The Defence of the Realm
Page 123
48 See above, p. 136.
49 Security Service Archives.
50 Vansittart, Mist Procession, p. 398.
51 Minute, 6 May 1933, CCAC VNST 2/3. ‘Robert Gilbert Vansittart’, Oxford DNB.
52 Rose, Vansittart, pp. 104, 164, 182.
53 Curry later recalled that Kell was initially reluctant for the Security Service to penetrate a foreign embassy for the first time, but was persuaded to do so by Vansittart. Security Service Archives.
54 Putlitz, Putlitz Dossier.
55 Security Service Archives.
56 Putlitz, Putlitz Dossier, ch. 12.
57 Kell was introduced to Ustinov on 9 August 1934 by Vansittart’s private secretary, Clifford Norton (later knighted); Security Service Archives.
58 Rose, Vansittart, p. 74.
59 Security Service Archives.
60 Ustinov, Klop and the Ustinov Family, p. 66.
61 The portrait appears as the frontispiece to The Security Service.
62 Bower, Perfect English Spy, p. 29.
63 Security Service Archives.
64 In June, however, HOWs were granted on two addresses in Hamburg with which it was known that the London office of the Auslands Organisation was corresponding. Security Service, p. 110.
65 Curry’s evidence on Kell’s initial reluctance to investigate the Auslands Organisation is made more credible by the fact that he simultaneously put on record ‘the highest respect and regard for our chief’. Security Service Archives.
66 [Curry] ‘Memorandum on the possibilities of sabotage by the organisations set up in British countries by the totalitarian governments of Germany and Italy’, July 1936, p. 11, TNA KV 4/290, s. 2a; see also Security Service, p. 111.
67 ‘Conference held at the Home Office on 26 May, 1936, to consider the position arising from the organisation in Great Britain of Branches of the German Nazi and Italian Fascist Parties’, TNA FO 371/19942, s. 128.
68 McKale, Swastika outside Germany, p. 157.
69 The Foreign Office argued that banning the Auslands Organisation would merely drive its activities underground. MI5 replied that it would still be able to monitor it, and in fact the ‘squeeze’ put on the underground organization would probably make it easier to watch. ‘Conference held at the Home Office on 26 May, 1936, to consider the position arising from the organisation in Great Britain of Branches of the German Nazi and Italian Fascist Parties’, TNA FO 371/19942, s. 128.
70 B2a, Note, 24 March 1939, TNA KV 4/301, s. 88b. J. C. Curry, Unpublished Memoirs, Security Service Archives. Security Service, pp. 132–3. McKale, Swastika outside Germany, p. 157.
71 Security Service Archives.
72 Kell to Sir Maurice Hankey, CID, 6 July 1936, enclosing [Curry] ‘Memorandum’, p. 5, TNA KV 4/290, s. 2a.
73 Security Service Archives.
74 ‘Note on Information Received in Connection with the Crisis of September, 1938’, [7 Nov. 1938], TNA KV 4/16.
75 Willans, Peter Ustinov, pp. 39–41.
76 ‘Note on Information Received in Connection with the Crisis of September, 1938’, [7 Nov. 1938], TNA KV 4/16. The Security Service had no file on the abdication or on King Edward VIII’s lover and future wife Mrs Simpson. The Special Branch, however, had a file on Simpson (declassified in 2003) which revealed that in 1936 she was simultaneously conducting an affair with a married car salesman. ‘Mrs Simpson’s Secret Lover Revealed’, The Times, 30 Jan. 2003.
77 See below, p. 209.
78 ‘Note on Information Received in Connection with the Crisis of September, 1938’, [7 Nov. 1938], TNA KV 4/16.
