M

by Henry Hemming

  The following morning Percy Glading left his house with the same carefully folded newspaper lodged under his arm. The MI5 watchers began their pursuit. This time they managed to follow him to Charing Cross Station, in central London, where he was seen heading towards the main public lavatory. He descended the steps, and at the bottom met a young man carrying an attaché case.

  With one of the MI5 watchers just a few yards away, Glading handed over the newspaper and its contents to the man with the attaché case. This second individual was followed by the watchers to a residential address in Plumstead, which turned out to be his home. He was soon identified as Charles Munday, a twenty-two-year-old assistant chemist in the Woolwich Arsenal.

  M now had the outline of a Soviet spy ring. Charles Munday, the chemist, and George Whomack, the middle-aged man involved in the first operation, both worked in the Woolwich Arsenal and were presumably responsible for getting stolen material out of the complex. Olga ran the safe house. Glading took photographs and supplied negatives to his Soviet controller, which were then passed on to Moscow. But if M ordered the arrest of Glading, Munday and Whomack now, the prosecution would rest on the strength of Olga’s evidence and the testimony of the MI5 watchers. It might be enough. It might not. M felt that he needed more.

  Several days later, Olga received a call from Glading. He sounded tense. He said that he wanted to have lunch the next day. Without giving away anything specific on the phone, Glading intimated that a new job was in the offing and it could be bigger than the last. Olga agreed to the meeting, hung up and dialled M’s number.

  The following day, Glading arrived at the Windsor Castle pub in Notting Hill, west London, carrying a suitcase. It contained his photographic equipment. He wanted to do another job, not the next week or tomorrow, but that very evening. This time Glading planned to take the photographs at Olga’s safe house. He told her to be back at the flat before six o’clock to help set up the camera. After that he would go to Charing Cross Station to pick up the stolen material.

  At last, M decided to strike. He would collapse the house of cards that he had built up so meticulously around Olga over the past six years. He instructed Special Branch to make the arrests that evening.

  At quarter past eight, Glading was greeted on the concourse of Charing Cross Station by a middle-aged man carrying a paper parcel. They walked together towards the exit while a team of plainclothes policemen closed in on them, an implosion in slow motion, and when the middle-aged man handed over the parcel the officers made the arrest. Percy Glading had flown too close to the sun. As he was led away by the police, he said nothing.

  Back at the safe house, Olga was expecting to see Glading walk in the door; instead, her younger brother, Richard Gray, recently qualified as a policeman, bounded in. He told her to pack up her things and took her off to a hotel in East Horsley, Surrey, a different kind of safe house, where she would lie low until the trial.

  Olga’s career as an undercover MI5 agent had entered its final phase. So much espionage work ends in a fog of uncertainty and irresolution. Olga’s penetration of the Communist underground was about to reach a sharp conclusion, one that would be played out before the world.

  29

  MISS X

  ‘Sample of the tempting sort of bait successfully used to catch spies by His Majesty’s Government has now been on view in London’s ancient, soot-blackened Bow Street Police Court for several weeks, officially tagged “Miss X”,’ began Time magazine’s breathless account of Olga’s first public appearance, the preliminary hearing against Percy Glading and the other members of what became known as the Woolwich Arsenal spy ring.1 ‘This slim, bobbed-hair blonde, English to judge from her accent, arrived curvesomely sheathed in clinging black, kept shifting her handsome fur piece with the sinuosity of Mae West, as she testified before a bug-eyed judge.’ The ‘bug-eyed judge,’ otherwise known as Mr Fry, ruled that the case should go for trial, and a date was set for the Old Bailey.

