PREFACE
1 The signals intelligence side is extensively covered in Hinsley, British Intelligence in the Second World War. I have in general aimed to avoid covering the same ground of this work and also that of Michael Goodman’s forthcoming Official History of the Joint Intelligence Committee.
2 See FCO Historical Branch, ‘“My Purdah Lady”’, for an outline account.
3 For useful examinations of attaché work, see Seligmann, Spies in Uniform, and Seligmann (ed.), Naval Intelligence from Germany.
4 Harker to Vivian, 14 Mar. 1935 (TNA, KV 2/1588). I am grateful to Phil Tomaselli for this reference.
5 Admiral Alexander Bethell to Cumming, 10 Aug. 1909, an image of which may be seen on the SIS website: http://www.mi6gov.uk/output/the-bethell-letter.hmtl (accessed 20 Jan. 2010).
6 See Hinsley, British Intelligence in the Second World War.
CHAPTER 1: THE BEGINNINGS OF THE SERVICE
1 The most important single source for the early history of SIS is Mansfield Cumming’s diary, which he began to write up specifically as a record of his office work shortly after being appointed to the Secret Service Bureau. The earliest period covered by the diary, from August 1909 to January 1914 (but with substantial gaps, especially in 1911-13), exists only in a photocopy of a typescript apparently typed by Cumming himself.
2 Kennedy, Rise and Fall of the Great Powers; Howard, Continental Commitment.
3 For a review of the German threat in its various manifestations, and the British popular and official response, see Andrew, Defence of the Realm, 3-52; and Hiley, ‘Failure of British counter-espionage’.
4 Andrew, Defence of the Realm, 5-6; Andrew, Secret Service, 31-3; Jeffery, Sir Henry Wilson, 75, 90, 100-3; Hiley, ‘Failure of British espionage’.
5 Report and proceedings of CID sub-committee, Oct. 1909; conclusions of sub-committee, Apr. 1909 (TNA, CAB 16/8 and 16/232).
6 CID 103rd meeting, 24 July 1909 (TNA, CAB 2/2); Edmonds, ‘Memoirs’, ch. 20, p. 5 (Edmonds papers); memo regarding the formation of a Secret Service Bureau (TNA, KV 1/3).
7 The indispensable biographical source for Cumming is Judd, The Quest for C.; Cumming service record (TNA, ADM 196/20). For the Motor Yacht Club, see The Times, 14 Apr. 1908 and Guttridge, Royal Motor Yacht Club.
8 Grahame-White, At the Wheel, 122.
9 Bethell to Cumming, 10 Aug. 1909 (reproduced at http://www.mi6gov.uk/output/the-bethell-letter. hmtl (accessed 20 Jan. 2010)).
10 Tariff Reform, the replacement of Free Trade with national tariff barriers, had been adopted by Germany in the late nineteenth century. We are grateful to Nicholas Hiley for cracking Cumming’s code.
11 Kell diary 15-17 Nov. 1910 (TNA, KV 1/10).
12 Secret Service Bureau, minutes of meeting, 23 May 1911 (TNA, FO 1093/25).
13 Ibid., 23 Nov. 1911 (ibid.); The Times, 21 July; Wilson diary, 26 July 1911 (Wilson papers).
14 The Times, 1 and 5 Feb. 1912; note by Reginald Drake, 25 July 1947 (IWM, Payne-Best papers, SPB 3); petition by Stewart, Mar. 1914, and note by DMO, 25 May 1914 (TNA, WO 374/65422).
15 Wilson diary, 12, 18-19 Sept. 1911; Hiley, ‘Failure of British espionage’, 881-3; Secret Service Bureau, minutes of meeting, 23 Nov. 1911 (TNA, FO 1093/25).
16 Secret Service Bureau, minutes of meeting, 8 Nov. 1912 and 7 May 1913 (TNA, FO 1093/25).
17 Ibid., 7 May 1913.
18 For ‘Willie’ Clarkson, see McLaren, ‘Smoke and mirrors’.
19 Spiers, who changed the spelling of his surname to Spears in 1918, was a liaison officer with General de Gaulle during the Second World War.
20 Some of Rotter’s intelligence logbooks have survived in TNA, ADM 137, e.g. 137/3880; Hiley, ‘Failure of British espionage’, 887-8.
CHAPTER 2: STATUS, ORGANISATION AND EXPERTISE
1 Historical Sketch of the Directorate of Military Intelligence, 1914-18 (TNA, WO 32/10776).
2 Callwell to Henry Wilson, 30 Sept. 1914 (Wilson papers, HHW 2/75/9); draft telegram, 4 Oct. 1914 (TNA, WO 339/7419) (I am most grateful to Phil Tomaselli for drawing this document to my attention); Kirke to wife, 3 Oct. 1914 (Kirke papers (IWM), WMK 2, folder I). The best source for military intelligence on the Western Front is Beach, ‘British Intelligence and the German Army’.
3 Mackenzie, Greek Memories, 90-1; Cumming service record (TNA, ADM 196/20).
4 Cumming service record (TNA, ADM 196/20); Kirke to wife, 12 Oct. 1914 (Kirke papers (IWM), WMK 2, folder I); Callwell to Wilson, 10 Dec. 1914 (Wilson papers, HHW 2/75/21).
5 Historical Sketch, 1914-18 (TNA, WO 32/10776).
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
8 Kirke diary, 29 Nov.-10 Dec. 1915 (Kirke papers (IWM), 82/28/1); Scheme for Reorganisation of S.S., Dec. 1915 (TS carbon copy) (Kirke papers (ICM), acc. no. 262).
9 For Merton see Hartley and Gabor, ‘Thomas Ralph Merton’.
10 MIɪ(c) air reports, 21-22 March 1918 (SHD (Terre), 16N1298, vol. 22).
11 The Times, 15 Oct. 1929.
12 In January 1917 Browning also successfully put Cumming up for election to the Garrick Club - a favourite of theatrical men (information from Mr Marcus Risdell, Curator and Librarian of the Club).
13 According to a letter from Macdonogh to the DID, 12 Nov. 1917, the War Office had similar concerns.
14 For Dansey’s early life, see Read and Fisher, Colonel Z.
15 Hoare, Fourth Seal, 31.
16 Kirke diary, 22 June, 11 Oct. 1915 (Kirke papers (IWM), 82/28/1).
17 Hartley and Gabor, ‘Thomas Ralph Merton’, 425.
18 Norman Thwaites to Wiseman, 1 Oct. 1918 (Wiseman papers, box 6, folder 175).
CHAPTER 3: OPERATIONS IN THE WEST
1 Maxse to FO, 19 Aug.; minute by Eyre Crowe, 21 Aug. 1914 (TNA, FO 371/2054).
2 See Tinsley’s naval service record (TNA, ADM 340/136); for his employment and expulsion, see papers in TNA, FO 368/537-8; Kirke diary, 29 Nov. 1915 (Kirke papers (IWM), 82/28/1); memoir, part 2, p. 150 (Kirkpatrick papers, 79/50/1); memoir, p. 23, and extract from letters to Walter Leschander, n.d. (Payne Best papers (ICM), acc. no. 1239); Landau, All’s Fair, 46-7.
3 Kirke diary, 29 Nov. 1915 (Kirke papers (IWM), 82/28/1); for Cameron see Winter, Winter’s Tale, 184-221.
4 Kirke diary, 19 Mar. 1915 (Kirke papers (IWM), 82/28/1).
5 Memoir, part 1, p. 59 (Kirkpatrick papers, 79/50/1); Kirke diary, 29 Nov. 1915 (Kirke papers (IWM), 82/28/1).
6 History of Intelligence (B), B.E.F., France, Jan. 1917 to Apr. 1919, by Col. R. Drake (TNA, WO 106/45); Andrew, Defence of the Realm, 73-5.
7 History of Intelligence (B) by Col. Drake (TNA, WO 106/45).
8 For Oppenheim see Landau, Spreading the Spy Net, 37-8.
9 History of Intelligence (B) by Col. Drake (TNA, WO 106/45); History of British Secret Service in Holland in World War I, Aug. 1914-Feb. 1917 by M. R. K. Burge (TNA, WO 106/6189).
10 See Kirke diary, 30 May, 9-10 June, 23 July, 17 Aug. 1916 (Kirke papers (IWM), 82/28/1); Landau, All’s Fair, 44, 46, 53; The Times, 21 Dec. 1916.
11 Landau, All’s Fair, 43-4.
12 History of British Secret Service in Holland (TNA, WO 106/6189).
13 Landau, All’s Fair, 108-12; Landau, Secrets of the White Lady, 47-57; ‘B.149’ to M. St Lambert, 7 July 1917 (Dewé papers, vol. 2); Decock, ‘La Dame Blanche’, 65-72, 101-7, 122-37; Proctor, Female Intelligence, 75-98 provides an excellent short account.
