from the fact that such a program is estimated by its champions to cost about $30 trillion over the next ten years, where will all the doctors and medical practitioners come from to satisfy the new demands? Will they be raided from ‘developing’ nations, who would surely ill afford the loss? Again, this matter is often represented as an ‘entitlement’ issue, one of ‘basic human rights’. Consider what the UN says. Article 25 of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that ‘Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services.’ Well, one can regret the obviously sexist language here – what about ‘every person and his or her wife or husband, and members of their blended or rainbow family, including members of the LGBQT community’ – but let that pass. It also did not state that subscribing nations should appoint a Minister for Loneliness. This was 1948, after all.
Reflect also on what the Declaration does not
say: “Every individual should
have access to healthcare, including the ability to gain, in a matter of four weeks,
an appointment with a reputable gastro-enterologist whose practice is within
twenty miles of where he or she lives.” “Every individual has the right to be
treated by a qualified shaman who can recite the appropriate incantations over
the invalid for an affordable fee.” “Every individual has the right to decline
approved immunization processes for their children out of religious
conviction.” I do not make these points as a frivolous interjection, but again
to point out how the provision of healthcare in any country has to be based on
pragmatics and economics, and will often clash with religious opposition and
superstitions.
It is bewildering how
many of the electorate in the USA appear to have swallowed the financial
projections of Senators Warren and Sanders for their expansive plans. To
suggest that such money can be raised by taxing what are mostly illiquid
assets, and that such government programs could presumably be permanently
funded by the continuance of such policies, is economic madness. Some
commentators have pointed out that wealthy individuals would find ways of
avoiding such confiscation, yet I have noticed very little analysis of the
effect on asset prices themselves in a continued forced sale. The value of many
assets cannot be determined until they are sold; they would have to be sold in
order to raise cash for tax purposes; if they are to be sold, there have to be
cash-owning buyers available; if a buyers’ market evolves, asset values will
decline. (One renowned economist suggested that the government could accept
stocks and shares, for instance, and then sell them on the open market . . .
. !) The unintended consequences in the areas of business investment and
pension values would be extraordinary. Yet the Democratic extremists are now
claiming that such a transfer of wealth will provoke economic growth, quickly
forgetting the lessons of a hundred years of socialism, and also, incidentally,
undermining what some of them declare concerning the deceleration of climate
change.
In summary, we are
approaching an election year with a Democratic Party desperate to oust Donald
Trump, but in disarray. The candidates for Presidential nominee are a
combination of the hopelessly idealistic, the superannuated and confused, and
the economically illiterate. I believe that those who stress the principles of
Open Borders and a revolutionary Medicare for All program seriously misjudge
the mood and inclinations of what I suppose has to be called ‘Middle America’.
But now Michael Bloomberg has stepped into the ring. As [identity alert]
‘an Independent of libertarian convictions with no particular axe to grind’, I
have found it practically impossible to vote for either a Republican or a
Democratic Presidential candidate since being granted the vote, but here comes
someone of proven leadership quality, a pragmatist (for the most part), and one
who has changed his political affiliations – just like Winston Churchill. In a
recent interview, he described himself as ‘a social liberal, fiscal moderate,
who is basically nonpartisan’. I could vote for him. But Michael – you will be
78 next February! Another old fogey, like Biden and Sanders! Why didn’t you
stand four years ago?
The Kremlin Letters
‘The Kremlin Letters’
I started this bulletin by referring to experiences from thirty-nine years ago, and conclude by describing events thirty-nine years before that, in 1941. This month I started reading The Kremlin Letters, subtitled Stalin’s Wartime Correspondence with Churchill and Roosevelt, edited by David Reynolds and Vladimir Pechatnov, which was published last year. It is proving to be an engrossing compilation, since it exploits some previously undisclosed Russian archives. The Acknowledgements inform readers that ‘a carefully researched Russian text was revised and rewritten for an Anglophone audience’. The core material is therefore what historians prefer to base their interpretations on – original source documents, the authenticity and accuracy of which can probably not be denied. A blurb by Gabriel Gorodetsky on the cover, moreover, makes the challenging assertion that the book ‘rewrites the history of the war as we knew it.’ ‘We’? I wondered to whom he was referring in that evasive and vaguely identified group.
Did it live up to the challenge?
A crucial part of the editing process is providing context and background to the
subjects covered in the letters. After reading only one chapter, I started to
have my doubts about the accuracy of the whole process. David Reynolds is a
very accomplished historian: I very much enjoyed his In Command of History,
which analysed Winston Churchill’s questionable process of writing history as
well as making it. I must confess to finding some of Reynolds’s judgments in The
Long Shadow: The Great War and the Twentieth Century a little dubious, as
he seemed (for example) to understate what I saw as many of Stalin’s crimes.
What caught my attention
was a reference to the Diaries of Ivan Maisky, the Soviet Ambassador in
London for much of WWII. I have previously explained that I think Maisky’s
Diaries are unreliable as a record of what actually transpired in his conversations
with Churchill and Eden, in particular, and regretted the fact that certain
historians (such as Andrew Roberts) have grabbed on to the very same Gabriel
Gorodetsky’s edition of the Diaries (2015) as a vital new resource in
interpreting the evolution of Anglo-Soviet relations. (see https://coldspur.com/guy-liddell-a-re-assessment/) Now David Reynolds
appears to have joined the throng. Is this another mutual admiration society?
The controversy (as I
see it) starts with Stalin’s initial letter to Churchill, dated July 18, 1941,
a few weeks after Barbarossa (the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany),
following Churchill’s two messages of support communicated via Ambassador
Cripps. Stalin’s message included the following paragraph:
“It is easy to imagine
that the position of the German forces would have been many times more
favourable had the Soviet troops had to face the attack of the German forces
not in the region of Kishinev, Lwow, Brest, Kaunas and Viborg, but in the
region of Odessa, Kamenets Podolski, Minsk and the environs of Leningrad”. He
cleverly indicated the change of borders without referring to the now embarrassing
phenomenon of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. (Stalin then went on to request,
absurdly and impertinently, that Great Britain establish ‘fronts’ against
Germany in northern France and the Arctic.)
What is this geographical lesson about? Reynolds introduces the letter by writing: “And he sought to justify the USSR’s westward expansion in 1939 under the Nazi-Soviet Pact as a life-saver in 1941, because it had given the Red Army more space within which to contain Hitler’s ‘sudden attack’.” My reaction, however, was that, while Stalin wanted to move very quickly on justifying the borders defined by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, his military analysis for Churchill’s benefit was poppycock. For what had been a strong defensive border built up during the 1930s, known as the Stalin Line, had effectively been dismantled, and was being replaced by the Molotov Line, which existed as a result of aggressive tactics, namely the shared carve-up of Poland and the Baltic States by Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. (See diagrams below. In all the historical atlases I possess, I have not been able to find a single map that shows the Stalin and Molotov Lines, and the intervening territory, clearly, and have thus taken a chart from Read’s and Fisher’s Deadly Embrace, which does not include the border with Finland, extended it, and added the locations Stalin listed.)
The Stalin LineThe Molotov LineThe Area Between the Stalin Line and the Molotov Line
I was confident, from my reading of the histories, that the Soviet Union’s annexation of the limitrophe states (as Hitler himself referred to them) had weakened the country’s ability to defend itself. After all, if the ‘buffer’ states’ that Stalin had invaded (under the guise of the secret protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact) had been allowed to remain relatively undisturbed, Hitler’s invasion of them on the way to Russia in the spring of 1941 would have warned the Soviet Union that Hitler was encroaching on the Soviet Union’s ‘sphere of influence’ and that its traditional, internationally recognised border would soon be under attack. ‘More space’ was not a benefit, in other words. Thus the analysis of this period must address how seriously Stalin believed that forcing the buffer states to come under the control of the Soviet army would impede a possible invasion (which Stalin expressly still feared) rather than facilitate it. Reynolds does not enter this debate.
Ambassador Maisky
delivered this message from Stalin to Churchill at Chequers. Reynolds then
echoes from Maisky’s diary the fact that Churchill was very pleased at
receiving this ‘personal message’, and then goes on to cite Maisky’s impression
of Churchill’s reaction to the border claims. “Churchill also expressed
diplomatic approval of Stalin’s defence of shifting Soviet borders west in
1939-40: ‘Quite right! I’ve always understood and sought to justify the policy
of “limited expansion” which Stalin has pursued in the last two years’.”
Now, my first reaction
was that Churchill, as a military historian and as a politician, could surely
not have expressed such opinions. I seemed to recall that he had been highly
critical of both the Nazi invasion of Poland as well as the Soviet Union’s
cruel takeover of the Baltic States, where it had terrorized and executed
thousands, as well as its disastrous war against Finland in the winter of 1940.
(Lithuania was initially assigned to Germany, according to the Pact, but was
later transferred to the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence.) Churchill must also
have known that dismantling a strong defensive wall, and trying to establish a
new one, under pressure, in countries where Stalin had menaced and antagonised
the local citizenry, would have been a disastrous mistake as preparation for
the onslaught that Hitler had long before advertised in Mein Kampf. Did
he really make that statement to Maisky? Had these assertions of Maisky’s been
confirmed from other sources?
Then I turned the page
to read Churchill’s response to Stalin, dated July 20. Here was the evidence in
black and white: “I fully realise the military advantage you have gained by
forcing the enemy to deploy and engage on forward Western fronts, thus
exhausting the force of his initial effort.” This was astonishing! What was
Churchill thinking? Either I was completely wrong in my recollection of how
historians had interpreted the events of Barbarossa, or Churchill had been woefully
ignorant of what was going on, and insensitive to the implications of his
message, or the British Prime Minister had been tactfully concealing his real
beliefs about the annexations in an attempt to curry favour with Generalissimo
Stalin. Which was it? In any case, he was shamelessly and gratuitously expressing
to Stalin approval of the brutal invasion of the territory of sovereign states,
the cause he had gone to war over. Churchill’s message consisted of an
unnecessary and cynical response to Stalin’s gambit, which must have caused many
recriminations in negotiations later on. As for ‘exhausting the force of his
initial effort’, Churchill was clutching at Stalin’s straws. Where was the
evidence?
I decided to look up evidence
from sources in my private library to start with. First, Maisky’s Diaries.
