How ironic it seemed in Australia to be accused of undertaking ‘a carefully planned, cunningly executed operation’ when making basic, simple mistakes had ensured my father was under Australian police investigation less than two days after arriving in Melbourne. This was not ‘a cunningly executed operation’ but the actions of a disturbed man trying to escape a series of repercussions that ensued following the attack in the Sunday Times.
6
Secrets and Lies
My father’s problems began in 1969 when Josef Frolik, a defector from the communist Czech secret service, the StB, accused him of being one of their agents. Frolik had no proof, had never seen my father’s file, or given him any money. The head of MI5 didn’t believe Frolik because he was a known liar: his unfounded fabrications included stories about Prime Minister Edward Heath, left-wing MP Michael Foot, and trade-union leader Ernie Roberts. But right-wing elements within MI5 wanted to use the Frolik misinformation for their own purposes and they made sure the rumour about my father being a spy spread to the press and to parliamentarians. As the information came from MI5, people believed it. A miasma of suspicion and contempt fell over my father and he was doomed. Nobody likes a traitor, and that was particularly the case during the 1970s, when the threat of nuclear attack by communists was so real the UK government were distributing booklets about it, and broadcasting a series of public information films on TV called ‘Protect and Survive’, which described how everyone should make ‘fallout rooms’ in their homes, complete with stockpiles of emergency supplies.
The Czech spy allegation had a life of its own and, although it was never proved, and my father was never charged or convicted, it threw a dark and dangerous cloak of suspicion around him which he could never shake off. On the 14th December 1977, while my father was incarcerated in jail, Josef Frolik’s name was mentioned 53 times in the House of Commons by a triumvirate of right-wing Conservative MPs, who were calling for a full inquiry into the allegations made by Frolik. That cause was subsequently taken up by another Conservative MP, Patrick Mayhew, who spent six hours recording conversations with Frolik in America, precisely to elicit information about my father from him. When the prime minister asked Mayhew, on 12th July 1978, ‘does Frolik say he knew Stonehouse was a spy?’ (his emphasis), Mayhew replied: ‘no: he said that Husak told him that he was going to approach Stonehouse – and said that he did so – and Frolik says that he does not know whether Stonehouse gave Husak any information.’1 Frolik knew nothing. Husak was also an StB agent in London and features in my father’s file, which I have acquired from the Czech secret service archives in Prague.
The Mayhew tapes were referred to in a private meeting between the Labour prime minister, James (Jim) Callaghan, and Labour ex-prime minister, Sir Harold Wilson, in the Cabinet Room at 10 Downing Street on the 14th July 1978. Callaghan made notes of the meeting, saying he told Wilson ‘the Tories were making trouble on this, they were not trying to hook Stonehouse, they were trying to hook him’ (emphasis my own).2 The right-wingers hoped to bring Harold Wilson into disrepute for having given a government job to a communist spy. This had been the focus of the MI5/MI6 Stonehouse leaks from 1969 onwards because the CIA, in particular, had the notion that Harold Wilson himself was a KGB spy. The Labour governments of 1974–9 had razor-thin parliamentary majorities and were in a precarious position politically. The right-wingers were keen to bring them down with a scandal, just as the conservative government of Harold Macmillan had crumpled after the revelation that their war minister, John Profumo, had been having an affair with Christine Keeler, who’d also slept with a man from the Russian embassy. The right-wingers were desperate because the country was in a mess, and they had plenty of wealthy supporters, especially after March 1974 when the Labour government raised the rate of investment income tax to 98 per cent for highest earners.
All that communist defectors had, between them and a life of terror and poverty at home, was the hope that the CIA or MI5 or MI6 would buy their gossip and give them a new, cosy, all-expenses-paid life in the West. Their only capital was information, and if they didn’t have it, they’d make it up. Their lives may have depended on it. In all I’ve read on the subject of defectors, not one person has a good word to say about them. Yet, curiously, at the same time as being suspicious of their motives and veracity, the security services and various commentators often quote defectors’ ‘evidence’ as if it came from the mouth of the Virgin Mary. In my father’s case, the relevant defectors were Josef Frolik and Frantisek August – who are discussed in detail in later chapters of this book – and ‘Affirm’.
