The Defence of the Realm
Page 134
53 Recollections of Sir Michael Hanley.
54 Security Service Archives. There was, however, a willingness to consider ‘near-miss’ CSSB candidates, some of whom might turn out to have the qualities required for security and intelligence work.
55 Security Service Archives.
56 Security Service Archives.
57 Morgan, Callaghan, pp. 611–12.
58 Security Service Archives.
59 There were some teething problems with the new system. Rather than direct candidates to a specific grade, it was left to the CSSB to determine the level of entry. It was concluded that Grade 5 boards might be pitched too high for the purposes of the Service: ‘I think there may be some grounds for looking at our criteria to see if we have not gone for “superman”, while 9b, (where there were more passes) seems like “the poor relation”.’ Security Service Archives.
60 Recollections of a former Security Service officer.
61 The remark was in fact attributed not to a president but to Henry Stimson when US secretary of state in 1929. Whether or not Stimson actually articulated this celebrated remark, he would almost certainly have endorsed it (though he later changed his mind). Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only, pp. 72–3, 106–8.
62 Security Service Archives. On Manningham-Buller, see below, pp. 776, 814–15.
63 See below, p. 776.
64 Recollections of a former Security Service officer. ‘DG does not want long briefs’; Security Service Archives.
65 Recollections of Sir Patrick Walker. Walker does, however, give Smith credit for making the attempt – albeit unsuccessful – to communicate with senior staff at the outset of his term of office.
66 Security Service Archives.
67 Christopher Andrew, interview with Sir David Goodall, 22 July 2005. Lady Smith died in 1982.
68 Recollections of a former Security Service officer. An A Branch veteran similarly recalls that Smith ‘did not want to dirty his hands with operations . . . He never went to [A Branch] presentations, he left all that to John Jones.’
69 Recollections of a former Security Service officer.
70 Home Office Archives.
71 Home Office Archives.
72 Home Office Archives.
73 Home Office Archives. The lack of MI5 career planning, Sir Brian Cubbon (PUS Home Office) reported, had been discovered at the time of Jones’s appointment.
74 Security Service Archives.
75 Security Service Archives. Obituary, Sir John Jones, Daily Telegraph, 11 March 1998.
76 Recollections of a former Security Service officer.
77 Security Service Archives.
78 Recollections of a former Security Service officer. ‘John Jones had quite a good sense of humour once you got to know him.’ Few, however, did.
79 Recollections of a former Security Service officer.
80 Recollections of a former Security Service officer.
81 See below, pp. 714ff.
82 Recollections of a former Security Service officer.
83 Home Office Archives.
84 Security Service Archives. Rimington, Open Secret, p. 178.
85 Home Office Archives.
86 Home Office Archives.
87 Home Office Archives.
88 Recollections of a former Security Service officer.
89 Recollections of a former Security Service officer.
90 Ian Black, ‘The spy catchers strike a new note’, Guardian, July 1984; copy (with further handwritten details) attached to recollections of a former Security Service officer.
91 Smith, New Cloak, Old Dagger, pp. 66–8.
92 Rimington, Open Secret, p. 76.
93 Security Service Archives.
94 Security Service Archives.
95 Security Service Archives.
96 Security Service Archives.
97 Security Service Archives.
98 ‘Promotion in the 1970s and early 1980s was, in some cases, influenced by length of service. This changed with the reforms of the mid-1980s.’ Security Service Archives.
99 Recollections of a former Security Service officer.
100 See below, p. 702.
101 Recollections of Sir Patrick Walker.
102 Rimington, Open Secret, pp. 215–16.
103 Security Service Archives.
104 Security Service Archives.
105 Security Service Archives.
106 Home Office Archives.
107 Home Office Archives.
108 Home Office Archives.
109 Home Office Archives.
110 See below, pp. 763–5.
111 Home Office Archives.
112 Parl. Deb. (Commons), 2 Nov. 1987, col. 508; 3 Nov. 1987, col. 781.
113 Home Office Archives.
114 See below, pp. 766–8.
Chapter 1: Operation FOOT and Counter-Espionage in the 1970s
1 Security Service Archives. Recollections of a former Security Service officer.
2 Security Service Archives.
3 Security Service Archives.
4 Security Service Archives.
5 Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, pp. 327–38.
