Spycatcher

by Peter Wright

  Beith threw himself enthusiastically into the task, but it was virtually impossible. Cipher rooms in most embassies, especially Soviet Bloc ones, were by far the most restricted areas in the compounds, and the chances of infiltrating an agent into them was remote. Nevertheless, Beith did achieve one outstanding success in Operation HALT, when he recruited an agent who worked inside the Czech Embassy who had access to the keys to the main cipher safe. Working to Leslie Jagger's commands, the agent took a plasticine imprint of the key. It was a high-grade Chubb, but by using high-quality plasticine and a micrometer to measure the indentations with exceptional accuracy, Jagger was able to make a copy which fitted the safe. The agent successfully opened the safe and copied the incoming code pads before they were used to encipher the Czech diplomatic cipher. For six months GCHQ read the traffic. Then suddenly the codes were changed, and the agent, inexplicably, was sacked.

  Since then Beith had had no success. When I joined, I could see that there were ways MI5 could help the HALT program using technical devices rather than agents. But Beith was, by his own admission, not a technical man, and found it difficult to follow my arguments. But since he was the only officer allowed to liaise with GCHQ, I had to strike out on my own if my ideas were to get a decent hearing. In the end I took Freddie out for a drink one night and asked him if he would be offended if I made an appointment to go down to GCHQ headquarters at Cheltenham and see things for myself.

  "Not at all, old man," said Freddie cheerfully, "you go right ahead. All this radio lark is a bit over my head. The human vices are more my territory."

  I made an appointment to see an old friend of mine from the Navy, Freddie Butler, who worked on GCHQ senior management. I explained to Butler that I felt the whole system of MI5/GCHQ liaison needed a complete rethink. Butler arranged for me to bypass Bill Collins, and meet the top GCHQ cryptanalysts, Hugh Alexander and Hugh Denham.

  Alexander ran GCHQ's H Division, which handled cryptanalysts, ably assisted by the quiet, studious Denham, who eventually succeeded him in the 1960s. Alexander joined Bletchley Park, GCHQ's prewar forerunner, at the outbreak of the war and, along with Alan Turing and Gordon Welchman, was primarily responsible for breaking the Enigma codes. After the war Turing went to Manchester University to design computers and tragically died by his own hand after being hounded over his homosexuality. Welchman went to work on advanced computers in the USA. Alexander, alone of the three, stayed to pursue a peacetime career in GCHQ. He was a brilliant international chess player, as well as codebreaker. Despite the intellectual demands of both work and hobby, Alexander remained on the outside a calm, reassuring tweed-clad figure. Yet I am sure that the mental contortions in the end told on him. He spent all his life quietly in the country, he never smoked or drank, and then suddenly died of cancer at a comparatively early age.

  I told Alexander and Denham that I had been indoctrinated into Operation HALT, and felt MI5 could contribute much more to GCHQ's work. I explained that tremendous advances had been made in MI5 technology since the Brundrett Committee was formed in 1949, especially in the field of new microphones. It might be possible, I suggested, to obtain HALT intelligence through technical means, rather than using agents, a method which at the present moment seemed destined for continual failure.

  "I'm not sure I know myself precisely how we can help until I have had a chance to experiment," I continued, "but I am sure that with the new high-sensitivity microphones we have, it must be possible to get something out of a cipher machine. They have to be reset every morning by the cipher clerk. Suppose we could pick up the sound of the new settings being made. Wouldn't that help?"

  The two cryptanalysts were supportive as I made my somewhat nervous presentation. They were clearly curious to see for themselves the first example of an unknown species in the Intelligence menagerie - an MI5 scientist.

  "Any help is gratefully received in this department," said Alexander. "After all, compared to your organization, we are the new boys. We haven't even finished building yet."

  He gestured to the window. In the distance a team of building workers was installing another line of Nissen huts behind the main GCHQ complex.

  "Our problem is that our theories are running beyond our computer capacity," he went on.