14 Proctor, Female Intelligence, 81-7; London Gazette, 29 Aug. 1919; La Dame Blanche papers, Box 1, folder 4(a/b); Landau, Secrets of the White Lady, 141-51.
15 Memoir, part 2, pp. 128-35 (Kirkpatrick papers, 79/50/1); Landau, All’s Fair, 50-1; Landau, Secrets of the White Lady, 65-79.
16 ‘There is no doubt at this critical moment you represent the most abundant Allied intelligence source and that the results you are achieving are of inestimable value’ (‘Service anglais’ to ‘Service d’Observation anglais’, 21 Jan. 1918, quoted in Decock, ‘La Dame Blanche’, 149).
17 For the Bureau Central Interallié see Cockerill, What Fools We Were, 41-2; and Mersey, A Picture of Life, 276-96. Various British CX reports (from Athens and Copenhagen in Dec. 1915) survive in the French records of the Bureau (see SHD (Terre), 7N1018).
18 Calculations from British intelligence reports in SHD (Terre), 16N1291-1300 (29 vols). Judd says that ‘the CX prefix had staying power, surviving in later SIS vocabulary in a number of ways’ (Judd, Quest for C, 333).
19 MIɪ(c) reports, 6, 8, 16 June 1917 (SHD (Terre), 16N1291, vol. 4); Newbolt, Naval Operations, v, 241-65; Jones, War in the Air: Appendices, 50.
20 Landau, All’s Fair, 143-9; Rotterdam to London, 14 Mar. and 27 June 1916, enclosing reports from R.16 (TNA, ADM 223/637, which contains additional commendations by Naval Intelligence Staff).
21 ‘Service anglais’ to ‘Service d’Observation anglais’, 21 July 1918 (Dewé papers, vol. 1); memoir, part 2, p. 150 (Kirkpatrick papers, 79/50/1).
22 Beach, ‘British Intelligence and the German Army’, 239-66.
23 London Gazette, 29 Aug., 12 Sept. 1919; The Times, 28, 31 Jan., 2 Feb. 1920.
24 D.1 report, 12 Nov. 1915; D.10 report, 8 May 1916 (TNA, MUN 4/518 and 4/3587); D.2 reports, 20, 23 Mar. 1915, 3 Jan. 1918; D.5 report, 12 Oct. 1917; D.62 report, 11 Apr. 1918 (SHD (Terre), 16N1291, 1295-6, 1298, vols 1, 11, 17, 24).
25 S.50 reports, 20 Apr., 10 May 1917; N.20 report, 3 Jan.; S.8 report, 4 Feb. 1918 (SHD (Terre), 16N1291, vol. 1; 1292, vol. 4; 1296, vol. 17; 1297, vol. 19).
26 Kirke diary, 25 Feb.-3 Mar., 22-23 Mar., 3, 10 Apr., 20, 22 June, 14 July 1915 (Kirke papers (IWM), 82/28/1).
27 New York Times, 28 Nov. 1915.
28 Kirke diary, 10 Jan. 1916 (Kirke papers (IWM), 82/28/1); Andrew, Secret Service, 146-53; Maugham, Partial View, 115-16.
29 Kirke diary, 23 Mar., 29 Nov. 1915 (Kirke papers (IWM), 82/28/1).
30 Ibid., 3 Dec. 1915 (ibid.).
31 Intelligence reports in SHD (Terre), 16N1291-1300.
32 For MI5 stations in Italy and the USA, see Andrew, Defence of the Realm, 104-6.
33 Economic Conditions (Enemy Countries), summaries nos 15-17, covering 23 June-20 July 1917 (SHD (Terre), 16N1292, vols 5-6); H. Llewellyn Smith to David Lloyd George (Minister of Munitions), 6 Aug. 1915 and attached note (TNA, MUN 4/3586); ‘German Munitions Output’ file (MUN 4/3262); report from D.1, 12 Nov. 1915 (MUN 4/3586); report from S.1, 12 Nov. 1916 (MUN 4/3587); report from Tiger, 27 Oct. 1916 (MUN 4/3262).
34 Stagg to Hoare, 11 May 1916 (Templewood papers, II.1.39).
CHAPTER 4: WORKING FURTHER AFIELD
1 There are general accounts of British intelligence in Russia, 1914-17 (on which I have drawn in this and succeeding paragraphs) in Macdonogh to General Sir Henry Wilson, 14 Jan. 1917 (Wilson papers, HHW 3/12/59); and History of the British Intelligence Organisation in Russia, 1914-Feb. 1917 (TNA, WO 106/6190). For a useful overall assessment, see Neilson, ‘“Joy rides”?’
2 Callwell to Wilson, 11 Dec. 1914 (Wilson papers, HHW 2/75/22).
3 History of the British Intelligence Organisation in Russia, 1914-Feb. 1917 (TNA, WO 106/6190).
4 Buchanan to FO, 20 Dec. 1914 (TNA, FO 371/2446/156).
5 The Times, 13, 16, 23 Aug. 1952.
6 Kirke diary, 7 Feb. 1916 (Kirke papers (IWM), 82/28/1); Cumming to Samuel Hoare, 12 May 1916 (Templewood papers, II.1.40).
7 Baird to Hoare, 13 Feb. (Templewood papers, II.1.36); Cumming to Hoare, 11 May 1916 (Templewood papers, II.1.38); Hoare’s entertaining account is in his memoir, Fourth Seal.
8 Instructions for the Agent in charge of the Mission to Petrograd, n.d. [c. 11 May 1916], Cumming to Hoare, 12 May 1916 (Templewood papers, II.1.40-1); Hoare, Fourth Seal, 53, 57.
9 British Intelligence Mission, note by Hoare, 5 Feb. 1917 (Wilson papers, HHW 3/12/7).
10 Ibid.
11 Cumming to Hoare, 28 Apr.; ‘Weekly Notes No. 2’, 26 Dec.; Hoare to ‘C’, 30 Dec. 1916; Hoare to Browning, 1 Jan.; ‘The death of Rasputin’, 1/2 Jan. 1917 (Templewood papers, II.1.15-16, 37, 47-9).
12 Hoare, Fourth Seal, 206; Jeffery, Sir Henry Wilson, 186-7; Secret Service in Russia, 20 Mar. 1917 (Templewood papers, II.2.2).
13 For speculation about the circumstances of Trotsky’s detention, see Spence, ‘Interrupted journey’.
14 See Popplewell, Intelligence and Imperial Defence, 147-64, a pioneering study of early British intelligence operations. There is some evidence of pre-Cumming secret service operations in the USA during 1914-15 (when the Pinkerton Detective Agency was hired to watch ports, print pamphlets and pay informants) in TNA, FO 1093/60.
15 Wiseman army service file (TNA, WO 339/21491); Murray, Master and Brother, 153; Fowler, British-American Relations, 16-18.
16 Gaunt, Yield of the Years, provides an only sporadically reliable account; Thwaites army service file (TNA, WO 339/19912); Thwaites, Velvet and Vinegar, 119-20, 131-43; US immigration details from passenger database at www.ellisisland.org (accessed 19 Feb. 2009). For an overview, see Spence, ‘Englishmen in New York’.
17 Memo apparently by Wiseman, 28 Mar.; memo on scope and activities of MI1(c) in New York, 27 Apr.; Wiseman to Cumming, 6 Sept.; ‘New York Office, Section V’, n.d. (c. Oct.); list of salaries, 29 Jan. 1918 (Wiseman papers, box 6, folders 171; 173-5; 177).
18 Wiseman to Guy Standing (Head Office), 4 Apr. 1916; Wiseman to Cumming, 6 Sept.; Thwaites to Wiseman, 22 Nov. 1918 (Wiseman papers, box 6, folders 160, 171; box 3, folder 84); Thwaites, Velvet and Vinegar, 153-5.
19 Bruce Lockhart, ‘Sir William Wiseman Bart - agent of influence’; Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only, 37-60.
20 House diary, 17 Dec. 1916, 15 Jan. 1917; House to Wilson, 26 Jan. 1917 (House papers, diary vols 4-5; box 121, folder 4272).
