69 ‘B.5b report on interrogation of Tyler KENT, at the American Embassy’, 20 May 1940, TNA KV 2/543, s. 22a.
70 Bearse and Read, Conspirator, pp. 6, 164; Leutze, ‘Secret of the Churchill–Roosevelt Correspondence’, p. 467.
71 Gilbert, Finest Hour, pp. 485–6. After Kent and Wolkoff had been tried in camera, the press were allowed into the Old Bailey on 7 November, after Roosevelt’s re-election, to see them sentenced to, respectively, seven and ten years’ imprisonment.
72 Guy Liddell diary, 21 May 1940.
73 War Cabinet minutes, 22 May 1940, TNA CAB 65/7. Wilson, ‘War in the Dark’, p. 79.
74 Dorril, Blackshirt, p. 500.
75 Wilson, ‘War in the Dark’, p. 73.
76 TNA KV 2/898.
77 Cross, Swinton, pp. 225–9. As deputy chairman Swinton brought in the former MI5 officer Joseph Ball from Conservative Central Office.
78 Wilson, ‘War in the Dark’, p. 72.
79 Security Service Archives.
80 Security Service, p. 163.
81 Sir Horace Wilson, ‘Security Service’, 11 June 1940, Cabinet Office papers.
82 Kell diary, 10 June 1940, IWM Kell papers.
83 Kell to Cadogan, 8 Dec. 1938, Cabinet Office papers.
84 Holt-Wilson to Lady Holt-Wilson, 11 June 1940; Lady Holt-Wilson to Sir Eric Holt-Wilson, 12 June 1940, CUL Holt-Wilson papers.
85 Kell to Cadogan, 8 Dec. 1938, Cabinet Office papers.
86 Cadogan to Sir Warren Fisher, 23 Dec. 1938, Cabinet Office papers. When Fisher, the chairman of the Secret Service Committee, saw Kell in January 1939, he ‘agreed that Harker was the right man to succeed’ him. Sir James Rae (Treasury) to C. Howard Smith (Foreign Office), 31 Jan. 1939, Cabinet Office papers.
87 Sir Horace Wilson to Sir James Grigg, 11 June 1940, Cabinet Office papers.
88 More precisely, Harker was to be ‘responsible to the Lord President [Chamberlain until October 1940] through [Swinton]’. In practice his dealings seem to have had been exclusively with Swinton. Sir Horace Wilson to Lord Swinton, 11 June 1940, Cabinet Office papers.
89 Eric Holt-Wilson to Audrey Holt-Wilson, 11 June 1940, CUL Holt-Wilson papers. Unwilling to serve under Harker, Holt-Wilson accepted a post in the War Office constabulary on 1 July; Holt-Wilson to Lady Holt-Wilson, 2 July 1940, CUL Holt-Wilson papers (I am grateful to Dr Nicholas Hiley for this reference).
90 Security Service Archives.
91 Christopher Andrew, interview with the late Sir Ashton Roskill, 1984.
92 Hinsley and Simkins, British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol. 4, p. 65.
93 Security Service, p. 170.
94 Security Service Archives.
95 Director General’s report on the Security Service, Feb. 1941, TNA KV 4/88.
96 Hinsley and Simkins, British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol. 4, p. 68.
97 Security Service, pp. 119–20, 145–50. Guy Liddell diary, 6 Sept. 1940.
98 Hugh Trevor-Roper, ‘The man who put intelligence into spying’, Sunday Telegraph (Review section), 9 April 1995.
99 Guy Liddell diary, 3 July 1940.
100 Wilson, ‘War in the Dark’, pp. 88–9.
101 Stammers, Civil Liberties in Britain, ch. 2. Wasserstein, Britain and the Jews of Europe, pp. 102–4. Cross, Swinton, pp. 228–30.
102 Wilson, ‘War in the Dark’, p. 82.
103 Stafford, Churchill and Secret Service, pp. 180–1.
104 Wilson, ‘War in the Dark’, p. 82.
105 Cradock, Know your Enemy, pp. 18–19.
106 TNA CAB 93/2. Wilson, ‘War in the Dark’, p. 92.
107 See above, p. 223.
108 DG (Petrie) to Eden, 26 June 1944, TNA KV 4/87.
109 ‘History of DR18b detention’, May 1945, TNA KV 4/256.
110 Security Service, p. 175.
111 Security Service Archives.
112 Work continued afterwards on eliminating unnecessary cards, destroying duplicates and amalgamating other files. The new card index, finally completed in March 1944, consisted of about one and a quarter million cards. Security Service Archives.