Indeed, the details are there. Maisky indicates that he translated (and typed
up) the message himself, and that, since he told Anthony Eden that it dealt
with ‘military-strategic issues’, the Foreign Secretary did not request that he
be in attendance when it was read. Maisky adds that ‘the prime minister started
reading the communiqué ‘slowly, attentively, now and then consulting a
geographical map that was close at hand’. (Those placenames would certainly
have not been intimately familiar.) Maisky singles out, rather implausibly,
Churchill’s reaction to the ‘expansion’ policy. When Churchill had finished
reading the message, however, Maisky asked him what he thought of it, and
Churchill ‘replied that first he had to consult HQ’. One thus wonders whether
he would have given anything away so enthusiastically in mid-stream, and why he
would have concentrated on the geographical details when the substance of the
message related to more critical matters.
What other records of
this visit exist? I turned to John Colville’s Fringes of Power: 10 Downing
Street Diaries,1939-1955. Colville records the meeting, albeit briefly. “At
tea-time the Soviet Ambassador arrived, bringing a telegram for the P.M. from
Stalin who asks for diversions in various places by English forces. It is hard
for the Russians to understand how unprepared we still are to take the
offensive. I was present while the P.M. explained the whole situation very
clearly to poor, uninformed Maisky.”
Maisky records Churchill’s protestations about the futility of trying to
invade mainland Europe without admitting his own miserable ignorance: Colville
makes no reference to the exchange over the Baltic States.
Did Churchill or Eden
make any relevant observation at this time? I have only my notes from Eden’s The
Reckoning, which refer to Maisky’s demands for the Second Front, but
indicate nothing about the Baltic States at this time. (The matter would
surface ominously later in the year, when joint ‘war aims’ were discussed.). I
own only the abridgment of Churchill’s war memoirs, which contains no
description of the meeting with Maisky. And what about the biographies? The
Last Lion, by William Manchester and Paul Reid, while spending several paragraphs
on Stalin’s demands for a second front, makes no mention of the telegram and
the Maisky meeting, or the contentious issue of Soviet borders. Roy Jenkins’s Churchill
is of little use: ‘Maisky’ appears only once in the Index, and there are no
entries for ‘Barbarossa’ or ‘Baltic States’. I shall have to make a visit to
the UNCW Library in the New Year, in order to check the details.
Next, the military
aspects of the case. Roger Moorhouse, in The Devil’s Alliance, provides
a recent, in-depth assessment. “Since
the mid-1920s, the USSR had been constructing a network of defenses along its
western border: the ukreplinnye raiony,
or ‘fortified areas,’ known colloquially as the ‘Stalin Line.’ However, with
the addition of the territories gained in collaboration with the Germans in
1939 and 1940, those incomplete defenses now lay some three hundred or so
kilometers east of the new Soviet frontier. Consequently, in the summer of
1940, a new network of defenses was begun further west, snaking through the
newly gained territories from Telŝiai in Lithuania, via eastern Poland, to the
mouth of the Danube in Bessarabia. It would later be unofficially named the
‘Molotov Line’.” These were the two boundaries to which Stalin referred,
obliquely, in his telegram.
Moorhouse explains how
the Soviets were overwhelmed in the first days of the invasion, partly because
of Stalin’s insistence that his forces do nothing to ‘provoke’ Hitler, but also
because his airfields and troops were massively exposed. “After two days, the
capital of the Lithuanian Soviet Republic, Vilnius, fell to the Germans; a week
after that, the Latvian capital, Riga, the Byelorussian capital, Minsk, and the
western Ukrainian city of L’vov (the former Polish Lwów) had also fallen. By
that time, some German units had already advanced over 250 miles from their
starting position. Already, almost all the lands gained under the pact had been
lost.” The Red Air Force had been annihilated on the ground, with thousands of
aircraft destroyed because they sat in airfield in rows, unprotected and
unguarded. “Facing the full force of the blitzkrieg, the Red Army was in
disarray, with surviving troops often fleeing eastward alongside columns of
similarly leaderless refugees. In some cases, officers attempting to stem the panic
and restore order were shot by their own troops.”
This account is echoed
by Antony Beevor, in The Second World War: “The
Red Army had been caught almost completely unprepared. In the months before the
invasion, the Soviet leader had forced it to advance from the Stalin Line
inside the old frontier and establish a forward defence along the
Molotov-Ribbentrop border. Not enough had been done to prepare the new
positions, despite Zhukhov’s energetic attempts. Less than half of the
strongpoints had any heavy weapons. Artillery regiments lacked their tractors,
which had been sent to help with the harvest. And Soviet aviation was caught on
the ground, its aircraft lined up in rows, presenting easy targets for the
Luftwaffe’s pre-emptive strikes on sixty-six airfields. Some 1,800 fighters and
bombers were said to have been destroyed on the first day of the attack, the
majority on the ground. The Luftwaffe lost just thirty-five aircraft.” Michael
Burleigh, in his outstanding Moral Combat, reinforces the notion of
Soviet disarray: “On 22 June three million troops, 3,350 tanks, 71.146
artillery pieces and 2,713 aircraft unleashed a storm of destruction on an
opponent whose defences were in total disarray, and whose forces were deployed
far forward in line with a doctrinaire belief in immediate counter-attack.”
Yet I struggled to find detailed
analysis of the effect of the moved defensive line in accounts of the battles.
Christer Bergstrom’s Operation Barbarossa 1941: Hitler Against Stalin,
offers a detailed account of the makeup of the opposing forces, and the
outcomes of the initial dogfights and assaults, but no analysis on the effect
on communications and supply lines that the extended frontier caused.
Certainly, owing to persecutions of local populations, the Soviet armies and
airforce were operating under hostile local conditions, but it is difficult to
judge how inferior the Soviet Union’s response was because of the quality of
the outposts defending the frontier, as opposed to, say, the fact that the military’s
officers had been largely executed during the Great Purge. The Soviet airfields
were massively exposed because German reconnaissance planes were allowed to
penetrate deep into the newly-gained territory to take photographs – something
they surely would not have been permitted to perform beyond the traditional
boundaries. On the other hand, I have found no evidence that the Soviet
Union was better able to defend itself in Operation Barbarossa because of the
movement of its western border, as Stalin claimed in his telegram.
I have also started to
inspect biographies of Stalin. Dmitri Volkogonov’s Stalin: Triumph and
Tragedy (1998, English translation 1991) is quick to list several causes
for the disaster of Barbarossa: Stalin’s hubris in wanting to restore the old
imperial borders too quickly, the lack of attention to defensive strategies, the
fact that, in January 1941, General Zhukov recommended unsuccessfully that the
‘unfavourable system of fortified districts’ be moved back 100 kilometres from
the new border, the overall zeal in meeting production quotas resulting in too
many defective aircraft, and high crash rates, and their poor protection on
exposed airfields. But while criticising Stalin, Volkogonov appears the
inveterate Communist, claiming equivocally that
‘while the moral aspect of the annexation of the Baltic states was
distinctly negative, the act itself was a positive [sic!] one’, that
‘the overwhelming majority of the Baltic population were favourable to their
countries’ incorporation into the Soviet Union in August 1940’, and even that
‘the decision to take over Western Ukraine and Byelorussia . . . was broadly in accord with the desire
of the local working class population’. These statements are highly
controversial, and further study is called for. Meanwhile, Marshall Zhukov in
his Memoirs (1969) offers a mostly propagandist account of the
tribulations of 1941, but does provide the scandalous information that German
saboteurs had cut the telegraph cables in all of the Western Frontier
Districts, and that most units had no radio back-up facilities.
How did Churchill’s attitudes
over the Baltic States evolve over time? Anthony Read’s and David Fisher’s Deadly
Embrace contains an indication of Churchill’s early opinions cited from the
latter’s Gathering Storm: “The British people . . . have a right, in conjunction with the
French Republic, to call upon Poland not to place obstacles in the way of a
common cause. Not only must the full co-operation of Russia be accepted, but
the three Baltic States, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, must also be brought
into the association . . There is no means of maintaining an eastern
front against Nazi aggression without the active aid of Russia. Russian
interests are deeply concerned in preventing Herr Hitler’s designs on Eastern
Europe.” Yet that was said in April 1939, well before the pact was signed.
Churchill at that time was surely not considering that the Baltic States had to
be occupied by the Soviet Union in order to provide a bulwark against
the Germans. In any case, the States (and Poland) were more in fear of the
Bolsheviks than they were of the Nazis.
I turned to Robert
Rhodes James’s edition of his speeches, Churchill Speaks 1897-1963, and
was rather astonished by what I found. On October 1, 1939, after war had been
declared, and after the dismemberment of Poland, Churchill referred to
‘Russia’s’ interests without referring to the fate of the Baltic States. “What
is the second event of this first month? It is, of course, the assertion of the
power of Russia. Russia has pursued a cold policy of self-interest. We could
have wished that the Russian armies should be standing on their present line as
the friends and allies of Poland instead of as invaders. But that the Russian
armies should stand on the line was clearly necessary for the safety of Russia
against the Nazi menace.” A highly inflammatory and cynical opinion expressed
by the future Prime Minister, who quickly turned his attention to the Balkans
in his ‘riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma’ oration.
A few months later,
Churchill picked up his analysis with commentary on the Finnish war, where the
Soviet invasion (part of the exercise to create a buffer zone between Leningrad
and hostile forces) had provoked a robust reaction in Britain, and even calls
to send troops to help the Finns. Again, Churchill evinced more rhetoric than
substance. “Only Finland – superb, nay sublime – in the jaws of peril – Finland
shows what fine men can do. The service rendered by Finland to mankind is
magnificent. They have exposed, for all to see, the military incapacity of the
Red Army and of the Red Air Force. Many illusions about Soviet Russia have been
dispelled in these fierce weeks of fighting in the Arctic Circle. Everyone can
see how Communism rots the soul of a nation: how it makes it abject and hungry
in peace, and proves it base and abominable in war. We cannot tell what the
fate of Finland may be, but no more mournful spectacle could be presented to
what is left to civilized mankind than this splendid Northern race should be at
last worn down and reduced to servitude by the dull brutish force of
overwhelming numbers.” Well, it surely did not take the invasion of Finland to
show how a nation subjugated by Communism could be ruined, as the famines of
the Ukraine and Stalin’s Gulag had showed.
On March 30, 1940,
Churchill was again critical of the two totalitarian states. “What a frightful
fate has overtaken Poland! Here was a community of nearly thirty-five millions
of people, with all the organization of a modern government, and all the traditions
of an ancient state, which in a few weeks was dashed out of civilized existence
to become an incoherent multitude of tortured and starving men, women and
children, ground beneath the heel of two rival forms of withering and blasting
tyranny.” Indeed, sir. Yet Churchill could be remarkably selective in
identifying the places suffering under extremist cruelty: Britain was at war
with Germany, not with the Soviet Union, and he would come to soften his
criticism of Stalin’s variety of tyranny.