  This preliminary hearing was widely reported in Britain and throughout North America. Glading and his accomplices may have been the ones on trial, but it soon became clear that they were not the main attraction. Olga was hailed in one report as ‘Britain’s counter-espionage heroine’.2 The Washington Post thought her ‘stylish’.3 The Atlanta Constitution admired her ‘black two-piece ensemble and a smart halo hat’.4 She was ‘slim’, ‘blonde’ and ‘trim’, according to the Associated Press, and had a ‘cultured’ voice.5 ‘Fair-haired, and attractive,’ added the Manchester Guardian.6 Time was more matter-of-fact, describing Olga as ‘exceptionally pretty’.7

  Here was ‘a real spy hunt that outdid fiction thrillers’, as the Chicago Tribune put it.8 The New York Times also noted the similarity between the events unfolding in Bow Street Police Court and so ‘many fictional trials’.9 In the form of Olga Gray, or ‘Miss X’, reality had trumped the collective imagination. ‘Was there ever a more dramatic role, in actual life, for any modern young woman to play?’ the Atlanta Constitution demanded to know.10 ‘Not even Oppenheim, master of fictional international intrigue, ever concocted a more fascinating scene than that of this girl sitting in the witness chair at historic Bow Street court and telling of the dangerous existence she led in order to protect her country’s secrets. It is doubtful if there are any young women of this modern age who do not feel some envy of this girl of mystery. To sit within the world spotlight and to tell, in her educated voice and confident manner, the story of her work as an espionage agent – it must be a thrill! And, to modern youth, what is there more to be desired than a thrill?’

  Yet for Olga this was not ‘a thrill’. It was gruelling to explain in forensic detail what she had done to an inscrutable audience of lawyers, journalists, members of the public and, crucially, the man that she had betrayed. The scene being played out in court may have looked like something that belonged to spy fiction, yet beneath the surface, in the realm of motivation and sacrifice and the crushing burden of having to lie repeatedly to someone you like, the reality of spying and the fiction that had grown up around it were worlds apart. Olga’s experience of espionage had long ago left behind anything that she had read about in a book or seen in a film. At one point Olga’s barrister ‘asked her if she would like to sit down’.11 Just one journalist picked up on the tension in court between Olga Gray and Percy Glading.

  ‘Big, blue eyes are her chief personal attraction,’ wrote the Atlanta Constitution’s correspondent, ‘and they gaze intently at counsel for the crown as he puts a long series of questions to her.12 Unwavering, they occasionally turn to the man in the dock, P. E. Glading.’ He added, pointedly, ‘Glading does not meet her glances.’

  What made this so much harder for Olga was her sense that she was now on the run and that Moscow was out to get her. Indeed one Scottish Communist angrily told M/5 at around this time that he ‘would not be surprised to hear that “Miss X” had been hit on the head with a stick’.13 Olga did not leave the court as a conquering hero; instead, she ‘was whisked away through a door behind the witness stand’ and out into a police van, before being transferred to the hotel where her brother had been installed as her bodyguard.14

  Olga was visited in this hotel by her sister Marjorie, who recalled: ‘I wanted to get some shopping in the village, but she begged me not to go.’15 Olga could no longer bear to be alone. ‘Then I read all the newspaper accounts and suddenly realised what my sister had done. It was incredible – I just couldn’t believe it.’

  In just under a month Olga would have to go through the whole thing again, only this time at the Old Bailey, where there would be far more scrutiny of her character. If she messed up, became muddled, revealed a detail that she was not supposed to about M and MI5, or just cracked under the pressure, the Crown’s case could collapse, for she was set to be the prosecution’s principal witness. The success of M’s investigation of Glading rested on Olga’s ability to perform in court.

  On 14 March, 1938, the trial began at the Old Bailey of
Percy Glading and his three accomplices, Albert Williams, George Whomack and Charles Munday, all previously employed at the Woolwich Arsenal. The four men were charged with offences under Section 1c of the Official Secrets Act of 1911, concerning information that might be useful to an enemy. Britain may not have been at war with the Soviet Union, but it was agreed in court that the meaning of the act could apply to any country with which Britain might later be at war. These four were accused of stealing plans for an antisubmarine bomb fuse, an anti-tank mine pistol, a pressure-bar apparatus designed to test detonators, a 200-page manual on explosives and the blueprints for a fourteen-inch naval gun, and of taking photographs of these, before passing some to representatives of an ‘enemy’ nation. Everyone in court knew that this meant the Soviet Union. But in an attempt to limit the diplomatic fallout, efforts were made to keep mentions of Moscow to a minimum.