113 Recollections of a former Security Service officer.
114 Security Service Archives.
115 Security Service Archives.
116 Security Service Archives.
117 M. B. Heywood (Security Service) to Bursar, Keble College, 18 Oct. 1940. Keble College Archives, KC/BF 8/1/53.
118 Recollections of former Security Service officers.
119 Bursar, Keble College, to M. B. Heywood (Security Service), 3 May 1941. Heywood to Bursar, 5 May 1941, Keble College Archives, KC/BF 8/1/53. I am grateful to the College Archivist, Robert Petre, for copies of this correspondence.
120 Security Service Archives.
121 Most of the flowers were sold by the Duke and Duchess in aid of war charities. Security Service Archives.
122 Security Service Archives.
123 Recollections of a former Security Service officer.
124 Recollections of a former Security Service officer.
125 Recollections of a former Security Service officer.
126 Recollections of a former Security Service officer.
127 See below, p. 250.
128 Wilson, ‘War in the Dark’, p. 92.
129 Ibid., p. 82.
130 Churchill to Foreign and Home Secretaries, 25 Jan. 1941, TNA PREM 4/39/3. Wilson, ‘War in the Dark’, p. 93.
131 Baron Croft to Churchill, 25 Nov. 1940, TNA PREM 7/6.
132 Security Service Archives.
133 Before going to Number Ten, Lennox informed Liddell who wondered whether Lennox had been chosen to succeed Harker: ‘I . . . told him that in my view neither he nor I were suitable, and if anybody was to come in Valentine Vivian was far the best choice.’ Lennox ‘entirely agreed’. Guy Liddell diary, 26 Nov. 1940.
134 Ibid.
135 Ibid.
136 Stafford, Churchill and Secret Service, pp. 182–3. Hinsley and Simkins, British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol. 4, pp. 68–9.
137 Minute by Petrie, 13 April 1946; Minute no. 27 on Curry History, TNA KV 4/3.
138 Petrie Report, 13 Feb. 1941, TNA KV 4/88. Hinsley and Simkins, British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol. 4, p. 69.
139 Minute by Petrie, 13 April 1946; Minute no. 27 on Curry History, TNA KV 4/3. Petrie was responsible through the Security Executive to the Lord President of the Council (then Sir John Anderson) for the running of MI5 but free from interference in staff matters and its day-to-day work. Petrie’s appointment as DG was agreed at a meeting to discuss his report with Churchill, the Lord President, the Home Secretary and Swinton. Hinsley and Simkins, British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol. 4, p. 69.
140 Petrie kept a daily diary during his time as DG. After retiring in 1946, he left it in the safe of Charles Butler, Director of A Division. On Petrie’s instructions, it was destroyed in 1951. Security Service Archives.
141 While Harker was director, Butler had also served as his deputy. Sir Horace Wilson, ‘Security Service’, 11 June 1940, Cabinet Office papers.
142 Security Service, pp. 201–2. For a detailed analysis of the responsibilities of MI5’s wartime Divisions, see ibid., chs 4, 5.
143 Christopher Andrew, interview with the late Sir Dick White, 1984.
144 Christopher Andrew, interview with the late Sir Ashton Roskill, 1984.
145 Recollections of a former Security Service officer.
146 Recollections of a former Security Service officer.
147 Recollections of a former Security Service officer.
148 Security Service, p. 199.
149 See below, p. 256.
150 Masterman, Chariot Wheel, p. 212.
151 The medieval historian Christopher Cheney (later professor of medieval history at the University of Cambridge), who served in MI5 from June 1940 to October 1944, later told Christopher Andrew that he found MI5 files less gripping than the medieval manuscript
s to which he could not wait to return.
152 That is the sense of many surviving memoirs, taped interviews and correspondence from wartime members of the Service, though the least enthusiastic were less likely to put their views on record.