For the year after his
appointment as Prime Minister, Churchill was concentrated primarily on the war
in western Europe, and the threats of invasion, and his speeches reflect those
concerns. All that time, however, he was welcoming the time when the Soviet
Union would be forced to join the Allies. In February, 1941, he reminded his
audience that Hitler was already at the Black Sea, and that he ‘might tear
great provinces out of Russia.’ In April, he said that the war ‘may spread
eastward to Turkey and Russia’, and that ‘the Huns may lay their hands for a
time upon the granaries of the Ukraine and the oil-wells of the Caucasus.” By
this time he was warning Stalin of the coming German invasion, advice that the dictator
chose to ignore.
When the invasion
occurred, Churchill immediately declared his support for the Soviet Union. This
was the occasion (June 22, 1941) when he professed that ‘no one has been a more
consistent opponent of Communism than I have for the past twenty-five years’.
But then he dipped into his most sentimental and cloying prose: “I see the
Russian soldiers standing on the threshold of their native land, guarding the
fields which their fathers have tilled from time immemorial. [Actually, not.
Millions of peasants had been killed and persecuted by Stalin, whether by
famine or deportation. Their fields had been disastrously collectivised.] I
see them guarding their homes where mothers and wives pray – ah yes, for there
are times when all pray – for the safety of their loved ones, the return of
their bread-winner, of their champion, of their protector. I see the ten
thousand villages of Russia, where the means of existence was wrung so hardly
from the soil, but where there are still primordial human joys, where maidens
laugh and children play.”
This is all romantic tosh,
of course. Stalin had so monstrously oppressed his own citizens and those in
the countries he invaded that the Nazis, from Estonia to Ukraine, were initially
welcomed as liberators by thousands who had seen family members shot or
incarcerated, simply because they were bourgeois or ‘rich peasants’, who had
seen their churches destroyed and their faith oppressed, and who had
experienced their independent livelihood being crushed. As Christopher Bellamy
writes, in the Oxford Companion to Military History. “The next biggest
contribution [to Soviet victory] was made by Hitler, who failed to recognize
the importance of the fact that his armies were initially greeted as liberators
in Belorussia and the Ukraine.” Some maidens did indeed start laughing when the
Germans arrived, as Georgio Geddes’s extraordinary account of Ukraine in 1941
to 1943, Nichivó: Life, Love and Death on the Russian Front, informs us.
Moorhouse and others
have written of the dreadful purges and deportations that took place after the
Soviets invaded the Baltic States, and the portion of Poland awarded to it
through the Pact. From The Devils’ Alliance, again: “In the former Polish eastern regions, annexed
by Stalin in 1939, at least 40,000 prisoners – Poles, Ukrainians, Byelorusians,
and Jews – were confined in overcrowded NKVD prisons by June 1941. As
elsewhere, some were released or evacuated, but around half would not survive.
The worst massacres were in L’vov, where around 3,500 prisoners were killed
across three prison sites, and at Lutsk (the former Polish Ĺuck), where 2,000
were murdered. But almost every NKVD prison or outpost saw a similar action –
from Sambor (600 killed) to Czortkov (Czortków) (890), from Tarnopol (574) to
Dubno (550).” Moorhouse continues: “Latvia had scarcely any history of
anti-Semitism prior to the trauma of 1939 to 1941; it had even been a
destination for some Jews fleeing the Third Reich, including Russian-born
scholar Simon Dubnow. Yet, in 1941 and beyond, it became the scene – like its
Baltic neighbors – of some of the most hideous atrocities, in which local
units, such as the infamous Arajs Kommando, played a significant role. It seems
that the Soviet occupation – with its informers, collaborators, denunciators,
and persecutions – had so poisoned already fragile community relations that,
even without Nazi encouragement, some sort of bloody reckoning became
inevitable.”
These facts were all revealed with the benefit
of hindsight, and access to archives. I need to inspect diplomatic and
intelligence reports to determine exactly how much Churchill knew of these
atrocities at the time. After all, the deportation and execution of thousands
of Polish ‘class enemies’ was concealed from Western eyes, and the Katyn
massacre of April-May 1940 remained a secret until April 1943, to the extent
that Stalin claimed that the Germans were responsible. By then, his British and
American allies were too craven to challenge him, even though they knew the
truth. Yet Churchill’s previous comments showed he was under no illusions about
Soviet persecution of even nominal opposition. If ‘communism rots the soul of a
nation’, it presumably rotted the Baltic States, too.
I started this exercise
in the belief that I would be uncovering further mendacity by Maisky, and soon reached
the stage where I was astonished at Churchill’s obsequious response to Stalin.
Stalin laid a trap for Churchill, and he walked right into it. One cannot
ascribe his appeasement of Stalin solely to his desire to encourage the Soviet
leader to continue the fight against Hitler, and his need to rally the British
public behind a regime that he had condemned for so long. Churchill acted meanly,
impulsively, and independently. In his recent biography of Churchill, Andrew
Roberts writes: “Churchill announced this full-scale
alliance with Soviet Russia after minimal consultation with his colleagues.
Even Eden had precious little input into the decision. Nor had he consulted the
Russians themselves. Over dinner at Chequers that evening Eden and Cranborne
argued from the Tory point of view that the alliance ‘should be confined to the
pure military aspect, as politically Russia was as bad as Germany and half the
country would object to being associated with her too closely’. Yet Churchill’s
view ‘was that Russia was now at war; innocent peasants were being slaughtered;
and that we should forget about Soviet systems or the Comintern and extend our
hand to fellow human beings in distress’. Colville recalled that this argument
‘was extremely vehement’.” He does not mention whether anyone brought up the
fact that Stalin himself was responsible for the deaths of millions of peasants
in his own homeland.
Throughout,
Churchill showed as much disdain for the fate of the Baltic States as
Chamberlain had done over the rape of Czechoslovakia. I believe that it is a
topic that cries out for re-assessment. Churchill certainly did not know the
extent of the disaster in the Soviet Union’s defences in July 1941, but,
knowing so little, he did not need to go overboard in agreeing with Stalin’s
claims. We thus have to face the possibilities: either a) Churchill knew all
along about the cruelty of Soviet oppression in the areas between the Stalin
Line and the Molotov Line, and chose to suppress them in his desire to rally
Stalin to the cause of fighting Hitler, or b) he had managed to remain ignorant
of what persecutions were occurring in these buffer states, sandwiched between
the infernal machines of Nazism and Bolshevism. And, whichever explanation is
correct, he omitted to explain why he, a military man, believed that the Soviet
Union had managed to contain better the onslaught of the Nazi war machine by choosing
to defend remote boundaries created in a campaign of aggression.
It
is hard to accept the second thesis. The famous cartoon by Low, published in Punch
in September 1939, where Hitler and Stalin rendezvous over dead bodies, with
Hitler saying ‘The scum of the earth, I believe?’, and Stalin responding ‘The
bloody assassin of the workers, I presume?’, reflected well the mood and
knowledge of the times. In the USA, Sumner Welles was much more hard-nosed
about the menace represented by the Soviets. As the excellent Moorhouse again
writes: “Nonetheless, in British government circles the
idea of de facto recognition of the annexations was soon floated as a
possible sop to bring Stalin onside. The American reaction was more principled.
Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles issued a formal statement – the Welles
Declaration – condemning Soviet Aggression and refusing to recognize the
legitimacy of Soviet control in the region, citing ‘the rule of reason, of
justice and of law,’ without which, he said, ‘civilization itself cannot be
preserved.’ In private he was even more forthright, and when the Soviet
ambassador, Konstantin Oumansky, opined that the United States should applaud
Soviet action in the Baltic, as it meant that the Baltic peoples could enjoy
‘the blessings of liberal and social government,’ his response was withering.
‘The US government,’ Welles explained, ‘sees no difference in principle between
the Russian domination of the Baltic peoples and the occupation by Germany of
other small European nations.’”
David Low’s Cartoon on the Nazi-Soviet Pact
The research will continue. I believe an opportunity for re-interpretation has been missed, contrary to Gorodetsky’s bubbly endorsement. (And I have read only one chapter of The Kremlin Letters so far. What fresh questions will it provoke?) Can any reader out there point me to a book that carefully dissects the implications of the defence against Barbarossa from the Molotov line, and maybe a study of virtual history that imagines what would have happened had Stalin been able to restrain himself from moving his defensive line westwards? Did Basil Liddell Hart ever write about it? In the meantime, I echo what I wrote about the Appeasement of Stalin a few months ago (see coldspurappeasement), except that I admit that I may have been too generous to Churchill in that piece. What was really going on in his mind, apart from the sentimentality, and the desire to capture some moving sentences in his oratory? It seems to me that Hitler inveigled Stalin into exposing his armies where they would be more vulnerable to his attack, that Stalin hoodwinked Churchill into making a calamitous and unnecessary compliment to Stalin’s generalship, and that Churchill let down the Baltic States by mismanaging Stalin’s expectations.
The last point to be made is to draw parallels with these times. The question of borders is all very poignant in view of current geopolitics. NATO was designed to provide concerted defence against westward extensions of the Soviet Empire. When communism died, NATO’s mission became questionable. Then Putin annexed the Crimea, supported separatists in eastern Ukraine, and this month forged a tight embrace with Belarus. Largely because of the reoccupation by the Soviet Empire after World War II, both Estonia and Latvia have 25% Russian ethnicity. Could Putin, in his desire to ‘make Russia great again’, possibly have designs on Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania?
I wish all coldspur readers the compliments of the season. I leave for two weeks in Los Altos, CA on December 17.
I have met Nigel West, the pen name adopted by Rupert Allason, the undisputed doyen of British writers on intelligence matters, on three occasions, as I have recorded in previous blogs. I met him first at a conference on wartime Governments-in-Exile at Lancaster House several years back, and he kindly agreed to come and listen to the seminar on Isaiah Berlin that I was giving at the University of Buckingham the following week. We exchanged emails occasionally: he has always been an informative and encouraging advisor to researchers into the world of espionage and counter-espionage, like me. A couple of years ago, I visited him at his house outside Canterbury, where I enjoyed a very congenial lunch.
Nigel West
Shortly
before Misdefending the Realm
appeared, my publisher and I decided to send Mr. West a review copy, in the
hope that he might provide a blurb to help promote the book. Unfortunately, Mr.
