The Forgotten Spy

by Nick Barratt

  At the time of the Versailles Treaty, this was not a baseless concern; all across Europe, new countries were born while old ones were torn apart as the effects of Versailles were played out. Germany itself had witnessed this first-hand with its November revolution of 1918 being followed by the rise of socialist politics that stopped just short of embracing communism. The establishment of the Weimar Republic in 1919 ended any further movement in that direction. Hungary was also torn apart by internal protest driven by the working classes and the Hungarian Soviet Republic was established in 1919. However, the regime collapsed within months without support from their comrades in Russia.

  Russian inability to assist another nascent communist regime was due to the increasingly brutal civil war being fought between the revolutionary Red Army of the Bolsheviks and the anti-communist White Army. The latter were initially aided by Allied troops, which increased the hostility of the Bolshevik leaders towards western states thereafter. However, western enthusiasm for prolonged military involvement waned in 1919 and by 1920 the White Army was defeated in most of Russia’s associated provinces. It would be a further two years before Siberia and the far east were fully under Red control. Nevertheless, many former Russian provinces gained independence – Poland, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia – while others were only subdued through the Red Terror. Oppression and atrocities such as torture and massacres were employed in places such as the Ukraine to ensure compliance to the new political system. It is not officially known how many people died, but a conservative estimate put casualties in the hundreds of thousands.

  It was the Bolshevik state security organisation, the Cheka, which undertook the repression. Created by Lenin on 20 December 1917 as the ‘All-Russian Emergency Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage’, its role was to fight any attempt to undermine the communist system at home, with local Cheka established in all the major cities and regions to suppress political opposition and persecute deserters from the Red Army. The result was many thousands of people fled Russia during the civil war, ending up as refugees in places such as Constantinople.

  Internal security through fear and violence was one thing but it was the stated intent of the leaders of the Russian state to export the Bolshevik revolution to the rest of the world, especially as Russia was faced by, in the words of Lenin, ‘hostile capitalist encirclement’.124 Alternative mechanisms were needed to spread communism within other nation states and thus the Soviet Communist International (or Comintern) was founded in 1919 to struggle ‘by all available means, including armed force, for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie and for the creation of an international Soviet republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of the state’.125 Comintern essentially encouraged and provided support for revolutions in other western countries. One immediate outcome was the formation of the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1920, a merger of several smaller Marxist groups, labour movements and socialist parties, which was then re-founded in 1921 when more organisations joined.

  The leaders of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic also saw diplomacy as another way to achieve its goals, by keeping its enemies – which pretty much consisted of the rest of the world – divided. The main drawback to employing diplomacy on any scale was that by 1920 only Estonia, Finland, Latvia and Lithuania formally recognised the new country and then purely out of expediency as a means of confirming their own independence. The fact that the Bolsheviks had signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk meant exclusion from the Paris Peace Conference, the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations. They had also earned the growing distrust of America, which was gripped by the first red scare in response to communist ideals. The Russians were isolated from the diplomatic community and were unable to operate consulates and embassies across the world.

  Nevertheless, there were some signs of a thaw in international relations, particularly on humanitarian grounds during the great famine of 1921–23, during which several million people perished. Organisations such as the American Relief Association, under the control of future US President Herbert Hoover, provided food and support when Lenin softened his stance towards outside assistance. At the same time Lenin introduced his New Economic Policy – a form of ‘state capitalism’ that was deemed necessary to breathe life into a moribund economy shattered by constant warfare since 1914.

  Yet one thing that did not soften was Lenin’s determination to continue the revolution abroad. In an attempt to exert even greater control, the State Political Directorate – abbreviated to GPU from the Russian Gosudarstvennoye politicheskoye upravlenie – was formed on 6 February 1922 to supersede the Cheka. The GPU acted as a combination of intelligence service and state police within Russia, and also had a foreign department involved with overseas intelligence.

  At the same time, in a move designed to consolidate the political gains of the 1917 revolution within existing Soviet republics, delegates from the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian and Byelorussian governments agreed to create a new federal state. They approved the creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on 28 December 1922 with Lenin at the head. The GPU was transferred from Russian control in 1923 and became the All Union State Political Administration of the USSR – or OGPU (Obyedinyonnoye gosudarstvennoye politicheskoye upravleniye). Part of its remit was to operate agents on foreign soil, establishing rezidentura or a base of intelligence operations, usually within an official organisation such as an embassy. OGPU would place key staff in prominent positions, thus giving them a legal reason to be there. The rezident, or head of the operation, would also run a series of ‘illegal’ (the term for covert) agents, who would often pose as disaffected emigrés or businessmen – any cover story that would suit their needs. By the late 1920s, many of the most professional of these agents would move from country to country when required, earning them the nickname the Great Illegals or the Flying Squad. OGPU was also involved with preventing western counter-espionage operations within the USSR. The seeds of the Cold War were sown.