21 Willert, Road to Safety, 52; Spring Rice to Wiseman, 12 Feb. 1917 (Wiseman papers, box 3, folder 81).
22 Hankey diary, 1 Feb. 1916 (Hankey papers, HNKY 1/1); Freeman, ‘The Zimmermann telegram revisited’.
23 House diary, 23 Feb.; 7 Mar. (House papers, diary vol. 5); Wiseman to Spring Rice, 6 Mar. (Wiseman papers, box 3, folder 81); ‘Relations between the United States and Great Britain’, endorsed by House, 8 Mar. (House papers, box 123, folder 4324); the ‘Relations between the United States and Great Britain’ paper was communicated to Britain in Spring Rice to FO, 8 Mar. 1917 (and circulated to the King, the Cabinet and other senior individuals) (Balfour papers, Add. 49740, fols 96-8).
24 See Fowler, British-American Relations.
25 Balfour to Spring Rice, 7 Apr. 1917 (TNA, FO 115/2317).
26 Memo by Wiseman, 16 Apr. 1917 (ibid.); ‘Russia’ [18 May], and ‘Russian affairs’, 26 May 1917, by Wiseman (Wiseman papers, box 10, folder 255); Wiseman to Sir Eric Drummond (private secretary to Foreign Secretary), 16, 20 June, and replies 19, 26 June 1917 (Wiseman papers, box 10, folder 255).
27 18 July 1917, receipt for $21,000 signed by Maugham (Wiseman papers, box 10, folder 256).
28 Fowler, British-American Relations, 113-18; ‘Intelligence and propaganda work in Russia July- Dec. 1917’, 19 Jan. 1918; summary by Wiseman of reports received from agent in Petrograd, 11 Sept. 1917 (Wiseman papers, box 10, folders 261 and 257).
29 Jeffreys-Jones, American Espionage, 96-101; Andrew, Defence of the Realm, 105-6; Balfour to Wiseman, 19 Dec. 1917; Wiseman to Charles S. Ascherson and reply, 13 Feb. and 3 Mar. 1918 (Wiseman papers, box 1, folders 6 and 4).
30 House diary, 18 Dec. (House papers, diary, vol. 5); Wiseman to Churchill, 10 Mar. 1919 (NARA, MID 11013-7-1); Fowler, British-American Relations, 221-35.
31 Accounts and correspondence concerning the Constantinople Quays Co. will be found in TNA, FO 1093/37-40. See also Hamilton, ‘Dockside diplomacy’.
32 Hankey diary, 4 Mar. 1915 (Hankey papers, HNKY 1/1); James, Eyes of the Navy, 60-4.
33 Conference of Admirals in Malta, 2-9 Mar. 1916 (TNA, ADM 137/499).
34 ‘Orders’ by Cumming, 3 July; Macdonogh to Hoare, 29 Dec. 1917; Hoare to Macdonogh, 3 Jan.; ‘Measures undertaken to start military espionage in Austria and Turkey’, 30 Apr. 1918 (Templewood papers, III.1.49, 68; III.2.5; III.3.38).
35 ‘Contrespionage and espionage in Italy’, 1 Aug. 1918 (Templewood papers, III.4.29).
36 Cumming to Mackenzie, 8 Feb. 1917 (Mackenzie papers; Works I/Aegean Memories folder, fol. 265B). This account of work in the Eastern Mediterranean draws on the Mackenzie memoirs cited, as well as his My Life and Times: Octave Four and Octave Five.
37 ‘Organisation of the EMSIB’ (1921 report) (TNA, KV 1/17).
38 Mackenzie to Cumming, 9 Mar.; to Sir Francis Elliot, 9 May; Proposed transfer of so-called passport records, note by Mackenzie, n.d. [July]; Cumming to Mackenzie, 23 July, 25 Nov. 1917 (Mackenzie papers; Works I/Aegean Memories folder, fol. 316; 573, pp. 28 & 42; folder Recip. Cull-Cz).
39 See Mackenzie to Cumming, 16 and 30 Mar. 1917 (Mackenzie papers; Works I/Aegean Memories folder, fols 333 and 370).
40 Mackenzie to Cumming, 10 July 1917 (Mackenzie papers; Works I/Aegean Memories folder, fols 742-3).
41 Geneva tel., 26 Oct. 1917 (SHD (Terre), 16N1295, vol. 13); Moberly, Campaign in Mesopotamia, iv, chs 37-9.
42 Kirke diary, 17 Apr. 1915 (Kirke papers (IWM), 82/28/1); ‘memo on the advisability of maintaining in existence after the war Col. Samson’s Secret service bureau’ and Clayton to Cumming, 29 Nov. 1916 (Sudan Archive, SAD 693/10/84 and 694/3/71).
43 Sheffy, ‘British Intelligence and the Middle East’, 37-52; Sheffy, British Military Intelligence, ch. 5; Aaronsohn’s relations with EMSIB are detailed in his diary, see the published version: Efrati (ed.), Yoman Aharon Aharonson.
44 Popplewell, Intelligence and Imperial Defence, ch. 13.
45 For Reilly, see Andrew Cook’s admirably thorough study, Ace of Spies.
46 Lockhart’s account is in his Memoirs of a British Agent.
47 Dukes vividly recounted his recruitment by SIS in his memoir, Story of ‘ST 25’, 28-36. For British policy towards Russia, see Ullman, Anglo-Soviet Relations.
CHAPTER 5: THE EMERGENCE OF SIS
1 Mackenzie, Greek Memories, 411-12; Mackenzie, My Life and Times: Octave Five, 110.
2 The postwar situation and government responses are discussed in Jeffery, British Army and the Crisis of Empire; Jeffery and Hennessy, States of Emergency.
3 Andrew, Defence of the Realm, 106-9.
4 Memo by Long, 16 Jan., and by Shortt, 23 Jan. 1919 (TNA, CAB 127/356).
5 Cabinet minutes, 24 Jan. 1919 (TNA, CAB 23/9/WC519).
6 Report of Secret Service Committee, Feb. 1919 (TNA, CAB 127/356); for MI5’s relations with Thomson, see Andrew, Defence of the Realm, 116-20, and for a general discussion of the intelligence reorganisation debate, see Madeira, ‘British official and Intelligence responses to Soviet subversion’, parts I and II.
7 Crowe to Bland, 17 Nov. 1920 (Bland papers, BLND 9/2, part 1).
8 Wiseman to Thwaites, 23 Apr. 1919 (Wiseman papers, box 6, folder 176); Cumming to Mackenzie, 1 May [1919] (Mackenzie papers, folder Recip. Cull-Cz).
9 Vernon Kell also proposed using passport control work to help fund MI5 operations; see ‘Proposed Scheme for Post-War Organization’, May 1919, enc. with Kell to Haldane Porter, 28 Aug. 1919 (TNA, HO 45/19966).
10 For a thoughtful discussion of what may be deduced from the published Secret Service Vote, see O’Halpin, ‘Financing British intelligence’.
11 ‘Scheme for the re-organisation and co-ordination of Intelligence’, n.d., enc. with Basil Thomson to Walter Long, 18 Nov. 1918 (Long papers, 947/672); Report of Secret Service Committee, Feb. 1919 (TNA, CAB 127/356).
12 War Cabinet meetings, 5 and 15 Aug. 1919 (TNA, CAB 23/15/606A and 616A). For the impact of this review on defence spending generally, see Howard, Continental Commitment, 74-8.
13 Churchill to Prime Minister and others, 19 Mar. 1920, enc. memo on Reduction of estimates for Secret Services (Lloyd George papers, F/9/2/16).
14 Minute by Niemeyer, 21 Feb.; Crowe to Fisher, 24 May; Report of Cabinet committee, 27 July 1921 (TNA, CAB 127/357); Cabinet minutes, 22 Mar. 1921 (TNA, CAB 23/24/14(21)).
15 Secret Service Committee, 1st and 3rd meetings, 27 May and 2 June 1921 (TNA, CAB 127/355): War Office memo on Army requirements from Secret Service, 1 June 1921 (TNA, CAB 127/356).
16 Report of Secret Service Committee, 27 July 1921 (TNA, CAB 127/357); Thomson to Sinclair, 1 Nov. 1921 (Sinclair papers, MS 81/091, scrapbook vol. 1).
17 Treasury memo, n.d. [Jan. 1922] (TNA, CAB 127/358).
18 Note on the Secret Service by S. of S. for War, n.d. [Jan. 1922] (TNA, CAB 127/360); Secret Service Committee, 1st meeting, 4 Mar. 1922 (TNA, CAB 127/359).
19 Conference of ministers, 20 Feb. 1922 (TNA, CAB 127/356); Secret Service Committee, 1st-3rd meetings, 4, 24 and 27 Mar. 1922 (TNA, CAB 127/359).
20 Report of Secret Service Committee, 4 Apr. 1922 (TNA, CAB 127/356).
21 ‘Actual expenditure’ in 1921-2 was £195,000 (Foreign Office: £145,000); and in 1924-5, £162,000 (Foreign Office: £137,000) (Cabinet Office papers).