79 Security Service Archives.
80 Security Service Archives.
81 Security Service Archives.
82 Andrew, Secret Service, pp. 533–4.
83 See below, pp. 241–2.
84 Security Service Archives.
85 Andrew, Secret Service, pp. 553–9.
86 According to an MI5 report to the Foreign Office, on 16 August 1938 ‘Herr von S.’, an important German ‘not unconnected with the German General Staff’ ‘sent us a warning that a sudden invasion of Czechoslovakia was contemplated. Early in the second half of August we established close contact with him.’ ‘Note on Information Received in Connection with the Crisis of September, 1938’, [7 Nov. 1938], TNA KV 4/16. The note refers to, but does not identify, four other German informants.
87 Ustinov, Dear Me, pp. 102–3. Klop’s recollection of ‘Herr von S’s’ central message agrees with that in surviving MI5 records. On Ribbentrop’s bellicose statements on Czechoslovakia in August 1938, see Kershaw, Hitler, 1936–45, p. 91. Schweppenburg had been military attaché in London from 1933 to 1937 and later became a well-known panzer commander.
88 ‘Note on Information Received in Connection with the Crisis of September, 1938’, [7 Nov. 1938], TNA KV 4/16. Another MI5 report, which distinguishes less precisely between different German sources, suggests that Putlitz also supplied a copy of this document. Security Service Archives.
89 Dilks (ed.), Cadogan Diaries, pp. 94–7. Weinberg, Foreign Policy of Hitler’s Germany, pp. 394, 396, 421, 428. Vansittart later had doubts about Kordt’s motives, believing that ‘what he really wanted was a German maximum without war with us. His real game was to get a free hand in expansion east . . . Otherwise he was a decent, humane man, and emphatically not a Nazi.’ Rose, Vansittart, pp. 136–8, 222.
90 Rose, Vansittart, p. 228. Dilks (ed.), Cadogan Diaries, p. 95.
91 Curry later recalled, possibly with a memory improved by hindsight, that he knew of no one in the Security Service who thought the outcome of Chamberlain’s negotiations with Hitler ‘a great success’. Security Service Archives.
92 Malcolm Woollcombe, ‘What Should We Do?’, 18 Sept. 1938; Fisher to Sinclair (copy), 20 Sept. 1939, Woollcombe MSS. A copy of ‘What Should We Do?’, marked ‘Views of SIS’, is to be found in TNA FO 371/21659 C14471/42/18. A previous memorandum by Woollcombe, ‘Germany and Colonies’, 3 Feb. 1938, had been well received by Neville Chamberlain, who at one point added the marginal note: ‘What did I say[?]’. Andrew, ‘Secret Intelligence and British Foreign Policy’, p. 24.
93 ‘Note on Information Received in Connection with the Crisis of September, 1938’, [7 Nov. 1938], TNA KV 4/16.
94 J. C. Curry, ‘Note on the aggressive policy of Hitler and Ribbentrop: and consequent instructions to the Abwehr’, Security Service Archives (no file ref.). J. C. Curry, ‘Information on Hitler’s Germany’s intentions in 1938 obtained from M.I.5 sources’, 5 Sept. 1941, TNA KV 4/16.
95 ‘Note on Information Received in Connection with the Crisis of September, 1938’, [7 Nov. 1938], TNA KV 4/16.
96 Security Service Archives.
97 Andrew, Secret Service, pp. 547–50.
98 Whether Hitler really did use the words attributed to him remains doubtful. One of MI5’s informants may well have decided to embroider some of Hitler’s actual comments in an attempt to stiffen British resolve.
99 ‘Note on Information Received in Connection with the Crisis of September, 1938’, [7 Nov. 1938], TNA KV 4/16.
100 Security Service Archives.
101 ‘Note on Information Received in Connection with the Crisis of September, 1938’, [7 Nov. 1938], TNA KV 4/16.
102 Security Service Archives.
103 Security Service, pp. 121–2.
104 Brendon, Dark Valley, p. 522.
105 ‘Note on Information Received in Connection with the Crisis of September, 1938’, [7 Nov. 1938], TNA KV 4/16.
106 Cadogan diary, 28, 29 Nov., 1, 6 Dec. 1938, CCAC ACAD 1/7.
107 On Hoare’s First World War career in MI5 and MI1c, see above, pp. 104–5. For six months in 1936 Hoare was an unsuccessful foreign secretary.
