The Defence of the Realm

by Christopher Andrew

  66 Two other gang members perished in the celebrated ‘Siege of Sidney Street’ in January 1911. Winston Churchill, then home secretary, could not resist visiting the scene and advising on operations from the front line. Leggett, Cheka, pp. 266–7. Cook, M: MI5’s First Spymaster, pp. 266–7.

  67 ‘Revolutionary Agencies at Work’, pp. 62ff., TNA KV 1/43.

  68 McLean, Legend of Red Clydeside, ch. 7.

  69 ‘Historical Sketch of the Directorate of Military Intelligence during the Great War of 1914–1919’, p. 13, TNA WO 32/10776. Biographical details on Labouchere in interwar MI5 Who’s Who.

  70 McLean, Legend of Red Clydeside, p. 83.

  71 Ibid., p. 84.

  72 CX 491, 16 Sept. 1916, TNA KV 2/1532.

  73 Thomson, Scene Changes, p. 312. E. F. Wodehouse (New Scotland Yard) to Home Office, 23 April 1917, TNA HO 45/11000/223532. ‘Historical Sketch of the Directorate of Military Intelligence during the Great War of 1914–1919’, p. 13, TNA WO 32/10776. The most celebrated case investigated by PMS2 was an alleged plot to assassinate Lloyd George by a Derby second-hand-clothes dealer of ‘extreme anarchical opinions’, Mrs Alice Wheeldon, her daughters Harriet and Winnie, and Winnie’s husband Alfred Mason, a chemist who had ‘made a special study of poisons’. According to PMS2, the farcical plot finally devised by Mrs Wheeldon to murder Lloyd George was to fire a poisoned dart from an air rifle while he was playing golf on Walton Heath. The plotters were arrested in January 1917 and given jail sentences two months later.

  74 Kell to War Office, ‘Memorandum concerning a proposed transfer of certain duties from the Ministry of Munitions (P.M.S.2) to M.I.5’, 3 March 1917; reproduced in A Branch History, TNA KV 1/13.

  75 Security Intelligence Service Seniority List and Register of Past and Present Members, December 1919.

  76 ‘Revolutionary Agencies at Work’, pp. 62ff., TNA KV 1/43.

  77 ‘Memorandum regarding the Russian section of the Communist Club’ and ‘The Russian Political Prisoners and Exiles Relief Committee in London’; enclosed with recommendation by Kell for Chicherin’s internment, dated 26 Jan. 1917, TNA HO 144/2158 (322428/2). In November 1916 Chicherin had publicly announced that his Committee’s campaign to persuade Russian exiles not to enlist had been largely successful. Debo, ‘Chicherin in England’, pp. 656–7.

  78 ‘I don’t quite see what he [the liaison officer] would do,’ he wrote in his diary. Mansfield Cumming diary, 25 Dec. 1916.

  79 Recommendation by Kell for Chicherin’s internment, 26 Jan. 1917, TNA HO 144/2158.

  80 Kell to Edmonds, 29 March 1917, LHC Edmonds MSS II/2. Lady Kell, ‘Secret Well Kept’, p. 156, IWM.

  81 Security Service Archives. A few months earlier Kell had seemed in good health. On 29 September 1916 he had written to the MCO at Falmouth, Major R. Money, ‘I am keeping very fit’. Security Service Archives.

  82 Security Service Archives.

  83 Security Service Archives.

  84 Carsten, War against War, p. 102.

  85 Thomson, Queer People, p. 273.

  86 Andrew, First World War, p. 46.

  87 Swartz, Union of Democratic Control, p. 175. Taylor, English History, p. 128.

  88 G1, ‘The British Socialist Party’, 4 Oct. 1916, TNA KV 2/1655.

  89 Undated note by Major Ferguson on information from Victor Fischer [sic], TNA KV 2/1532.

  90 ‘Albert Edward Inkpin’, Oxford DNB.