22 ‘S.I.S. (Constantinople Branch) Summary of Intelligence Reports for week ending 16 Dec. 1920’ (TNA, FO 406/45, p. 40).
23 A colour reproduction of this document was used for the endpapers of Judd, Quest for C.
24 Sykes service record, including minute by Rear Admiral Rushbrooke, 26 Mar. 1946 (TNA, ADM 340/424).
25 For Morton see Gill Bennett’s definitive study, Churchill’s Man of Mystery.
26 Wiseman to Thwaites, 20 Jan. 1919 (Wiseman papers, box 3, folder 84).
27 Notes by Robert Woollcombe, n.d. (Woollcombe papers).
28 Secret Service Committee, 1st meeting, 4 Mar. 1922 (TNA, CAB 127/359).
29 Mackenzie, Ægean Memories, 394.
30 Cumming to Hoare, 24 Jan. [1923] (Templewood papers, V.1).
31 Sinclair service record (TNA, ADM 196/43).
32 Hall to Sinclair, 18 Dec. 1918 and 14 Jan. 1919 (Sinclair papers MS 81/091, scrapbook vol. 1).
33 Lee (First Lord of the Admiralty) to Sinclair, 31 May 1921; and Admiralty to Sinclair, 17 May 1923 (Sinclair papers MS 81/091, scrapbook vol. 1).
34 The Times, 16 June 1923; Williams, World of Action, 338-9.
35 Andrew, Secret Service, 295; Pinero, Gay Lord Quex, 11, 15, 75.
36 The Times, 6 Nov. 1939; ‘The Annual Submarine Dinner, 1921’ (Sinclair papers MS 81/091, scrapbook vol. 1).
CHAPTER 6: FROM BOCHE TO BOLSHEVIKS
1 Wilson diary, 10 Nov. 1918 (Wilson papers); Tyrrell to Austen Chamberlain, 6 Dec. 1926 (DBFP, ser. 1A, vol. ii, no. 319).
2 Reduction of estimates for Secret Services, memo by Churchill, 19 Mar. 1920 (Lloyd George papers, F/9/2/16).
3 Richard Ullman’s magisterial Anglo-Soviet Relations remains the best single treatment of this complex history.
4 Lockhart to Gregory (FO), 2 May 1919 (TNA, FO 371/4017); for Ransome, see Brogan, Arthur Ransome.
5 Dukes, Story of ‘ST 25’, 31-2; ‘Affairs in Russia’, report by ST/25, 30 Apr. 1919 (quoted in Story of ‘ST 25’, 360-74).
6 Agar’s own account is in Baltic Episode; Dukes’s Story of ‘ST 25’ differs in some details.
7 Quoted in Agar, Baltic Episode, 82.
8 Ferguson, Operation Kronstadt provides a fictionalised narrative of these events, with a shrewd commentary on operational matters.
9 There is an account of this episode in Bennett, Churchill’s Man of Mystery, 43-4.
10 Note by Walford Selby (FO), 5 Mar. 1919 (TNA, FO 371/3962). Twelve of Reilly’s despatches survive in this file.
11 Crowe to Curzon, 28 Dec. 1921 (Gilbert, Churchill, iv, companion part iii, pp. 1703-4).
12 There are accounts of the Trust, Savinkov and Reilly’s fate in Spence, Boris Savinkov, and Cook, Ace of Spies.
13 For MI5’s debriefing of Krivitsky, see Andrew, Defence of the Realm, 264-8.
14 Report of interdepartmental committee, Aug. 1921 (IOR, L/P&S/886); Foreign Office Confidential Print 11861, ‘Violations of the Russian Trade Agreement’, 1921 (some of these papers are also printed in DBFP, 1st ser., vol. xx).
15 ‘Classification of reports’, c. 10 May 1922 (Lloyd George papers, F/26/1/30).
16 Bennett, Churchill’s Man of Mystery, 44-5.
17 Nicholson (under the pseudonym John Whitwell) wrote a lively memoir, British Agent, published in 1966.
18 Landau, All’s Fair, 227-34.
19 Foley army service record (TNA, WO 374/24816); see also Smith, Foley.
20 Eastern summary no. 1034, 6 Jan. 1923 (IOR, L/P&J/12/116, which also contains much additional SIS reporting during the Lausanne conference); Rumbold to Lancelot Oliphant (FO), 18 July 1923 (Rumbold papers, MS Rumbold, dep. 31, fols 246-7). For a discussion of intelligence at the Lausanne conference, see Jeffery and Sharp, ‘Lord Curzon and secret intelligence’.
21 Menzies-Lainey correspondence, Mar.-July 1925 and May-Aug. 1926 (SHD (Terre), 7NN2248, dr 1034; and 7NN3270, dr 6).
22 For notes of Dunderdale’s service, see TNA, ADM 337/128 and 137/2296. Examples of his reports survive in ADM 137/1735 and 1752-3; Lycett, Ian Fleming, 112, 114, 223.
23 The IPI file on Bajanov (‘Bazhanov’) is in IOR, L/P&J/12/359; Sunday Telegraph, 19, 26 Sept. and 3 Oct. 1976; see also Bazhanov, Bazhanov and the Damnation of Stalin.
24 Lycett, Ian Fleming, 31-8.
25 The challenges to British imperial interests in the region are covered in Jeffery, British Army and the Crisis of Empire.
26 Cumming to Sir Malcolm Seton (India Office), 2 Feb. (IOR, L/MIL/7/18813); Woollcombe (SIS) to Bland, 2 Oct. 1922 (TNA, FO 371/9945). For an overview, see Ferris, ‘“Far too dangerous a gamble”’.
27 Ferris, ‘“Far too dangerous a gamble”’; SIS Eastern Summary no. 1031, 6 Jan. 1923 (IOR, L/P&J/12/127).
CHAPTER 7: DOMESTIC MATTERS
1 Secret Service Committee report, 1 Dec. 1925 (TNA, FO 1093/69).
2 Note on ‘control of interception’, n.d. [c. 1924] (TNA, WO 32/4897).
3 History of MI1(b) (TNA, HW 7/3 5).
4 Curzon to Walter Long (First Lord of the Admiralty), 24 Mar.; minute by Sinclair, 28 Mar.; minutes of conference held at the FO, 29 Apr. 1919 (TNA, ADM 1/8637/55).
5 ‘Code and Cypher School’, memo by Lord Curzon (C.P. 3105), 3 July 1921 (Curzon papers, Mss Eur. F.112/302). This important memorandum is reproduced in full in Jeffery, ‘Government Code and Cypher School’.
6 Curzon to Lee, 25 Apr.; and reply 23 May; minute by Lee, 2 May 1921 (TNA, ADM 1/8637/55 and HW 3/38). Details of the transfer are in TNA, FO 366/800.
7 Report of Inter-Service Directorate Committee, 9 Apr. 1923; note on ‘control of interception’, n.d. [c. 1924] (TNA, WO 32/4897).
8 Diary of Sir Henry Wilson, 17-18, 31 Aug., 1 Sept. 1920 (Wilson papers); Churchill to Curzon, 28 Aug. 1920 (Curzon papers, Mss Eur. F. 112/215); The Times, 19 Aug. 1920; Andrew, ‘British Secret Service’; and Jeffery, ‘British military intelligence’.
9 Ferris, ‘Road to Bletchley Park’, 67-8; for Robert Vansittart’s use of signals intelligence material, see Ferris, ‘“Indulged in all too little”’, 133-6.
10 Sinclair to Crowe, 3 Nov. 1923 (TNA, FO 1093/66).
11 Denniston, ‘Government Code and Cypher School’, 49.
12 For Stott, see Bennett, Churchill’s Man of Mystery, 75-7.
13 Morris, Portrait of a Radical, 164; Wedgwood, Memoirs of a Fighting Life, 186.
14 I have drawn on Gill Bennett’s careful and definitive study, ‘A most extraordinary and mysterious business’, for the following account.
15 The Times, 25 Oct. 1924.
16 For Morton’s role, see Bennett, Churchill’s Man of Mystery, 79-85.
17 SIS to Gregory (FO), 9 Oct. 1924 (TNA, FO 371/10478).
18 Bagot report 1970 (quoted in Bennett, ‘A most extraordinary and mysterious business’, 37).
19 Minute by Crowe, 15 Oct. 1924 (DBFP, 1st ser., xxv, 434).
20 Bennett, ‘A most extraordinary and mysterious business’, 73-4.
21 Jones, Whitehall Diary, i, 299-300; Cabinet minutes, 31 Oct. 1924 (TNA, CAB 22/48/57(24)).
22 Letter from Robert Woollcombe, The Times, 18 Oct. 1977.
23 Cabinet minutes, 4 Nov. 1924 (TNA, CAB 23/48/58(24)).
24 Cabinet minutes, 12 and 19 Nov. 1924 (TNA, CAB 23/49/59 and 60(24)).
25 This memorandum and its context is lucidly discussed in Bennett, ‘A most extraordinary and mysterious business’, 81-3.
