So I have had to rely on the files, the notes that those involved wrote at the time. This presents a series of challenges to the researcher. In the decades after the war, the Security Service destroyed many of its older records. Largely this process of ‘weeding’ was because the information was considered unimportant, but I have found one hint of a deliberate effort to destroy references to the Fifth Column operation. The files that remain are often incomplete, and there are others that either no longer exist or haven’t been opened. Within the available paperwork, there are questions and doubts. MI5 had to rely, in part, on gossip collected and passed on to them, generally by policemen. One can detect a tendency to accept such reports uncritically. In some files, a salacious morsel is repeated in note after note until it has hardened into unquestioned fact.
All this means that writing this book has been a process of trying to describe the picture shown by a jigsaw puzzle for which I do not have all the pieces. There are mysteries. I am hopeful that in the future, files will be opened that solve some of them. I am also conscious that in the future information may be uncovered which reveals that I have mistaken some aspect of this operation.
What we do have are transcripts of conversations in the Park West flat, as well as the notes from shorthand that were taken by Special Branch in the Philip Jackson and Irma Stapleton cases. Every word in the book that appears inside quotation marks was either spoken or written by the person to whom it was attributed.
Acknowledgements
In writing this book, which deals with the worst side of human nature, I have had encounter after encounter with the best side. I’ve enjoyed warm hospitality on two continents, seen my questions dealt with patiently by archivists and researchers, and been carried along by the endless support of colleagues, friends and family. However, any blunders in the book are my responsibility alone.
My first thanks must go to Eric Roberts’s children, Crista McDonald and Max Roberts. Talking about secrets they had kept for decades wasn’t easy for either of them, but the conversations we had were invaluable. I’m grateful too for the welcome that they and their spouses, Mick and Rosemary, gave me in Canada, and for the insights and assistance of Eric’s grandchildren, Heather, Stephanie, Rosanne and Marilyn. Eric’s wider family, Robin, Roger and Richard Kennard, and Eveleen Thorne, offered me their memories of the man, as did John Dickson, son of his friend Jimmy.
If the Roberts family found raking over the details of this story difficult, it was even harder for the relatives of the Fifth Column. I’m particularly grateful to Ernest Kohout for his willingness to give me lunch and talk about his father, when others might have slammed the door in my face. Marita’s nephew and nieces in Australia and Britain – David Brahe, Diana Brahe, Marita Ogburn and Sara Morren – bore the shock well, and offered me their memories of their aunt. Leslea Linnett put me in touch with Louise Percival, who went above and beyond in helping me to trace the story.
Much of my time working on this book has been spent reading old pieces of paper, and I’m eternally in the debt of Richard Dunley and all the staff at the National Archives, Melanie Aspey at the Rothschild Archive, Andrew Riley and Heidi Egginton at Churchill College, Cambridge, James Elder at the BT Archives, Sally Cholewa at the RBS Archives, and the staff at the Weiner Library, the Natural History Museum Archives and the London Metropolitan Archives.
Jean Bray agreed to let us use her late husband Laurence Fish’s wonderful bomb diagrams. Michelle Blagg shared her research into Victor Rothschild and the Royal Mint. Michael Denton confirmed that spies had indeed met in his father’s basement. Mark Cocker and Robert Prys-Jones gave insights into the enigmatic Theresa Clay, and their thoughts on Richard Meinertzhagen. Katie Harrison gave me a vital introduction. Robin Lumsden instructed me on German medals. Harry Patel arranged for me to visit 499 Park West. Stephen Dorril and Christopher Andrew both offered their perspectives on the operation, and Jonathan Evans gave a professional view. Grace Hailstone went through the Slade School of Art archives and helped me find the picture of the woman we believe to be the young Marita Brahe. I’m grateful too for the assistance of some people who would prefer not to be named.
This tale started as a piece for Bloomberg News, which was deftly edited, as so much of my work has been over the last fourteen years, by Eddie Buckle. In the course of the subsequent 100,000 words, my colleagues Alex Morales, Tim Ross, Svenja O’Donnell, Kitty Donaldson, Andrew Atkinson, Alan Crawford, Emma Ross-Thomas and Flavia Krause-Jackson put up with my absences and gave useful advice. Reto Gregori managed not to roll his eyes when I mentioned I was writing yet another book, and John Fraher allowed me to disappear for two months in the midst of the chaos of 2016. Ed Johnson cheerfully agreed when I asked him to help me find a document in the State Library of New South Wales.