  Although Glading had gone to great lengths to leave no fingerprints on the photographic apparatus, either by wiping it down or by using gloves, just before leaving for Charing Cross Station one of the bulbs in the safe house had blown. He had replaced it without cleaning up afterwards. Scotland Yard’s fingerprint department found evidence of what they called Glading’s ‘nasty fingers’ on an arc light switch, its shade and the replacement bulb.16 This was enough to link him definitively to the equipment.

  The police also produced in court the suitcase with a false bottom that had been used, they alleged, to smuggle documents into and out of the Woolwich Arsenal. But the police had made one mistake. Immediately after arresting Percy Glading they had gone to search his house without a warrant. This had the effect of placing more weight on Olga’s testimony.

  Percy Glading’s defence was led by Denis Pritt, KC, a skilful barrister and Soviet stooge. He understood the need to undermine Olga, so began by asking for her name to be released. This was met with strong resistance. ‘Spy Fighters Guard Name of “Miss X”,’ was the headline in one American newspaper, with the subheading: ‘Identity of Blond Lure One of Best Kept Secrets in British Empire’.17 Hopefully, this was an exaggeration. Vivian Hancock-Nunn, who was friendly with the left-wing lawyers representing Glading, reported to M that they already knew Olga’s name, and in one report of the trial she was referred to, in print, as ‘Miss G’.18

  Pritt tried to pick holes in Olga’s evidence, but the MI5 agent stood firm. Having gone through the story repeatedly with M beforehand, Olga gave an assured and consistent account of what she had done over the last six years, and what she had seen and heard. M’s agent did not fluff her lines, nor did she omit any vital details. In remarkably little time the case was concluded.

  As was reported all over the world, Percy Glading was found guilty. He was sentenced to six years penal servitude, meaning hard labour. Albert Williams received four years. George Whomack, the only one to present the judge with ‘difficulty’ given ‘the comparatively small part’ he had played, was sentenced to three years in prison.19 Charles Munday was discharged because no evidence had been presented against him.

  The presiding Mr Justice Hawke declared that Glading had acted ‘with the sole and vulgar motive of obtaining money’.20 This was not true. Glading had been driven by his own ego and a desire for revenge, after losing his job, but underlying all this was a personal commitment to an ideology. Glading was a committed Communist who had openly placed his political beliefs before his country’s interests.

  At first this suggests a failure of imagination by the judge. Perhaps it was evidence of the reverse. In the spy novels and films that Mr Justice Hawke had undoubtedly seen and read, it was a trope that spies were driven by either patriotism or money. It would take the exposure of Kim Philby and the rest of the Cambridge Spies more than a decade later for this assumption to change, and for the British public and its judiciary to accept that a spy could be driven mainly by what George Orwell called ‘that un-English thing, an idea’.

  The judge may have been wrong about Glading, but he was right about Olga. On the day of the sentencing she had come in to the Old Bailey and was sitting alone in a nearby room, with a guard on the door, smoking and reading magazines, when the judge mentioned her in his closing remarks.

  ‘I do not propose to call her into court,’ he said of Olga, ‘but I think that young woman must be possessed of extraordinary courage, and I think she has done a great service to her country.’21 Even the defence would later confide to Vivian Hancock-Nunn that they had made ‘the closest enquiries possible regarding Miss X’s morals, but all the results were in her favour’ – which, incidentally, militates against the idea that she was having an affair with Glading.22

  Olga Gray had triumphed. The Corinthian Casuals had scored a goal against the run of play. Olga would later be described in an official MI5 history as the government’s ‘leading pre-war penetration agent in the CPGB’.23 She had done everything she had been asked to do and much more, and had done so exceptionally well. In the process she had broken up a professional Soviet spy ring. Now her career as an undercover agent was over.

  Shortly after the trial Olga was taken out for a lavish meal at the Ritz Restaurant by an MI5 officer, probably one of M’s superiors, Jasper Harker, who thanked her for her work and gave her a cheque for £500. This was the equivalent of just under four years’ wages as an MI5 agent. But it would be an unhappy send-off for M/12.