26 Kenneth Lyon to Derby, 20 Nov. 1924 (Derby papers, 920 DER (17) 29/7).
27 Bennett, Churchill’s Man of Mystery, 317.
28 Note by Baldwin, 10 Feb. (TNA, FO 1093/67); Secret Service Committee, 1st and 2nd meetings, 26 Feb. and 2 Mar. 1925 (TNA, FO 1093/68).
29 Sinclair to Nevile Bland (secretary to the committee), 18 Mar. (TNA, FO 1093/67); Secret Service Committee, 6th and 7th meetings, 17 and 19 Mar. 1925 (TNA, FO 1093/68).
30 Secret Service Committee, 8th and 10th meetings, 24 Mar. and 15 June; note by Hankey, 27 Mar. 1925 (TNA, FO 1093/67-8).
31 Secret Service Committee report, 1 Dec. 1925 (TNA, FO 1093/69).
32 Andrew, Secret Service, 316; James (ed.), Memoirs of a Conservative, 381-2.
33 Secret Service Committee, 2nd, 6th and 8th meetings, 2, 17 and 24 Mar. 1925 (TNA, FO 1093/67-8).
34 Secret Service Committee, 1st and 2nd meetings, 11 and 22 Mar. 1927 (TNA, FO 1093/71).
35 Note, 31 Mar. 1927 (TNA, KV 3/15).
36 Memo by Sinclair, 28 June 1927 (TNA, FO 1093/73). There is an excellent account of the Arcos raid in Bennett, Churchill’s Man of Mystery, 94-106.
37 Andrew, Defence of the Realm, 154-6.
38 Sinclair to Tyrrell, 26 May; memo by Sinclair, 28 June 1927 (TNA, FO 1093/73); Secret Service Committee, 3rd and 4th meetings, 24 and 30 June 1927 (TNA, FO 1093/71).
39 The Macartney case is fully covered in Bennett, Churchill’s Man of Mystery, 107-16. For Soviet work against British targets between 1917 and 1929 see Madeira, ‘British official and Intelligence responses to Soviet subversion’, and Madeira, ‘Moscow’s interwar infiltration’.
40 Bennett, Churchill’s Man of Mystery, 136-49.
41 Undated note re Edwardes; note by Harker, 1 Aug. 1928 (TNA, KV 2/1016 and 2/989).
42 Minute by ‘WHP’, 5 Aug. 1925; note of telephone conversation with Maj. Morton, 19 Mar. 1926 (TNA, KV 2/2317).
43 Andrew, Defence of the Realm, 123-4.
44 Secret Service Committee 1931, notes of meetings (27 Apr., 11 and 22 June) (TNA, FO 1093/74).
45 Ibid.
46 Curry, Security Service, 102.
47 Thwaites to Wiseman, 22 Mar. 1919 (Wiseman papers, box 3, folder 85).
48 Another version of this story is in Williams, World of Action, 338.
49 Maugham, Ashenden, vii (Author’s Preface).
50 Ibid., ix.
51 ‘Ashenden’, Times Literary Supplement, 12 Apr. 1928.
52 Dukes, Red Dusk and the Morrow, vi, 4-5, 10; Tatler, 2 Apr. 1930, p. 35 (the series ran until 21 May).
53 Dukes, Story of ‘ST 25’, 35.
54 Mackenzie, First Athenian Memories, 75, 344.
55 Daily Telegraph, 27 Oct. 1932. Bywater wrote his own memoir (with H. C. Ferraby), Strange Intelligence, published in 1934.
56 Memo by J. A. Harker, 27 Oct. 1932 (TNA, KV 2/1271).
57 Mackenzie, My Life and Times: Octave Seven, 84-5; Mackenzie, Ægean Memories, 316; The Times, 8 Dec. 1932.
58 Draft proof of Major Valentine Patrick Terrel Vivian, n.d. (TNA, CRIM 1/630).
59 Mackenzie, My Life and Times: Octave Seven, 89-94; The Times, 25 Nov. 1932.
60 The Times, 13 Jan. 1933; Mackenzie, Ægean Memories, vii.
61 Mackenzie, Water on the Brain, 7, 16, 52-3, 85, 88-9.
62 Landau, All’s Fair, preface.
63 Landau, Spreading the Spy Net, 29; Landau, All’s Fair, 42-3.
CHAPTER 8: EXISTING ON A SHOESTRING
1 ‘Foreign Secret Service Finances’, 6 Dec. 1929, forwarded by Nevile Bland to the Treasury (TNA, CAB 127/367).
2 Secret Service Vote (TNA, T 160/787).
3 Secret Service Committee, 2nd meeting, 24 Mar. 1922 (TNA, CAB 127/359).
4 In 1932 $100 was worth approximately £28.50. By 1934 this had fallen to approximately £20.
5 ‘British espionage in the U.S.’, 15 Feb. 1921 (NARA, MID 9944-A-178).
6 Polk Diary, 16 Mar. 1920 (Polk papers, HM47 microfilm); Jeffreys-Jones, American Espionage, 129-30.
7 It is impossible to verify this as the report itself has not survived.
8 Lovestone later moved politically to the right and became a fervent anti-Communist.
9 Liddell to Borum, 20 Oct.; Hickerson to Herschel V. Johnson (US embassy London), 9 Nov. 1937 (NARA, RG84, box 1A, file 800B).
10 For the British end of this case, see TNA, KV 2/193-4. See also Andrew, Defence of the Realm, 210.
11 ‘Liaison with the United States Government Intelligence organisations’, memo by Capt. Liddell, Mar.-Apr. 1938 (Vansittart papers, VNST II 2/21).
12 For Rutland, see Best, ‘Intelligence, diplomacy and the Japanese threat’, 86-8.
13 The context of British interests and intelligence in the region is ably explored in Best, British Intelligence and the Japanese Challenge, and Best, ‘“We are virtually at war with Russia”’.
14 Reduction of estimates for Secret Services, memo by Churchill, 19 Mar. 1920 (Lloyd George papers, F/9/2/16).
15 Best, British Intelligence and the Japanese Challenge, 51-3.
16 ‘The Noulens case’, report by Vivian, 7 Mar. 1932 (TNA, FO 1093/97). See also Baxter, ‘Secret Intelligence Service and the case of Hilaire Noulens’.
17 Diary of Capt. Malcolm Kennedy, 18 Sept. 1931 (Sheffield University Library, available online: http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/library/libdocs/kennedy_diaries.pdf (accessed 28 Aug. 2009)).
18 For the wider context of the Tait report [c. Apr. 1934], see Best, British Intelligence and the Japanese Challenge, 110-15.
19 The Mask decrypts of Comintern messages are in TNA, HW 17.
20 See Andrew, Defence of the Realm, 158-9.
21 See, for example, Time (Canadian edition), 25 Jan. (p. 31); Le Petit Journal, 7 fév.; Ottawa Citizen, 4 Feb. 1954.
22 For the family background, see Lympany, Moura.
23 For the divorce, see TNA, J 77/3691/9612.
24 The Times, 2 Aug. 1941. For the murder trial, see TNA, ASSI 26/310.
25 See correspondence in TNA, FO 366/966.
26 See ‘Misappropriation of immigration deposits by E A Dalton’, 1 Oct. 1936 (TNA, CO 733/322/8).
27 Note on the work of the Irish Section of the Security Service 1939-1945, Jan. 1946 (TNA, KV 4/9). See also O’Halpin (ed.), MI5 and Ireland, 20.
28 See O’Halpin, Spying on Ireland.
CHAPTER 9: APPROACHING WAR
1 Howard, Continental Commitment, 117. This work is an indispensable guide to British defence policy between the wars.
2 There is no reply from the French on file.
3 For Pollard’s background, see Macklin, ‘Major Hugh Pollard’.
4 The French side of the relationship is reliably covered in Forcade, La République secrète.
5 Paillole, Services spéciaux, 80-1.
6 Compte-rendu de visite de Menzies, 19 et 20 oct. 1937 (SHD (Terre), 7NN2701, dr 216).
7 Menzies to Rivet, July 1938, quoted in Aubin, ‘Contre-espionnage’, 263.
8 Compte-rendu de Mission à Londres, 30 jan.-1 fév. 1939 (SHD (Terre), 7NN2502, dr 250).
9 Papers relating to this case are in SHD (Terre), 7NN2425, dr 43180. See also Forcade, La République secrète, 221-6.
10 Porch, ‘French intelligence and the fall of France’, 37; Strong, Intelligence at the Top, 57-8; Hinsley, British Intelligence, i, 115.