  91 Note by Deputy Director of Recruiting (London region), 16 Nov. 1917, TNA KV 2/1532. Minute by Kell to DSI, 23 Nov. 1917, TNA KV 2/585.

  92 ‘Albert Edward Inkpin’, Oxford DNB.

  93 Report from SW 5 (Berne) of 13 April 1917 forwarded by Cumming, TNA KV 2/585. The Germans also financed Trotsky’s return from exile.

  94 Figes, People’s Tragedy, pp. 385–6.

  95 Pipes, Russian Revolution, pp. 392–4.

  96 Figes, People’s Tragedy, pp. 432–4.

  97 Minute by Dansey, 16 Aug. 1917, TNA KV 2/585.

  98 TNA HO 144/2158.

  99 Debo, ‘Chicherin in Britain’, p. 659.

  100 See above, p. 7.

  101 Watson, Clemenceau, pp. 260–64, 286–9.

  102 WC 245(20), 4 Oct. 1917, TNA CAB 23/4.

  103 WC 253(1), 19 Oct. 1917, TNA CAB 23/4.

  104 Thomson, Scene Changes, p. 359.

  105 Thomson, ‘Pacifist and Revolutionary Organizations in the United Kingdom’, included in G 173, 13 Nov. 1917, TNA CAB 24/4.

  106 Ullman, Anglo-Soviet Relations, vol. 1, p. 3.

  107 G 173, 13 Nov. 1917, TNA CAB 24/4. GT 2809, 24 Nov. 1917, TNA CAB 24/34.

  108 GT 2980, 13 Dec. 1917, TNA CAB 24/35.

  109 Hiley, ‘Counter-Espionage and Security in Great Britain during the First World War’, p. 658.

  110 Security Service, p. 86.

  111 Ullman, Anglo-Soviet Relations, vol. 1, p. 20. Carsten, War against War, pp. 109–11.

  112 Draft telegram from Chicherin to Trotsky, 4 Dec. 1917, TNA HO 144/2158 322428/45a. The prison governor sought permission from the Home Office to send the telegram. Had permission been refused, this would probably have been noted on the file. There is, however, no written confirmation that the telegram was sent.

  113 Debo, ‘Chicherin in England’, pp. 660–62. Maksim Litvinov succeeded Chicherin as the representative in London of the Bolshevik regime, and was given diplomatic immunity and semi-official status before being deported in September 1918.

  114 Andrew, First World War, p. 44.

  115 GT 4624, 23 May 1918, TNA CAB 24/52.

  116 Security Intelligence Service Seniority List and Register of Past and Present Members, December 1919.

  117 Sixty-six MI5 staff served in Italy between 1 January 1918 and 31 August 1919 (when the station was closed): twenty-eight were officers, thirty-eight clerical and secretarial support staff. Security Intelligence Service Seniority List and Register of Past and Present Members, December 1919.

  118 Andrew, Secret Service, pp. 299–304.

  119 CUL Templewood Papers, Part III, Italy and the Vatican 1917–1918, files 1–5. Hoare’s other tasks in Rome included counter-espionage and curtailing the extensive contraband activities (especially flows of specie and other prohibited goods to and from Germany through Switzerland).

  120 Security Intelligence Service Seniority List and Register of Past and Present Members, December 1919. The largest postings recorded on this List are those of ten new recruits posted to Washington on 1 March 1918 and seven to New York on 1 August. Not all the final US destinations, however, correspond to those in the List. Thwaites was stationed in New York.

  121 Army War College Washington, Lecture by Lieutenant Colonel C. E. Dansey, 4 May 1917, NAW RG 165, 9944–A–4.

  122 Since joining MI5 in March 1917, Pakenham had already served as liaison officer in Paris and South Africa. ‘Alphabetical list and register of past and present [MI5] members’, Nov. 1921. See above, p. 80.

  123 Security Service Archives. Typically for MI5 officer recruits, Pakenham listed his recreations as ‘fishing, shooting, golf’.