108 Security Service Archives.
109 Brendon, Dark Valley, p. 536.
110 Security Service Archives.
111 Putlitz, Putlitz Dossier, ch. 21. Curry corroborates Putlitz’s account of Vansittart’s offer of asylum;
Security Service Archives.
112 Security Service, p. 122.
113 Security Service Archives.
114 Dilks (ed.), Cadogan Diaries, p. 151.
115 Feiling, Neville Chamberlain, p. 396.
116 Vansittart sent his report to Halifax on 20 February. Putlitz later recalled in his memoirs (Putlitz Dossier, pp. 164–5) that he had telephoned Ustinov on 21 February 1939 with a warning that Hitler would invade Czechoslovakia on 15 March. It seems likely that Putlitz slightly misremembered the date of his telephone call, that he made it a day or so earlier, and that it prompted Vansittart’s warning to Halifax. It is also likely that Putlitz was slightly less specific than he later recalled about the date of the German invasion.
117 Rose, Vansittart, pp. 232–3.
118 Dilks (ed.), Cadogan Diaries, pp. 153–7, 163. Rose, Vansittart, p. 233. Andrew, Secret Service, pp. 585–6.
119 Colvin, Chamberlain Cabinet, p. 188.
120 See above, p. 198.
121 The precise point at which White succeeded Curry as Ustinov’s liaison officer is not recorded in the surviving files. The most probable date is February 1939, when Curry had a serious eye operation. The operation failed and a second was only partly successful. He was on sick leave for seven months. Security Service Archives.
122 Christopher Andrew, interview with Sir Dick White, 1984.
123 Dilks (ed.), Cadogan Diaries, p. 170. Andrew, Secret Service, p. 590.
124 Douglas, Advent of War, pp. 11–12.
125 Hinsley et al., British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol. 1, pp. 41, 85.
126 Dilks (ed.), Cadogan Diaries, p. 158. Cadogan diary, 21 April 1939, CCAC ACAD 1/8.
127 Hinsley et al., British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol. 1, pp. 42–3.
128 Hinsley and Simkins, British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol. 4, pp. 11–12.
129 Security Service Archives.
130 Security Service Archives.
131 Heinemann, ‘Abwehr’, p. 1.
132 For Hitler’s 1935 ban on Abwehr espionage in Britain, see Leverkuehn, German Military Intelligence, p. 93; Kahn, Hitler’s Spies, pp. 346–7.
133 Curry’s account of pre-war Abwehr espionage in Britain (Security Service, pp. 125–6), written in 1945–6, now requires to be revised and updated.
134 ‘Major Christopher Draper’, n.d., TNA KV 2/365. ‘Pre-War Espionage on behalf of Germany in Great Britain’, March 1942, TNA KV 3/47. Draper, Mad Major.
135 Hinchley Cooke, Minute 7, 19 Aug. 1937, TNA KV 2/19. ‘Pre-War Espionage on behalf of Germany in Great Britain’, March 1942, TNA KV 3/47. Security Service, p. 136.
136 Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only, p. 90.
137 Security Service, pp. 148, 163.
138 Minute 34, 8 Feb. 1938, TNA KV 2/2618.
139 Security Service Archives.
140 See below, p. 248.
141 Security Service, pp. 127–8.
142 Ibid.
143 TNA KV 3/205–8.
144 TNA KV 3/206.
145 Masterman, Double-Cross System, pp. 36–9. The MI5 SNOW files are in TNA KV 2/444–53; description of SNOW from KV 2/444.
146 Masterman, Double-Cross System, pp. 39–40.
147 Security Service Archives. The first public identification of Folkert van Koutrik as an Abwehr-controlled double agent, based on captured Abwehr files, is in Farago, Game of the Foxes, ch. 11.
