The Envoy

by Edward Wilson

  ‘I hope Wilson does stay out of Vietnam. If he does, it will be the first time that Britain has stood up against Washington since 1956. On the other hand, your policy on nuclear deterrence is one of complete submission to the US.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘One of your predecessors was kind enough to let me have a copy of the 1958 Mutual Defence Agreement that Britain signed with the USA. I’ve never seen such a total surrender of national sovereignty.’

  ‘Macmillan was being pragmatic. He was bowing to necessity.’

  ‘The French didn’t find it a necessity.’ Kit looked closely at his handler and wondered how far he could push her. ‘What do you know about the Orford Ness H-bomb?’

  Frances looked away, embarrassed.

  ‘Don’t pretend,’ said Kit, ‘that you don’t know. They couldn’t have made you my case officer without briefing you on the missing Sov bomb that, oops, just happened to come ashore in Suffolk.’ He paused. ‘If they didn’t brief you, I will.’

  ‘Listen, Kit, I know what happened – maybe even more than you do – but that whole business is something that no one talks about or even thinks about. It’s one of those secrets that are so sensitive that even those of us who know can’t admit we know.’ Frances smiled. ‘Even to the persons who know we know.’

  ‘What happened to that bomb? I have a right to know, Frances, it’s cost me eleven years of my life already? And I’ll probably be stuck here until I die.’

  ‘Probably. In fact, if they knew you wanted to talk about it, they might even end your life sooner.’

  ‘The bomb didn’t work, did it?’ He paused. ‘Otherwise, Macmillan wouldn’t have gone hat in hand to sign that Mutual Defence Agreement.’

  ‘Work it out yourself, Kit.’

  ‘OK, the Sovs sold you a lousy H-bomb. It was like one of those “emergency capability” H-bombs that we deployed in ’54 and ’55. Sure, they would work, but they cut a lot of corners like safety, reliability and stockpile life expectancy.’

  ‘It did work, but not brilliantly.’ She reached out and touched Kit’s hand. ‘We shouldn’t be having this conversation.’

  ‘Then let’s not have it.’

  ‘No, Kit, you have a right to know. That bomb ruined your life and killed the person you loved.’

  ‘Her death was an accident.’

  Frances didn’t say anything, she just looked at Kit. She waited for him to say something, but there were no words, only a look of pain that dulled his eyes and made him shrink within himself. She went back to the bomb question because it hurt him less. ‘Have you heard of Operation Grapple?’

  ‘Only what I read in six-month-old copies of The Times. Wasn’t Grapple a series of bomb tests that you carried out in the Pacific? They were in the spring of ’57, not long after Macmillan took over from Eden after the Suez humiliation.’

  ‘That’s right. But The Times didn’t tell you that the test was faked.’

  Kit smiled. ‘Perfidious Albion.’

  ‘We had two experimental H-bombs that were based on the second-hand Soviet one that was still stashed away on Orford Ness. The scientists even used some components from the Russian original – like the sheep farmers around here cannibalise worn-out Land Rovers. The trial H-bombs were called Green Granite Small and Purple Granite. The problem was that no one was sure that they were actually going to go boom. A failure would have been really embarrassing – and another British humiliation hard on the heels of Suez. So the scientists cooked up a massive old-fashioned atomic bomb that they named Orange Herald. The big A-bomb was dressed up as an H-bomb and guaranteed to show the world a super bang if the real H-bombs failed.’

  ‘And the H-bombs did fail?’

  ‘No, but they only went “pop” instead of “bang” and “kapow”.’ In theory, an H-bomb should be a hundred times more powerful than an A-bomb, but Green and Purple Granite produced a combined kiloton yield less than half that of Orange Herald. The Russian bomb failed us. They duped us for fifty million pounds in hard currency. There were no corrupt KGB agents – it was a con trick directed by the Kremlin.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘Poor you, Kit – the Russians fed stuff to you to make us think the Kremlin was panicking about a stolen bomb.’

  ‘So after the Russians tricked you with a duff bomb, you swallowed your pride and went begging to the Americans.’

  ‘That’s your view, but in the meantime our scientists learned from failure and did explode some viable H-bombs by the end of ’57.’

