The Defence of the Realm

by Christopher Andrew

  105 Recollections of a former Security Service officer.

  106 Security Service, p. 142. Security Service Archives. TNA KV 2/2733, 2734, 2735.

  107 Security Service, p. 373.

  108 Security Service Archives.

  109 Security Service, pp. 69–76.

  110 See below, p. 176.

  111 Security Service Archives.

  112 Security Service Archives.

  113 Christopher Andrew, interview with Sir Dick White, 1984. Andrew, Secret Service, p. 542.

  114 Security Service Archives.

  115 Security Service Archives.

  116 Security Service Archives.

  117 Christopher Andrew, interview with Sir Dick White, 1984. Andrew, Secret Service, p. 542.

  118 Andrew, ‘Secret Intelligence and British Foreign Policy’, pp. 22–3.

  119 See below, p. 185.

  120 TNA KV 2/1021. Petrie, Communism in India, pp. 95–6.

  121 TNA KV 2/611–15. Petrie, Communism in India, pp. 103–5.

  122 An HOW was first taken out on Spratt at the request of IPI on the grounds that he was ‘suspected of being engaged in revolutionary activities in India and known to be in receipt of instructions from certain persons in this country. It is desired to ascertain who his associates in this country are.’ Security Service Archives.

  123 H. Burgess to Holt-Wilson, 8 Nov. 1929, Security Service Archives.

  124 Itinerary in Security Service Archives. While on the tour, Holt-Wilson suffered a personal tragedy. One of his two sons by his first marriage, Lieutenant Charles Holt-Wilson of the Royal Artillery, was accidentally killed while serving in Bombay. Holt-Wilson had one other son, a naval lieutenant, and a daughter, from his first marriage.

  125 Security Service Archives. CUL, Holt-Wilson papers.

  126 Holt-Wilson, ‘Security Intelligence in War’, 1934, IWM Kell MSS.

  127 ‘Paper on SIME compiled for Hinsley’s official history’, Security Service Archives; ‘Report on the operation of Overseas Control in connection with the establishment of DSO’s in the British colonies & liaison with the security authorities in the Dominions during the war of 1939–1945’, TNA KV 4/18.

  128 Shelley, ‘Empire of Shadows’.

  129 Security Service Archives.

  130 Security Service, pp. 396–7.

  Chapter 1: The Red Menace in the 1920s

  1 Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, p. 83.

  2 Andrew, Secret Service, pp. 57–8.

  3 MacMillan, Peacemakers, p. 5.

  4 Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, pp. 84–5.

  5 Kell, lecture to Scottish chief constables at Edinburgh, 26 Feb. 1925, IWM Kell MSS. This lecture was probably typical of those to other chief constables.

  6 Ullman, Anglo-Soviet Relations, vol. 2, pp. 130–31. Thomson, ‘A Survey of Revolutionary Feeling in the Year 1919’, CP 462, TNA CAB 24/96.

  7 Report of the Secret Service Committee, 1 Dec. 1925, published as Annex E in Bennett, ‘A most extraordinary and mysterious business’.

  8 Andrew, Secret Service, p. 380.

  9 Kell, memorandum, 24 Nov. 1922, TNA WO 32/3948 5/Bills/1873. ‘Seditious Literature etc’, Jan. 1932, TNA WO 32/3948 110/Gen/4638. There are further details of MI5 pressure for new legislation in TNA WO 32/3948.

  10 B1a (W. A. Alexander), memo, 24 June 1930, TNA KV 4/199, s. 42a. Alexander noted that there were ‘no exact detailed figures available prior to 1927’. I am grateful to Dr Victor Madeira for this reference.

  11 B3, HOW application for Harry Pollitt, Minute 12, 26 Nov. 1926, TNA KV2/1034.

  12 HOW for David Ramsey, 30 June 1929, TNA KV 2/1868, s. 160a.

  13 HOW for Robert Robson, 9 May 1923, TNA KV 2/1176, s.2a.

  14 Unusually among leading Communists, the HOW on him was first taken out by the Special Branch; HOW, 19 April 1921, TNA KV 2/1186, s. 3a. When Campbell later moved house, however, it was MI5 which took the initiative in applying for the HOW to be updated; HOW, 4 July 1927, TNA KV 2/1186, s. 27a.