  In the wake of the trial, Olga had begun to feel invincible. Almost at once she began to miss the work. She wanted to keep going as an agent, yet this was no longer practical. Too many people knew her identity. Spying can be addictive. Now M’s agent would have to go cold turkey.

  Olga also found it strange that she had been taken out to dinner by Harker rather than M. Perhaps her spymaster was worried that she might be under surveillance by the Soviets. More likely, he wanted to make a clean break. Although he may not have cut himself off from her entirely, he knew that it would be hard to turn their relationship into a casual friendship. Their bond as spymaster and spy had had the intensity of an affair. Now it was time to move on.

  Olga drove an ambulance during the Blitz and continued her career as a secretary, taking a series of high-powered jobs. Towards the end of the war, she would find herself one day on the London Underground standing next to a good-looking Canadian Air Force officer. He gazed at her. She looked back at him. He asked her what time it was. Olga looked to his wrist and saw that he was already wearing a watch.

  His name was Stanley Simons, and soon after picking up Olga on the Tube he got down on one knee. Their wedding was in Chelsea. Ten months later Olga became a mother. She and her new family then emigrated to Canada where she began a new and very different life.

  30

  MONA

  The Woolwich Arsenal case was a moment of triumph for M. His transformation from jazz-playing animal enthusiast and family misfit to successful MI5 spymaster appeared to be complete. Fifteen years earlier he had been challenged by Sir George Makgill to take on the Red Menace. Here was his answer. Breaking up this Soviet spy ring, a network that had been primed to steal vital industrial and military secrets for years, was the great MI5 success story of the 1930s. Yet behind the scenes, unknown to the public, the greater achievement was the extent of his agents’ infiltration of the British Communist movement.

  In MI5 a certain mystique was starting to form around M’s section. As well as being the most independent, economical and unconventional of MI5 sections, it was one of the most effective. The Woolwich Arsenal case was a vindication of M’s tradecraft, especially his preference for long-term penetration agents and for taking on women.

  The weeks that followed might have been a moment to bask in this success, but there was no time for that. The reaction to the trial in Communist circles had been explosive. Olga’s performance in court confirmed that MI5 was able to get agents inside the movement. Their assumption was that there must be more. The Communists were determined to root them out – all of them.

  ‘An organised “spy hunt”1 i
s to take place with as little delay as possible,’ reported M’s man in Liverpool. Any Party members who had been reluctant in the past to go canvassing now came under suspicion, as did those who sent their children to religious schools or did not socialise with other Party members. M also heard about the reaction in London. Indeed, the best intelligence he received about the Communist spy hunts in the wake of Glading’s conviction came from the unlikeliest source. After more than six years of struggling to be taken seriously within the Party, remarkably his female agent M/2 had been taken on as a secretary at the Communist Party headquarters on King Street, the same office in which Olga had worked before her breakdown.

  M/2 was now providing MI5 with regular, accurate intelligence about what she called ‘the most exhaustive investigations, enquiries and heresy hunts’, all of which had been set up to uncover people like her.2 Over the months that followed, M/2 produced a considerable haul of information. As well as being the most resilient of M’s agents, having gone for so long without penetrating the Communist movement, she had suddenly become one of the most prolific.

  Yet M/2 rarely appears in later accounts of MI5’s work during the 1930s. This is partly because her name has never been revealed. That can now change.

  From a recent official history of MI5 there is little doubt that during the late 1930s this particular agent belonged to a trade union called the Association of Women Clerks and Secretaries (AWCS). By going through her declassified reports, it also becomes clear that M/2 made it on to the executive committee of this union. This may not sound like much, but it is enough to open a door onto her identity.

  Almost every Communist who made it onto the executive committee of a trade union like this one would also join the relevant Communist ‘fraction’. A fraction was a secret cell of Communists on a particular committee who gathered before each session and agree on how they were going to vote in the forthcoming meeting. Although there is no evidence of there being a Communist fraction on the AWCS executive committee, we can presume that such a thing existed, and that M’s agent would have been required to join it.