  As we’ve seen previously, British intelligence services were reorganised after the war – mainly to deal with the post-Versailles international situation. A Secret Service Committee chaired by Lord Curzon, the new Foreign Secretary who replaced Balfour in October 1919, met later the same year and published a report that identified Bolshevism as the greatest threat to the fabric of British society. It recommended changes to the existing and somewhat complicated structure.126

  The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) was given a remit to gather intelligence overseas and placed under Foreign Office control.127 It certainly had its work cut out handling the rise of communism. Desmond Morton was placed in charge of Section V, dealing with counter-Bolshevism activities in the 1920s. A network of field agents existed, mainly from military backgrounds working under the cover of diplomatic status on missions in Russia. These included men such as Robert Bruce Lockheart, Acting Vice Consul to Moscow; Captain Francis Cromie, naval attaché to the British Embassy in Petrograd; Captain George Hill and ‘ace of spies’ Sidney Reilly who, with Lockheart and Hill, had been involved in a failed attempt to assassinate Lenin in 1918. Reilly was sentenced to death in his absence, having escaped in a desperate flight across Russia, while Lockheart was lucky to avoid trial and was swapped for his counterpart in the UK, Maxim Litvinov. Within days of their return to Britain and after a debriefing with the Head of SIS, Sir Mansfield Smith-Cumming, both Hill and Reilly returned to Russia under cover of a British trade delegation to continue their espionage work. Reilly was officially dismissed from SIS in 1921 but continued to work with counter-revolutionaries and enjoyed a freelance relationship with SIS. Still a wanted man by the Bolsheviks, he was duped into returning to Russia in 1925 by the OGPU-led Operation Trust, captured, and shot.

  Closer to home, MI5 continued to investigate the threat of espionage and sedition on British soil although Sir Vernon Kell’s resources were severely limited after the war.128 MI5 was largely restricted
to gathering evidence of Bolshevism in the armed forces, reflecting its roots as a military intelligence organisation. One of his key recruits was Jane Sissmore, placed in charge of MI5’s Registry in 1922 and destined to rise still further within the organisation. In order to specifically tackle Bolshevik activity, a new Directorate of Home Intelligence was established under the control of Sir Basil Thomson, given his success in maintaining security in Paris. The directorate had the power to arrest potential spies identified by MI5. However, the arrangement was not deemed to be a success as the directorate clashed constantly with MI5 and the police. Thomson’s ego was another problem and he soon lost the confidence of his political masters. The Secret Service Committee was reconvened in 1921, including Sir Eyre Crowe to provide the perspective of the Foreign Office. The Directorate of Home Intelligence was disbanded, Thomson removed and the responsibility for both domestic and military intelligence passed to Kell at MI5.

  This was a period of turmoil and upheaval within Europe, when borders and regimes changed overnight and revolution might only be round the corner. Add to the mix the 1919 to 1923 Turkish War of Independence that followed the break-up of the Ottoman Empire under the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres and it is easy to see why the politicians placed such importance on accurate intelligence. The work of the Communications Department in the Foreign Office was all the more important in preventing counter-espionage, taking a front line role to ensure the secure delivery of British messages to embassies around the world. Given his report on the reorganisation of the King’s Messengers and growing influence in the cipher room as one of the permanent clerks, Oldham played his part in the defence of diplomatic material throughout this period.

  It is worth pausing briefly to reflect on the League of Nations, which was created by the Treaty of Versailles with its own permanent secretariat under the command of former Foreign Office official (and champion of Esperanto, among other things), Sir Eric Drummond. The intention was to continue the diplomatic work begun in Paris with the agreement of all major powers to respect the territorial integrity of each other. Their work would be upheld not by military force but by a Permanent Court of International Justice. Indeed, the League of Nations wished all member states to disarm ‘to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety’. A General Assembly was established, plus an Executive Council formed of the major world powers. In reality, there were concerns that the League was a device to ensure the hegemony of France and Britain over Europe given the rather surprising failure of the Americans to sign up. Yet not everyone in the UK was keen on the new world order – especially in the Foreign Office, where there was great concern that its century-old monopoly on the diplomatic process was under threat. Crowe wrote to Hardinge on 9 December 1919 about his fears that the League of Nations secretariat might try to ‘perpetuate and extend the system which has unfortunately prevailed very largely at the Peace Conference and of which I feel sure both you and Mr Balfour will have realised the grave inconveniences from the point of view of the proper conduct of business’.129

  As a result, Drummond’s attempt to recruit members for his secretariat from the ranks of the British Diplomatic Service were treated with suspicion, as indeed were his requests for access to sensitive British political information that might assist the work of the League. Curzon suggested that he should perhaps request them ‘informally’ but, when he did this in 1920, Hardinge refused on the grounds that he could not release sensitive documents. It was a stance that gradually softened on the grounds of expediency – the League moved permanently to Geneva in November 1920 and was seen as a ‘clearing house of ideas’ from which Britain would equally benefit. It is therefore possible that ‘informal’ King’s Messengers such as Oldham were used to transport documentation to League meetings that the regular King’s Messengers, with their closer allegiance to the Foreign Office, would not feel so comfortable in delivering. Oldham would become a regular visitor to League meetings in Geneva over the next decade.