West was so perturbed by the errors in the text that he recommended that we
withdraw it in order to correct them. This was not a tactic that either of us
was in favour of, and I resorted to quoting Robin Winks to cloak my
embarrassment: “If intelligence
officers dislike a book, for its tone, revelations, or simply because the find
that one or two facts in it may prove compromising (for which, also read
embarrassing), they may let it be known that the book is ‘riddled with errors,’
customarily pointing out a few. Any book on intelligence will contain errors,
given the nature and origin of the documentation, and these errors may then be
used to discredit quite valid judgments and conclusions which do not turn on
the facts in question.” (Robin W. Winks, in Cloak & Gown: Scholars in the Secret War, 1939-1961,
p 479) Since then, therefore, I have not dared to approach Mr. West on
questions of intelligence where I might otherwise have sought his opinion.
I would still describe myself as being on
friendly terms with Mr. West, though would not describe us as ‘friends’. (No collector like Denis Healey or Michael
Caine am I. I count my friends in this
world as a few dozen: most of them live in England, however, which makes
maintenance of the relationship somewhat difficult. On my infrequent returns to
the UK, however, I pick up with them as if I had last seen them only the
previous week. What they say about the matter is probably better left
unrecorded.) And I remain an enthusiastic reader of Mr. West’s books. I have about
twenty-five of his publication on my shelves, which I frequently consult. I
have to say that they are not uniformly reliable, but I suspect that Mr. West
might say the same thing himself.
His latest work, Cold War Spymaster, subtitled The Legacy of Guy Liddell, Deputy Director of MI5, is a puzzling creation, as I shall soon explain. Two of Mr. West’s works on my bookshelf are his editions of Guy Liddell’s Diaries – Volume 1, 1939-1942, and Volume 2, 1942-1945. In a way, these items are superfluous to my research needs, as I have the full set of Liddell’s Diaries on my desktop, downloaded from the National Archives website. Mr. West told me that he would have dearly liked to publish more of Liddell’s chronicle, but it was not considered economically viable. Yet I still find it useful to consult his editions since he frequently provides valuable guides to identities of redacted names, or cryptonyms used: it is also important for me to know what appears in print (which is the record that most historians exploit), as opposed to the largely untapped resource that the original diaries represent. Cold War Spymaster seems to reflect a desire to fill in the overlooked years in the Liddell chronicle.
Guy Liddell, the Diaries and MI5
As West [I shall, with no lack of respect, drop the ‘Mr.’ hereon] points out, Liddell’s Diaries consist an extraordinary record of MI5’s activities during the war, and afterwards, and I do not believe they have been adequately exploited by historians. It is true that a certain amount of caution is always required when treating such testimony: I have been amazed, for example, at the attention that Andrew Roberts’s recent biography of Churchill has received owing to the claim that the recent publication of the Maisky Diaries has required some revisionist assessment. The Soviet ambassador was a mendacious and manipulative individual, and I do not believe that half the things that Maisky ascribed to Churchill and Anthony Eden were ever said by those two politicians. Thus (for example), Churchill’s opinions on the Soviet Union’s ‘rights’ to control the Baltic States have become distorted. Similarly, though to a lesser degree, Stephen Kotkin takes the claims of Maisky far too seriously in Volume 2 of his biography of Stalin.
Diaries, it is true, have the advantage of immediacy over memoirs, but one still has to bear in mind for whose benefit they are written. Liddell locked his away each night, and probably never expected them to be published, believing (as West states) that only the senior management in MI5 would have the privilege of reading them. Yet a careful reading of the text shows some embarrassments, contradictions, and attempts to cover up unpleasantries. Even in 2002, fifty years later, when they were declassified, multiple passages were redacted because some events were still considered too sensitive. Overall, however, Liddell’s record provides unmatched insights into the mission of MI5 and indeed the prosecution of the war. I used them extensively when researching my thesis, and made copious notes, but now, each time I go back to them on some new intelligence topic, I discover new gems, the significance of which I had overlooked on earlier passes.
Describing Liddell’s roles during the time of his Diaries (1939-1952) is important in assessing his record. When war broke out, he was Assistant-Director, under Jasper Harker, of B Division, responsible for counter-intelligence and counter-espionage. B Division included the somewhat maverick section led by Maxwell Knight, B1F, which was responsible for planting agents within subversive organisations such as the Communist Party and Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists. When Churchill sacked the Director-General, Vernon Kell, in May 1940, and introduced the layer of the Security Executive under Lord Swinton to manage domestic intelligence, Liddell was promoted to Director of B Division, although he had to share the office with an inappropriate political insertion, William Crocker, for some months. As chaos mounted during 1940, and Harker was judged to be ill-equipped for leadership, David Petrie was brought in to head the organisation, and in July 1941 he instituted a new structure in which counter-intelligence against communist subversion was hived off into a new F Division, initially under John Curry. Thus Liddell, while maintaining an interest, was not nominally responsible for handling Soviet espionage during most of the war.
David Petrie
Petrie, an effective administrator appointed to
produce order, and a clear definition of roles, was considered a success, and
respected by those who worked for him. He retired (in somewhat mysterious
circumstances) in 1946, and was replaced by another outsider whose credentials
were superficially less impressive, the ex-policeman, Percy Sillitoe – an
appointment that Liddell resented on two counts. Petrie was a solid
administrator and planner: he had been in his position about a year-and-a-half
when he produced, in November 1942, a paper that outlined his ideas about the
future of MI5, how it should report, and what the ideal characteristics of
officers and the Director-General should be. His recommendations were a little
eccentric, stressing that an ideal D-G should come from the Services or Police,
and have much experience overseas. Thus Liddell, who probably did not see the
report, would have been chagrined at the way that career intelligence officers
would have been overlooked. In the same file at Kew (KV 4/448) can be seen
Liddell’s pleas for improving career-paths for officers, including the
establishment of a permanent civilian intelligence corps in the services.
Petrie was reported to have kept a diary during
his years in office, but destroyed it. The authorised historian, Christopher
Andrew, glides over his retirement. In a very provocative sentence in his ODNB entry for Petrie, Jason Tomes
writes: “In
retrospect, this triumph [the double cross system] had to be set alongside a
serious failure: inadequate surveillance of Soviet spies. Petrie sensed that
the Russian espionage which MI5 uncovered was the tip of an iceberg, but the
Foreign Office urged restraint and MI5 had itself been penetrated (by Anthony
Blunt).” What Soviet espionage had MI5 uncovered by 1945? Green, Uren and Springhall
were convicted in 1942, 1943 and 1944, respectively, but it is not clear why
Petrie suspected an ‘iceberg’ of Communist penetration, or what sources Tomes
is relying on when he claims that Petrie had evidence of it, and that he and
the Foreign Office had a major disagreement over policy, and how the
Director-General was overruled. Did he resign over it? That would be a major
addition to the history of MI5. The defector Gouzenko led the British
authorities to Nunn May, but he was not arrested until March 1946. Could Petrie
have been disgusted by the discovery of Leo Long and his accomplice Blunt in
1944? See Misdefending the Realm for
more details. I have attempted to contact Tomes through his publisher, the
History Press, but he has not responded.
Like several other officers, including Dick White, who considered resigning over the intrusion, Liddell did not think the Labour Party’s appointing of a policeman showed good judgment. Sillitoe had worked in East Africa as a young man, but since 1923 as a domestic police officer, so he hardly met Petrie’s criteria, either. Astonishingly, Petrie’s entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography asserts that Petrie had recommended Liddell for the post, but had been overruled by Attlee – an item of advice that would have been a complete volte-face in light of his memorandum three years earlier. On the other hand, it might be said that Sillitoe could have well riposted to his critics, after the Fuchs affair, that the established officers in MI5 did not understand counter-intelligence either. And in another of those enigmatic twists that bedevil attempts to work out what really happened here, Richard Deacon (whose role I shall inspect later in this piece), wrote about Sillitoe in The Greatest Treason: “The picture which has most unfortunately been portrayed since Sillitoe’s departure from MI5 has been that of a policeman totally out of place in a service which called for highly intellectual talents. This is total balderdash: someone like Sillitoe was desperately needed to put MI5 on the right track and to get rid of the devious amateurs who held power.” One might ask: was that not what Petrie had been doing for the past five years?
Percy Sillitoe
In any case, Liddell also thought that he
deserved the job himself. Yet he did receive some recognition, and moved nearer
to the seat of leadership. In October 1946 he replaced Harker as Deputy
Director-General, and frequently stood in for his new boss, who had a rough
time trying to deal with ‘subversive’ MI5 officers, and reportedly liked to travel
to get away from the frustrations of the office climate. What is puzzling, however, about the post-war
period is that, despite the fact that the Nazi threat was over, and that a
Labour government was (initially) far more sympathetic to the Soviet cause, B
Division did not immediately take back control of communist subversion. A
strong leader would have made this case immediately.
The histories of MI5 (by Christopher Andrew,
and West himself) are deplorably vague about responsibilities in the post-war
years. We can rely on John Curry’s internal history, written in 1945, for the
clear evidence that, after Petrie’s reorganization in the summer of 1941, F
Division was responsible for ‘Communism and Left-Wing Movements’ (F2, under
Hollis), which was in turn split into F2A (Policy Activities of CPGB in UK),
under Mr Clarke, F2B (Comintern Activities generally, including Communist
Refugees), and F2C (Russian Intelligence), under Mr. Pilkington. Petrie had
followed Lord Swinton’s advice in splitting up B Division, which was evidently now
focused on Nazi Espionage (B1A through B1H). Dick White has been placed in
charge of a small section simply named ‘Espionage’, with the mission of B4A
described as ‘Suspected cases of Espionage by Individuals domiciled in United
Kingdom’, and ‘Review of Espionage cases’. Presumably that allowed Liddell and
White to keep their hand in with communist subversion and the machinations of
the Comintern.
Yet that agreement (if indeed it was one) is
undermined by the organisation chart for August 1943, where White has been
promoted to Deputy Director to Liddell, and B4A has been set a new mission of
‘Escaped Prisoners of War and Evaders’. F Division, now under the promoted
Roger Hollis, since Curry has been moved into a ‘Research’ position under
Petrie, still maintains F2, with the same structure, although Mr Shillito is
now responsible for F2B and F2C. With the Soviet Union now an ally, the
intensity of concerns about Communist espionage appears to have diminished even
more. (In 1943, Stalin announced the dissolution of the Comintern, although
that gesture was a fraudulent one.) One might have expected that the conclusion
of hostilities, and the awareness within MI5, and even the Foreign Office, that
the Soviet Union was now the major threat (again), would provoke a reallocation
of forces and a new mission. And, indeed, this appears to be what happened –
but in a quiet, unannounced fashion, perhaps because it took a while for Attlee
to be able to stand up to the Bevanite and Crippsian influences in his Party. A
close inspection of certain archives (in this case, the Pieck files) shows that
in September 1946, Michael Serpell identified himself as F2C, but by the
following January was known as B1C. This is an important indicator that White’s
B Division was taking back some responsibility for Soviet espionage in the
light of the new threat, and especially the Gouzenko revelations of 1945. Yet
who made the decision, and exactly what happened, seems to be unrecorded.