The best thing about my journalistic career has been that I have spent so much of it in good company. Both the Parliamentary Press Gallery and Honourable Company of Archive Reporters are people who make it a joy to go to work. I’m especially grateful for the encouragement and advice of Ben Macintyre, Tim Shipman, Peter Hennessy, Andrew Sparrow, Rafael Behr and the first person to suggest that I should write this book: Ross Hawkins.
I wouldn’t have known how even to begin such a project without the advice and support of my agent, Sally Holloway, who got the idea instantly and held my hand every step of the way. At Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Alan Samson was an enthusiastic and trusting publisher, Simon Wright did a brilliant job on the text, and John English saved me from my own mistakes.
Throughout, Phil Cowley, Thomas Penny and Michael Paterson were good friends, who gave encouragement and advice, and offered vital insights on early drafts, as did Henry Hemming. To discover that someone else is working on a book involving some of the same people as you, as Henry and I did in the summer of 2015, is a tense moment. I am glad that we have become comrades rather than rivals.
My uncle, Chris Squire, has always encouraged me in my writing. For this book, he even visited the archives with me and helped me work my way through the hundreds of files.
My father, David Hutton-Squire, believed in this book from the start. He read archive files and manuscript drafts, catered for me for a week in Yorkshire while I holed up in his dining room hammering out words, and even paid for me to upgrade my seat to one with room for my long legs on a flight to Canada. For these things, but much more for everything else, I will never properly be able to express my gratitude.
My sons, Fraser and Cameron, have put up with absences and lost weekends driven alternately by this book and by Britain’s unending political turmoil. They have offered me their thoughts on the title and the cover, as well as leaving drawings of spies on my desk. They have, throughout, been my great joy.
My final thanks go to my wife, Sophie, who despite having to put up with authors all day is prepared to put up with me, too. Without her patience, support, advice and love, I’d never have got past page one.
Bibliography
Andrew, Christopher, The Defence of the Realm. Allen Lane, 2009.
Baker, Rob, Beautiful Idiots and Brilliant Lunatics: A Sideways Look at Twentieth-Century London. Amberley Publishing, 2015.
BBC, The Politics of Thinking, 1984.
Bishop, Patrick, Battle of Britain. Quercus, 2009.
Bowen, E. J., rev. K. D. Watson, ‘Hartley, Sir Harold Brewer (1878–1972)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2004.
Bower, Tom, The Perfect English Spy: Sir Dick White and the Secret War 1935–90. William Heinemann, 1995.
Carter, Miranda, Anthony Blunt: His Lives. Macmillan, 2001.
Cathcart, Brian, The News From Waterloo. Faber & Faber, 2015.
Charnley, John, Blackshirts and Roses. Brockingday, 1990.
Colville, John, The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries 1939–1955. Hodder & Stoughton, 1985.
Curry, John, The Security Service, 1908–1945. Public Record Office, 1999.
Davies, D. Seaborne, �
�The Treachery Act, 1940’, Modern Law Review 4:3 (1941): 217–220. JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1090487.
Dorril, Stephen, Blackshirt: Sir Oswald Mosley and British Fascism. Viking, 2006.
Duffy, Peter, Double Agent. Scribner, 2014.
Fairn, Duncan, ‘Maxwell, Sir Alexander (1880–1963)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2004.
FBI, ‘Spies Caught, Spies Lost, Lessons Learned’. 3 December 2007: https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/stories/2007/december/espionage_120307.
Feldenkirchen, Wilfried, Siemens 1918–1945. Ohio State University Press, 1999.
Gardiner, Juliet, Wartime. Headline, 2004.
Garfield, Brian, The Meinertzhagen Mystery. Potomac Books, 2007.
Gillman, Peter and Leni, Collar the Lot! London: Quartet, 1980.
Glover, Michael, Invasion Scare 1940. Pen and Sword, 1990.
Gottlieb, Julie V., Feminine Fascism. IB Tauris, 2003.
Griffiths, Richard, Patriotism Perverted. Constable, 1998.
Hastings, Max, The Secret War. HarperCollins, 2015.
Hemming, Henry, M. Preface, 2017.