  ‘But Blue Steel, the bomb you finally deployed, was just a US Mark 28 with a Union Jack logo.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I got one of your predecessors drunk.’

  ‘I know you can’t be trusted, but I still like you. Can I stay with you again tonight? It doesn’t matter that the bed’s so narrow.’

  The affair continued for three years. Frances managed to persuade her superiors that Kit’s intelligence assessments and inside knowledge of the Washington establishment were worth three or four visits a year. Her marriage continued to deteriorate – and there were money problems too. The worse thing was that she saw the effect it was having on her children. They all needed a change. She left MI6 for a well-paid job in the City. They bought a farmhouse in Suffolk that they did up for weekends and holidays. Things were a little better. The marriage was stumbling along towards the finishing tape: that blessed day when the youngest finishes university. She wrote a long letter to Kit explaining all this. He didn’t answer. His new agent handler only came to Stanley once every two years – and it was a welfare visit rather than an intelligence gathering one.

  On the eve of his sixtieth birthday, Kit was summoned to Port Stanley. A lot of changes had occurred in the last two years. In the 1982 war there had been little action on West Falkland. In fact, there had been no fighting at all. Part of the reason for the peaceful outcome was that Kit had persuaded a vainglorious Argentine colonel to surrender without firing a shot. The negotiations had taken place in the early hours of the morning over a bottle of Fundador Brandy. The colonel was convinced that Kit was a Guatemalan naturalist who had been stranded on the island when hostilities broke out. The British were grateful for Kit’s intervention.

  When Kit got to Port Stanley he was told to go to Government House instead of the usual sheep station. He was greeted by the Governor with a bottle of champagne. There was also a representative from MI6. It was a small birthday celebration – only the three of them. They had a present for Kit: a British passport and the freedom to leave.

  Kit’s new passport was in the name of Patrick Louis Ferrar, although he still called himself Kit. He spoiled several cheques before he remembered to sign them P. L. Ferrar. He liked his new initials, PLF, the acronym for Parachute Landing Fall. The art of the PLF was landing on the balls of your feet with slightly bent knees, then twisting your body in a ballet gesture of consummate grace so that calf, thigh and the fleshy back muscles next to your armpit absorbed the force of your landing. PLF, how apt. The art of coming back to earth in one piece.

  Kit spent a fortnight in a London safe house learning about his new identity and the precautions he would have to take. He felt uneasy in London after so many years. It was a different country and he knew no one. And there was also something that haunted him, something that he wanted to know. On the last day of the ‘re-orientation course’, Kit began to ask his agent handler a question, but then stopped. ‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s not really any of my business.’

  Although Kit was twenty-eight years older and his black hair flecked with grey, he still was recognisable as Counsellor Fournier. Kit began to grow a beard and let his hair grow long to give himself the air of a retired academic or art lecturer. He wanted to slop about in a derelict farmhouse wearing espadrilles, torn jeans and a smock as he painted watercolours. With the help of an MI6 handler who had been brought up near Halesworth, Kit found a cottage overlooking a Suffolk river valley. He spent most of the
first week just loving the trees. It had been so long since he had seen trees. He watched their branches tossing in the wind; he smelled them and caressed their trunks; he stroked their leaves and fondled their fruit.

  Kit was picking plums when a car stopped at the bottom of his garden. He frowned. It was probably another nosey pest demanding something for the Harvest Festival or selling a ticket to some ghastly concert. He picked an overripe plum from his basket and began to take aim at the driver’s window. He wanted to cultivate his image as a grumpy loner, but the plum was still in his hand when the woman started walking up the path. Frances was now in her fifties. ‘Would you like a plum?’ he said.

  She put the fruit in her mouth, then removed the stone.

  Kit reached forward. ‘I’ll take that.’ The plum stone was warm and wet with her saliva. He closed his palm tight around it.

  ‘They told me you were here – I don’t live far myself.’

  Kit looked away: his face was a blank.

  Frances touched his arm. ‘That empty look of yours frightens me.’

  ‘Sorry, it’s not meant to.’

  ‘Why don’t you have supper with me this evening?’ She squeezed his arm. ‘Don’t look so nervous.’