According to Andrew, after the war, B Division was
highly focused on Zionist revolts in Palestine, for which the United Kingdom
still held the mandate. Yet he (like West) has nothing to say about F Division
between Petrie’s resignation in 1946 and Dick White’s reorganisation in 1953.
The whole of the Sillitoe era is a blank. Thus we have to conclude that, from
1947 onwards, Hollis’s F Division was restricted to covering overt subversive
organisations (such as the Communist Party), while B Division assumed its
traditional role in counter-espionage activities, such as the tracking of Klaus
Fuchs and Nunn May, the case of Alexander Foote, and the interpretation of the
VENONA transcripts. The artificial split again betrayed the traditional
weaknesses in MI5 policies, namely its age-old belief that communist subversion
could come only through the agencies of the CPGB, and that domestically-educated
‘intellectual’ communists would still have loyalty to Great Britain. White held
on to this thesis for far too long. Gouzenko’s warnings – and the resumption of
the Pieck inquiry – had aroused a recognition that an ‘illegal’ network of
subversion needed to be investigated. Yet it was not until the Communist takeover
in Czechoslovakia, with the subsequent executions, and the Soviet blockade of Berlin
in 1948, that Attlee’s policy toward the Soviets hardened, and B Division’s new
charter was accepted.
I return to West and Liddell. On the inside cover of each volume of the published Diaries appear the following words: “Although reclusive, and dependent on a small circle of trusted friends, he (Liddell) was unquestionably one of the most remarkable and accomplished professionals of his generation, and a legend within his own organisation.” Even making allowances for the rhetorical flourish of granting Liddell a ‘mythical’ status, I have always been a little sceptical of this judgment. Was this not the same Liddell who recruited Anthony Blunt and Victor Rothschild into his organisation, and then wanted to bring in Guy Burgess, only being talked out of it by John Curry? Was this the same officer who had allowed Fuchs to be accepted into atomic weapons research, despite his known track-record as a CP member, and who allowed SONIA to carry on untouched in her Oxfordshire hideaway? Was this the same officer whom John Costello, David Mure, Goronwy Rees, Richard Deacon and SIS chief Maurice Oldfield all * thought so poorly of that they named him as a probable Soviet mole? Moreover, in his 1987 book, Molehunt, even West had described Liddell as ‘unquestionably a very odd character’. Can these two assessments comfortably co-exist?
* John Costello in Mask of Treachery (1988);David Mure in Master of Deception (1980); Goronwy Rees in the Observer (1980); Richard Deacon in The Greatest Treason (1989); Maurice Oldfield in The Age, and to US intelligence, quoted by Costello.
To balance this catalogue of errors, Liddell
surely had some achievements to his credit. He was overall responsible for
conceiving the Double-Cross Operation (despite White’s claims to his biographer
of his taking the leading role himself, and ‘Tar’ Robertson receiving acclaim
from some as being the mastermind of the operation), and basked in the glory
that this strategic deception was said to have played in ensuring the success
of OVERLORD, the invasion of France. He supervised Maxwell Knight’s
infiltration of the Right Club, which led to the arrest and incarceration of
Anna Wolkoff and Tyler Kent. He somehow kept B Division together during the
turmoil of 1940 and the ‘Fifth Column’ scare. His Diaries reveal a sharp and
inquiring mind that was capable of keeping track of myriads of projects across
the whole of the British Empire. Thus I opened Cold War Spymaster in the hope that I might find a detailed
re-assessment of this somewhat sad figure.
‘Cold War Spymaster’
First, the title. Why West chose this, I have
no idea, as he normally claims to be so precise about functions and
organisation. (He upbraided me for getting ‘Branches’ and ‘Divisions’ mixed up
in Misdefending the Realm, although
Christopher Andrew informs us that the terms were used practically
interchangeably: it was a mess.) When Geoffrey Elliott wrote about Tommy (‘Tar’)
Robertson in Gentleman Spymaster, he
was somewhat justified, because Robertson’s main claim to fame was the handling
of the German double-agents in World War II. When Martin Pearce chose Spymaster for his biography of Maurice
Oldfield, he had right on his side because Oldfield headed SIS, which is
primarily an espionage organisation. Helen Fry used it for her profile of the
SIS officer, Charles Kendrick, and Charles Whiting wrote a book titled Spymasters for his account of GCHQ’s
manipulation of the Germans. But Liddell headed a counter-espionage and
counter-intelligence unit: he was not a master of spies.
Second, the subject. Subtitled The Legacy of Guy Liddell, Deputy Director
of MI5, the book ‘is intended to examine Liddell’s involvement in some
important counter-espionage cases’. Thus some enticing-looking chapters appear on
The Duke of Windsor, CORBY (Gouzenko), Klaus Fuchs, Konstantin Volkov (the
would-be defector from Turkey who almost unveiled Philby), BARCLAY and CURZON
(in fact, Burgess and Maclean, but why not name them so? : BARCLAY does not
appear until the final page of a ninety-page chapter), PEACH (the codename
given to the investigation of Philby from 1951), and Exposure. One might
therefore look forward to a fresh analysis of some of the most intriguing cases
of the post-war period.
Third, the sources. Like any decent
self-respecting author of average vanity, the first thing I did on opening the
book was to search for my name in the Acknowledgments or Sources. But no
mention. I might have thought that my analysis, in Misdefending the Realm, of Liddell’s flaws in not taking the
warnings of Krivitsky seriously enough, in not insisting on a follow-up to the
hint of the ‘Imperial Council’ source, worthy of inclusion. I saw such
characters as Tommy Robertson, Dick White, Anthony Blunt, John Cairncross, Yuri
Modin and even Jürgen Kuczynski listed there, which did not fill my bosom with
excitement, as I thought their contributions would have been exhausted and
stale by now. The Bibliography is largely a familiar list of books of various
repute, going back to the 1950s, with an occasional entry of something newer,
such as the unavoidable and inevitable Ben Macintyre, from more recent years. It
also, not very usefully, includes Richard Deacon’s British Connection, a volume that was withdrawn and pulped for
legal reasons, and is thus not generally available So what was this all about?
It turns out that the content of the book is
about 80% reproduction of public documents, either excerpts from Liddell’s
Diaries from the time 1945 to his resignation in 1953, or from files available
at the National Archives. (It is very difficult to distinguish quickly what is
commentary and what is quoted sources, as all appear in the same typeface, with
many excerpts continuing on for several pages, even though such citations are
indented. And not all his authoritative
statements are sourced.) The story West tells is not new, and can be largely
gleaned from other places. Moreover, he offers very little fresh or penetrating
analysis. Thus it appears that West, his project on publishing excerpts from
the Diaries forced to a premature halt, decided to resuscitate the endeavour
under a new cover.
So what is Liddell’s ‘legacy’? The author comes
to the less than startling conclusion that ‘with the benefit of hindsight,
access to recently declassified documents and a more relaxed attitude to the
publication of memoirs [what does this
mean? Ed.], we can now see how Liddell was betrayed by Burgess, Blunt and
Philby.’ Is that news? And does West intend to imply that it was not Liddell’s
fault? He offers no analysis of exactly how this happened, and it is a strain
to pretend that Liddell, whose object in life was to guard against the threats
from such lowlifes, somehow maintained his professional reputation while at the
same time failing calamitously to protect himself or the Realm. What caused the
fall from grace of ‘unquestionably one of the most remarkable and accomplished
professionals of his generation’? Moreover, the exploration of such a betrayal could
constitute a poignant counterpoint to the sometime fashionable notion –
espoused by Lord Annan and others – that
Goronwy Rees had been the greater sinner by betraying, through his criticisms
of Burgess and Maclean in his People
articles, the higher cause of friendship. Cold
War Spymaster thus represents a massive opportunity missed, avoided, or
perhaps deferred.
Expert, Administrator or Leader?
In Misdefending
the Realm, my analysis of Liddell concluded that he was an essentially decent
man who was not tough enough for the climate and position he was in. Maybe
someone will soon attempt a proper biography of him, as he deserves. His
earlier years with Special Branch and the formative years in the 1930s are not
really significant, I think. West starts his Chronology with January 1940, when
Krivitsky was interrogated, and I agree that that period (which coincides
closely with the start of the period studied in Misdefending the Realm) is the appropriate place to begin.
I have always been puzzled by the treatment of Jane Archer, whom Liddell essentially started to move out at the end of 1939. Why he would want to banish his sharpest counter-espionage officer, and replace her with the second-rate Roger Hollis – not the move of a ‘remarkable and accomplished professional’ – is something that defies logic. Yet the circumstances of Archer’s demise are puzzling. We have it solely on Liddell’s word that Archer was fired, in November 1940, at Jasper Harker’s behest, because she had reputedly mocked the rather pompous Deputy Director-General once too much. (She did not leave the intelligence world, but moved to SIS, so her behaviour cannot have been that subversive. Incidentally, a scan of various memoranda and reports written by Harker, scattered around MI5 files, shows a rather shrewd and pragmatic intelligence officer: I suspect that he may have received a poor press.) I should not be surprised to discover that there was more going on: I am so disappointed that no one appears to have tried to interview this gallant woman before her death in 1982.
It would be naïve to imagine that MI5 would be
different from any other organisation and be immune from the complications of office
politics – and office romance. If I were writing a fictionalized account of
this period, I would have Guy Liddell showing an interest in the highly
personable, intelligent, humorous and attractive Jane Sissmore (as she was
until September 1939). Liddell’s marriage had fallen on rocky ground: in Molehunt, Nigel West stated that his
wife Calypso née Baring (the daughter of the third Baron Revelstoke) had left
him before the start of the war. John
Costello, in Mask of Treachery,
related, having interviewed Liddell himself, that Calypso had absconded as early
as 1938, and that Liddell had travelled to Miami in December of that year, and
surprisingly won a successful custody battle. Yet contemporary newspapers prove
that Calypso had left her husband, taking their children to Florida as early as
July 1935, in the company of her half-brother, an association that raised some
eyebrows as well as questions in court. Liddell followed them there, and was
able, by the peculiarities of British Chancery Law, to make the children wards
of court in August. In December, Calypso publicly called her husband ‘an
unmitigated snob’ (something the Revelstokes would have known about, I imagine),
but agreed to return to England with the offspring, at least temporarily. At
the outbreak of war, however, Calypso had managed to overturn the decision
because of the dangers of the Blitz, and eventually spirited their children
away again. West informs us that, ‘for the first year of the war Liddell’s
daughters lived with his widowed cousin Mary Wollaston in Winchester, and Peter
at his prep school in Surrey, and then they moved to live with their mother in
California’. (Advice to ambitious intelligence officers: do not marry a girl
named ‘Calypso’ or ‘Clothilde’.)