153 Security Service Archives. See below, p. 808.
154 Security Service Archives.
155 Petrie to Duff Cooper, 13 March 1943, TNA KV 4/83, s. 3a.
156 Hinsley and Simkins, British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol. 4, p. 288.
157 See below, p. 287.
158 Rose, Elusive Rothschild, pp. 66–9.
159 Security Service Archives.
160 Rose, Elusive Rothschild, p. 70.
161 See above, pp. 30, 36–7.
162 Andrew, introduction to Security Service, p. 3.
163 Andrew, ‘Churchill and Intelligence’, p. 182.
164 See below, p. 305.
Chapter 1: Deception
1 See above, pp. 204–5.
2 Bond (ed.), Chief of Staff, p. 223n.
3 Dear and Foot (eds), Oxford Companion to the Second World War, p. 886.
4 See above, p. 200.
5 Guy Liddell noted in his diary that Putlitz had been shown the list by ‘a member of the legation staff’ (diary, 15 Sept. 1939). In post-war interrogation the head of The Hague Abwehr station at the time, Traugott Protze, revealed that ‘In spite of a specific veto, the German ambassador confronted Putlitz with the facts [list] and Putlitz immediately fled with his servant.’ Security Service Archives.
6 Guy Liddell diary, 15 Sept. 1939.
7 Security Service Archives.
8 Security Service Archives.
9 Bland to Sinclair, 27 Oct. 1939, NMM Sinclair MSS 81/091.
10 Hankey to Sinclair, 31 Oct. 1939, NMM Sinclair MSS 81/091.
11 Andrew, ‘Secret Intelligence and British Foreign Policy’, pp. 25–6. On the Venlo affair, see also Jeffery, Official History of the Secret Intelligence Service, part IV.
12 Curry later recalled phoning SIS about the fate of Stevens and ‘his assistant’. Though personally acquainted with Stevens, he may not have known Payne Best’s name. Unpublished memoirs (unpaginated) of a former Security Service officer; Security Service Archives.
13 See above, p. 242.
14 Guy Liddell diary, 12 Nov. 1939. A later scheme to get the head of the Abwehr station in Brussels, Dr Unterberg, to recruit ‘Barton’ for operations against Britain, thus allowing her to become a double agent, though getting off to a promising start, came to nothing. Security Service Archives.
15 Dilks (ed.), Cadogan Diaries, pp. 230–33.
16 See above, pp. 200–201.
17 See above, pp. 212–13.
18 Though van Koutrik does not appear to have known the name of either Putlitz or Krüger, he was able to provide identifying details. Security Service Archives.
19 Though there is no documentary evidence on the reasons for van Koutrik’s flight to England, it is inconceivable that his Abwehr case officer, at one or more of their weekly meetings, had not explained what was expected of him if and when the SIS station returned to London. The Abwehr must have been anxious to retain the services of its only penetration agent in the British intelligence community – especially since, within the past year, van Koutrik had successfully identified the leading German agents of both SIS and MI5.
20 Security Service Archives.
21 The only operation by van Koutrik for E1c of which record survives was to investigate Dutch fishermen at Fleetwood in January 1941. Security Service Archives.
22 Security Service Archives.
23 Security Service Archives.
24 On the recruitment of Blunt, see below, p. 269.
25 Security Service Archives.
26 Security Service Archives.
27 Security Service Archives. In 1943 van Koutrik joined the Dutch navy.
28 Andrew, Secret Service, pp. 533–4.
29 Security Service Archives. On the unmasking of Captain King, the Soviet spy in the Foreign Office Communications Department, see below, pp. 263–4.
30 Security Service Archives.
31 The most important information on Hooper’s career as a German agent came from Hermann Giskes, former head of the Abwehr in the Netherlands. Security Service Archives. Giskes, who was interrogated at Camp 020 (see below. p. 250), struck ‘Tin-eye’ Stephens as one of the ablest German intelligence officers he had encountered; Hoare (ed.), Camp 020, p. 356.
32 Security Service Archives.
33 A year before the outbreak of war the Abwehr had sent to Britain ‘a private individual who had very good connections in high British government circles’, who was expected to be ‘questioned closely by the British about German policy’. With the personal approval of Canaris, he was supplied with a plausible mixture of information and disinformation likely to deceive the British. ‘Preliminary note on the use by German Intelligence of Deception as an aid to military operations’, Security Service Archives. No similar operation was mounted after the outbreak of war.
34 The continuing ability of German intelligence to run a successful deception operation was demonstrated by the SD Englandspiel in the Netherlands in 1942–3, which completely deceived SOE and cost the lives of fifty-four agents, as well as other Dutch civilians and about fifty RAF personnel. The limitations of German deception policy were shown, however, by the fact that the Englandspiel was not used for strategic deception. Dear and Foot (eds), Oxford Companion to the Second World War, pp. 338–40.
