Ace of Spies

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by Andrew Cook


  33. A Lycée was a secondary school organised along French lines. Both Christian and foreign, they were objects of suspicion. Jeanne Morans was the headmistress of the Moscow Lycée, a catholic girls’ school, and had been arrested in connection with the Lockhart Plot in September 1918. She was tried but found not guilty.

  34. Mikhail Gniloryboff was a member of Boris Savinkov’s People’s Union for the Defence of the Motherland and Liberty.

  35. OGPU official working with Dr Kushner.

  36. OGPU agent Grigory Feduleev worked undercover on the ‘Trust’ operation and was in on the Reilly interrogation with Vladimir Syrne.

  37. It would appear that what Reilly actually told Styrne about SIS was superficial, fabricated or already known to the OGPU, or a combination of all three. Following the breach of diplomatic relations between Britain and Russia in 1927, the OGPU arrested two of Ernest Boyce’s agents and put them on trial for terrorism. The Leningrad Sunday Worker reported on 2 October that, ‘evidence given by the notorious British spy, Capt. Sidney Reilly, in October 1925, was read out during the present trial of terrorists at Leningrad’. Reilly was quoted as declaring, ‘The British secret service – called the Secret Intelligence Service – is an institution standing quite apart from any ministerial department… it is absolutely secret: neither the names of the chief nor staff are known to anyone except the principal cabinet ministers and military chiefs of the highest rank… since 1923 SIS has been headed by Rear-Admiral Gaygout’ (this would appear to be a translation error for ‘Guy Gaunt’). In reality, the chief was Rear-Admiral Sinclair, as Reilly well knew. (A copy of the Sunday Worker article is among the Reilly Papers CX 2616.)

  38. Reilly could volunteer nothing here as he was completely unaware of SIS activities since his ties with the organisation were severed in 1921.

  39. Norwegian military attaché in Moscow at the time of Reilly’s interrogation.

  40. SIS station chief in Prague, Czechoslovakia.

  41. Reilly may sincerely have believed that SIS had placed no spies in Russia after Dukes. The OGPU, however, knew differently, thus their reluctance to take no for an answer.

  42. Rear-Admiral Thomas Kemp had ordered Reilly’s confinement on HMS Glory following his arrest in Murmansk, due to a passport irregularity, in April 1918.

  43. This no doubt refers to the meeting with Lockhart following Reilly’s visit to the Kremlin on 7 May 1918.

  44. Artur Artuzov was head of the OGPU’s counter-intelligence section (KRO), and therefore Vladimir Styrne’s immediate superior.

  45. The Zinoviev Letter was almost certainly a forgery and the Russians were keen to learn more about the anti-Bolshevik émigrés who were the prime suspects in the eyes of the OGPU.

  46. Mikhail Frunze, Bolshevik Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs.

  47. Wyndham Childs, Deputy Assistant Commissioner, New Scotland Yard.

  48. John Carter, Deputy Assistant Commissioner, New Scotland Yard.

  49. Sir Basil Thompson, superintendent, New Scotland Yard (Special Branch).

  50. According to Winston Churchill, in a letter to Col. Stewart Menzies of SIS, dated 29 October 1920, ‘the other man whom I should be glad of any information which you can give me is one Boris Said [sic]. I am informed by certain persons that he was the principal Zionist agent in London before the revolution and having in his hands an exceedingly large sum of money he decided to appropriate it and throw in his lot with the Bolsheviks. I am told that he is now the principal Bolshevik agent and lives in style at the Ritz’ (CHAR 16/49/64–66, Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge).

  51. Leonid Krasin was, from 1920, the head of Soviet Russia’s Economic Mission to Britain. Reilly assisted Krasin in securing a trade agreement with Marconi, although it was suspected, but never proved, that both Krasin and Reilly pocketed money from this and other deals.

  52. Amtorg was a joint Soviet-US trading company.

  53. Arcos (Anglo-Russian Co-operative Society) was established by Leonid Krasin in 1921 to encourage joint enterprises with British companies. It was raided by Special Branch in 1927 who found evidence that it was being used as a front for Soviet espionage.

  54. Edward Wise was a member of the British government’s negotiating team that met with Krasin’s Trade Delegation (Secret Service, Christopher Andrew, p.262ff).

  55. Leslie Urquhart was one of a small number of British businessmen who endeavoured to negotiate trade deals with Arcos.

  56. Reilly’s approach to business.

  57. During 1925, industrial unrest increased following Winston Churchill’s first budget in April, which heralded Britain’s return to the Gold Standard. This added greatly to the cost of exports and caused the mine-owners to announce wage cuts on 30 June. On 10 July the TUC General Council agreed to support the Miners Federation and declared a national embargo on the movement of coal. Prime Minister Baldwin judged that the time was not right for a national confrontation with the TUC and on 31 July – Red Friday – climbed down. The government offered the mining industry a subsidy of £23 million to stave off wage cuts.