Hodgkin, Alan, Chance and Design: Reminisecences of Science in Peace and War. Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Jones, R. V., Most Secret War. Hamish Hamilton, 1978.
Koehler, Hansjürgen, Inside the Gestapo: Hitler’s Shadow Over the World. Palls Publishing Co., 1940.
Macintyre, Ben, Double Cross. Bloomsbury, 2012.
Masterman, J. C., The Double Cross System. Pimlico, 1995.
Masters, Anthony, The Man Who Was M. Basil Blackwell, 1984.
Maugham, W. Somerset, Strictly Personal. Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1941.
McKinstry, Leo, Operation Sealion. John Murray, 2014.
Mitchell, Andrew Martin, ‘Fascism in East Anglia : the British Union of Fascists in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex, 1933–1940’. PhD thesis, 1999.
Mullally, Frederic, Fascism Inside England. Claud Morris Books, 1946.
STV News. ‘WWII Spycatchers Revealed After 70 years’, 3 September 2009: https://stv.tv/news/tayside/120593-wwii-spycatchers-revealed-after-70-years/
Orwell, George, ‘Antisemitism in Britain’, Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters, Vol. III. Secker & Warburg, 1968.
Pugh, Martin, Hurrah for the Blackshirts! Jonathan Cape, 2005.
Roberts family archive, n.d.
Rose, Kenneth, Elusive Rothschild. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2001.
Rothschild, Hannah, The Baroness. Virago, 2012.
Rothschild, Miriam, Dear Lord Rothschild. Balaban, 1983.
Rothschild, Victor, Meditations of a Broomstick. William Collins & Sons, 1977.
—, Random Variables. William Collins Sons & Co., 1984.
—, BBC Desert Island Discs interview, 7 July 1984.
Stubley, Peter, Calendar of Crime. The History Press, 2014.
‘The Red Book: Membership list of Captain Ramsay’s Right Club’, 1939.
Thurlow, Richard, Fascism in Britain. Blackwell, 1987.
US Holocaust Museum, n.d.: https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10006188
US War Department, Instructions for American Servicemen in Britain. Washington DC, 1942.
van Straubenzee, Alexander, ‘The Gate of Hell’, Daily Telegraph. 10 April 2005.
Walton, Calder, Empire of Secrets. William Collins, 2013.
West, Nigel and Oleg Tsarev, Triplex: Secrets from the Cambridge Spies. Yale University Press, 2009.
West, Nigel, The A–Z of British Intelligence. Scarecrow, 2005.
—, The Guy Liddell Diaries, Volume I: 1939–1942. Routledge, 2005.
Wilkinson, Dr Oliver, ‘Review of Prisoners of Britain: German Civilian and Combatant Internees During the First World War’, Reviews in History, 2014.
Notes
KV refers to Security Service files, HO to Home Office files, CAB to Cabinet Office files, FO to Foreign Office files and HW to GCHQ files, held at the National Archives in Kew.
here two months pregnant: KV2/680.
here ‘not nursed the people’: KV2/680.
here ‘like 40,000 others’: Martin Pugh, Hurrah for the Blackshirts! (2005).
here ‘Hitler’s invasions of Poland’: HO 186/278, ‘If the Invader Comes’ (1940).
here ‘Britain’s pocket Fuehrer’: Daily Express, 24/5/1940.
here ‘Precautions that should’: Daily Mirror, 24/5/1940.
here ‘A cheap place’: KV 2/680.
here The enemy planes: Yorkshire Post, 5/8/1940.
here ‘I am not a copper’: KV 2/680.
here ‘Although these people’: KV 2/680.
here ‘They were seized with unparalleled speed’: Chicago Daily News, 15 April 1940, quoted in Michael Glover, Invasion Scare 1940 (1980), and Peter and Leni Gillman, Collar the Lot! (1990). Also in Birmingham Mail, 16/5/1940.
here On Friday 23 August: The file on the case says Friday 24 August 1940, and carries this error through to subsequent days. I have assumed that MI5 got the days of the week right, and the dates of those days wrong.
here ‘It was impressed on him very strongly’: KV 2/680.
here One of those fights: John Charnley, Blackshirts and Roses (1990).
here ‘I was perpetually hungry’: Roberts family archive.
here ‘an excellent worker’: Roberts family archive.