In the spy allegation story there are two distinct time frames: before the famous StB file was made available to view by researchers in 2008, and after. In 2009, The Defence of the Realm – The Authorized History of MI5 was published, and that has now become the go-to reference source on the subject of my father being a spy. Although Crown Copyright, it was written by Christopher Andrew, who is Emeritus Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. As a work of reference, the book has excellent credentials. Nevertheless, I am going to contest just about every word Andrew has to say concerning John Stonehouse, which led to his damning conclusion that he was ‘the only British politician (so far as is known) to have acted as a foreign agent while holding ministerial office’.3
Excluding notes, index, appendices etc., The Defence of the Realm is 851 pages long, with about one-and-a-half pages on my father – in other words, not much. Ten of those lines are taken up describing (and misquoting) a sex scene from a novel my father wrote, Ralph. In this, there’s a honeytrap scene which Andrew says ‘may have drawn on his own experience’, and ‘if it is at all autobiographical, tends to support the claims in Frolik’s memoirs that Stonehouse had been recruited by the StB after falling victim to a honey trap during a visit to Czechoslovakia in the late 1950s’.4 Clearly it’s absurd to refer to a work of fiction as any kind of ‘support’ for an allegation of spying. Andrew refers to Frolik’s memoirs, but doesn’t repeat what Frolik actually wrote: ‘The man in question was an MP who had been involved in some sort of homosexual trap,’5 because Andrew doesn’t believe my father was homosexual. The subject of homosexuality came up in a note to the prime minister, Harold Wilson, from his principal private secretary (PPS), Ken Stowe, dated 4th July 1977. Referring to information from Cabinet Secretary John Hunt, Stowe refers to Frolik’s allegation ‘about an unnamed Labour Minister who became involved in Czechoslovakia and this was believed to be a reference to Stonehouse, although in some respects Frolik’s description of the man was quite inapplicable to Stonehouse’.6 This is the diplomatic way of saying they didn’t think he was gay. The more important point, however, is that there’s absolutely no mention whatsoever in the StB file about a honeytrap – homosexual or heterosexual, and, indeed, there are many references to the fact that my father had not been compromised in any way at all.
In Frolik’s 1975 memoirs, The Frolik Defection, he doesn’t mention my father by name and the relevant text is only 200 words long, including hyperbole and general comments about democracy. It’s hardly a rich mine of information. Moreover, Frolik himself said that his memoirs were unreliable. On the 15th December 1977, Cabinet Secretary John Hunt told Prime Minister Callaghan what Frolik had said about this book: ‘that passages which were inconsistent with what he had originally reported (to the Security Service and to the CIA) could be ignored.’7 Frolik also told MP Patrick Mayhew that ‘much of his book that had been published had been written for him by a crooked publisher’.8 Meanwhile that publisher, Leo Cooper, when interviewed by the BBC’s security correspondent, Gordon Corera, said ‘he was sure the security and intelligence services had a hand in the book’.9
Christopher Andrew writes, ‘In 1980 evidence from an StB defector codenamed AFFIRM persuaded both the Security Service and the Thatcher government that Stonehouse had been a Czech agent. Since, however, it was decided that the defector’s evidence could not be
used in court, Mrs Thatcher agreed that Stonehouse should not be prosecuted.’10 Cabinet papers tell the story. Sir Robert Armstrong, who was cabinet secretary at the time, wrote to Mrs Thatcher on the 7th July 1980, reminding her about Mayhew’s six-hour recording of Frolik in the summer of 1978, about which she had been informed at the time, then says, ‘New information has now become available from a new CIS defector. According to first reports, he claims to have been Mr Stonehouse’s controller from March 1968 to some time in 1969, while he was stationed at the Czech embassy in London; he claims to have taken over as Mr Stonehouse’s controller from Robert Husak (who was named by Frolik as a member of the CIS who had been ordered to contact Mr Stonehouse) in Czechoslovakia in March 1968; and he says it was clear from a file which he had read that Mr Stonehouse was a conscious paid agent from 1962, had after taking office in 1964 provided information about Government plans and policies and about technological subjects including aircraft, and had been paid over the years about £5,000 in all (although none of it by this defector).’11