  58. Lieutenant Alexandr Alexeevich Abaza, a former Tsarist naval officer and White Russian.

  59. Philip Faymonville had been in Russia during 1918/20 and was US Military Attaché in Tokyo in 1925.

  60. See note 1.

  61. Ibid.

  62. This photograph appears on page 223 of this book. When the overcoat was later examined, a small Union Jack was found sewn into its lining. The Union Jack is now on display at the FSB Museum, Moscow, and was seen by the author on 26 August 2002, during a visit to FSB Headquarters.

  63. This was more than likely necessary due to the fact that he had been officially dead since 28 September. Only the small circle of OGPU officers involved in the Trust operation knew otherwise.

  64. Secret Assignment, Edward Gazur, p.519.

  65. Ibid.

  66. OGPU File no. 249856. See also, Deadly Illusions, J. Costello and O. Tsarer, p.22.

  67. By 1921 Hill, like Reilly and many others, found that due to budget constraints he had no future with SIS. Now unemployed he was reduced to living in a caravan in Sussex with his wife. He eventually found work in theatre management (‘SOE’s man in Moscow’ by Martin Kitchen, Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 12, No. 3, July 1997, p.96.

  68. Kim Philby was one of Hill’s pupils at Brickendonbury Hall in Hertfordshire, a sabotage training school in 1940 (‘SOE’s man in Moscow’ by Michael Kitchen, p.96).

  69. Britain’s Master Spy – The Adventures of Sidney Reilly, pp.285–88.

  70. In a letter to Capt. William Isaacs, dated 17 November 1931, Margaret Reilly states, ‘My firm belief is that Reilly is still alive in Russia working for England against Bolshevism’ (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

  71. Reilly: The First Man, Robin Bruce Lockhart, p.28ff.

  72. Master Spy, Edward Van Der Rhoer, p.231ff.

  73. ‘Sidney Reilly’s Lubyanka Diary’ by Richard Spence.

  74. Reilly: The First Man contains sixteen chapters. Chapters six–fifteen contain few references to Reilly, concentrating in the main on general East-West espionage issues.

  75. Ace of Spies (1992 edition), p.188.

  76. Letter to the author from Robin Bruce Lockhart, dated 9 January 2000.

  77. CXM 159, 29 March 1918 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).

  78. Report by Agent L.S. Perkins (US Bureau of Investigation), dated 3 April 1917 describes Reilly as of ‘oriental appearance’.

  79. Report by Kenneth Linge, BA, MSc, FBBIPP of DABS Forensic Ltd, 27 December 2001.

  80. Ace of Spies, preface.

  81. The Messenger of the Sacred Heart, Caryll Houselander, p.59.

  APPENDICES

  APPENDIX ONE – THE GADFLY

  1. Ace of Spies, Robin Bruce Lockhart, p.27.

  2. The American edition of The Gadfly was published by Henry Holt and Company, New York, in April 1897. The British edition was published in September 1897 by William Hein
emann. They were identical apart from their respective covers. The British edition also contained an additional appendix of fourteen press reviews.

  3. The Gadfly by E.L. Voynich (Heinemann 1897, p.341ff).

  4. A collection of reviews and articles about The Gadfly are to be found in the Boole Family Collection, presented to Lincolnshire County Archives by Gabrielle Boole in July 1985.

  5. ‘The Gadfly and the Spy’ by Tibor Szamuely, The Spectator, 17 May 1968, p.665.

  6. BBC World Service, Russian Language Programme, broadcast 7.00 p.m. 9 June 1968

  7. ‘George Boole, His Life and Work’ by Desmond MacHale, p.273.

  8. Ibid., p.274.

  9. E.L. Voynich, Evgenia Taratuta, Moscow, 1970.

  10. ‘Who Admired Pavka Korchagin?’ by Boris Polevoi and Evgenia Taratuta (Izvestia, No. 11, 12 June 1968, p.3).

  11. Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–72) founded the Young Italy movement in 1831, which was dedicated to achieving a united, republican Italian state.

  12. From the Papers of Hugh Millar.

  13. Letters from W. Field Robertson to George Hill, dated 6 and 9 September 1935 (Box 6, Robert Bruce Lockhart Collection at the Hoover Institution Archive, Stanford, California).

  14. US Immigration Service, Passenger Arrival List Index Cards, Volumes 6332–14197 (1919–1941).

  15. Letter from Edward Spears to Robin Bruce Lockhart, dated 2 January 1967 (Box 6, Robert Bruce Lockhart Collection, Hoover Institution Archive, Stanford, California).