  124 Security Service Archives.

  125 The first recorded visit to MI5 HQ was on 21 August 1918 by W. Lee Hurley, special attaché at the US embassy; the last on 26 February 1919 by Sergeant M. Y. Hughes, of the US Intelligence Corps. Security Service Archives. There may well have been a series of meetings between US intelligence and MI5 officers for which no record survives.

  126 Thwaites left MI5 on 22 July 1918. Security Intelligence Service Seniority List and Register of Past and Present Members, December 1919.

  127 Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only, pp. 38–9.

  128 Ibid., pp. 39–40, 552 n. 39.

  129 Memorandum, 28 March 1918, SLYU Wiseman MSS, series 1, box 6, folder 172.

  130 See above, pp. 74–5.

  131 Wiseman to Cumming, 6 Sept. 1918, in SLYU Wiseman MSS, series 1, box 6, folder 171. Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only, p. 90.

  132 Thomson, Scotland Yard, ch. 20. Je
ffery and Hennessy, States of Emergency, p. 5.

  133 Andrew, First World War, p. 48.

  134 GT 6079, 21 Oct. 1918, TNA CAB 24/67.

  135 Thomson, Scene Changes, pp. 358, 377. See above, p. 107.

  136 C. E. Russell to Thomson, 14 Oct. 1918, enclosing memo by Long, Wiltshire Public Record Office, Long MSS. I am grateful to Professor Eunan O’Halpin for this reference.

  137 Thomson to Long, 15 Oct. 1918, enclosing ‘Comments on the Attached Memorandum. Scheme for the Reorganisation and Coordination of Intelligence’, Wiltshire Public Record Office, Long MSS.

  138 Long to Thomson, 16 Oct. 1918; Long to Lloyd George, n.d., Wiltshire Public Record Office, Long MSS.

  139 Long to Lloyd George, 18 Nov. 1918, Wiltshire Public Record Office, Long MSS.

  140 Security Service Archives. According to Constance Kell the visit to Dublin was ‘to inspect port facilities’. Lady Kell ‘Secret Well Kept’, p. 167, IWM. She also refers to the trip to Alnwick, her eventual visit to join Kell and her difficulties in mastering the art of fly fishing (p. 172).

  141 Report of the Secret Service Committee, Feb. 1919, TNA CAB 127/356. Curzon to Long, 18 Feb. 1919, Wiltshire Record Office, Long MSS. Long to Austen Chamberlain, 2 Nov. 1921, BUL Chamberlain MSS AC 23/2/1.

  142 Edward Bell to Leland Harrison, 2 May 1919, Library of Congress, Leland Harrison MSS, box 102. MI5’s Washington office had closed on 26 March 1919. ‘Alphabetical list and register of past and present [MI5] members’, Nov. 1921.

  SECTION B: BETWEEN THE WARS

  Introduction: MI5 and its Staff – Survival and Revival

  1 Security Service Archives.

  2 Lady Kell, ‘Secret Well Kept’, pp. 171–2, IWM.

  3 Report of the Secret Service Committee, Feb. 1919, TNA CAB 127/356. On the Committee, see above, pp. 108–9.

  4 Security Service Archives.

  5 Cumming’s reaction will be discussed in Jeffery, Official History of the Secret Intelligence Service.

  6 ‘Record of a Meeting held at the Admiralty on the 7th April, 1919, to consider the question of Secret Service Expenditure’, TNA KV 4/182, s. 2a.

  7 Daily Mail, 25 April 1919.

  8 Churchill, ‘Reduction of Estimates for Secret Services’, 19 March 1920, HLRO Lloyd George MSS F/9/2/16.

  9 ‘Defence Security Intelligence Service. List of Personnel’, May 1920, TNA KV 4/127. The List of Personnel totals 150 but does not include Kell.