  Back home, Oldham also played a prominent role inside the Foreign Office as fears of Bolshevism continued to increase. Lenin died on 21 January 1924 and power transferred to Joseph Stalin, who spent the next few years consolidating his position. Britain formally recognised the USSR on 1 February 1924 and agreed to lend it money, with a motion placed before Parliament for an Anglo-Soviet trade agreement. This endorsement was primarily a consequence of the general election held on 6 December 1923 that saw Ramsay MacDonald’s Labour party take power, albeit in a hung Parliament and despite gaining 67 fewer seats than the outgoing Conservative administration.

  Given the 19th century roots of the Labour movement among the underrepresented working classes and its professed socialist ideals, it is no surprise that the new government was keen to make common cause with the USSR without embracing the communist ideology of revolution as an agent of change. Labour preferred instead to follow the democratic parliamentary route eschewed by the Communist Party of Great Britain. This was Britain’s first taste of socialist rule, but it did not last long. Minority government had proved hard enough in the past, let alone when undertaken by an inexperienced party reliant on the support of Liberal opponents who seemed willing to give Labour enough rope with which to hang themselves.

  Despite demonstrating a level of competency thought beyond them by their political rivals, the Labour administration was brought down by its handling of the Campbell case – the intended prosecution of John Ross Cambell under the 1917 Incitement to Mutiny Act for publishing a letter in Worker’s Weekly that encouraged soldiers not to fire on their fellow workers in the event of class war in Britain. Although the Attorney General recommended that Campbell be brought to trial, the Labour government withdrew the prosecution. This sparked a vote of no confidence which MacDonald lost and a new election was held on 29 October. Suspicions of Bolshevik elements existing in socialist parties were heightened sharply when a letter appeared in the Daily Mail a few days before the vote, purportedly from Grigory Zinoviev, Head of the Executive Committee of Comintern and its British representative, Arthur MacManus. The letter was addressed to the Communist Party of Great Britain and exhorted them to instigate a proletariat uprising in British industrial cities. The letter caused an outcry, least of all from Zinoviev himself who strenuously insisted it was a fake. He indignantly claimed that:

  The forger has shown himself to be very stupid in his choice of the date. On 15 September 1924, I was taking a holiday in Kislovodsk, and, therefore, could not have signed any official letter.130

  He had a point; it has since been proven that the letter was indeed fabricated, most probably by an intelligence source working outside the UK. It was leaked to the press and Conservative Party central office with the complicity of MI6 – either Desmond Morton or one of his associates, including Major Stewart Menzies, who later admitted sending a copy to the Daily Mail. Either way, the damage was done. Although it is doubtful that the letter impacted on the core Labour vote, it certainly damaged the Liberals who had supported the MacDonald regime. A decisive Conservative victory ensued, bringing Stanley Baldwin back to power. The trade agreement with the Soviets was swiftly cancelled a few weeks later.

  Throughout 1924, measures were taken within the Foreign Office and Diplomatic Service to tighten security – just in case. Oldham was charged with the task of ensuring official safes were distributed to consulates around the world; his handwritten notes can be found within the National Archives in some of the few official papers preserved from the Communications Department. A memo survives from April 1924 in which a certain confidence bordering on pomposity is displayed in the way that he comments on the fact that ‘the Treasury have misread our letter’, before reiterating his point to demonstrate that any consular officer in charge of holding cipher code books should have ‘combination lock safes’ regardless of their status and that security should trump economy if an existing safe was not deemed to be of sufficient standard.131 However, he was clearly in a position of trust; in May 1924 he compi
led a revised list of holders of the Government Telegraph Code (1922), mainly because ‘a considerable number of additions and corrections have been made since the volume was compiled’. His draft was stamped for approval by Hubert Montgomery, Chief Clerk, on the direction of Mr Ramsay MacDonald – who had assumed the role of Foreign Secretary as well as Prime Minister.132

  There were also changes in personnel within the Foreign Office, in particular a new Head of the Communications Department. There had been regular change at the top with each incumbent lasting around two years apiece, including the steady Howard Smith and more flamboyant Duff Cooper who left to further his political career. On 19 May 1925 the decision was taken to promote from within and one of the King’s Messengers, Harold Eastwood, was given the position – much to the delight of Antrobus:

  Not only was the new head thoroughly acquainted with the departmental work, but he was temperamentally well qualified for the post… he adopted, and rigorously adhered to, the traditional Foreign Office principle of giving orders and trusting to the loyalty of his staff to see that they were carried out.133

  His deputy was Commander Ralph Cotesworth, who had also risen through the ranks – moving from the Royal Navy into the Foreign Office as a temporary clerk, before becoming one of the new King’s Messengers after the war.

  Cotesworth had one advantage over Eastwood in that he had a thorough and expert knowledge of the technical side of the work, the use and management of the ciphers and codes.134