  "So many ciphers today we could crack - we know how to crack them. We just don't have sufficiently powerful computers to do the job. We'll get them soon, of course, but in the meantime, any help may give us a shortcut."

  I asked Alexander what the prime target was at the moment. He looked a little uneasy at my direct question.

  "Well, of course, we have many targets, they're constantly updated. JIC demands, that sort of thing."

  "Yes," I persisted, "but if you had to single one out as the most important today, which would you choose?"

  Alexander shifted in his seat and exchanged glances with Denham.

  "I should say it was the Gyppies," said Alexander finally. "The Foreign Office have been pushing us for months to get something on the cipher. We've got little bits, but it's only now and again, and never current stuff."

  It was spring 1956. Tension between Britain and Egypt was fast mounting, as Nasser began the moves which led to the Suez Crisis later that year.

  "What machine do they use?"

  "It's a Hagelin," replied Denham, referring to a cipher machine manufactured by the Swiss firm Crypto AG and much favored in the 1950s by Third World countries.

  I arranged to borrow one of GCHQ's sample Hagelins, and took it back up to London in the boot of my car. I set the machine up with Leslie Jagger in an MI5 safe house in Regent's Park and began experiments to see if my theory was practical. This Hagelin was a keyboard machine, with tape containing the enciphered message leading out from one side. The principle of the machine was simple. Seven rotating wheels, powered by switched currents, automatically substituted mechanically produced random figures for whatever was typed into the machine. Every morning the cipher clerk operating a Hagelin inside an embassy reset the wheels before beginning transmissions. If any of our microphones could detect the sounds of these new settings being made, I felt sure that GCHQ would be able to use them to determine what is known as the "core position" of the machine, and from there be in a position to attack the cipher. Alexander and Denham explained to me that if we could get the settings of three, possibly four, wheels of the machine, they would have broken the cipher.

  I installed a series of high-sensitivity microphones at various distances from the Hagelin, as well as a probe microphone in the wall behind it. Each microphone was connected in turn to an oscilloscope, so that the sounds it recorded were translated into visual readings. Leslie Jagger rigged up a film camera to record the oscilloscope screen. I opened the lid of the Hagelin and carefully reset the wheels, making a note of the old and new settings. The machine began to clatter as it enciphered a stream of dummy traffic. I sent the results down to Denham in Cheltenham for his comments.

  As soon as we got the films developed, I could see that the oscilloscope readings were firm enough to provide some clue to the Hagelin machine settings. They also produced evidence of the setting of at least three wheels out of seven. I decided to make further experiments with SATYR equipment, which gave a far less sensitive sound. We did detect movements on the wheels, but it was highly corrupt. I sent the findings down to Cheltenham by courier. The next day Denham telephoned on the scrambled line.

  "They're marvelous, Peter," he said. I could tell he was excited. The distortion from the scramble made him sound positively lunatic.

  "The acoustic microphones are best. We can get two, maybe even three wheels out using those readings. The radio one isn't so good, but I think, given time, we might be able to make something of it."

  The line fractured under a haze of static.

  "When can we go into action with it?" he shouted down the line.

  "As soon as you've got the ministerial clearance," I replied.

  The next day GCHQ sent Ray Frawley fr
om the planning staff up to London. Frawley was an astute, practical man, bridging the gap between the intellectual brilliance of Alexander and Denham and the administrative demands of a huge sprawling organization like GCHQ. Frawley was a radical atheist who believed that one day mankind would be coupled directly to computers. Dangerous irrationality would be banished forever. It was rather a childlike ideal for a man to hold in the grim years of the Cold War, but he and I became close colleagues even though I remained at heart an irrationalist, believing in the sudden burst of inspiration or intuition to solve a problem.