  15 HOW for Robert Stewart, 30 Jan. 1921, TNA KV 2/1180–83, s. 3a.

  16 Security Service, p. 93; ‘Eva Collet Reckitt’, TNA KV 2/1369.

  17 Major O. N. Solbert to DMI Washington, 30 Oct. 1920, NAW RG 165 9944–A–165.

  18 Major R. F. Hyatt to DMI Washington, 15 Dec. 1920, NAW RG 165 9944–A–166.

  19 ‘War Book 1926. War Book Chapter’, p. 70, TNA WO 33/1077. ‘Field Security Police’, 1923, pp. 2–3, TNA WO 33/1025. Kell, Lecture to Scottish chief constables, 26 Feb. 1925, IWM Kell MSS.

  20 See above, p. 56.

  21 Security Service Archives.

  22 Freeman, ‘MI1(b) and the Origins of British Diplomatic Cryptanalysis’, p. 216.

  23 Andrew, Secret Service, pp. 376–7.

  24 Ibid., pp. 377–94.

  25 Freeman, ‘MI1(b) and the Origins of British Diplomatic Cryptanalysis’, pp. 217–18. The decrypts are in TNA HW 12/332; copies of many of them are in HLRO Lloyd George MSS.

  26 Andrew, Secret Service, pp. 377, 384–8, 394.

  27 H1 summary of reports on Klishko from 1 September 1915 to 9 September 1918, TNA KV 2/1411.

  28 ‘Nicholas Klyshko’ [sic], 21 Feb. 1918, TNA KV 2/1410.

  29 Report by M. W. Bray (G4), 11 July 1918, TNA KV 2/1411. Bray served in MI5 from May 1917 to January 1919; Security Service Archives.

  30 ‘Clandestine Activities of William Norman Ewer 1919–1929’, September 1949, p. 1, TNA KV 2/1016, s. 1101a.

  31 On SIS operations against Soviet Russia in the 1920s, see Jeffery, Official History of the Secret Intelligence Service, part II.

  32 Andrew, Secret Service, pp. 398–400.

  33 Note by A. G. Denniston (GC&CS Director), 16 April 1921, TNA KV 2/501 SZ/2132.

  34 Taylor, English History, pp. 269–70.

  35 Kell to Troup (Home Office), 2 May 1918, enclosing ‘Return no. 2’ of cases considered for prosecution with ‘remarks by MI5’, TNA HO 45/10743/263275.

  36 See above, p. 116.

  37 Marquand, Ramsay MacDonald, pp. 314–15. Andrew, Secret Service, pp. 425–7.

  38 Andrew, Secret Service, p. 426. When Winston Churchill returned to power in November 1924, eager to catch up on the backlog of intercepts from GC&CS, he discovered that ‘In MacDonald’s time he was himself long kept in ignorance of them by the Foreign Office.’ Churchill to Austen Chamberlain, 21 Nov. 1924, BUL Chamberlain MSS AC 51/58.

  39 Roskill, Hankey, vol. 2, p. 358.

  40 Barnes, ‘Special Branch and the First Labour Government’.

  41 Williams, Not in the Public Interest, p. 134.

  42 SIS Report CX/9668, ‘Counter-Bolshevik report: Soviet Propaganda in the British Colonies’, 2 July 1924, TNA KV 2/1183, SZ/2514.

  43 Jeffery and Hennessy, States of Emergency, pp. 79–86.

  44 Industrial Unrest Committee Interim Report (with memorandum by Home Secretary summarizing intelligence on the CPGB), 30 April 1924, CP 273(24), TNA CAB 24/166.

  45 Ibid.

  46 Cabinet conclusion 32 (24) 5, 15 May 1924, TNA CAB 23/48.

  47 The most authoritative study of the Zinoviev letter, and the only one to draw on SIS archives, is Bennett, ‘A most extraordinary and mysterious business’.

  48 B3 noted during a 1928 inquiry: ‘CSI [Kell] asked me to prepare a statement showing that the Zinoviev Letter contained nothing new or different from the intentions and propaganda of the USSR prior to the issue of this particular letter on 15/9/24.’ Security Service Archives.