The day before war broke out, Jane Sissmore married another MI5 officer, Joe Archer. In those days, it would have been civil service policy for a female employee getting married to have to resign for the sake of childbearing and home, but maybe the exigences of war encouraged a more tolerant approach. Perhaps the Archers even delayed their wedding for that reason. In any case, relationships in the office must have changed. There is not a shred of evidence behind my hypothesis that Liddell might have wooed Sissmore in the first part of 1939, but then there is not a shred of evidence that he maintained a contact in Soviet intelligence to whom he passed secrets, as has been the implication by such as Costello. Yet it would have been very strange if, his marriage irretrievably broken, he had been unappreciative of Sissmore’s qualities, and not perhaps sought a closer relationship with her. It might also explain why Liddell felt uncomfortable having Jane continue to work directly for him. Despite her solid performance on the Krivitsky case, she was appointed supremo of the Regional Security Liaison Officers organisation in April 1940. In this role she quickly gained respect from the hard-boiled intelligence officers, solicitors, stockbrokers and former King’s Messengers who worked for her, until she and Liddell in late October 1940 had another clash (as I reported in the Mystery of the Undetected Radios: Part 3). She was fired shortly after.
Liddell’s life was complicated by the
insertion, in August 1940, of William Crocker as his co-director of B Division,
at Lord Swinton’s insistence, and no doubt with the advice of Sir Joseph Ball.
It is not clear what the exact sequence of events was, but Crocker, who was a
solicitor, and Ball’s personal one to boot, had acted for Liddell in trying to maintain
custody of the three children he had with Calypso. While the initial attempt
had been successful, it was evidently overturned in 1939, and Liddell and his
wife were legally separated in 1943. Crocker did not last long in MI5, and he
resigned in September of 1940. While David Petrie brought some structure and
discipline to the whole service by mid-1941, Liddell had buried himself in his
work (and in the task of writing up his Diaries each night), and had found
social company in circles that were not quite appropriate for his position. The
personal stress in his life, alone and separated from his four children, must
have been enormous.
Such
contacts would come back to haunt Liddell. When Petrie retired from the
Director-Generalship of MI5 in 1946, Liddell was overlooked as replacement,
some accounts suggesting that a word in Attlee’s ear by the leftwing firebrand,
‘Red’ Ellen Wilkinson, had doomed his chances. The most recent description of
this initiative appears in Michael Jago’s 2014 work, Clement Attlee: The Inevitable Prime Minister, where he describes
Liddell’s rejection despite the support for him from within MI5. Wilkinson had
apparently told her lover, Herbert Morrison, who was Home Secretary in the
postwar Labour administration, that Liddell had in 1940 betrayed the communist
propagandist Willi Münzenberg, who had entered Stalin’s hitlist and been
assassinated in France.
Several aspects of such an assertion are extremely illogical, however. It is true that the suspicions that Attlee and his ministers had about the anti-socialist tendencies of MI5 coloured the Prime Minister’s perspectives on security matters, but this narrative does not bear up to examination. First, for a leftist agitator like Wilkinson (who had also been the lover of Münzenberg’s henchman, Otto Katz) to confirm her close association with Münzenberg, and take up Münzenberg’s cause against Stalin, was quixotic, to say the least, even if her convictions about the communist cause had softened. Second, for her to believe that the democratically-minded Attlee would look upon Münzenberg’s demise as a cause for outrage reflected a serious misjudgment. He would not have been surprised that MI5, and Liddell in particular, would have taken such a stance against Communist subversion, especially when he (Attlee) learned about the activities of the Comintern a decade before. Third, for Wilkinson to think that Attlee could be persuaded that Liddell had abetted the NKVD in eliminating Münzenberg, showed some remarkable imagination. Fourth, if Attlee had really listened carefully to her, and found her arguments persuasive, he would hardly have allowed Liddell to continue on in MI5 without even an investigation, and to be promoted to Deputy Director-General as some kind of designate. (Churchill was back in power when Sillitoe resigned.) Thus Wilkinson’s personification of Liddell as an agent of Stalinism has the ring of black comedy.
Donald McCormick (aka Richard Deacon)
I have discussed this with the very congenial Mr. Jago, who, it turns out, was at Oxford University at exactly the same time as I, and like me, relocated to the USA in 1980. (We worked out that we must have played cricket against each other in opposing school teams in 1958.) He identifies his source for the Wilkinson anecdote as that figure with whom readers of this column are now very familiar, the rather problematical Richard Deacon. Indeed, in The Greatest Treason, Deacon outlined Wilkinson’s machinations behind the scenes, attributing her reservations about Liddell to what Münzenberg had personally told her about his ‘enemy in British counter-espionage’ before he was killed. Deacon had first introduced this theory in his 1982 memoir With My Little Eye, attributing the source of the story to the suffragette Lady Rhondda, who had apparently written to Deacon about the matter before she died in 1958, also suggesting that Liddell ‘was trying to trap Arthur Koestler’. Yet Deacon qualified his report in The Greatest Treason: “Whether Ellen Wilkinson linked the Münzenberg comments with Guy Liddell is not clear, but she certainly remembered Münzenberg’s warning and as a result expressed her doubts about him. Morrison concurred and it was then that Attlee decided to bring an outsider in as chief of MI5.” I rest my case: in 1940, with Nazi Germany an ally of Soviet Russia, Liddell should have done all he could to stifle such menaces as Münzenberg. Of course Münzenberg would have ‘an enemy in MI5’. I cannot see Attlee falling for it, and this particular urban legend should be buried until stronger independent evidence emerges.
The rumour probably first appeared in David Mure’s extraordinary Last Temptation, a faux memoir in which he uses the Guy/Alice Liddell connection to concoct a veiled dramatization of Liddell’s life and career. This work, published in 1980, which I have analysed in depth in Misdefending the Realm, exploits a parade of characters from Alice in Wonderland to depict the intrigues of MI5 and MI6, and specifically the transgressions of Guy Liddell. If anyone comes to write a proper biography of Liddell, that person will have to unravel the clues that Mure left behind in this ‘novel of treason’ in order to determine what Mure’s sources were, and how reliable they were. Mure describes his informant for the Ellen Wilkinson story as an old friend of Liddell’s mother’s, ‘the widow of a food controller in the First World War’, which does not quite fit the profile of Sir Humphrey Mackworth, whom Viscountess Rhondda had divorced in 1922. A task for some researcher: to discover whether Mure and Deacon shared the same source, and what that person’s relationship with Ellen Wilkinson was.
‘The Greatest Treason’
Regardless
of these intrigues, Nigel West suggested, in A Matter of Trust, his history of MI5 between 1945 and 1972, quite
reasonably that an ‘insider’ appointment would have been impossible in the
political climate of 1945-1946, what with a rampant Labour Party in power,
harbouring resentment about the role that MI5 had played in anti-socialist
endeavours going back to the Zinoviev Letter incident of 1924. Yet West, while
choosing to list some of Liddell’s drawbacks (see below) at this stage of the
narrative, still judged that Liddell could well have been selected for the post
had Churchill won the election. The fact was that Churchill returned, and Liddell
again lost.
Another Chance
When
Sillitoe’s time was over in 1953, Liddell still considered himself a candidate
for Director-General, and faced the Appointments Board in the Cabinet Office on
April 14. (West reproduces his Diary entry from that evening.) It appears that
our hero had not prepared himself well for the ordeal. Perhaps he should have
been alarmed that a selection process was under way, rather than a simple
appointment, and that one of his subordinates was also being encouraged to
present himself. When the Chairman, Sir Edward Bridges, asked him what
qualifications he thought were appropriate for the directorship, Liddell
recorded: “I said while this was a little difficult to answer, I felt strongly
somebody was need who had a fairly intimate knowledge of the workings of the
machine.” That was the tentative response of an Administrator, not a Leader.
Later: “Bridges asked me at the end whether I had any other points which had
not been covered, and on reflection I rather regret that I did not say
something about the morale of the staff and the importance of making people
feel that it was possible for them to rise to the top.” He regretted not saying
other things, but his half hour was up. He had blown his opportunity to
impress.
Even his latest sally probably misread how his officers thought. Few of them nursed such ambitions, I imagine, but no doubt wanted some better reward for doing a job they loved well. For example, Michael Jago (the same) in his biography of John Bingham, The Spy Who Was George Smiley, relates how Maxwell Knight tried to convince Bingham to replace him as head of the agent-runners. Jago writes: “He strenuously resisted promotion, pointing out that his skills lay as an agent runner, not as a manager of agent runners. The administrative nature of such a job did not appeal to him; his agents were loyal to him and he reciprocated that loyalty.” This is the dilemma of the Expert that can be found in any business, and is one I encountered myself: should he or she take on managerial duties in order to gain promotion and higher pay, or can the mature expert, with his specialist skills more usefully employed, enjoy the same status as those elevated to management roles?
Dick White
Liddell
was devastated when he did not get the job, especially since his underling,
Dick White, whom he had trained, was indeed appointed, thus contradicting the
fact of White’s ‘despondent’ mood after his interview, which he had
communicated to Liddell. The authorised historian of MI5, Christopher Andrew,
reported the judgment of the selection committee, which acknowledged that
Liddell had ‘unrivalled experience of the type of intelligence dealt with in
MI5, knowledge of contemporary Communist mentality and tactics and an intuitive
capacity to handle the difficult problems involved’. But ‘It has been said [‘by whom?’: coldspur] that he is not a
good organiser and lacks forcefulness. And doubts have been expressed as to
whether he would be successful in dealing with Ministers, with heads of
department and with delegates of other countries.’ This was a rather damning –
though bureaucratically anonymous – indictment, which classified Liddell as not
only an unsuitable Leader, but as a poor Administrator/Manager as well, which
would tend to belie the claim that he had much support from within MI5’s ranks.
