When his wife, Mrs B, wrote three weeks later, it was to advance a broader, more philosophical argument about the nature of Cold War espionage. Her experience of intelligence departments, she said, was considerably wider than that of her husband.
I would like to make a point that should be obvious to those in possession of the facts, but who are unfortunately muzzled by the Official Secrets Act.
This is that although Blake has broken the law, morally he has done no worse than those employed by the department for which he worked – many of them nationals of the countries against which they spy.
In short, it seems a monstrous piece of hypocrisy for Blake’s department to instigate proceedings against him, when a very large part of their work consists in running George Blakes – albeit probably less successful ones – in hostile countries.
Governments have always taken an ambiguous view of spies. On the one hand, they are criminals, deserving of the harshest penalties; on the other, they are pawns to be traded in a great game where there are fewer moral boundaries. Mrs B was essentially arguing that Blake was now a prisoner of war. ‘I realise that this point does not affect Blake’s technical guilt,’ she suggested. ‘But surely the extent to which he is morally guilty should have some effect on his sentence?’
The Court of Criminal Appeal sat to hear the case on Monday, 19 June, with Mr Justice Hilbery presiding. Hilbery was 77 years old, and a judge in the grand, Victorian manner. Tall and lean with a long, expressionless face, he walked to court each day in his silk hat and morning coat. His book, Duty and Art in Advocacy (1946), was presented to every student of Gray’s Inn on their call to the Bar. Like Goddard and Parker, however, he now seemed out of touch with a changing world. He regularly advocated more flogging, and objected to the use of new-fangled words such as ‘bus’. ‘I deprecate the use of these ordinary, perhaps slang phrases,’ he said in 1952.
Small wonder, then, that Hutchinson’s hopes were not high that day: ‘When I knew Hilbery was in charge I felt we had no real chance of getting the sentence reduced. He was an awful man – an acidulated judge, who wasn’t going to allow an appeal against the Lord Chief Justice.’ But Hutchinson was determined to fight hard on a point of real principle, and of constitutional importance: judges should not be able to ignore a maximum sentence by giving out consecutive jail terms. He told the appeal court that Blake’s sentence was ‘inordinate, unprecedented and manifestly excessive’. When he asked Hilbery if he could refer to a number of mitigating circumstances in open court, so that press speculation might be halted – and justice be seen to be done – he received a withering reply.
‘What difference does it make to him whether it is in public or private?’ Hilbery asked. ‘We are not concerned with press conjecture. We are solely concerned to administer the Law. We are not here to scotch some rumour; we are here to consider whether this sentence was wrong in principle or “manifestly excessive”. What matters is between the Accused and this court.’
Hutchinson reminded the judges of Fuchs’s term of just fourteen years. He said Lord Goddard, who had passed sentence on him, was either unaware of the power to pass consecutive sentences, or ‘he knew it was wrong in principle to pass such sentences’. Hutchinson went on: ‘It was clear he knew what Parliament had ordained, and if he had been able to, he would have passed a longer sentence, but was limited to the sentence imposed by the Act.’ In the most resounding passage of his submission, Hutchinson told the court that Blake’s sentence was ‘so inhumane that it was alien to all the principles on which a civilised country would treat its subjects. No man could survive a sentence of more than twenty years.’
But as he attempted to explain why Blake had chosen to work for Communism by undermining British intelligence from within, Hilbery’s interruption must have made clear the futility of his efforts: ‘He has not been condemned for having a particular political ideology; he has been condemned for remaining in the service of this country and in a way which is particularly odious, surreptitiously attempting to do this country as much harm as is in his power. He did not go into the open in Hyde Park and preach about it.’
Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller, appearing late in the proceedings to refute Hutchinson’s arguments, said no principle had been established that it was wrong to sentence a man to imprisonment for longer than he would serve if he was given a life sentence.
The appeal lasted for three hours, with thirty-seven minutes of it held in camera. At the end, just thirteen words put paid to Blake’s flickering hopes: ‘The application is refused. The court will give reasons at a later date.’
When Hilbery’s judgement was published in full a few weeks later, it finished with this stinging justification: ‘It is of the highest importance, perhaps particularly at the present time, that such conduct should not only stand condemned, should not only be held in utter abhorrence by all ordinary men and women, but should receive, when brought to justice, the severest possible punishment. This sentence had a threefold purpose. It was intended to be punitive, it was designed and calculated to deter others, and it was meant to be a safeguard to this country.’
It was surely the end of the road. Blake’s full and frank confession meant that his value to the Russians in any possible prisoner swap – a feature of the Cold War – was perilously diminished. He was simply not capable, however, of resigning himself to a lifetime behind bars.
17
Prison
In early June, Gillian brought her newly born son to Wormwood Scrubs to see his father for the first time. It was, at first, a joyful, emotional moment for the prisoner. ‘George was delighted with Patrick, though he yelled all the time we saw him,’ Gillian recalled. ‘We were both very pleased it was a boy. We’d had to write to each other about a name, eliminating those we didn’t like. We never agreed on names – I rejected all the Biblical ones George suggested. So Patrick was about the only one we were both satisfied with.’