11 See Hinsley, British Intelligence, i, appendix 1, 487-95; and the revised account in ibid., iii, part 2, appendix 30, 945-59.
12 Bertrand, Enigma, 60-1; see also Jan Stanisław Ciechanowski and Jacek Tebinka, ‘Cryptographic cooperation - Enigma’, in Stirling et al., Intelligence Co-operation, 442-62.
13 Hinsley, ‘British intelligence in the Second World War’, 218.
14 Winterbotham’s account of this is in his book Nazi Connection, 44-96. De Ropp told his own story of spying for the British in a series of articles in the Daily Mail, 28 Oct.-1 Nov. 1957.
15 Summary of secret information regarding German policy and rearmament received from Dec. 1934 to Mar. 1935 [draft?], 4 Mar. 1935 (TNA, FO 371/18844 (endorsed with comments by Winterbotham and Sinclair, dated 8 Mar.)); Phipps to Simon, 25 Mar., enc. naval attaché despatch of 19 Mar. 1935 (TNA, FO 371/18860); German Naval Construction, 22 July 1936 (TNA, CAB 4/24, CID 1252-B); ‘Germany: submarine construction’, 8 Apr. 1936 (ICF/118) (TNA, CAB 104/29). For the Industrial Intelligence Centre, see pp. 313- 14 below. See also Wark, ‘Baltic myths and submarine bogeys’, 66-7. This article illuminatingly discusses Admiralty use of secret intelligence in the 1930s.
16 Koutrik was employed by MI5 in 1940-1. See Andrew, Defence of the Realm, 245-6.
17 Benton, ‘ISOS years’, 365.
18 See, for example, Smith, Foley; and ‘Documents relating to the work of Frank Foley’ (FCO Historians’ brochure, 2004) (http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/about-us/publications-and-documents/historians1/documents-from-archives/frank-foley/ (accessed 11 Jan. 2010)).
19 CSS tel. to Berlin, 9 Mar. 1939 (reproduced in ‘Documents relating to the work of Frank Foley’).
20 Cadogan diary, 3 Sept 1938 (Cadogan papers, ACAD 1/7).
21 Germany and Colonies, 3 Feb. 1938 (Woollcombe papers). On the same day the Cabinet Committee on Foreign Policy (which Chamberlain chaired) discussed a similar plan (DBFP, 2nd ser., xix, no. 488).
22 Sinclair was wrong about this, as Hitler did not approve plans for the invasion of Czechoslovakia until 30 May. See Andrew, Secret Service, 392-4. For a valuably sustained assessment of British intelligence relating to Hitler personally, see Winter, ‘British Intelligence’.
23 ‘What should we do?’, 18 Sept. 1938 (TNA, FO 371/21659).
24 Moravec’s version is in his memoir, Master of Spies, ch. 12.
25 ‘Germany: factors, aims, methods, etc’, enc. with Sinclair to Jebb, 21 Dec. 1938 (TNA, FO 1093/86); Cabinet Committee on Foreign Policy, ‘Possible German Intentions’, memo by the Foreign Secretary, 19 Jan. 1939 (FP(36)74) (TNA, CAB 27/627).
26 Cabinet minutes, 30 Mar. (TNA, CAB 23/98/16(39)); FO tel. to Berlin and Rome, 9 May and ‘Bogus Cabinet decision’, 7 July 1939 (TNA, FO 1093/87).
27 Darwin diary, 22 Aug.; Darwin to Sibyl Darwin, 23 Aug. 1939 (Darwin papers, 62/218/1, box 1).
28 The history of the Industrial Intelligence Centre, and Morton’s part in it, is very reliably covered in Bennett, Churchill’s Man of Mystery, 135-75.
29 Undated note, with Vivian to Medlicott (APOC), 13 Aug. 1931 (BP Archive, arc Ref 129910).
30 Sinclair to Crowe, 17 May; minute by Hankey, 21 May 1932 (TNA, CAB 127/371).
31 Cohen, TS memoir, 1900-84 (Cohen papers).
32 Ibid.
33 For Stephenson’s links with SIS (and Desmond Morton), see Bennett, Churchill’s Man of Mystery, 218-20.
34 Denniston, ‘Government Code and Cypher School’, 52; Andrew, ‘F. H. Hinsley and the Cambridge moles’, 34.
35 Property transfer documents from Land Registry (Leicester Office), Bletchley Park, Title no. BM677; Sinclair’s will, 4 Nov. 1938.
36 Denniston, ‘Government Code and Cypher School’, 68.
37 For Section D and origins of SOE, see Seaman (ed.), Special Operations Executive.
38 Compte-rendu de Mission à Londres, 30 jan.-1 fév. 1939 (SHD (Terre), 7NN2502, dr 250).
39 Hinsley, British Intelligence, i, 28-30.
CHAPTER 10: KEEPING AFLOAT
1 Darwin diary (Darwin papers, 62/218/1, box 1).
2 This notice was eventually circulated on 5 Oct.
3 The circulation list appended to this message did not include Poland, while Germany was crossed off.
4 According to the death certificate, Sinclair died of ‘I(a) Exhaustion, (b) Malignant Tumour of the spleen [and] II Broncho-pneumonia’.
5 The Times, 8 Nov. 1939; Darwin diary, 4 Nov. 1939 (1939 (Darwin papers, 62/218/1, box 1); Cadogan diary, 30-31 Oct., 4 Nov. 1939 (Cadogan papers, ACAD 1/8); Sinclair to Cadogan (and copies to Wilson and Ironside), 3 Nov. 1939 (PUSD papers, FCO).
6 Wilson to Cadogan, 7 Nov.; Cadogan to Sir R. Carter (Admiralty), Sir P. J. Grigg (War Office) and Sir A. Street (Air Ministry), 9 Nov.; Grigg to Cadogan, 14 Nov.; Kingsley Wood (Air Minister) to Halifax, [13] Nov.; Churchill to Cadogan, 18 Nov. (PUSD papers, FCO; a typescript copy of this letter dated 19 Nov. is in the Churchill papers, CHAR 19/2A, fols 102-3); Cadogan diary, 19 Nov. 1939 (Cadogan papers, ACAD 1/8).
7 The Times, 30 June 1945; note by Cadogan, 22 Nov. 1939 (PUSD papers, FCO).
8 Note by Cadogan, n.d. (PUSD papers, FCO); Cadogan diary, 16 Nov. 1939 (Cadogan papers, ACAD 1/8). For Dansey’s alleged ambitions, see Read and Fisher, Colonel Z, 195-200.
9 Cadogan diary, 27-28 Nov. (Cadogan papers, ACAD 1/8); note by Halifax, 29 Nov. (PUSD papers, FCO); John Darwin diary, 1 and 2 Dec. 1939 (Darwin papers, 62/218/1, box 1).
10 Liddell diary, 24 Nov. 1939 (TNA, KV 4/185).
11 For the crucial Polish role in informing British efforts to crack German codes, see Hinsley, British Intelligence, ii, part 2, 945-59.
12 Roskill, War at Sea, i, 100.
13 Roskill, Hankey: Man of Secrets, ii, 447.
14 ‘Summary of evidence supplied to Lord Hankey’, n.d.; Godfrey to Hankey, 2 Feb. (PUSD papers, FCO).
15 ‘Sources of information’, memo by NID, 2 Feb. 1940 (ibid.).
16 Though he can scarcely have been unaware of Buss’s criticisms of SIS, Menzies told Guy Liddell of MI5 that he thought Buss was ‘sound though perhaps not very convincing in his general manner’ (Liddell diary, 23 Feb. 1940, TNA, KV 4/185).
17 By this Godfrey meant all intelligence material gathered from wireless sources. See the discussion of definitions in Hinsley, British Intelligence, i, 20-1.
18 ‘The Secret Services. Inquiry by the Minister without Portfolio. First report’, 11 Mar.; Menzies to Jebb, 14 Feb. 1940 (TNA, CAB 127/376).
19 This was from the interception and assessment of German ‘use of radio aids for navigation and low-grade tactical transmissions for such things as weather and reconnaissance reports’ (see Hinsley, British Intelligence, i, 107-8).