  16. An Interrupted Friendship, E.L. Voynich (Macmillan, 1910), p.139ff.

  APPENDIX TWO – MISTAKEN IDENTITY

  1. Sidney Reilly – The True Story, Michael Kettle, p.16.

  2. Ibid., p.15.

  3. Ibid., p.16.

  4. Ibid., p.16.

  5. Ibid., p.17.

  6. Ace of Spies, Robin Bruce Lockhart, p.182.

  7. Mining the Challenge – 150 Years of the Royal School of Mines, Anne Barrett, p.1, and Imperial College by Richard G. Williams and Anne Barrett, p.10.

  8. City of Cambridge Directory 1906.

  9. Minute Book of the Trinity College Boat Club, 14 October 1905 (Trinity College Library).

  10. Entry 271, Register of Deaths in the Sub-district of Epsom and Ewell in the Registration District of Surrey Eastern in the County of Surrey, 13 June 1952.

  11. Aline Reilly – interview with the author on 2 September 2000; Noel Reilly – interview with the author on 22 September 2000.

  12. Indian Army List 1918/1920; Indian Army Reserve List (PRO); Thackers’ India Office Biographical Index (India Office Records – British Library).

  13. Baptismal Records for Dehra Dun, Volume 376, Folio 9 (India Office Records – British Library).

  14. Entry 111, Register of Deaths in the Sub-district of Hornsey in the Registration District of Edmonton in the County of Middlesex, 18 September 1945.

  APPENDIX THREE – THE FACTORY FIREMAN

  1. Spies, Jay Robert Nash (M. Evans & Company, New York, 1997), p.412.

  2. Ace of Spies, Robin Bruce Lockhart, p.36ff; Reilly: The First Man, Robin Bruce Lockhart, p.5. Curiously, when a revised edition of Ace of Spies was published in 1992, the reference to Krupps story was unaltered.

  3. In Troy Kennedy-Martin’s 1983 Thames Television adaption, Reilly: Ace of Spies, the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg is substituted for the Krupps plant in Essen, and Reilly’s alias is changed from Hahn to Fricker.

  4. Master Spy, Edward Van Der Rhoer, p.ix ff.

  5. ‘100th Anniversary of Freidrich Krupp’, 1912 (p.138/140), Historisches Archiv Krupp, Essen.

  6. Ibid.

  7. Ibid.

  8. File WA 41/3–46, Historisches Archiv Krupp, Essen.

  9. Ibid., File WA 41/6–64.

  10. Ibid., File WA 41/6–255.

  11. Ibid., File WA 41/6–274.

  APPENDIX FOUR – THE BATTLESHIP BLUEPRINTS

  1. Ace of Spies, Robin Bruce Lockhart, p.54.

  2. Ibid., p.51/54.

  3. There are references on 2 March and 28 June 1910 to the recruitment and debriefing of Bywater in the diary of Sir Mansfield Cumming.

  4. Strange Intelligence, Hector Bywater (Constable, 1931); The Quest for C, Alan Judd, pp.143 and 257.

  APPENDIX FIVE – RESCUING THE TSAR

  1. The Plots to Rescue the Tsar, Shay McNeal (Century 2001), p137

  2. Ibid, p120

  3. Ibid, p121

  4. PRO WO 33/962, Item 14, telegram 59154, Director of Military Intelligence to Brigadier-General Poole, 28 May 1918.

  5. The Plots to Rescue the Tsar, Shay McNeal, p122

  6. Reilly’s report (Affairs in Russia, CX 038307, 22nd June 1918) is appended to a letter from the Director of Military Intelligence to the Under Secretary of State, Foreign Office, 9 July 1918, PRO FO 371/3315, paper 301.

  7. The Plots to Rescue the Tsar, Shay McNeal, p143.

  8. For example: Telegram CX 013592, 12th May 1918 (PRO WO 32/5669); Telegram 035402, 29th May 1918 (PRO WO 32/5669); Telegram CX 034907 (PRO WO/325669); Telegram CX 035176, 3rd June 1918 (PRO WO 32/5669); Telegram CX 038307, 22 June 1918 (PRO FO 371/3315).

  9. The orders concerning Reilly’s mission to Russia are referred to in the letter from Lt-Col. C N French of the War Office to Ronald Campbell of the Foreign Office, 10th October 1918, PRO FO 371/3319.

  10. ‘Report of Work Done in Russia’ by George Hill (PRO FO 371/3350/79980).

  11. The Plots to Rescue the Tsar, Shay McNeal, p58.

  12. Ibid.

  13. Rescuing the Tsar by James P Smythe (California Printing Company, 1920).

  14. The Plots to Rescue the Tsar by Shay McNeal, p131.

  15. Ibid, p234.

  APPENDIX SIX – THE ZINOVIEV LETTER

  1. Sidney Reilly – The True Story, Michael Kettle, p.130.

  2. A Most Extraordinary and Mysterious Business: The Zinoviev Letter of 1924, Gill Bennett (Foreign & Commonwealth Office General Services Command), Annex A.