But for Blake, the pleasure in seeing the new baby quickly turned to despair at the prospect of playing no part whatsoever in his life: ‘We agreed it would be better if she did not bring the children to visit me . . . these visits, although I would not have wanted to do without them, were a considerable psychological strain on all of us and always left a feeling of great sadness at the thought of the happiness that had been destroyed.’
Blake was at first put in the hospital wing – it was normal practice to monitor prisoners given long sentences for signs of shock. Then, on 27 June, he was designated a ‘Star’ prisoner, placed on the escape list and moved into C wing.
Inmates on the escape list endured a particularly grim time. For a start, they were marked out by having to wear patches of cloth in different colours on each item of their outer clothing. These clothes, except for a shirt and slippers, had to be placed outside their cell at night, and inside a light burned constantly. They were kept out of cells thought particularly vulnerable, such as those with a ventilating shaft under the floor, and, without notice, they would be moved from cell to cell at irregular intervals.
Undeterred, Blake harboured notions of escape from day one. Indeed, he was almost expected to make the attempt, and the prospect became a running joke with one prison officer, who would ask, ‘When’s the date, then?’ whenever they crossed paths. Blake resolved to lull both the officers and his fellow inmates into the belief that he had no intention of breaking out. If he was seen to be making the best of prison life, they would relax, and, in time, his conditions would be eased.
The ruse worked: to his relief, following monthly reviews by the Governor Tom Hayes, in consultation with the Prison Commissioners, he was removed from the escape list at the beginning of October and placed in a cell of his own in D wing, the block that held serious long-term offenders. He remained, however, a unique prisoner, not to be trusted, and accompanied at all times by a prison officer when out of his cell. A special book was even kept to record his location at any time of the day.
Within these constr
aints, he started to appreciate the lighter regime of D wing. Let out at 7 a.m., the prisoners here were not locked up again until 8 p.m. In the hours between, there was ‘free association’ in the hall, television, a film show once a week and an urn of continually boiling water for tea or coffee, bought with earnings from working in the canteen.
Because of the trust placed in a large number of the inmates, and this freedom of movement, Wormwood Scrubs had won a reputation in some sections of the prison community for being something of a soft touch. ‘An open prison with a wall round it’ was the oft-used description. One hardened criminal who found himself imprisoned there in Blake’s time was scathing: ‘I was in Parkhurst and Wandsworth. I can tell the difference – this place is easier. The Scrubs is world-famous as a rest camp. There aren’t any real criminals here. The ones here have just killed people in temper, or done a bit of thieving.’
Nevertheless, Blake knew that only through strict mental and physical discipline would he survive the all-round rigours of jail. Only by retaining his strength and faculties would he be in a position to take advantage of any opportunities to escape. He began to practise yoga every day in his cell, and being able to stand on his head for fifteen minutes, morning and evening, amused his fellow inmates and bolstered his reputation. As time went by, he would also work on his fitness and body strength by using dumbbells and chest expanders borrowed from younger inmates.
In the autumn of 1961, he began an A-level in Arabic by correspondence, and, the following year, took O-levels in the British Constitution and Russian. He later took an honours degree in Arabic, too. Wormwood Scrubs had an enlightened and enthusiastic ‘Tutor Organiser’, Pat Sloan, and Blake signed up for several of his classes, including Music and English Literature.
As far as prison labour was concerned, he worked in the canvas shop for the bulk of his time, only transferring to the canteen in February 1966.
The air of serenity that Prisoner 455 carried around with him astonished everyone in Wormwood Scrubs. Invariably polite, unruffled and attentive towards others, he displayed the contemplative calm of a monk.
Blake’s standing among the younger prisoners was especially high. On most days, anyone passing cell No. 8 on the ground floor of D wing would hear a gaggle of cockney voices holding spirited conversations in French, or discussing subjects from Parisian newspapers and magazines. The older man’s patience and persistence in these classes bore fruit, with a number of his ‘pupils’ reaching O-level standard. He also helped draft petitions to the Home Office for the semi-literates who wanted their cases reviewed.
As time progressed, Blake’s cell took on all the appearance and function of a Cambridge don’s tutorial room: book-lined, with an expensive Bokhara rug on the floor, and a medieval print of St Paul on the wall. Visitors would knock on the door to find the ‘Professor’ at work. ‘I may find him alone, standing as he sometimes does, and reading the Koran, which rests on a lectern made for him by one of his pupils,’ recalled Gerald Lamarque, serving life for murder. ‘Or he may be seated at his table making notes, or again he may be lying on his low bed reading a tale in Arabic from The Thousand and One Nights. Whatever he may be doing, if he is alone I am greeted with a charming smile of welcome, an offer to seat myself, and if the time is right, an invitation to take a mug of tea.’
Blake had expected, as a spy and a traitor, to encounter a certain amount of ill feeling ‘inside’. Instead, what he had done, combined with his selfless attitude, raised him to a rather exalted status: ‘I found myself, because of the length of my sentence and the nature of my crime, belonging to the prison aristocracy. Many people looked upon me as a political prisoner, in spite of the British government’s position that no such category exists in Britain.’