6 Security Service Archives.
7 Heath, Course of my Life, pp. 474–5. Thorpe, Douglas-Home, pp. 415–16.
8 Walden, Lucky George, p. 144.
9 Security Service Archives. On KGB Operation PROBA against Courtney, see Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, pp. 530–31.
10 Baston, Reggie, p. 405. Walden, Lucky George, p. 143.
11 Security Service Archives.
12 Documents on British Policy Overseas, series III, vol. I, pp. 337–43, 359. Maudling later admitted to cabinet colleagues that his early opposition to proposals for FOOT had been misjudged. Baston, Reggie, p. 405.
13 Security Service Archives.
14 Thorpe, Douglas-Home, p. 416.
15 Security Service Archives.
16 Security Service Archives.
17 On Department V, founded in 1967, see Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, ch. 23. Golitsyn had provided some intelligence on the FCD Thirteenth Department, the predecessor of Department V, after his defection to the CIA late in 1961. However, Lyalin supplied ‘the first detailed evidence’ of the presence of Department V officers in the London residency as well as of illegals support officers. Security Service Archives. When stationed in residencies these officers were known respectively as Line F and Line N.
18 Security Service Archives. The two Savins were not related.
19 Security Service Archives.
20 Security Service Archives.
21 Security Service Archives.
22 Security Service Archives.
23 Security Service Archives.
24 Security Service Archives.
25 Security Service Archives. When the GLC Licensing Department was transferred to the Department of the Environment in 1970, Abdoolcader became a civil servant, signing the Official Secrets Act in July.
26 On Britten, see above, p. 537.
27 Security Service Archives.
28 Documents on British Policy Overseas, series III, vol. I, pp. 388–9. On Ippolitov’s status as a KGB agent, see Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, p. 547.
29 Walden, Lucky George, p. 148.
30 Documents on British Policy Overseas, series III, vol. I, p. 389n.
31 Contrary to some predictions, Operation FOOT caused no lasting damage to British–Soviet relations. In December 1973 Douglas-Home was invited to visit Moscow and Gromyko came to the airport to meet him. During the visit Gromyko toasted Douglas-Home and the British delegation ‘at every opportunity’. Thorpe, Douglas-Home, pp. 417, 434.
32 Barron, KGB, pp. 413–15. Kuzichkin, Inside the KGB, p. 81.
33 Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, p. 546.
34 Kalugin, Spymaster, pp. 131–2.
35 Security Service Archives. Voronin’s dismissal is also recalled by Gordievsky, Next Stop Execution, p.
184.
36 Obituary, Oleg Lyalin, The Times, 24 Feb. 1995.
37 Security Service Archives.
38 Security Service Archives.
39 Security Service Archives.
40 Security Service Archives.
41 Obituary, Antony Lambton, ‘Raffish aristocrat caught out in Seventies sex scandal’, The Week, 13 Jan. 2007. Lambton renounced the earldom of Durham, which he inherited from his father in 1970, in the interests of his political career, but caused controversy by attempting to keep the courtesy title ‘Lord Lambton’ in the Commons.
42 Security Service Archives.
43 Security Service Archives.
44 Sheldon, however, added that, though the Service had been briefed orally by the Met, it had not yet seen the latest written reports on the case and ‘could not therefore be absolutely sure that we had taken full account’ of the latest information. Security Service Archives.
45 John Stradling Thomas MP to Francis Pym (Chief Whip), 14 May 1973 (marked ‘Immediate copy to PM 2–15 pm 14 May 1973’), TNA PREM 15/190.