  As soon as Winterborn, Frawley, and I sat down to plan the operation against the Egyptians we realized that the best way was the simplest way. I checked with the Post Office Investigations Unit and obtained a complete list of all telephone installations in the Embassy. There appeared to be one either inside or very close to the cipher complex, so we decided to install Special Facilities on the telephone and use the microphone to capture the sounds of the cipher machine. The Post Office faulted the phone system and we waited for the Egyptians to call in the Post Office. I arranged to go in myself, disguised as an engineer, with the man who would install the SF device on the telephone receiver. I wanted the chance to look over the room in case any waste cipher material was lying around.

  The next morning I met the Post Office team over at St. Paul's and we drove over to the Embassy in their van. The security was tight at the Embassy door and we were escorted from room to room. The cipher room was in an annex, the Hagelin clattering away inside. Three cipher clerks were busy operating the telex machines and processing the diplomatic cables. I looked carefully for any signs of spare tape waste, but the section seemed well organized and tidy. One of the clerks came out and engaged our escort in animated conversation. After a while he went back in and turned the machines off. When he reappeared he came over to me and gesticulated toward the telephone. He could speak no English, but through sign language I understood that he wanted me to move the telephone closer to his seat near the machine. Scarcely able to believe our luck, I began to extend the cable, slowly turning my back on him so that the engineer could slip the small washer into the receiver to modify it for SF. I placed the telephone back on top of his desk, not more than two feet from the Hagelin machine. The clerk tapped it, and grinned at me broadly. I grinned back, but somehow I felt we were not quite sharing the same joke.

  I hurried back from the Egyptian Embassy to the seventh floor to monitor the sounds from the receiver. It seemed at first to be an electronic haze, but after some fine tuning the clatter of the Hagelin was clearly audible. MI5 arranged a special link down to GCHQ, and every morning, as the clerk reset the machine, GCHQ's H Division calculated the new settings and read the cipher straight off, a process known as "leading the machine." The new technique of breaking ciphers by detecting intelligence about the machines through technical surveillance became known by the code word ENGULF. It was a vital breakthrough. The combined MI5/GCHQ operation enabled us to read the Egyptian cipher in the London Embassy throughout the Suez Crisis. The Egyptians used four different key ciphers worldwide, and by mounting operations against their embassies abroad using the same ENGULF technique, we were able to break into most of the other channels. The operation against the Egyptian cipher was a tremendous success for MI5. It came at a time when MI6 had conspicuously failed in their efforts to provide intelligence. Virtually their entire network in Egypt was rounded up and arrested on Nasser's instructions at an early stage in the crisis, and their only contribution was a bungled attempt to assassinate Nasser.

  For Hollis, who had stepped into the Director-General's chair just as the Suez Crisis reached boiling point, the triumph could not have been better timed. It gave him a solid achievement in those crucial first few months. In the light of later events, I always thought it ironic that it was I who had given it to him.

  The single most important intelligence which we derived from the cipher break was a continuous account of Egyptian/Soviet discussions in Moscow, details of which were relayed into the Egyptian Embassy in London direct from the Egyptian Ambassador in Moscow. The information from this channel convinced the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) that the Soviet Union were indeed serious in their threat to become involved in the Suez Crisis on the Egyptian side. One message was particularly influential. It detailed a meeting between the Soviet Foreign Minister and the Egyptian Ambassador in which the Russians outlined their intentions to mobilize aircraft in preparation for a confrontation with Britain. The panic provoked by this cable, which was handed straight to the JIC, did as much as anything to prompt Eden into withdrawal. Similarly, since all GCHQ product was shared with its American counterpart, the National Security Agency (NSA), the intelligence, I am sure, did play an important part in shaping American pressure on Britain to end the crisis.