By the 11th September, the attorney general had been informed and Armstrong tells Thatcher, ‘It seems that he takes the view that the new evidence would not be sufficient to sustain a successful prosecution.’12 On the morning of the 6th, Mrs Thatcher had a meeting with the home secretary, the attorney general, and Sir Robert Armstrong at which the attorney general said he was ‘sure that Mr Stonehouse had been a spy for the Czechoslovaks but he had no evidence which he could put before a jury. The new information … was not of the kind which would secure a conviction, and in any case the defector was not prepared to come to this country and take part in a trial.’13 The attorney general was Michael Havers, who was not a man who shied away from prosecuting innocent people on little or no evidence. In 1980, it was still not known publicly that Havers, representing the Crown and the director of public prosecutions (DPP), played a crucial role in the imprisonment of eleven innocent people who collectively served 113 years in prison, and suffered one death in custody, in two notorious miscarriages of justice in 1975 and 1976: the cases of the ‘Guildford Four’ and the ‘Maguire Seven’. In the case of the Guildford Four, the DPP suppressed alibi evidence and even suppressed confessions by the actual guilty parties, and in the Maguire case, there was discredited forensic evidence. Havers must have had some idea of the injustices being played out. So this is the man who feels confident in saying he is ‘sure that Mr Stonehouse had been a spy’ even though ‘he had no evidence which he could put before a jury’. If even Michael Havers can’t find a case in the ‘evidence’ of the defector, then I think it’s fair to assume there wasn’t much there, if any. At Downing Street on the 6th October, the discussion centred on whether Stonehouse should be interviewed by the police or secret service regarding the ‘further evidence’. But Michael Havers thought that, having served his prison sentence and having had heart surgery, ‘it was quite likely that he would make a public fuss and claim that he was being persecuted by the Government’, adding, ‘The Security Service thought that they would not gain anything by interviewing Mr Stonehouse.’14
Andrew doesn’t mention ‘Affirm’s identity by name, but the most likely contender is Lt. Colonel Josef Kalina (StB alias ‘Karhan’, spy number 195046, d.o.b. 07.03.1925). He was one of three First Secretaries at the Czech embassy – from December 1966 to September 1969. As Kalina was the head of the StB group within the embassy, with eighteen personnel under him, it seems likely in the time frame – when my father was a minister – that someone of Kalina’s seniority would be the more appropriate match for ‘Affirm’.* Looking at the StB file and its records of meetings, the only other candidate is Karel Pravec, alias ‘Pelnar’, who defected in 1980, which is about the same time as ‘Affirm’ was said to have defected, but who strikes a pathetic figure in the reports, constantly whining that he can’t get hold of my father by phone or any other means. On the 20th January 1970, ‘Pelnar’ files a report saying, ‘We paid him a lot of money and didn’t get anything from him,’ and ‘Have not had contact for one-and-a-half years.’ Working backward in time, that takes the last contact to July 1968, which conflicts with ‘Affirm’ saying he was the controller ‘from March 1968 to some time in 1969’. However hapless ‘Pelnar’ appeared in my father’s 1960s file, today he is living in a massive five-bedroom house in New Jersey. No wonder so many Czech StB defectors headed for the USA, where the gullible CIA were prepared to fund their new life of luxury.