46 Record of meeting chaired by Prime Minister, 18 May 1973, TNA PREM 15/1904.
47 TNA PREM 15/1904. ‘Obituary: Lord Lambton’, The Times, 2 Jan. 2007. On 13 June at the Marylebone Magistrates’ Court, Lambton was fined £300 for illegal possession of cannabis and amphetamines.
48 Security Service Archives.
49 BBC News (online), ‘Sex scandal Tory blamed pressure’, 1 Jan. 2004, quoting newly declassified government documents. Obituary, Antony Lambton, ‘Raffish aristocrat caught out in Seventies sex scandal’, The Week, 13 Jan. 2007.
50 BBC News (online), ‘Sex scandal Tory blamed pressure’, 1 Jan. 2004, quoting newly declassified government documents.
51 Security Service Archives.
52 Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, p. 546.
53 Some of the KGB officers who were expelled from, or denied entry to, Britain were redeployed to Commonwealth capitals with substantial British expatriate communities – notably Delhi, Colombo, Dar-es-Salaam, Lagos and Lusaka. The FCD files seen by Vasili Mitrokhin suggest that few significant recruitments resulted. Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, pp. 547–8.
54 Security Service Archives. Ramelson was subject to an HOW, occasionally supplemented by A4 surveillance to monitor particular meetings.
55 Security Service Archives.
56 Rosen, Old Labour to New, p. 441.
57 Security Service Archives.
58 Security Service Archives.
59 Security Service Archives. Ramelson told Gollan, the CPGB leader, that the TUC had made ‘the biggest fucking mess’ of the meeting. Security Service Archives.
60 Security Service Archives.
61 Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, p. 450.
62 Security Service Archives.
63 Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, p. 450. On the KGB’s resumption of contact with Prime in 1980 and his arrest in 1982, see below, pp. 712–13.
64 See above, p. 183.
65 Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, p. 548.
66 A Home Office briefing (not based on Security Service material) after the publication of The Mitrokhin Archive, claimed that Mrs Norwood was not employed by BNFMRA in 1945. This claim is disproved by Burke, The Spy Who Came in from the Co-op, p. 9.
67 Security Service Archives.
68 Burke, The Spy Who Came in from the Co-op, p. 64.
69 Security Service Archives.
70 Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, p. 168.
71 Security Service Archives. On pre-war reports on Norwood, see above, pp. 182–3.
72 Security Service Archives.
73 Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, p. 519.
74 Ibid., pp. 152–3. Burke, The Spy Who Came in from the Co-op, chs 10–12.
75 Security Service Archives. The claim in a file summary a generation later that, ‘though the checks provided no proof and were discontinued after a year’, ‘the officers investigating her case [in 1965–6] strongly suspected that she was a KGB agent,’ is at variance with the conclusion of D1/Inv in 1966. Security Service Archives.
76 Though the BNFRMA currently had no classified contracts, Mrs Norwood’s boss was a member of a top-secret Admiralty Committee. D1/Inv noted, ‘It is fairly obvious that it would not be too difficult for her to find out something about the work if she was so minded.’ But ‘She is clearly regarded as reliable and a pillar of the firm, which is not surprising after so many years’ service.’ Security Service Archives.
77 Security Service Archives.
78 A proposal to interview Letty Norwood in 1968 was rejected on the grounds that there was no prospect of persuading her to admit involvement with the KGB at any stage of her career. Security Service Archives.
79 Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, p. 519.
80 Security Service Archives.
81 Security Service Archives.
82 Security Service Archives.
83 Burke, The Spy Who Came in from the Co-op, p. 164.
84 Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, p. 548.
85 Ibid., pp. xxv–xxvii, 548.
86 Ibid., p. 548.
87 Security Service Archives.
88 Security Service Archives.
89 Security Service Archives. The intelligence on NAGIN later provided by Mitrokhin added little to what the Security Service had already discovered.
90 Security Service Archives. The Attorney General concluded in 1996 that there was no admissible evidence against YUNG and therefore no prospect of successful prosecution.
91 Security Service Archives.
92 Security Service Archives.
93 Security Service Archives.
94 Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, p. 549.