20 Ibid., 91-2.
21 Hoare to Hankey and reply, 23 and 24 Apr.; Hankey to Menzies, 24 Apr. 1940 (TNA, CAB 127/375 (files retained by Cabinet Office)).
22 Hankey to Hoare, 24 Apr. 1940. (ibid.).
23 Hankey to Horace Wilson, 29 Apr.; Wilson to H. L. Ismay, 1 May 1940 (ibid.). The wartime development of the JIC will be covered in Michael Goodman’s forthcoming Official History.
24 Blake, ‘How Churchill became Prime Minister’, 273. For Morton’s position generally, see Bennett, Churchill’s Man of Mystery, chs 10-11.
25 First meeting of Secret Service Committee, 3 June 1940 (PUSD papers, FCO).
26 Henry Hopkinson (private secretary to PUS) to Cadogan, 9 Aug. 1940 (ibid.).
27 Minute by Eric Seal, 28 Sept. 1940 (TNA, PREM 4/80/3); Dalton diary, 29 Apr. 1941 (Dalton papers, DALTON/1/24). In Oct. 1940 Menzies stopped regularly sending Morton specific reports, providing him thereafter only with political and military weekly summaries.
28 Hinsley, British Intelligence, i, 156.
29 Menzies to Hopkinson, 2 Oct. 1940 (PUSD papers, FCO).
30 Minute by Cadogan, 7 Oct.; Bridges to Hopkinson (in which he quotes Ismay’s views), 10 Oct. 1940 (ibid.).
31 Cadogan to Bridges, 14 Oct. 1940 (ibid.).
32 Bridges to Cadogan, 13 Dec.; minute by Hopkinson, 14 Dec. 1940 (ibid.).
33 Second meeting of Secret Service Committee, 19 Mar. 1941 (ibid.).
34 Jebb to Cadogan, 13 June 1940 (ibid.).
35 Dalton, Fateful Years, 366. The formation of SOE is reliably covered in Seaman (ed.), Special Operations Executive.
36 This memo was endorsed by Menzies and Nelson on 4 May.
37 Memo by Dansey, 11 May 1943 (PUSD papers, FCO).
38 Selborne to Eden, 31 Mar. 1942, enclosing notes by Nelson and Jebb (ibid.).
39 Memo by Selborne, 22 Apr. (TNA, CAB 66/23, WP(42)170); Menzies to Peter Loxley (Foreign Office), 27 Apr.; unsigned note [probably by Loxley] to Cadogan, 13 May 1942 (PUSD papers, FCO); ‘S.O.E. and S.I.S. co-ordination’, memo by Joint Planning Staff (final version), 15 May 1941 (TNA, CAB 84/45, JP(42)502).
40 Petrie to Lord Swinton, 30 Jan. 1941, quoted in GC&CS, ‘Secret Service Sigint’, vol. 1 (TNA, HW 43/6).
41 Ibid.
42 There is a marvellously vivid and detailed account of Section VIII’s activities in Pidgeon, Secret Wireless War.
43 See Vivian to Menzies, 6 Jan. 1941 (reproduced in Cecil, ‘“C”’s war’, 184-7).
44 For Slocum see Richards, Secret Flotillas, i, ch. 3.
45 Cadogan to Menzies and Service Directors of Intelligence, 10 Feb. 1942 (TNA, ADM 223/851).
46 Cadogan to Menzies, 3 July 1945 (PUSD papers, FCO); Cecil, ‘“C”’s war’, 180; Reilly TS memoir (Reilly papers, Ms Eng. c. 6875).
47 Beddington, ‘Memoirs’, p. 276 (Beddington papers).
48 Cadogan (FO) to Menzies, 10 Feb. 1942, quoted in memo by DDMI(F), 7 Jan. 1945 (PUSD papers, FCO).
49 Biographical information on Kendall from ‘The adventurous senator’, People (Sydney, NSW), vol. 3, no. 21 (17 Dec. 1952), 38-41.
50 SIS evinced renewed interest in Ramsay in 1947, when his foreign-language skills might have been more useful. But he proved to be a recidivist and to ‘great disappointment’ it was learned that he was ‘in Leeds Prison and will be there until 1950. I am afraid, therefore,’ continued the file note, ‘that we cannot consider him further. I had so very much hoped that he had changed his ways of life and could be of some use to his country.’ Ramsay/Ramensky became something of a popular hero in Scotland, and has an entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
CHAPTER 11: THE EUROPEAN THEATRE
1 The Times, 4 Mar. and 21 Sept. 1939. There is a vivid participant account of the retreat in Wilkinson and Bright Astley, Gubbins and SOE, 41-5.
2 Margaret Reid and Leif C. Holstead, ‘April 1940: A War Diary’, 100-1 (Reid papers, MS 708/3). Foley’s signals were circulated quite widely in London; see TNA, WO 106/6100 and FO 371/24834.
3 Jones recounted his wartime intelligence experiences in Most Secret War and Reflections on Intelligence.
4 The intensity of Swedish vigilance, both during the war and after, is illustrated by the detailed surveillance reports in ‘Underrättelstjänst och sabotage: Brittisk underrättelstjänst [Intelligence and sabotage: British intelligence service]’, vols 16 and 17, c. 1939-50 (Swedish Krigsarkivet).
5 For the Swedish security context, see Denham, Inside the Nazi Ring and McKay, From Information to Intrigue.
6 Mallet to Jebb (FO), 12 May 1940 (PUSD papers, FCO). The Rickman affair may be followed in Cruickshank, SOE in Scandinavia.
7 For Szymańska, see Garliński, Swiss Corridor, 84-92, which is in part based on interviews with Szymańska in 1979. Garliński’s narrative does not consistently match the evidence in the SIS archives.
8 Hinsley, British Intelligence, i, 56-7.
9 Best provided his own account in The Venlo Incident.
10 Because rationing applied to clothes, SIS had to arrange a special issue of clothing coupons for the agent to purchase the evening dress. See also Hazelhoff, Soldier of Orange, 100-16.
11 For SOE see Foot, SOE in the Low Countries.
12 See, for example, Service Clarence reports nos 1-45 (Feb. 1941-May 1942) (Service Clarence papers, box 1).
13 The Belgian side is reliably covered in Debruyne, Guerre secrète.
14 Richards, Secret Flotillas, i, 13-15, 32-61. Mme de Gaulle, in fact, had already managed to escape.
15 Menzies to Hopkinson (FO), 2 Apr. 1941 (PUSD papers, FCO).
16 De Young de la Marck, ‘De Gaulle, Colonel Passy and British intelligence’. For a dramatically reconstructed account, see Fourcade, L’Arche de Noé.
17 Hinsley, British Intelligence, ii, 248-9.
18 Polish intelligence work in Occupied Europe is very extensively covered in Stirling et al. (eds), Intelligence Co-operation.
19 There is background information about A.54 in Moravec, Master of Spies.
20 Templewood, Ambassador on Special Mission, 132-3; for an account of Hillgarth’s role, in the context of naval attachés generally, see McLachlan, Room 39, 186-207.
21 Hoare to Eden, 27 July, and to Cadogan, 8 Aug; Eden to Hoare, 4 Aug. 1941 (PUSD papers, FCO).
22 Daily Telegraph, 14 Aug. 1941; minutes by J. M. Addis and Menzies, 15 Aug. 1941 (PUSD papers, FCO).
23 Madrid to FO, 18 Oct. 1941 (PUSD papers, FCO). For Clarke, see Howard, British Intelligence, v, pp. xi-xii, 33; Holt, Deceivers; and Mure, Master of Deception.
24 Menzies to Loxley (FO), 13 Nov.; Hoare to Cadogan, 8 Dec. 1941; Hoare to Cadogan, 6 Jan.; minutes by Roger Makins and Peter Loxley, 8 Jan.; Cadogan to Hoare, 9 Jan. 1942 (PUSD papers, FCO).
25 Menzies to Cavendish-Bentinck, Loxley (two letters), 9 Mar., 19 Apr. and 21 Dec.; FO and Madrid tels, May-June 1942 (PUSD papers, FCO). See also Erskine, ‘Eavesdropping on “Bodden”’.
26 Johns’s version of events is in his memoir, Within Two Cloaks, 67-116.
27 Foot and Langley, MI9, 43. My account of MI9 is substantially based on this work, in which the authors were unable to reveal the true extent of SIS’s involvement with the organisation.
CHAPTER 12: FROM BUDAPEST TO BAGHDAD
1 The agent, for whom three months’ payment of £200 per month was authorised in July 1939, ran at least eight sub-agents.
2 For the situation and British policy generally in the region see Barker, British Policy in South-East Europe.
3 Memo by Lord Hankey, 24 May 1940 (TNA, CAB 127/375 (files retained in Cabinet Office)); Rendel to Cadogan, 11 Feb. 1940 (PUSD papers, FCO).