148 See below, pp. 241–2, 244–5.
149 Guy Liddell diary, 30 Aug. 1939.
150 Dilks (ed.), Cadogan Diaries, pp. 204–6. Andrew, Secret Service, p. 605.
SECTION C: THE SECOND WORLD WAR
Introduction: The Security Service and its Wartime Staff: ‘From Prison to Palace’
1 According to a Security Service colleague, the author of the phrase was Major Malcolm Cumming.
2 Security Service Archives.
3 Recollections of a former Security Service officer.
4 Security Service Archives.
5 ‘It girls’ father was Pink Panther thief’, Sunday Times, 23 Sept. 2007.
6 Memoir by Milicent Bagot, Security Service Archives. On Bagot’s early Service career, see above, p. 131.
7 Security Service Archives.
8 Security Service Archives.
9 Security Service Archives.
10 Security Service Archives.
11 Security Service Archives.
12 Security Service Archives.
13 Lady Kell, ‘A Secret Well Kept’, IWM.
14 Kell to Cadogan, 8 Dec. 1938, Cabinet Office papers.
15 Cadogan to Sir Warren Fisher, 23 Dec. 1938, Cabinet Office papers.
16 Sir James Rae (Treasury) to C. Howard Smith (Foreign Office), 31 Jan. 1939, Cabinet Office papers.
17 Curry later noted: ‘For some time previous to his retirement Sir Vernon Kell had felt the onerous nature of his duties weighed heavily on him.’ Security Service, p. 163.
18 Director General’s report on the Security Service, Feb. 1941, TNA KV 4/88.
19 See below, pp. 255–6.
20 Rose, Elusive Rothschild. On Blunt, see below, pp. 268ff.
21 Andrew, Secret Service, p. 642.
22 Christopher Andrew, interview with Sir Ashton Roskill, 1984.
23 Masterman, Chariot Wheel, p. 219.
24 Officer numbers (not including Security Control personnel in ports) declined to 323 in January 1944, to 273 in January 1945 and to 250 in July 1945. Secretarial and Registry staff (not including Security Control personnel in ports) declined to 852 in January 1944, to 748 in January 1945 and to 647 in July 1945. Security Service, p. 373.
25 According to official statistics, the numbers of ‘other ranks’ in Security Control personnel were 328 in September 1939, 825 in May 1943 and 415 (plus 39 ATS) in April 1945. The apparent decline in ‘other ranks’ during the last two years at a time when officer numbers were rising may be accounted for by increased use of locally recruited support staff who do not figure in central MI5 statistics. Security Service, pp. 323–4.
26 Ibid., pp. 396–7.
27 Recollections of a former Security Service officer. Security Service Archives. On Jane Archer’s earlier career in the Service, see above, pp. 122, 128, 131.
28 See below, pp. 265ff.
29 Guy Liddell wrote in his diary on 18 Nov. 1940, ‘I heard today that Jane had been sacked for insubordination. This is a very serious blow to us all. There is no doubt that she was on completely the wrong leg but somehow I feel that the incident should not have happened. I am trying to think whether there is anything to be done.’ If Liddell did intervene, he was clearly unsuccessful.
30 Guy Liddell diary, 5 Nov. 1947.
31 See below, pp. 236, 343.
32 Rothschild wrote in September 1941: ‘Before the new arrangements as regards women in the office, it was agreed that Miss Sherer should be an officer.’ Security Service Archives.
33 See above, pp. 179ff. Since 1937 Knight’s section had been known as B5b. In 1940 it became B5. In August 1941, according to a staff list, it was ‘transferred to DG staff and renamed MS’.
34 Miller later revealed her role in One Girl’s War.
35 See below, pp. 224–5.
36 Security Service Archives.
37 [Maxwell Knight], ‘M.S. Report’, TNA KV 4/227. In a note of October 1942 Knight said that he ‘counted as officers’ the two women (one of whom was Joan Miller) on his staff of eleven.