(Incidentally,
Andrew’s chronology is at fault: he bizarrely has Liddell retiring in 1952,
White replacing him as Deputy Director-General and then jousting with Sillitoe,
before the above-described interviews in May 1953. The introduction to the
Diaries on the National Archives repeats the error of Liddell’s ‘finally
retiring’ in 1952. West repeats this mistake on p 185 of A Matter of Trust, as well as in
Molehunt, on pp 35-36, but corrects it in the latter on p 123. Tom Bower presents exactly the same self-contradiction
in his 1995 The Perfect English Spy. West’s
ODNB entry for Liddell states that
“ . . . , in 1953, embarrassed by the
defection of his friend Guy Burgess, he took early retirement to become
security officer to the Atomic Energy Authority”, thus completely ignoring the
competition for promotion. It is a puzzling and alarming pattern, as if all
authors had been reading off the same faulty press release, one that attempted
to conceal Liddell’s embarrassing finale. In his 2005 Introduction to the
published Diaries, West likewise presents
the date of Liddell’s retirement correctly, but does not discuss his failed
interview with the Appointments Board. The Introduction otherwise serves as an
excellent survey of the counter-intelligence dynamics of the Liddell period,
and their aftermath.)
Liddell’s
being overlooked in 1946 cannot have helped his cause, either. West wrote, of
the competition for D-G that year, that Liddell’s intelligence and war record
had been ‘exceptional’, and continued: “He was without question a brilliant
intelligence officer, and he had recruited a number of outstanding brains into
the office during his first twelve months of the war. But he had a regrettable
choice in friends and was known to prefer the company of homosexuals, although
he himself was not one. [This was written
in 1982!] Long after the war he invariably spent Friday evenings at the
Chelsea Palace, a well-known haunt of homosexuals.” West updated his account
for 1953, stating that Liddell ‘might have at first glance have seemed the most
likely candidate for the post, but he had already been passed over by Attlee
and was known to have counted Anthony Blunt and Guy Burgess amongst his
friends.’ In the light of Burgess’s recent decampment with Maclean, that
observation strikes an inappropriate chord, as if Burgess’s homosexuality
rather than his involvement in Soviet espionage had been the aspect that
tarnished Liddell’s judgment, and that Liddell’s now recognized professional
failings were somehow not relevant. After all, Burgess’s homosexuality was
known to every government officer who ever recruited him.
Moreover,
if associating with the Bentinck Street crowd that assembled at Victor
Rothschild’s place cast a cloud over Liddell’s reputation, Dick White may have
been as much at fault as was Liddell. It is somewhat difficult to find hard
evidence of how close the associations at the Rothschild flat were, and exactly
what went on. Certainly, Rothschild rented it to Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt.
Goronwy Rees’ posthumous evidence, as retold by Andrew Boyle, was melodramatic.
The Observer article of Sunday,
January 20, 1980 was titled ‘The Brotherhood of Bentinck Street’, with Rees
explaining how ‘Burgess and Blunt entangled top MI5 man Guy Liddell in their
treachery’. Rees went on to say that Liddell was one of Burgess’s ‘predatory
conquests’, and that Burgess’s ‘main source’ must have been Liddell. Rees
certainly overstated the degree of sordidness that could be discovered there.
White, meanwhile, still a bachelor, was reported, according to his biographer,
Tom Bower, to attend wartime parties in Chesterfield Street, Mayfair, hosted by
Tomas ‘Tommy’ Harris, where he mixed with such as Blunt, Philby, Burgess,
Rothschild, Rees and Liddell himself. White, however, was not a ‘confirmed
bachelor’ and married the communist novelist Kate Bellamy in November 1945.
Yet none of this would have been known about in 1953, or, if it had, would have been considered quite harmless. After all, the top brass in Whitehall was unaware at this time of Blunt’s treachery (although I contend that White and Liddell, and maybe Petrie, knew about it), and Burgess had mixed and worked with all manner of prominent persons – all of whom rapidly tried to distance themselves from any possible contamination by the renegade and rake. Moreover, Liddell had not recruited Burgess to MI5, even though he had wanted to, but been talked out of it by John Curry. John Costello, in his multipage assault on Liddell in Mask of Treachery, lists a number of ‘errors’ in Liddell’s behavior that raise ‘serious questions about Liddell’s competency, bad luck, or treachery’, but most of these would not have been known by the members of the Appointments Board, and the obvious mistakes (such as oversights in vetting for Klaus Fuchs) were not the responsibility of Liddell alone. He simply was not strong enough to have acted independently in protecting such persons.
Thus
it is safe to assume that Liddell was rightly overlooked in 1953 because he was
not leadership material, not because of his questionable associations. White
was, on the other hand, a smoother operator. He had enjoyed a more enterprising
career, having been posted to SHAEF at the end of 1944, and spent the best part
of eighteen months in counter-intelligence in Germany, under General Eisenhower
and Major-General Kenneth Strong, before touring the Commonwealth. (Strong was
in fact another candidate for the MI5 leadership: White told his biographer
that he noted Strong’s lack of interest in non-military intelligence.) He knew
how to handle the mandarins, and sold himself well. As Bower wrote, in his biography
of White, The Perfect English Spy:
“The qualities required of an intelligence chief were evident: balance,
clarity, judgment, credibility, honesty, cool management in the face of crisis,
and the ability to convey to his political superiors in a relaxed manner the
facts which demonstrated the importance of intelligence.” Malcolm Muggeridge
was less impressed: “Dear old Dick White”, he said to Andrew Boyle, “‘the
schoolmaster’. I just can’t believe it.”
White
was thus able to bury the embarrassments of two years before, when he and
Liddell had convinced Sillitoe to lie to Premier Attlee over the Fuchs fiasco,
and he had also somehow persuaded the Appointments Committee that he was not to
blame for the Burgess/Maclean disaster. This was an astounding performance, as
only eighteen months earlier, in a very detailed memorandum, White had called
for the Philby inquiry to be called off, only to face a strong criticism from
Sir William Strang, the permanent under-secretary at the Foreign Office since
1949, who was also on the Selection Committee. Yet White had previously clashed
with Strang when the latter held back secret personal files. They shared similar
convictions of misplaced institutional loyalty: Strang could not believe that
there could be spies in the Diplomatic Service, while White refused to accept
that there could be such among the officers of the intelligence corps.
White
had also benefitted from Liddell’s promotion. He had returned from abroad in early
1946, and had been appointed head of B Division, since Liddell had been
promoted to Deputy Director-General under Sillitoe, with Harker pushed into
early retirement. Thus White took over centre-stage as the Cold War
intensified, and was in obvious control of the meetings about Fuchs (1949-50),
and then Burgess and Maclean (1951), with Liddell left somewhat out of the main
picture. White was then able to manipulate the mandarins to suggest that the
obvious mistakes had either not occurred on his watch, or had else been unavoidable,
while Liddell was left in a relatively powerless no-man’s-land. It would appear
that White out-manoeuvred his boss: how genuine was his display of
‘despondency’ to Liddell after the interview, one wonders?
White
was probably also a better Leader than a Manager. He was somewhat bland, and
smoothness was well-received in Whitehall: he had the annoying habit of
agreeing with the last person who made a case to him – a feature that I came
across frequently in business. There can be nothing more annoying than going in
to see a senior manager, and making a well-prepared argument, and see a head
nodding vigorously the other side of the desk, with its owner not challenging
any of your conclusions or recommendations. Yet nothing happens, because the
next person who has won an audience may put forward a completely different set
of ideas, and still gain the nodding head. That is a sign of lack of backbone.
R. A. (later Lord) Butler ascribed the same deficiency to his boss, Lord
Halifax, and Franklin Roosevelt was said to exhibit the same tendency,
preferring to manipulate people through his personal agencies and contacts, and
commit little in writing. But White dealt well with the politicians, who
considered him a ‘safe pair of hands’, and his career thrived after that.
Re-Assessing Liddell
When
Kim Philby was being investigated as the possible ‘Third Man’ in the latter
part of 1951, George Carey-Foster, the Security Officer in the Foreign Office,
wrote to Dick White about their suspect’s possible escape: “Are you at any
stage proposing to warn the ports, because even that may leak and bring in the
Foreign Office? For these reasons as well as for those referred to in my
previous letter I think we ought to know how we are to act before we are
overtaken by events.” That was one of the main failings of Liddell’s that I
identified in Misdefending the Realm:
“Liddell was very reactive: he did not appear to prepare his team for any
eventuality that came along” (p 284). How should MI5 respond if its
recommendations over vetting were overruled? What policies were in place should
a defector like Gouzenko or Volkov turn up? How should MI5 proceed if it came
about that one of its officers was indeed a Soviet spy, yet the evidence came
through secret channels? Who should conduct interrogations? Under what
circumstances could a prosecution take place? There was no procedure in place.
Events were allowed to overtake MI5.
The
task of a regular counter-espionage officer was quite straightforward. It
required some native intelligence, patience and attention to detail,
stubbornness, curiosity, empathy, a knowledge of law and psychology,
unflappability (the attributes of George Smiley, in fact). As it happens, I
compiled this list before reading how Vernon Kell, the first Director of MI5
had described the ideal characteristics of a Defence Security Officer: ‘Freedom
from strong personal or political prejudices or interest; an accurate and
sympathetic judgment of human character, motives and psychology, and of the
relative significance, importance and urgency of current events and duties in
their bearing on major British interests’. They still make sense. Yet, if an
officer performed his job of surveillance industriously, and identified a
subversive, not much more could be recommended than ‘keeping an eye on him (or
her)’. MI5 had no powers of arrest, so it just had to wait until the suspect
was caught red-handed planting the bomb in the factory or handing over the
papers before Special Branch could be called in. That process would sometimes
require handling ‘agents’ who would penetrate such institutions as the
Communist Party HQ, for example Olga Gray and her work leading to the capture
and prosecution of Percy Glading. That was a function that Maxwell Knight was
excellent at handling.
With
the various ‘illegals’ and other aliens floating around, however, officers were
often left powerless. They had to deal with busybody politicians interfering in
immigration bans and detention orders, civil servant poohbahs overriding
recommendations on non-employment, cautious ministers worried about the unions,
inefficient security processes at sea- and air-ports, leaders cowed by their
political masters, Foreign Office diplomats nervous about upsetting Uncle Joe
Stalin in the cause of ‘cooperation’, or simple laziness and inattention in
other departments – even absurd personnel policies. Thus Brandes and Maly and
Pieck were allowed to escape the country, Krivitsky’s hints were allowed to
fade away, Fuchs was recruited by Tube Alloys, and Burgess and Maclean were not
fired from their positions in the Foreign Office but instead moved around or
given sick leave, and then allowed to escape as the interrogation process
ground into motion. These were problems of management and of leadership.