  ‘Why don’t you come here instead? I like to cook.’

  ‘Is it because you’ll feel safer?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Frances looked closely at Kit and saw, for the first time, his fear and shame. His experiences hadn’t broken him: he’d been broken from the start.

  Epilogue

  TO: SECURITY SERVICE 100 IMMEDIATE

  LEDGER: S E C R E T/DELICATE SOURCE /UK EYES ALPHA

  LEDGER DISTRIBUTION:

  FCO – PUSD

  CABINET OFFICE – JIC

  REPORT NO: CX 82/80949 (R/UK/C)

  TITLE: Guidelines for Directors Supervising Agent Handlers Assigned to

  PF/HAWKSBEARD

  SUMMARY

  HAWKSBEARD has been repatriated to the UK for humanitarian reasons. He was originally known as Kitson Fournier, but now goes under the name of Patrick Louis Ferrar for reasons of personal protection. During his recruitment process, and at various times since, Fournier/Farrar has been fed plausible explanations for events surrounding TURNSTONE. These explanations were largely based on half-truths and misinformation fabricated to create the atmosphere of ‘trust’ necessary to recruit Fournier/ Farrar as a UK intelligence provider. It is essential that personnel working with Fournier/Farrar are familiar with his ‘version of events’ and do nothing to make him doubt their veracity. It is not our wish that Fournier/Farrar be detained in permanent isolation, but knowledge of any of the following areas of intelligence would make such detention inevitable.

  During the recruitment of Fournier/Farrar, Director White truthfully revealed that Jennifer and Brian Handley were serving SIS officers. The Director did not, however, inform Fournier/ Farrar that the couple were also part of the UK/USA spy ring that passed atom bomb secrets to the Soviet Union in the late 1940s. Brian Handley first came under suspicion in 1949, but betrayed his fellow scientist spy, Klaus Fuchs, to preserve his own cover and credibility. Handley’s top secret security clearance was restored on the advice of Harold ‘Kim’ Philby, who was at the time SIS/CIA liaison. There is, however, no evidence that Brian Handley was a committed Marx-Leninist. He seems to have been motivated solely by greed.

  Fournier/Farrar was also given misinformation concerning the deaths of Brian and Jennifer Handley. Their deaths had nothing to do with a bondage game that went wrong. They were executed by MOD security police who later claimed to have been acting under the instructions of (…name removed to protect security…). None of these executions was authorised by Director White – and, indeed, such non-judicial executions fall outside the guidelines by which all UK security services operate. The investigation carried out by the MOD Tribunal and Inquiries Unit decided that the security police could not offer sufficient evidence to prove that they were acting on the orders of (…name removed to protect security…). The security police were subsequently informed that they would be court-martialled for murder and rape. They were, however, offered the alternative of a resettlement package and new identities – which they accepted. It has since been verified that both men died while fighting as mercenaries in the Congo.

  When (…name removed to protect security…) first came under suspicion of being a Soviet spy, he successfully denied all charges and continued in post until his retirement in (…deleted…). As more evidence came to light, (…name removed to protect security…) was again interrogated by D Branch – and finally confessed in exchange for immunity from prosecution. The following facts emerged from subsequent debriefings:

  1 Brian and Jennifer Handley had been warned several weeks before their deaths that they were in danger of being named as spies by a KGB defector. The warning came from Vasili Galanin, the KGB London rezidentura, who also informed (…name removed to protect security…) of the situation.

  2 The Handleys’ escape plan to Moscow was delayed by Jennifer Handley who had fallen in love with Henry Knowles and was trying to persuade Knowles to accompany them to Moscow. (The Handleys believed in open marriage and sexual experimentation.)

  3 Brian Handley reported to (…name removed to protect security…) that his wife had confided their situation to Knowles. (…name removed to protect security…) denies that he knew of any plan to murder Knowles.

  4 Before he was kidnapped and killed, Henry Knowles contacted the Security Service and fully reported the situation.

  5 (…name removed to protect security…) soon learned of Knowles’s report and knew that the Handleys would be unable to escape arrest. He knew that it was almost certain that one or both would break under interrogation and that he and others would be identified as Soviet agents. (…name removed to protect security…) therefore arranged their execution, an act that he describes as a ‘regretful and awful decision’.