38 See above, pp. 80–81.
39 Guy Liddell diary, 30 Aug. 1939.
40 Security Service, pp. 149–50.
41 Further MI5 and police investigations led to a rise in the numbers of those interned to a total of about 2,000 by May 1940. Wilson, ‘War in the Dark’, pp. 59–60.
42 Security Service, pp. 149–50.
43 Guy Liddell, 1943, minute in D. G. White Lecture Notes, TNA KV 4/170.
44 Ibid., 17 Dec. 1939. Wilson, ‘War in the Dark’, p. 61.
45 Security Service, p
. 148.
46 Ibid., ch. 4, part 1.
47 Wasserstein, Britain and the Jews of Europe, p. 88. Gilbert, Finest Hour, p. 342. Cross, Swinton, p. 225.
48 McLaine, Ministry of Morale, pp. 74, 80–1.
49 ‘Summary of the work of B3 sections during the war 1939–1945. An investigation of markings on telegraph poles for suspected codes’, TNA KV 4/12.
50 ‘Report on the use of Carrier Pigeons by the German Intelligence Service, 1940–1941’; ‘Report on the operations of B3 C in connection with suspected communication with the enemy by the use of carrier pigeons, during 1939–1945’, TNA KV 4/10.
51 Wilson, ‘War in the Dark’. Minute by Petrie, 13 April 1946; Minute no. 27 on Curry History, TNA KV 4/3.
52 See above, p. 53.
53 Andrew, Secret Service, p. 667.
54 Minute by Petrie, 13 April 1946; Minute no. 27 on Curry History, TNA KV 4/3.
55 ‘Recommendations of the Chiefs of Staff’, WP(40)168, TNA CAB 65/7. Wilson, ‘War in the Dark’, p. 62.
56 Guy Liddell diary, 25 May 1940.
57 Muggeridge, Chronicles of Wasted Time, vol. 2, p. 108.
58 The best analysis of the Kent/Wolkoff case is Quinlan, ‘Human Intelligence Tradecraft and MI5 Operations in Britain’, ch. 5. My own account draws on Dr Quinlan’s.
59 ‘Proofs of statements for the case WOLKOFF’, 11 June 1940, Proof 1, statement of M/Y, TNA KV 2/841, s. 140c.
60 Dorril, Blackshirt, pp. 450, 492. Thurlow, Fascism in Modern Britain, p. 53.
61 ‘Proofs of statements for the case WOLKOFF’, 11 June 1940, Proof 1, statement of M/Y, TNA KV 2/841, s. 140c. Bearse and Read, Conspirator, p. 134. Liddell succeeded Harker as head of B Division in June 1940.
62 [Knight], ‘M.S. Report’, TNA KV 4/227. On Joyce, see above, pp. 193–4.
63 ‘Proofs of statements for the case WOLKOFF’, 11 June 1940, Proof 1, statement of M/Y, TNA KV 2/841, s. 140c.
64 Ibid.
65 ‘From M/Y re Anna and Kira WOLKOFF’, 16 May 1940, TNA KV 2/840, s. 49a.
66 ‘Proofs of statements for the case WOLKOFF’, 11 June 1940, Proof 1, statement of M/Y, TNA KV 2/841, s. 140c.
67 Bearse and Read, Conspirator, p. 129.
68 B5b (Knight) report on visit to US embassy, 19 May 1940, TNA KV 2/840, s. 57a. ‘Case of Anna Wolkoff, Tyler Kent, and Others’, 22 May 1940, TNA KV 2/840, s. 57g. ‘From Foreign Office enclosing memorandum on Kent case by the United States Government’, 29 Aug. 1944 (report dated 17 Aug. 1944), TNA KV 2/544, s. 86a. ‘Tyler Kent’, June 1944, TNA FO 371/38704, s. 2. ‘Report by M.K. re interview with KENT’, 28 May 1940, TNA KV 2/840, s. 80a. Griffiths, Patriotism Perverted, pp. 125–42. Quinlan, ‘Human Intelligence Tradecraft and MI5 Operations in Britain’, pp. 236–7.