If
a new manager asks his or her boss: “What do I have to do to perform a good
job?”, and the boss responds: “Keep out of trouble, don’t rock the boat, and
send your status reports in on time”, the manager will wisely not ruffle
feathers, but concentrate on good recruitment, training, and skills
development, following the procedures, and getting the job done. The problem
will however arise that, after a while when the ship is running smoothly, the
manager may be seen as superfluous to requirements, while his or her technical
skills may have fallen by the wayside. That may lead to a loss of job (in the
competitive commercial world anyway: probably not in government institutions.)
If, however, the boss says: “I want you to reshape this unit, and set a few
things on fire”, the candidate may have to develop some sharp elbows, lead some
perhaps reluctant underlings into an uncertain future, and probably upset other
departments along the way. That implies taking risks, putting one’s head above
the parapet, and maybe getting metaphorically shot at. In a very political
organisation – especially where one’s mentor/boss may not be very secure – that
rough-and-tumble could be equally disastrous for a career. I am familiar with
both of these situations from experience.
So
where does that leave ‘probably the single most influential British intelligence
officer of his era’ (West)? We have to evaluate him in terms of the various
roles expected of him. He was indubitably a smart and intelligent man,
imaginative and insightful. But what were his achievements, again following
what West lists? ‘His knowledge of Communist influence dated back to the Sidney
Street siege of January 1911’ – but that did not stop him recruiting Anthony
Blunt, and allowing Communists to be inserted into important positions during
his watch. ‘He had been on the scene when the Arcos headquarters in Moorgate
had been raided’, but that operation was something of a shambles. ‘He had
personally debriefed the GRU illegal rezident
Walter Krivitsky in January 1940’, but that had been only an occasional
involvement, he stifled Jane Archer’s enterprise, and he did not put in place a
methodological follow-up. ‘He was the genius behind the introduction of the now
famous wartime Double Cross system which effectively took control of the
enemy’s networks in Great Britain’, but that was a claim that White also made,
the effort was managed by ‘Tar’ Robertson, and the skill of its execution is
now seriously in question. As indicated above, West alludes to Liddell’s rapid
recruitment of ‘brains’ in 1940, but Liddell failed to provide the structure or
training to make the most of them. These ‘achievements’ are more ‘experiences’:
Liddell’s Diaries contain many instances of decisions being made, but it is not
clear that they had his personal stamp on them.
Regrettably, the cause of accuracy is not furthered by West’s entry for Liddell in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Again, vaguely referring to his subject’s ‘supervision’ of projects, and ‘key role’ in recruiting such as White and Blunt, West goes on to make the following extraordinary claim: “Thus Liddell was closely associated with two of MI5’s most spectacular accomplishments, the interception and decryption of German intelligence signals by the Radio Security Service, and the famed ‘double cross system’. The Radio Security Service had grown, under Liddell’s supervision, from an inter-service liaison committee known as the Wireless Board into a sophisticated cryptographic organisation that operated in tandem with Bletchley Park, concentrating on Abwehr communications, and enabling MI5 case officers to monitor the progress made by their double agents through the reports submitted by their enemy controllers to Berlin.” Yet this is a travesty of what occurred. As I showed in an earlier posting, the Radio Security Service (RSS) was a separate unit, part of MI8. MI5 rejected taking it over, with the result that it found its home within SIS. It had nothing organisationally to do with the Wireless Board, which was a cross-departmental group, set up in January 1941, that supervised the work of the XX Committee. RSS was an interception service, not a cryptological one. It was the lack of any MI5 control that partly contributed to what historian John Curry called the eventual ‘tragedy’. Thus West founds a large part of what he characterizes as a ‘remarkable’ career on a misunderstanding: Liddell’s lifework was one dominated by missed opportunities.
Moreover, West cites one of his sources for his bibliographic entry on Liddell as Richard Deacon’s Greatest Treason. This seems to me an error of judgment on at least three counts, and raises some serious questions of scholarship. While Deacon’s work contains the most complete account of Liddell’s earlier life, it is largely a potboiler, having as its central thesis the claim that Liddell was an agent of Soviet espionage, and may even have been the elusive ELLI over whose identity many commentators have puzzled. (The lesser-known subtitle of Deacon’s book is The Bizarre Story of Hollis, Liddell and Mountbatten.) Yet this is a position with which West is clearly not in sympathy, as is shown by his repeated encomia to Liddell’s performance. The Editors at the ODNB should have shown much more caution in allowing such a book to be listed as an authoritative source without qualification. Lastly, a fact that Deacon did not acknowledge when his book was published in 1989, West had himself been a researcher for Richard Deacon, as West explains in a short chapter in Hayek: A Collaborative Biography, edited by Robert Leeson, and published in 2018. Here he declares that Deacon was ‘exceptionally well-informed’, but he finesses the controversy over Liddell completely. Somewhere, he should have explained in more detail what lay behind his research role, and surely should have done more to clarify how his source contributed to his summarization of Liddell’s life, and why and where he, West, diverged from Deacon’s conclusions.
Something
else with which West does not deal is Liddell’s supposed relationship with one
of the first women members of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Joyce
Whyte. David Mure, in The Last Temptation,
had hinted at this lady’s identity, but not named her, giving her the codename
‘Alice’. In With My Little Eye,
however, Richard Deacon went much further, providing us with the following
insight (which can be found in a pagenote on p 194 of Misdefending the Realm): “In the early 1920s, when Liddell was
working at Scotland Yard, supposed to be keeping a watch on communists, his
mistress was Miss Joyce Wallace Whyte of Trinity College, Cambridge, and at
that time one of the first women members of the Cambridge Communist Party. In
1927 she married Sir Cuthbert Ackroyd, who later became Lord Mayor of London.” For
what it is worth, Deacon has Whyte’s family living in Chislehurst, Kent: Mure
indicates that the influential lady lived nearby, in Sidcup.
It
is not as if Liddell were outshone by his colleagues, however. To an extent, he
was unlucky: unfortunate that there was another ‘able’ candidate available in
White when a preference for an insider existed, and perhaps unfairly done by,
from a historical standpoint, when the even less impressive Hollis succeeded
White later. A survey of other candidates and successes does not depict a
parade of standouts. Jasper Harker was regarded by all (maybe unjustly) as
ineffectual, but was allowed to languish as Deputy Director-General for years.
Dick White was not intellectually sharper than Liddell, but was likewise
impressionable, and equally bamboozled. He managed the politics better, however,
had broader experience, and was more decisive. Hollis was certainly less
distinguished than Liddell in every way. Petrie was an excellent administrator,
and occasionally showed signs of imaginative leadership, sharpening up MI5’s
mission, but he was not a career intelligence officer. Sillitoe did not earn
the respect of his subordinates, and had a hazy idea of what
counter-intelligence was. Liddell’s equivalent in SIS, Valentine Vivian, comes
across as something of a buffoon, clueless about the tasks that were
confronting him, and how he should go about them, and Vivian’s arch-enemy
within SIS, Claude Dansey (whose highly unusual behavior may perhaps be
partially explained by his being involved, in 1893, in a scandalous affair with
Oscar Wilde, Lord Alfred Douglas, and Robbie Ross), was regarded as poisonous
by most who encountered him. Kim Philby outwitted them all. (If his head had
been screwed on the right way, he would have made an excellent
Director-General.) So, with a track-record of being only a mediocre
man-manager, it should come as no surprise that the very decent and
intellectually curious Liddell should have been rejected for the task of
leading Britain’s Security Service. The tragedy was that MI5 had no process for
identifying and developing interior talent.
When
Liddell resigned, he was appointed security adviser to the Atomic Energy
Commission, an irony in that AERE Harwell was the place where Fuchs had worked
until his investigation by Henry Arnold, the adviser at the time. The introduction
to Liddell’s Diaries at the National Archives suggests that he was in fact
quite fortunate to gain this post, considering his links to Burgess, Rothschild
and Philby. (The inclusion of Rothschild in these dubious links is quite impish
on the behalf of the authorities.) Liddell died five years later. The verdict
on him should be that he was an honest, intelligent and imaginative officer who
did not have the guts or insight to come to grips with the real challenges of
‘Defending the Realm’, or to promote a vision of his own. He was betrayed – by
Calypso, by Blunt, Burgess and Philby, by White, and maybe by Petrie. In a way,
he was betrayed by his bosses, who did not give him the guidance or tutoring
for him to execute a stronger mandate. But he was also soft – and thus open to
manipulation. Not a real leader of men, nor an effective manager. By no means a
‘Spymaster’, but certainly not a Soviet supermole either.
What
it boils down to is that, as with so many of these intelligence matters, you
cannot trust the authorised histories. You cannot trust the memoirists. You
cannot trust the experts. You cannot always trust the archives. And you cannot
even trust the Oxford Dictionary of
National Biography, which is sometimes less reliable than Wikipedia. All
you can trust is coldspur, whose ‘relentless curiosity and Smileyesque
doggedness blow away the clouds of obfuscation that bedevil the world of
intelligence’ [Clive James, attrib.].
In
summary, we are left with the following paradoxical chain of events:
During the 1970s and 1980s, Nigel West
performs research for Richard Deacon.
In 1987, West publishes Molehunt, where he describes Liddell as ‘a
brilliantly intuitive intelligence officer’.
In 1989, Deacon publishes The Greatest Treason, which claims Guy
Liddell was a Soviet mole.
In 2004, West writes a biographical entry
for Liddell in the ODNB, which praises him, but carelessly misrepresents his
achievements, and lists The Greatest
Treason as one of the few sources.
In 2005, West edits the Liddell Diaries, and provides a glowing
Introduction for his subject.
In 2015, West provides a chapter to a book
on Hayek, praises Deacon for his knowledge, but debunks him for relying on two
dubious sources. He does not mention Liddell.
In 2018, West writes a new book on
Liddell, which generally endorses the writer’s previous positive opinion of
him, but rejects the opportunity to provide a re-assessment of Liddell’s career,
merely concluding that Liddell, despite being’ the consummate professional’,
had been ‘betrayed’ by Burgess, Blunt and Philby. West lists in his
bibliography two other books by Deacon (including the pulped British Connection), but ignores The Greatest Treason.
So, Nigel, my friend, where do you stand? Why would you claim, on the one hand, that Liddell was a brilliant counter-espionage officer while on the other pointing your readers towards Richard Deacon, who thought he was a communist mole? What do you say next?
This month’s Commonplace entries can be found here.