In his capacity as minister of aviation and minister of technology, my father had arranged for a VC10 aircraft exhibition flight to take place in Prague in 1966, with a view to the Czech National Airlines buying some. (He was also trying to sell the VC10 to Middle East Airlines, Kuwait Airways, Ghana Airways and others.) On the 13th March 1967, Kalina (agent ‘Karhan’) reported that he met my father, who told him the Czechs had another week to decide on the purchase of the VC10s otherwise they’d be selling them to Austrian Airlines instead. This meeting could well have occurred. Kalina says his next meeting was on the 3rd April, when the VC10 was again discussed. Kalina is the only person in the StB file to mention my father’s actual name, ‘Stonehouse’, rather than the aliases, during the period they claimed he was an agent, and he did this on 2nd February and 8th March 1968 – and on both occasions the VC10 was supposedly discussed. ‘Affirm’ said that my father ‘provided information about Government plans and policies and about technological subjects including aircraft’. Well, given that he was trying to sell the Czechs aircraft, which my father could speak about in broad technical terms because he was a trained RAF pilot, that could be true, but as for ‘Government plans and policies’, Kalina could have picked up information from Hansard and the newspapers and packaged them as ‘information’ from his supposed agents. Kalina had a habit of writing reports and then hand-writing ‘Katalina’ (the code name the StB used for my father at this time) at the bottom, as if allocating ‘information’ retrospectively to a likely candidate. There’s no proof that my father attended most of the meetings Kalina reports. The strongest evidence that Kalina was ‘Affirm’ is that ‘Affirm’ says he didn’t pay my father any money, and this is true of Kalina, whose reports don’t show payments of ‘odmena’ – rewards – and he only claims expenses. They always claimed expenses, and the more meetings they claimed to have, the more expenses they could claim.
Christopher Andrew writes, ‘AFFIRM’s evidence was largely corroborated a quarter of a century later when some of the contents of Stonehouse’s lengthy StB file were revealed in the Czech Republic. As AFFIRM had claimed, his original codename had been KOLON (“Colonist”, a reference to two years he had spent in Uganda). Stonehouse had been recruited while an Opposition backbencher to provide “information from Parliament and Parliamentary committees”, using the money he received to fund his social life. The StB, however, were disappointed by the amount of intelligence Stonehouse provided once he became a minister.’15 This is the sum total of Andrew’s evidence that Stonehouse was ‘the only British politician (so far as is known) to have acted as a foreign agent while holding ministerial office’. This is what ‘Affirm’ said was in the file: 1) he had the code name, ‘Kolon’ – true, but he actually had four code names and in ‘Affirm’s time the StB were using ‘Twister’, and before then ‘Katalina’, so why not refer to them?; 2) he’d been recruited while an opposition backbencher – there’s no evidence for that; only that he’d been to Czechoslovakia for the Co-operative movement and they’d opened a file on him, as they did for every foreigner who set foot on the eastern side of the Iron Curtain; 3) he was to provide ‘information from Parliament and Parliamentary committees’ – anyone could pay a few shillings to purchase a daily record of every word spoken in the House of Commons by taking a stroll to the HMSO office in Holborn, and there’s only one document in the file that could be minutes from a committee, and I discuss this innocuous item in full in a later Chapter; 4) he used the money to fund his social life – they had to say that because he’d not
been compromised and they needed an excuse; and 5) they were ‘disappointed by the amount of intelligence Stonehouse provided once he became a minister’ – we can agree on that because there is practically nothing in the English language in the StB file from the entire period he was a minister.
The spy allegation was very hurtful to my father and caused him deep stress from 1969 to 1988, when he died of a heart attack aged 62. Before the file was made public in 2008, my father and the whole family had to endure speculation, based on complete ignorance, fuelled by the machinations of right-wing political activists. But after 2008 there was really no excuse for the continuance of this myth and Andrew should have taken more trouble over examining the contents of the StB file. He could have contacted us and asked the simple question: did you live at the only address the StB ever had for you – ‘22 Aldwyne Road’? The answer, ‘No’, would have shot a hole in the story he’s been going around telling the world: that the StB contacted my father at that address to arrange future meetings, using dated cuttings from The Times. In fact, that large Victorian villa on (correctly spelled) Alwyne Road was occupied by four families paying rent to the Northampton Estate, and we were not one of them. Andrew could have asked the family for an example of my father’s handwriting so he could identify the forgeries in the file: two maps, two envelopes, two notes of about six words each, and two words added to a Christmas card. With forgeries go lies, and the StB file has many of them. But instead of doing any basic research, Andrew has assumed my father was guilty, and naively or conveniently lapped up the StB’s lies. And here’s the reason why: Andrew thinks my father is guilty of being a spy because he was guilty of so much else – according to the ubiquitous but incorrect narrative that washed over the entire nation, courtesy of the press.
John Stonehouse, My Father Page 6