here ‘mannish woman’: Julie V. Gottlieb, Feminine Fascism (2003).
here ‘the saviour of his country’: Christopher Andrew, The Defence of the Realm (2009).
here ‘Bloody Fools’: Henry Hemming, M (2017).
here ‘The family fortune’: Anthony Masters, The Man Who Was M. (1984).
here paid work of a patriotic nature: Hemming (2017).
here ‘I read Kipling’s infernal Kim’: Roberts family archive.
here ‘unscrupulous and dishonest person’: KV 4/227 Maxwell Knight, ‘History of the operations of MS during the war 1939–45’.
here Roberts showed promise: Roberts family archive.
here one even followed Knight’s path: Hemming (2017).
here Roberts would finish his day: Roberts family archive.
here Knight was now in the position: Hemming (2017).
here He was far from alone: Pugh (2005).
here ‘I grew to hate’: Roberts family archive.
here ‘Parliamentary government is conducted’: Daily Mail, January 1934.
here ‘I am not very sympathetic’: Quoted in Frederic Mullally, Fascism Inside England (1946).
here ‘A woman who intervened’: Quoted in Mullally (1946).
here ‘The almost simultaneous occurrence’: John Curry, The Security Service, 1908–1945 (1999).
here ‘I am anxious to see you’: Roberts family archive.
here ‘Get in touch with our friends’: Roberts family archive.
here ‘a small regular sum’: KV 4/227.
here ‘retaining fee’: Roberts family archive.
here ‘The officer should take an interest’: KV 4/227.
here ‘Nothing is too small’: Roberts family archive.
here ‘They will obviously regard’: Roberts family archive.
here ‘Don’t utter a single word’: Roberts family archive.
here ‘One has to tread very warily’: Roberts family archive.
here ‘She is of interest’: Roberts family archive.
here ‘Capt. Hick struck me’: KV 2/2145.
here ‘the most loyal pro-German’: KV 5/2.
here ‘my best and safest plan’: KV 2/1343.
here ‘To be an accomplished double-crosser’: Roberts family archive.
here ‘Roberts is thoroughly familiar’: KV 2/3874.
here ‘They spent the whole evening’: KV 2/680.
here ‘where it would lead to British soldiers’: KV 2/680.
here ‘the other members present’: KV 2/680.
here the bombs had been meant: Patrick Bishop, Battle of Britain (2009).
here ‘too inept to be much use’: KV 2/680.
here ‘talked somewhat wildly’: KV 2/680.
here ‘any act which is designed’: D. Seaborne Davies, ‘The Treachery Act, 1940’ (1941).
here ‘He did not like leaving the dirty work’: KV 2/680.
here ‘pro-German and anti-Jew’: KV 2/680.
here ‘more stupid than dangerous’: KV 2/680.
here ‘Because I am a National Socialist’: KV2/680.
here ‘After thanking him for his offer’: KV 2/680.
here ‘There is now a definite conspiracy’: KV 4/186.
here ‘The Leeds group are quite isolated’: KV 2/680.
here ‘the BU as an organisation’: KV 2/680.
here ‘the case of Miss Crewe’: KV 2/680.
here ‘This information is amateurish’: KV 2/680.
here ‘The organ is working’: KV 2/680.
here ‘gave me an Xmas sample’: KV 2/680.
here ‘just to look at’: Yorkshire Post, 5/11/1940, p. 6.
here ‘Fireworks supplied by the RAF’: Daily Mirror, 6/11/1940, back page.
here ‘We’ve done a job!’: This and subsequent quotes from the diary are from KV 2/680.
here ‘The attempt had been further wrecked’: KV 2/680.
here A barometer board: Yorkshire Post, 14/9/1940.
here ‘they kept reiterating’: This and subsequent quotes from the diary are from KV 2/680.
here Sir Alexander Maxwell: Duncan Fairn, ‘Maxwell, Sir Alexander (1880–1963)’ (2004).
here ‘a plump man’: Somerset Maugham, quoted in Nigel West, The Guy Liddell Diaries, Volume I: 1939–1942 (2005).
here ‘always beautifully dressed’: Stuart Hampshire, quoted in Miranda Carter, Anthony Blunt (2001).
here just thirty-six officers: Andrew (2009).
here ‘In the meantime the Germans’: KV 4/185.
Agent Jack Page 32