  10 Security Service Archives.

  11 The memo added:

  4. Any proposal to transfer the present staff and records bodily to Sir Basil Thomson would suffer, not only from the disadvantages attached to civilian control over what is, and must remain, mainly a military organization, but also from the fact that economy would not thereby be secured. The Army Council is satisfied that the proposed expenditure is necessary and can see no advantages and many disadvantages from any change in the existing organization.

  Security Service Archives.

  12 Obituary, Captain H. M. Miller, The Times, 15 June 1934.

  13 Security Service Archives.

  14 See below, p. 130.

  15 Churchill to Lloyd George and other ministers, 19 March 1920, HLRO Lloyd George MSS F/9/2/16.

  16 Churchill, ‘Reduction of Estimates for Secret Services’, 19 March 1920, HLRO Lloyd George MSS F/9/2/16.

  17 Andrew, Secret Service, pp. 404–6.

  18 Hinsley and Simkins, British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol. 4, pp. 6–7, 9.

  19 Andrew, Secret Service, pp. 421–2.

  20 Recollections of a Kell family member.

  21 Andrew, Secret Service, p. 421. Sinclair also had designs on the minuscule Indian Political Intelligence (IPI) which shared offices with MI5.

  22 Minutes of Secret Service Committee, 10 March 1925, TNA FO 1093/68.

  23 Evidence by Kell to Secret Service Committee, 10 March 1925, TNA FO 1093/68.

  24 Security Service Archives. ‘Bar Examination’, The Times, 27 April 1922.

  25 Black and Brunt, ‘Information Management in MI5’.

  26 See below, pp. 227, 228–9.

  27 Security Service Archives.

  28 Secret Service Committee 1925, minutes of 10 March 1925, TNA FO 1093/68.

  29 Security Service Archives.

  30 Bennett, Churchill’s Man of Mystery, pp. 71–4.

  31 Information kindly supplied by Gill Bennett; cf. Bennett, Churchill’s Man of Mystery, pp. 72, 81. On Boddington and ‘Finney’, see below, p. 152.

  32 Security Service Archives.

  33 Security Service Archives.

  34 Knight, Pets Usual and Unusual, pp. 13–14, 78–9. Obituaries in The Times, 27, 31 Jan. 1968.

  35 Matthews and Knight, Senses of Animals, p. 13.

  36 Security Service Archives.

  37 Recollections of a former Security Service officer.

  38 See above, p. 108.

  39 Dorril, Blackshirt, p. 196.

  40 Hope, ‘Surveillance or Collusion?’, pp. 652–8.

  41 Security Service Archives.

  42 Knight, ‘Policy Re Study and Investigation of Fascism and other Right Wing or Kindred Movements and Activities, 1933–1945’, s. 1z, ‘Fascism in Great Britain’, 22 August 1933, pp. 1–2. TNA KV 4/331.

  43 Andrew, First World War, p. 67.

  44 Bennett, Churchill’s Man of Mystery, pp. 129, 345 n. 22.

  45 ‘List of names of past staff prepared for mobilisation as necessary’, Summary of General Strike, minutes of 1 May 1926, TNA KV 4/246.

  46 ‘The Secret Services: Inquiry by the Minister without Portfolio [Lord Hankey]. Second Report dealing with the Security Service (MI5)’, Jan.–May 1940, TNA CAB 127/383. Security Service Archives.

  47 P. Report No. 2, 6 May 1926, TNA KV 4/246. ‘Communist Effort to Undermine Loyalty and Discipline in H.M. Forces During the General Strike’, May 1926, part III, TNA KV4/246. Quinlan, ‘Human Intelligence Tradecraft and MI5 Operations in Britain’, pp. 104–6.

  48 Joint control ended in 1927, when ownership passed to the TUC.

  49 Summary of General Strike, ‘Report sent to M.I(B) 15 May 1926’, ‘Strike News and Communist News, May 13th, 1926’, TNA KV 4/246. Quinlan, ‘Human Intelligence Tradecraft and MI5 Operations in Britain’, pp. 108–10.