  Soon after the SF was installed inside the Egyptian Embassy we nearly lost the whole operation. The Russians, anxious to bestow client status on Egypt as the Suez Crisis deepened, sent a team of Russian sweepers to sanitize their London Embassy of any bugs or microphones. It was the sort of friendly gesture the Russians loved to bestow, enabling them to pick up useful intelligence for themselves at the same time. Our static observation post overlooking the entrance of the Egyptian Embassy detected the Russian sweepers as soon as they entered the building. I was called up to the seventh floor to monitor their progress in the cipher section. I listened helplessly as they entered the cipher room. They started with the fuse box and then began electronically sweeping the walls and ceilings with large instruments which looked like metal detectors. The microphone thumped ominously as a Russian hand picked up the telephone and began to unscrew the bottom. There was a muffled pause, and then the sound of the telephone being reassembled. Hugh Winterborn breathed a sigh of relief.

  At the time we knew that the Russians had discovered the SF and would remove it if they found it, but they didn't! If the Russians knew about SF, which they did, and were so wary of it, for instance in the Russian Embassy, why had they overlooked it in the Egyptian Embassy? It would suit them not to alert us to the fact that they knew about SF, so that we would continue to use it. They could, after all, have sent intelligence via their own cipher circuit, Moscow-London, and handed the message over to the Egyptians in London. This would have been unbreakable. But I believe that there was another reason. The Russians wanted us to read the signals of their resolve in the Suez Crisis correctly. They did not want us to assume they were bluffing. The best way of ensuring we took their posture seriously would be if we obtained intelligence about it from an unimpeachable source, for instance from a secret cable. It was my first insight into the complexities of Soviet disinformation.

  After the Suez Crisis had collapsed, I began to pester GCHQ again with suggestions of future cooperation. But they seemed to want relations to drift back to the languid state they were in before. And GCHQ, while happy to take the results of ENGULF, were unwilling to step up their help, in return, for MI5. In short, they did not mind MI5 working for them, so long as the arrangement was not reciprocal.

  I felt that GCHQ had a major role to play in helping MI5 confront the Soviet espionage networks in the UK by tackling Soviet spy communications. The Russian Intelligence Service has always favored running really sensitive operations "illegally," using agents who operate entirely independently of the "legal" Embassy Intelligence Officers, communicating with Moscow Center by using their own radio transmitters. I felt sure that if we devoted effort to tracing and logging these transmissions we might get a break which could lead us right into the heart of the Soviet Intelligence apparatus. I wanted GCHQ to provide MI5 with the service that we had received from RSS during the war, of continuous monitoring of illegal radio broadcasts to and from the UK. It seemed to me to be straightforward common sense. But GCHQ were devoting a paltry one and a half radio positions to taking this traffic. It was a pathetic effort, and no amount of persuasion could make them devote more.

  Shortly after
the first ENGULF Operation against the Egyptian cipher I went to Canada to plan Operation DEW WORM. Toward the end of the trip Terry Guernsey, the head of RCMP Counterespionage, asked me to study an RCMP case which had recently ended in mysterious circumstances. During this review I ran across a detail which convinced me beyond any doubt that GCHQ had to be forced to change their mind. Guernsey showed me into a private room. Sitting on the table were three volumes of files marked KEYSTONE. The KEYSTONE case began in 1952, when a Russian entered Canada under a false name, intent on developing cover as an illegal agent for the KGB. In fact, his eventual destination was the USA, but the KGB often send their illegals into Canada first to establish for themselves a secure "legend," or false identity, before going across the border. But soon after the illegal, code-named Gideon by the RCMP, arrived in Canada he fell in love with a woman. It was strictly against KGB rules, and it wasn't long before Gideon developed doubts about his mission.

  Eventually Gideon was ordered by Moscow Center to make plans for his emigration to the USA. He managed to persuade them that it was too risky, and the emigration plan was aborted. Instead he was appointed the KGB illegal resident in Canada, responsible for running other illegal agents throughout Canada. The new responsibilities were arduous. Gideon, who was in any case a lazy man, had to spend long hours receiving messages on his radio, and to make endless journeys throughout Canada to collect intelligence. Gideon began to fall behind on his schedule, and was bullied by his controllers. Finally he decided to confess everything to his lover and together they decided to approach the RCMP.