  49 Security Service, p. 59.

  50 On Makgill and Finney, see above, p. 123.

  51 Bennett, ‘A most extraordinary and mysterious business’, p. 36. Bennett, Churchill’s Man of Mystery, p. 81.

  52 Director B (Jasper Harker) later noted that the date of the distribution of the Zinoviev letter to army commands on 22 October 1924 and related contacts with SIS on the two previous days had been ‘verified by Colonel Holt Wilson from the files’. Security Service Archives.

  53 Statement by Donald I
m Thurn read to the Commons by the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, on 19 March 1928; reprinted in the Morning Post and other newspapers on 20 March.

  54 Bennett, ‘A most extraordinary and mysterious business’, ch. 2. Further details of the careers of Im Thurn and Alexander from Security Service Archives.

  55 See above, p. 126.

  56 Andrew, Secret Service, pp. 436–8.

  57 Bennett, ‘A most extraordinary and mysterious business’, p. 26.

  58 The Labour vote actually went up by more than a million (by 3 per cent of votes cast in a higher turnout). What made the 1924 general election so decisive was what happened to Labour’s Liberal coalition partners, whose vote fell to well under 20 per cent. Clarke, Hope and Glory, p. 127.

  59 Taylor, Beaverbrook, pp. 223–41.

  60 Andrew, ‘Secret Intelligence and British Foreign Policy’, p. 20. By permission of the then Foreign Secretary, Christopher Andrew presented a re-enactment of this remarkable episode in the Foreign Secretary’s room for BBC2 Timewatch in 1987. On 4 November 1924 a committee chaired by MacDonald reported to the final cabinet meeting of the outgoing government that they had ‘found it impossible on the evidence before them to come to a conclusion on the subject’.

  61 Bennett, Churchill’s Man of Mystery, pp. 82–3.

  62 Security Service Archives.

  63 Security Service Archives.

  64 See above, p. 123.

  65 In 1969 when Milicent Bagot was preparing a report for the Security Service on the Zinoviev letter, about which controversy had revived, she informed Director B that Boddington (then retired) had been ‘a particular help to her in her enquiries’ and ‘had in fact provided her with the key lead on which her report is likely to be based’. Boddington received an official letter of thanks and a Christmas hamper; Security Service Archives. The ‘key lead’ was the information that ‘Finney’ had not provided the corroboration of the Zinoviev letter’s arrival which Morton said he had and which led Eyre Crowe to assure MacDonald that there was ‘absolutely reliable’ evidence that the letter had been discussed by the CPGB leadership (information kindly supplied by Gill Bennett).

  66 ‘Re Advertisement in Daily Herald’, 1 Jan. 1925, TNA KV 2/1101, s. 19b. For my analysis of the Ewer case I am indebted to the pioneering study by Victor Madeira, ‘Moscow’s Interwar Infiltration of British Intelligence’, and to the Cambridge PhD theses by Dr Madeira, ‘British Intelligence in “A New Kind of War” against Soviet “Subversion” 1917–1929’ and by Dr Kevin Quinlan, ‘Human Intelligence Tradecraft and MI5 Operations in Britain 1919–40’.

  67 ‘From Box 573 Daily Herald in reply to (19a)’, 9 Jan. 1925, TNA KV 2/1101, s. 23a; ‘Report on interview by “D”(R)’, 3 Feb. 1925, TNA KV 2/1101, s. 27a. Quinlan, ‘Human Intelligence Tradecraft and MI5 Operations in Britain’, pp. 143–5.

  68 Minute of 7 Feb. 1925, TNA KV 2/1101. ‘History of a Section of the Russian Intelligence Service, operating in this country, under management of William Norman Ewer 1919–1929’, 8 Jan. 1930, TNA KV 2/1016, s. 809a; ‘Synopsis of Telephone Conversations of the Federated Press of America’, n.d., TNA KV 2/1101, s. 46a.