  50 Kell, letter to staff, 16 May 1926, Summary of General Strike, Appendix 4, TNA KV 4/246.

  51 Security Service Archives.

  52 Security Service Archives.

  53 Davidson, Memoirs of a Conservative, p. 272.

  54 Ramsden, Making of Conservative Party Policy, chs 3, 4. Entry on Ball by Lord Blake in DNB 1961–1970.

  55 Security Service, p. 99.

  56 Security Service Archives. During the 1970s the scope of protective security was extended to cover protection against terrorist attack.

  57 Security Service Archives.

  58 Security Service Archives.

  59 Security Service, p. 99. ‘Defence Security Service (Peace Organisation)’, 31 May 1929, TNA KV 4/127. Statistics on Registry and secretarial staff do not survive. During the 1920s MI5 sometimes used the name ‘Defence Security Service’ or ‘Defence Security Intelligence Service’.

  60 Security Service Archives.

  61 Morning Post, 25 Oct. 1933.

  62 Recollections of former Security Service officers.

  63 ‘Defence Security Service (Peace Organisation)’, 31 May 1929, TNA KV 4/127. See above, p. 63.

  64 Security Service Archives.

  65 Recollections of a former Security Service officer.

  66 Recollections of a former Security Service officer.

  67 Recollections of a former Security Service officer.

  68 Sissmore’s duties in 1929 were officially designated as ‘Defence Security Intelligence concerning Russia’. ‘Defence Security Service (Peace Organisation)’, 31 May 1929, TNA KV 4/127.

  69 See below, pp. 265ff.

  70 Security Service, p. 99.

  71 Security Service Archi
ves.

  72 Bennett, Churchill’s Man of Mystery, pp. 128–9.

  73 Security Service Archives.

  74 Bennett, Churchill’s Man of Mystery, pp. 128–33. Interwar MI5 Who’s Who.

  75 See below, pp. 158–9.

  76 Summary of proceedings of Secret Service Committee, 24 June 1931, TNA FO 1093/74.

  77 Security Service Archives.

  78 Hinsley and Simkins, British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol. 4, p. 8.

  79 Ibid.

  80 Security Service, p. 102.

  81 See above, p. 118.

  82 Security Service Archives.

  83 Obituary, Captain H. M. Miller, The Times, 15 June 1934.

  84 Obituary, Guy Liddell, The Times, 6 Dec. 1958.

  85 Recollections of a former Security Service officer.

  86 Philby, My Silent War, p. 74.

  87 Christopher Andrew, interview with Sir Dick White, 1984.

  88 Guy Liddell diary, 6 Dec. 1940.

  89 Security Service Archives.

  90 Recollections of a former Security Service officer. Unlike Sissmore, however, Bagot did not gain officer rank until 1949.

  91 Security Service Archives.

  92 Security Service, p. 107. Andrew, Secret Service, p. 521. See below, p. 132.

  93 Security Service Archives.

  94 Recollections of a former Security Service officer.

  95 Security Service Archives.

  96 Security Service Archives.

  97 Recollections of a former Security Service officer. Born in 1909, Catherine Morgan-Smith changed her name by deed poll in 1938 to Weld-Smith (later Weldsmith). She retired on her marriage in 1963, taking her husband’s surname Gibb. After his death she remarried and took the name of her second husband, Shackle.

  98 Recollections of a former Security Service officer.

  99 See above, pp. 56, 94, 96.

  100 Security Service Archives.

  101 Holt-Wilson to Audrey Stirling, 10 Sept. 1931, CUL Holt-Wilson papers. I am grateful to Dr Nicholas Hiley for drawing my attention to this correspondence.

  102 Holt-Wilson to Audrey Stirling, n.d. (‘Sunday–Midnight’), CUL Holt-Wilson papers.

  103 Audrey Holt-Wilson to Holt-Wilson, 12 June 1940, CUL Holt-Wilson papers.

  104 Hinsley and Simkins, British Intelligence in the Second World War, vol. 4, p. 9.