35 With the assistance of the Special Branch, the Security Service rounded up the entire resident German spy network in Britain as it existed in 1939, when it was far smaller than in August 1914. Karl Burger, Eugen Horsfall Ertz, Arthur Owens, P. W. Rapp, Stanley Scott and William Wishart were arrested on the outbreak of war, My Eriksson was interned shortly afterwards. Surviving MI5 files, however, are incomplete; there may have been other arrests. Security Service Archives. On arrests in August 1914, see above, pp. 50–51.
36 See above, p. 212. SNOW’s ten-volume file is TNA KV 2/444–53.
37 TNA KV 2/468.
38 Masterman, Double-Cross System, pp. 40–41.
39 Ibid., p. 41. B13, ‘Mathilde Caroline Krafft’, 2 Dec. 1939, TNA KV 2/701, s. 46a.
40 ‘Selected papers from the CHARLIE case’, TNA KV 2/454. Masterman, Double-Cross System, pp. 40–41.
41 Smith, ‘Bletchley Park, Double-Cross and D-Day’, pp. 283–4. Security Service, pp. 179, 207n. Holt, Deceivers, p. 127.
42 Masterman, Double-Cross System, pp. 42–3.
43 Guy Liddell diary, 19 May 1940.
44 MI5 was never certain where SNOW’s real loyalties lay. See below, p. 258.
45 Masterman, Double-Cross System, pp. 43–4.
46 ‘Mr Dick White’s lecture for new RSLO’s’, 9 Jan. 1943, p. 5, TNA KV 4/170, s. 1a.
47 Security Service Archives.
48 Obituary, T. A. Robertson, The Times, 16 May 1994. On the Invergordon Mutiny, see above, pp. 162–3.
49 Wilson, ‘War in the Dark’, p. 126.
50 Holt, Deceivers, p. 131.
51 Security Service Archives.
52 Security Service Archives.
53 Security Service Archives.
54 Security Service, pp. 232–3.
55 Masterman, Double-Cross System, p. 49.
56 Hinsley and Simkins, British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol. 4, p. 88.
57 Security Service Archives.
58 Hoare (ed.), Camp 020, p. 7. Macintyre, Agent Zigzag, pp. 113–14.
59 Hoare (ed.), Camp 020, pp. 16–17.
60 Ibid., pp. 137–40.
61 Guy Liddell diary, 22 Sept. 1940.
62 Hoare (ed.), Camp 020, p. 140n.
63 Guy Liddell diary, 3 Oct. 1943.
64 Hoare (ed.), Camp 020, p. 58.
65 Security Service, p. 229.
66 Hoare (ed.), Camp 020, p. 140. TATE later gave an alternative explanation for becoming a double agent which ma
de no mention of his fury at SUMMER’s ‘betrayal’: ‘Nobody ever asked me why I changed my mind,’ he said after the war, ‘but the reason was really very straightforward. It was simply a matter of survival. Self-preservation must be the strongest instinct in man.’ Andrew, Secret Service, p. 671.
67 TNA KV 2/61.
68 See below, pp. 300, 304, 309, 316.
69 Masterman, Double-Cross System, p. 66. Security Service, p. 250. Wilson, ‘War in the Dark’.
70 While MUTT’s deception campaigns were highly successful, his Norwegian colleague Tör Glad (JEFF), who was despatched with MUTT to Britain by the Abwehr, proved to be unreliable and was interned until 1945. Hoare (ed.), Camp 020.
71 Hinsley and Simkins, British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol. 4, p. 89.
72 A. G. Denniston (Director GC&CS) to ‘C’ (Menzies), 10 Dec. 1941, TNA HW 14. Smith, ‘Bletchley Park, Double-Cross and D-Day’, p. 287. Hinsley and Simkins, British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol. 4, p. 108. On the origins of ISOS, see above, p. 248.
73 TNA KV 2/845–66.
74 Howard, British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol. 5, pp. 18–19. The fullest accounts of GARBO’s extraordinary career are: Pujol and West, GARBO; and Seaman (ed.), GARBO.
75 Guy Liddell diary, 26 March 1942.
76 Hinsley and Simkins, British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol. 4, p. 19.
77 Complaints about Cowgill from Montagu and the War Office, wrote Dick White, ‘must prevent it being said that the attack upon Section V is due purely to M.I.5 rivalry’. Security Service Archives.
78 Security Service Archives.
79 Hinsley and Simkins, British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol. 4, p. 20.
80 Howard, British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol. 5, pp. 7–8. ‘Formation of the W. Board in connection with Special [Double] Agents, 1939–1945’, TNA KV 4/70.
81 Minutes in TNA KV 4/63.
82 Security Service Archives.
The Defence of the Realm Page 124