95 Security Service Archives.
96 Security Service Archives.
97 John Steele, ‘25 years for the Spy Who Stayed in the Cold’, Daily Telegraph, 18 November 1993.
98 Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, p. 550.
99 Report of the Security Commission (Cm 2930), July 1995.
100 Security Service Archives.
101 Security Service Archives.
102 Director K wrote in 1994: ‘The message from the defector reports – particularly in the mid 1980s – is consistent: exceptions could be made, there was no ban on former members etc.’ Security Service Archives.
103 Report of the Security Commission (Cm 2930), July 1995, chs 2–4.
104 Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, pp. 550–51.
105 Ibid., pp. 551–2.
106 ‘ “Boring” idealist who spied for Russia gets 25 years’, The Times, 19 Nov. 1993.
107 Report of the Security Commission, July 1995 (Cm 2930). Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, pp. 552–3.
108 Though Smith was tried only on charges relating to his espionage between 1990 and 1992, the Security Commission concluded that ‘the most serious of Smith’s known espionage activities occurred whilst he was working for EMI.’ Report of the Security Commission, July 1995 (Cm 2930).
109 Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, p. 550.
110 Ibid., pp. 283–4.
111 Polmar and Allen, Spy Book, p. 83.
112 Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, p. 724. In 1980, 61.5 per cent of all Soviet S&T came from American sources, 10.5 per cent from West Germany, 8 per cent from France and 7.5 per cent from the UK. These statistics, however, do not tell the full story since they include material obtained from unclassified as well as classified sources. Hanson, Soviet Industrial Espionage. Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, p. 597.
Chapter 2: The Heath Government and Subversion
1 Heath, Course of my Life, pp. 473–4.
2 Ibid., p. 321.
3 Security Service Archives.
4 Security Service Archives.
5 Security Service Archives.
6 Security Service Archives.
7
Security Service Archives.
8 Security Service Archives.
9 Security Service Archives.
10 Heath, Course of my Life, p. 334.
11 Security Service Archives.
12 Security Service Archives.
13 Security Service Archives.
14 Security Service Archives.
15 Security Service Archives.
16 Security Service Archives.
17 Security Service Archives.
18 Security Service Archives.
19 Security Service Archives.
20 Heath, Course of my Life, p. 350.
21 Campbell, Heath, pp. 412–13.
22 Ibid., p. 413.
23 The Service had obtained an HOW on McGahey in October 1970 on the grounds that he was likely ‘at least covertly [to] encourage unofficial strike action with the [Communist] Party’s support’. The intercept warrant was cancelled in November 1970 when the prospect of strike action diminished, but was reimposed in October 1971 when the likelihood of a major NUM strike increased, beginning with an overtime ban in the following month. Security Service Archives.
24 Security Service Archives.
25 Beckett, Enemy Within, pp. 152–3, 158.
26 After membership of the Young Communist League, Daly had joined the CPGB in 1940 at the age of sixteen but resigned in 1956 at the time of the Hungarian Uprising. In 1964 he defeated a Communist candidate to become general secretary of the Scottish Area NUM. Daly’s election as NUM general secretary in 1968, however, was believed by the Service to owe much to ‘active and comprehensive Communist support’ over the previous fifteen months. Security Service Archives.
27 Daly was reported to have said that McGahey was ‘on the road to corruption . . . This sort of boozing at union expense and putting him up [in] hotels and so on had been going on for a long time in Scotland but it was wrong.’ Security Service Archives.
28 Security Service Archives.
29 Security Service Archives.
30 Security Service Archives.
31 Scargill had first come to Security Service attention as a member of the Barnsley branch of the Young Communist League in 1955, though he later left the Party. Security Service Archives.
32 Campbell, Heath, pp. 413–14.
33 Ibid.
34 Hennessy and Jeffery, States of Emergency, p. 235.
35 See above, pp. 139–40.
36 Security Service Archives.
37 Security Service Archives.
38 Security Service Archives.