  3. Sidney Reilly – The True Story Michael Kettle, p.121; ‘Hand of British spy seen in Zinoviev Letter’, by David Bonavia, Sunday Times, 15 February 1970, p.4. The handwritten copy of the Zinoviev Letter reproduced in Kettle’s book was discovered by Harvard University Associate William Butler in the papers of former US Consul C.D. Westcott at the Harvard Law School (Harvard Library Bulletin, 1970).

  4. Ibid.

  5. Britain’s Master Spy – The Adventures of Sidney Reilly, p.200.

  6. See note 3 above.

  7. Reilly’s letter to Felix Dzerzhinsky of 30 October 1925 (‘Trust’ File No. 302330, Vol. 37, p.366, Central Archive of the Federal Security Service, Moscow) contains a number of words that occur in the Zinoviev Letter – president, presidium, Moscow, British and Russian for example. These are all markedly different in construction and appearance than those in the ‘handwritten’ Zinoviev Letter.

  8. ‘The Complete Diary of Donald Im Thurn’ is reproduced in Appendix A of ‘The Zinoviev Letter: A Political Intrigue’ by Lewis Chester, Stephen Fay and Hugo Young. The diary was apparently found among the papers of Im Thurn’s friend Guy Kindersley, the Conservative MP for Hitchin, who died in 1956.

  9. Ibid., and Sidney Reilly – The True Story, Michael Kettle, p.122/123.

  10. Ibid.

  11. Letters reproduced in Britain’s Master Spy – The Adventures of Sidney Reilly, p.178/182.

  12. Sidney and Pepita sailed from Cherbourg aboard the White Star Line’s SS Olympic (Titantic’s sister ship) on 15th October 1924 bound for New York (US Immigration Records, Vol. 8155, p.5, 21 October 1924). Michael Kettle places their departure for New York after 25 October, the day the letter was exposed in the Daily Mail (Sidney Reilly – The True Story, p.128).

  13. A Most Extraordinary and Mysterious Business: The Zinoviev Letter of 1924, Gill Bennett, p.45.

  14. Ibid.

  15. The Guardian, 23 June 2000, p.5.

  16. Ibid.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Rupert Allason, The Branch (Secker
and Warburg, 1983).

  Christopher Andrew, Secret Service (Heinemann, 1985).

  Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive (Allen Lane, 1999).

  Andreas Augustin, Igor Bogdanov and Andreas Williamson, Grand Hotel Europe, St Petersburg (London, 1996).

  Geoffrey Bailey (George Vassiltchikov), The Conspirators (Harper, 1960).

  Anne Barrett, Mining the Challenge – 150 Years of the Royal School of Mines (Imperial College, 2001).

  Anne Barrett and Richard Williams, Imperial College (Imperial College, 1988).

  Ralph Barker, The RFC in France (Constable, 1994).

  Mikhail Beizer, The Jews of St Petersburg (Edward Elson, 1989).

  Gill Bennett, A Most Extraordinary and Mysterious Business: The Zinoviev Letter of 1924 (Historians LRD, No. 14, Foreign & Commonwealth Office, February 1999).

  Sir Henry Brackenbury, Some Memories of my Spare Time (Blackwood and Sons, 1909).

  Gordon Brook-Shepherd, Iron Maze (Macmillan, 1998).

  Harold Brust, I Guarded Kings – The Memoirs of a Political Police Officer (Hillman Curl, 1936).

  Hector Bywater, Strange Intelligence (Constable, 1932).

  John Costello and Oleg Tsarev, Deadly Illusions (Century, 1993).

  Derek Curtis Bennett and Roland Wilde, Curtis – The Life of Sir Henry Curtis-Bennett KC (Cassell, 1937).

  Richard Deacon, A History of the British Secret Service (Frederick Muller, 1969).

  Richard Deacon, A History of the Japanese Secret Service (Frederick Muller, 1982).

  Richard Deacon, A History of the Russian Secret Service (Taplinger, 1972).

  R.K. Debo, ‘Lockhart Plot or Dzerzhinskii Plot?’, Journal of Modern History, Volume 43 (1971).

  George Dilnot, Great Detectives and their Methods (Houghton Mifflin, 1928).

  Sir Paul Dukes, Red Dusk and the Morrow – Adventures and Investigations in Red Russia (Williams and Norgate, 1923).

  Sir Paul Dukes, The Story of ST25 (Cassell, 1938).

  Herbert Finch, Traitors Within – Adventures in the Special Branch, Scotland Yard (Doubleday, 1933).

  John D. Forbes, J.P. Morgan Junior, 1867–1943 (University Press of Virginia, 1981).

  W.B. Fowler, British-American Relations, 1917–18, The Role of Sir William Wiseman Princeton University Press, 1969).

 

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