Political prisoner he may have been in the eyes of some, but to SIS and MI5 he was a betrayer of government secrets who might yet have more to reveal about his work for the KGB. For the first six months, representatives from the two intelligence agencies made regular visits to the prison. By the time they had finished, SIS had questioned Blake on forty-two separate occasions. MI5, keen to find out as much as they could about the modus operandi of the officers and agents of Soviet intelligence in Britain, were not far behind.
On 20 September 1961, MI5 told the Prison Commissioners their ‘intensive interrogation’ of Blake would be over by the end of November, and asked if it would be possible to move him to Birmingham Prison. This move was suggested not on grounds of safe custody, but because they were aware that Peter Kroger (aka Morris Cohen) of the Portland Spy Ring was being moved to Wormwood Scrubs, and MI5 wanted to prevent the two spies being together in the same establishment. The Prison Commissioners argued that Blake should stay in London, pointing out that it would be a considerable hardship for Gillian to have to travel north to visit him. They also told MI5 Blake had ‘influential friends who might easily use the move to embarrass the Home Secretary’. In the event, he stayed at Wormwood Scrubs while Kroger was sent to Manchester. It was the first of four occasions when serious thought was given to moving Blake out of London. It never happened, with ultimately fateful consequences.
The whole business of keeping the Soviet spies – Houghton, Lonsdale, the Krogers, John Vassall and Blake – away from one another, in a prison system with a limited number of demonstrably safe, high security jails, taxed the Home Office throughout the early 1960s. A serious breach of security was the association between Blake and Gordon Lonsdale in May 1961 when both were on ‘Special Watch’ in Wormwood Scrubs. That the two most destructive spies in recent British history should ever have been allowed near each other was unthinkable, but because of a bureaucratic mix-up they found themselves shuffling round the courtyard with just six others during their half-hour’s daily exercise.
It led to questions in the House of Commons but the authorities put it around that the allegations about Blake and Lonsdale had come from two unreliable sources – one prisoner who was a psychiatric case, and another who had based his statement entirely on hearsay. Nevertheless, Home Secretary Henry Brooke was forced on the defensive, and his reply to the Government’s critics was one of a politician’s customary equivocation at difficult moments: ‘The recollection of those concerned suggests they were kept apart, but I cannot, at the end of three years, prove conclusively one way or another. I certainly can say that even if Blake had any chance to communicate information to Lonsdale in those few weeks when they were in Wormwood Scrubs together, it is highly doubtful whether it would have been of any interest or assistance to the Russians.’
In their brief conversation, we now know that Lonsdale assured Blake they would meet up again in Red Square in October 1967, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Russian Revolution. It must, then, have sounded a fantastical proposition.
The final member of the group of early 1960s KGB agents was William John Christopher Vassall. The son of a clergyman, Vassall was blackmailed by the Russians while working as clerk to the Naval Attaché in Moscow in 1954 because of his homosexuality. He was photographed in various compromising positions at a drunken party, set up specifically to entrap him. Back in England by 1956, Vassall continued to spy for the Russians while holding various sensitive positions in the Navy. When MI5 raided his flat six years later, they found 176 classified Admiralty and NATO documents in the secret drawer of an antique bureau bookcase.
Vassall was sentenced to eighteen years imprisonment in November 1962, and sent to Wormwood Scrubs, where he spent the first nine months on ‘Special Watch’. After that he moved to D wing where, at first, he was reluctant to join Blake’s circle of friends. However, the two spies met at a classical music class and discovered they had much in common. ‘I liked him,’ said Vassall. ‘He was cultured, with impeccable manners and an open heart, and I admired him for his resignation and the brave face he showed to the world, refusing to be beaten by the system.’ The two men also shared a mutual interest in religion, especially liturgical matters. Vassall lent Blake a large volume of the l
ives of the Catholic saints down the ages; the latter’s favourite was St John of the Cross, a Spanish mystic and poet of the sixteenth century.
Blake’s fellow spies may have sought his company, but other prisoners continued to trade on his notoriety and make some money. Throughout his time in prison, the Home Office and the Prison Commission were continually fighting off a whole host of stories about Blake in the newspapers. Blake himself grew weary of the coverage. In April 1963, he wrote to Gillian, furious about a story from a former prisoner called Anthony Foley suggesting he was trying to indoctrinate Communism into his fellow inmates: ‘You may have heard the rubbish which appeared about me in the Sketch. It is of course complete and utter nonsense, and those whose concern it is are treating it as such. Although it is a matter of some indifference to me what the papers write, I must admit that I am not happy at the idea that I am depicted to those who know me as going about the prison like a latter-day John the Baptist.’
While Blake had charmed the vast bulk of the prison officers into the belief that he was knuckling down, reconciled to his fate, not everyone was convinced. In a report from October 1963, one officer described him as a ‘dangerous lone wolf’. Then, in November 1965, the Deputy Governor made his views abundantly clear. ‘This man must always be under the closest supervision. He is a security risk in every sense of the word, caution always.’ In January 1966, when the new Governor, Leslie Newcombe, was asked for the names of security risks who would be safer elsewhere, he offered the Prison Department three names. Blake’s was among them.
The Greatest Traitor Page 29