  69 Some of the packets also included messages from ‘Anne’ in Paris to ‘C.P.D.’ After consultation with IPI, MI5 concluded that the messages were from Evelyn Roy, wife of the leading Indian Communist M. N. Roy (who had recently been expelled from France and was living in Moscow), to Clemens Palme Dutt, brother of CPGB Executive Committee member Rajani Palme Dutt. Minute of 3 Feb. 1925, TNA KV 2/1101; minute of 13 April 1925, TNA KV 2/1099; letter to Morton, 4 March 1925, TNA KV 2/1099, s. 48a. Quinlan, ‘Human Intelligence Tradecraft and MI5 Operations in Britain’, pp. 146–9.

  70 ‘Memorandum on Slocombe’, 29 April 1930, TNA KV 2/485, s. 205a; ‘HOW on George Slocombe’, minutes of 15 May 1925, KV 2/1099; ‘History of a Section of the Russian Intelligence Service . . .’, 8 Jan. 1930, TNA KV 2/1016, s. 809a. Callaghan and Morgan (‘The Open Conspiracy of the Communist Party and the Case of W. N. Ewer’) cast doubt on Ewer’s involvement in espionage, largely on the grounds that he was ‘an open communist’. The most important espionage trial of the 1930s, however, similarly involved a spy-ring run by a well-known Communist, this time a senior Party official (see below, pp. 167, 182). Though later understandably anxious to underplay the significance of his covert activities in the 1920s, Ewer himself acknowledged that his involvement with Slocombe amounted to espionage. For further comment on the case put forward by Callaghan and Morgan, see the theses by Madeira and Quinlan.

  71 Bennett, Churchill’s Man of Mystery, p. 123.

  72 Madeira, ‘Moscow’s Interwar Infiltration of British Intelligence’, p. 923 n. 31; CPGB’s annual allocation according to Allen, TNA KV 2/989, s. 77a, ‘Mr. Harker’s notes on interview of 2.9.28’, 11 Sept. 1928; ‘History of a Section of the Russian Intelligence Service . . .’, 8 Jan. 1930, TNA KV 2/1016, s. 809a.

  73 Minute of 18 April 1925, TNA KV 2/1101.

  74 Minute of 6 March 1925, TNA KV 2/1101.

  75 Kell did, however, show the DPP’s ruling to Sir Wyndham Childs. On Sinclair’s Whitehall connections, see above, pp. 136–7.

  76 The MI5 files on the ARCOS raid are in TNA KV 3/15–16, KV 2/818. Bennett, Churchill’s Man of Mystery, pp. 94–106. Madeira, ‘British Intelligence in “A New Kind of War” against Soviet “Subversion”, 1917–1929’, ch. 7.

  77 Bennett, Churchill’s Man of Mystery, p. 94. Madeira, ‘British Intelligence in “A New Kind of War” against Soviet “Subversion”, 1917–1929’, ch. 7.

  78 Intercepted telegrams from Yakovlev to Moscow of 13 April and 18 May, published in Cmd. 2874 (1927), Documents Illustrating the Hostile Activities of the Soviet Government and Third International against Great Britain, p. 31.

  79 Security Service Archives.

  80 Cab. 23(27), TNA CAB 23/55.

  81 Parl. Deb. (Commons), 24 May 1927, cols 1842–54.

  82 Ibid., 26 May 1927, cols 2207–22, 2299–306.

  83 Chamberlain to Rosengolz, 26 May 1927, Documents on British Foreign Policy, series 1A, vol. III, no. 215.

  84 Cmd. 2874 (1927), Documents Illustrating the Hostile Activities of the Soviet Government and Third International against Great Britain.

  85 See below, pp. 175, 368.

  86 Denniston, ‘Government Code and Cypher School between the Wars’, p. 55. Andrew, Secret Service, pp. 469–71.

  87 Harker to Kell, minute, 21 May 1928, TNA KV 2/989; B.4 report re Allen, 25 June 1928, TNA KV 2/989, s. 1a; B.4 report re Allen, 27 June 1928, TNA KV 2/989, s.54a. Quinlan, ‘Human Intelligence Tradecraft and MI5 Operations in Britain’, pp. 152–4.

  88 Harker to Kell, 24 July 28, TNA KV 2/989, s. 63a.

  89 Allen’s statement regarding the activities of the FPA, 20 Aug. 1920, TNA KV 2/989, s. 69a; ‘History of a Section of the Russian Intelligence Service . . .’, 8 Jan. 1930, TNA KV 2/1016, s. 809a; ‘Comparative Statement of information obtained from Allen and MI5 records’, 29 Aug. 1928, TNA KV 2/989, s. 72a. Quinlan, ‘Human Intelligence Tradecraft and MI5 Operations in Britain’, pp. 155–8.