  SOURCE COMMENT

  The aim of any handler dealing with Fournier/Farrar is to assure that he live out his days anonymously and quietly. It is essential that the press and media remain unaware of his background and presence. Press speculation about ‘vast conspiracies to deceive’ or a ‘Secret State’ can only damage the image of the Security Service and the SIS – and, therefore, our ability to act effectively.

  Fournier/Farrar seems to have developed an emotional attachment to his current agent handler. He appears to trust her and is willing to accept her advice and guidance.

  Acknowledgements

  First of all, I want to thank Dr John Puddifoot for suggesting Orford Ness as a setting for a novel. I am also grateful to David Davison for his insights about politicians in the 1950s and for books from his library. Likewise, I am indebted to Professor George Wickes for his accounts of the events that took place in Saigon in 1945. Anthony Parsons provided valuable recollections of Soviet musicians during the Cold War, as did Dr Chris Grogan at the Britten-Pears Library in Aldeburgh. John and Angie Gardiner must be mentioned for sharing the secrets of Butley Creek. And, of course, I must thank Angeline Rothermundt for her valuable editorial advice as well as Gary Pulsifer and Daniela de Groote for their continued support. Finally, I want to acknowledge the following books and sources. The one book for which I feel a particular debt is Peter Hennessey’s excellent history of the 1950s, Having It So Good.

  Britten, Benjamin. Noye’s Fludde, op.59, The Chester Miracle Play Set to Music. Boosey & Hawkes, London, 1961

  Davies, Barry; Gordievsky, Oleg; Tomlinson, Richard. The Spycraft Manual: The Insider’s Guide to Espionage Techniques. Zenith Press, 2005

  Eliot, T.S. Collected Poems 1909-1962. Faber and Faber, London, 1974

  Hennessy, Peter. Having it so Good: Britain in the Fifties. Penguin Allen Lane, London, 2006

  Grose, Peter. Gentleman Spy: Life of Allen Dulles. University of Massachusetts Press: New Ed. Edition, 1996

  Henderson, Joe; Clark, Leslie; Clark, Petula; Valentine, David.
‘Meet Me in Battersea Park’, 1954

  Hitchens, Christopher. Blood, Class and Nostalgia: Anglo-American Ironies. Vintage, London, 1991

  James, Robert Rhodes. Anthony Eden. Macmillan PAPERMAC, London, 1987

  Jarrell, Randall. The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner. From The Penguin Book of Modern American Verse edited by Geoffrey Moore. Penguin Books, London, 1954

  Keever, Beverley Deepe. ‘Un-Remembered Origins of “Nuclear Holocaust”: World’s First Thermonuclear Explosion of Nov. 1, 1952. Originally published by the Honolulu Weekly, October 30, 2002

  Kilmer, Joyce. Trees and Other Poems, George H. Doran Company, 1914

  Levy, Shaun. The Last Playboy: The High Life of Porfirio Rubirosa. Fourth Estate, London, 2005

  Llosa, Mario Vargas, The Feast of the Goat (translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossman). Faber and Faber, London, 2003

  McDowell, Dr R.M. ‘West Falkland: field notes on sites selected for fishery assessment.’ The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, Christchurch, New Zealand, 1999

  McTaggart, Lynne. Kathleen Kennedy, The Untold Story of Jack’s Favourite Sister. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1984

  Mailer, Norman. Harlot’s Ghost. Michael Joseph, London, 1991

  Marquez, Abelardo “Abe”. ‘Operation Ivy – The Testing of the Hydrogen Bomb’ from Atomic Veterans History Project, March 29, 2007

  Newall, Venetia. Discovering the Folklore of Birds and Beasts, Shire Publications, Tring, Herts, 1971

  The Frank Olson Legacy Project Website, for its copy of the CIA Assassination Manual of 1953

  Orwell, George. 1984. Penguin Books, London, 1990

  Owen, The Rt Hon Lord David, CH. ‘Diseased, demented, depressed: serious illness in Heads of State’. An occasional paper based on a 2002 lecture published in QJM: An International Journal of Medicine, Volume 96, Number 5, Oxford, 2003