  90 ‘History of a Section of the Russian Intelligence Service . . .’, 8 Jan. 1930, TNA KV 2/1016, s. 809a. Madeira, ‘Moscow’s Interwar Infiltration of British Intelligence, 1919–1929’, p. 927.

  91 ‘History of a Section of the Russian Intelligence Service . . .’, 8 Jan. 1930, TNA KV 2/1016, s. 809a.

  92 In 1950 Ewer agreed to be interviewed by Maxwell Knight; TNA KV 2/1099.

  93 ‘Charles Jane’, TNA KV 2/1398.

  94 See above, p. 127.

  95 Bennett, Churchill’s Man of Mystery, p. 125.

  96 Guy Liddell diary, 17 June 1949, Security Service Archives.

  97 Ibid., 25 May 1949.

  98 ‘Clandestine Activities of William Norman Ewer 1919–1929’, Sept. 1949, TNA KV 2/1016. ‘History of a Section of the Russian Intelligence Service . . .’, 8 Jan. 1930, TNA KV 2/1016, s. 809a. Bennett, Churchill’s Man of Mystery, p. 125. No file on Hayes survives.


  99 See below, p. 130.

  Chapter 2: The Red Menace in the 1930s

  1 Carr, Foundations of a Planned Economy, vol. 3, pp. 376–99. Carr, Twilight of Comintern, pp. 209–14.

  2 ‘Internal Security of H.M. Forces during 1929’, 3 Feb. 1930, TNA WO 32/3948 110/Gen/4399.

  3 Haslam, Soviet Foreign Policy, 1930–1933, p. 56.

  4 Andrew and Mitrokhin, Mitrokhin Archive, pp. 49, 53–4. Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, pp. 165–8.

  5 ‘Internal Security of H.M. Forces during 1929’, 3 Feb. 1930, TNA WO 32/3948 110/Gen/4399.

  6 Roskill, Naval Policy between the Wars, vol. 2, ch. 4. Roskill, Hankey, vol. 2, p. 556. Ereira, Invergordon Mutiny, ch. 10.

  7 ‘Most Secret’ cabinet minute, 21 Sept. 1931, TNA CAB 23/90B.

  8 ‘Transcript of shorthand notes at an interview at New Scotland Yard, S.W., 3rd October 1931: statement by Telegraphist Stephen Bousfield, HMS “Warspite”’, TNA KV 2/604, s. 7a. Harker took part in questioning Bousfield at Scotland Yard.

  9 The Times, 17, 26 Oct., 3, 27 Nov. 1931. On Allison’s earlier career, see above, p. 164.

  10 S8 (Sissmore) to Harker, Minute 53, 8 June 1932, TNA KV 2/604.

  11 In February 1933 Hutchings was joined in Moscow by his wife, also a committed Communist. S10, Minute 79, 24 Feb. 1933, TNA KV 2/604.

  12 Ereira, Invergordon Mutiny, ch. 11. In his authoritative later study of naval policy between the wars Captain Stephen Roskill found no evidence of any Communist activity in the navy save for a few cases of naval ratings attending CPGB meetings in Hyde Park in support of the miners’ strike in 1926. Roskill, Naval Policy between the Wars, vol. 2, pp. 115n., 116n.

  13 V. Baddeley (for Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty) to Under Secretary of State, War Office, 16 Nov. 1931, TNA KV 4/129, s. 42a.

  14 Boddington had first joined the CPGB in 1923 (see above, p. 122) but from 1924 to 1926, when working both for MI5 and SIS, he joined instead the British Fascists and the Italian Fascist Party. No details of his operations while posing as a Fascist survive in Security Service files. Boddington left the British and Italian Fascists in 1926 and rejoined the CPGB. In 1932 he ‘discreetly faded out’ of the Communist Party (Security Service Archives). His reasons for fading out are unknown. It is possible that he feared that his cover was wearing thin and that Harker believed that Knight’s agents were henceforth better placed to penetrate the CPGB.