4 In 1942 the agent was awarded an honorary MBE, and in 1944 a DSO.
5 Hinsley, British Intelligence, i, 368-73. For the coup, see Onslow, ‘Britain and the Belgrade coup’.
6 ‘German offensive plans’ by ‘M.W.’, 31 Dec. 1940 (PUSD papers, FCO). For the discussions about German intentions, see Hinsley, British Intelligence, i, ch. 11.
7 For the diplomatic context, see Woodward, British Foreign Policy, 12-15.
8 Despite these views, Hugessen was not beyond asking Gibson in Dec. 1943 if he could find a job in SIS for his daughter.
9 For Polish intelligence work in the Middle East and Central Asia, see Stirling et al. (eds), Intelligence Co-operation, chs 39-41.
10 Biographical information on Mounier from ‘Order of the Liberation website’ www.ordredelaliberation.fr (accessed 4 Oct. 2007).
11 For the LRDG see National Archives, Special Forces in the Desert War and Shelly, ‘British Intelligence in the Middle East’, 95-8.
12 For security organisation in the Middle East, see Hinsley and Simkins, British Intelligence, iv, 149-53.
13 See, for example, Menzies to Peter Loxley (FO), copies to Morton, 9, 11 and 19 May 1942 (PUSD papers, FCO).
14 The Times, 6 May 1941.
CHAPTER 13: WEST AND EAST
1 Stephenson has been the subject of much speculative writing. For a forensic assessment of the literature, see Naftali, ‘Intrepid’s last deception’, and Thomas Troy’s commentary thereon in Wild Bill and Intrepid, esp. 192-201.
2 Bennett, Churchill’s Man of Mystery, 193-4, 218-20 and 253-7, reliably traces Stephenson’s gradual incorporation into SIS. Troy, Wild Bill and Intrepid is also well researched, though there is no evidence in the SIS archives that Stephenson was ever known by the code-name Intrepid.
3 Federal Bureau of Investigation, ‘British Intelligence Service in the United States (Running Memorandum)’, 1 Jan. 1947 (Freedom of Information Act Release, 2009), p. 1.
4 Menzies to Jebb, 3 June 1940 (PUSD papers, FCO).
5 Menzies to Jebb, 21 June 1940 (ibid.).
6 Lothian to Halifax (Foreign Secretary), 10 and 11 July (TNA, FO 371/24237); note by Admiral Godfrey (DNI), 2 Aug. 1940 (TNA, ADM 223/84).
7 Seven months later Menzies asserted that it was Donovan who had made the ‘fifty pats on the back’ remark (Menzies to Hopkinson (FO), 2 Apr. 1941 (PUSD papers, FCO)).
8 Menzies to Hopkinson (FO), 30 Oct.; to Beaumont-Nesbitt (DMI), 22 Nov.; and to Churchill, 29 Nov. 1940; Churchill minute, n.d.; unsigned minute, n.d. (ibid.).
9 Menzies to Churchill, 26 Feb., and Churchill minute, 27 Feb. (TNA, HW 1/2); Menzies to Hopkinson, 2 Apr. 1941 (PUSD papers, FCO).
10 ‘History of the S.I.S. Division’ (FBI internal history, 3 vols) (NARA, RG 65, WW2 FBI HQ files, box 17).
11 Details of the arrangements for Donovan’s trip are in TNA, FO 371/26194; and Eden to Sir M. Lampson (Cairo) and Sir M. Plairet (Athens), 24 Dec. 1940 (TNA, FO 371/24263).
12 Troy, Wild Bill and Intrepid, 74-5.
13 Godfrey, ‘Memoirs’, vol. 5, part 1, 132-7 (Godfrey papers, MSS 319).
14 Quoted in Stafford, Roosevelt & Churchill, 213.
15 Report on visit to U.S.A., 30 Sept. to 11 Oct. 1941, by F. T. Davies, 15 Oct. 1941 (PUSD papers, FCO).
16 These events were rather more vividly described by Cynthia herself (written with the help of Montgomery Hyde) in France Dimanche, nos 899 and 900, 14 and 21 Nov. 1963. Hyde’s book The Quiet Canadian draws extensively on the BSC History and includes pictures of the Vichy cyphers.
17 For the Graf Spee action and ocean warfare in 1940 see Roskill, War at Sea, i, chs 7 and 14.
18 The company concerned did not (alas) trade in vacuum cleaners.
19 A microfilm copy of the letter was supplied to the embassy by an Associated Press journalist; see Rio embassy to Washington, 12 Nov. 1941 (NARA, M1515 Brazil microfilms, reel 71).
20 The wartime context and intelligence challenges in the Far East are very well covered in Aldrich, Intelligence and the War against Japan.
21 The Times, 23 Sept. 1940.
22 ‘S.I.S. in the Far East’, 15 July 1940 (TNA, ADM 223/496).
CHAPTER 14: THE TIDE TURNS
1 Peter Koch de Gooreynd (PA to CSS) to Peter Loxley, 3 Jan. 1944 (PUSD papers, FCO).
2 Menzies to Harold Caccia (FO), 20 Mar. 1946 (ibid.). The DGER was the newly created postwar Direction Générale des Études et Recherches.
3 Cecil, ‘“C”’s war’, 180.
4 Peake was a director of his family colliery business and also of Lloyds Bank (of which he was later chairman). For Foley’s concerns see above p. 419.
5 Cecil, ‘“C”’s war’, 177.
6 Training Sheet for Per Ingebrightsen, Apr. 1943 (Norges Hjemmefront Museum, Oslo, FO II/8.5 Daec 0002 Diverse).
7 Menzies to Cadogan, 2 Nov. 1944 (PUSD papers, FCO).
8 Cecil, ‘Five of Six at war’, 348 (which draws on information made available to Cecil by Cowgill himself).
9 Hinsley and Simkins, British Intelligence, iv, 132-7, covers this and other aspects of SIS-MI5 relations.
10 Petrie to Menzies (with attachment), 17 Apr., and reply, 11 May 1942 (TNA, KV 4/120). For the internal organisation of MI5 during the Second World War, see Andrew, Defence of the Realm, Section C.
11 Cecil, ‘Five of Six at war’, 347; Hinsley and Simkins, British Intelligence, iv, 137.
12 Hinsley, British Intelligence, ii, 18-19.
13 Biographical information on Coggia from ‘Order of the Liberation website’ www.ordredelaliberation.fr (accessed 4 Oct. 2007). For Jones in captivity, see Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 850-1; Wood (ed.), Detour, 103-4 and plate 13; and Pringle, Colditz Last Stop, 146-9.
14 Verstraete is identified as an SIS agent in Richards, Secret Flotillas, ii, 205, 366, 381.
15 Paillole, Services spéciaux, 429-34.
16 For Bowlby’s prediction, see above p. 425.
17 The sports equipment arrived towards the end of December 1943.
18 The circumstances of Costa Lawrence’s death are disputed, as noted in Nigel Clive’s engrossing memoir, A Greek Experience.
19 See Baxter, ‘Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen’ and ‘Forgeries and spies’.
20 Howard, British Intelligence, v, 49-50; see also Hinsley and Simkins, British Intelligence, iv, 211-12.
21 The Heinkel He-177 Griffon heavy bomber was, in fact, a spectacular German design failure.
CHAPTER 15: FROM SWITZERLAND TO NORMANDY
1 ‘Information received from Source JX/Knopf from Feb. 1942 to Apr. 1943’ (TNA, WO 208/4309). For German counter-intelligence efforts against Choynacki, see Laqueur and Breitman, Breaking the Silence, 174-7.
2 Gisevius’s version of events is in his memoir, To the Bitter End, for which Allen Dulles wrote an introduction.
3 Hinsley and Simkins, British Intelligence, iv, 200-1; see also McKay, ‘Krämer case’. The MI5 side of things can be followed in TNA, KV 2/144-57.
4 See Thomas, ‘Norway’s role in British wartime intelligence’, 124-6. Original SIS ship-watchers’ reports have survived in Norway. See, for example, Jan.-July 1943 in Norges Hjemmefront Museum, Oslo, FO II/8.6 N-RAP, box 17.
5 Olsen wrote a memoir of his activities, Two Eggs on my Plate.
6 Mackenzie, Secret History of SOE, 299-300.
7 For examples of other SIS work against German air defences see Hinsley, British Intelligence, ii, 248-52.
8 See, for example, Service Clarence reports nos 56-142, Aug. 1942-Mar. 1944 (Service Clarence papers, boxes 2-5).
9 For Ascension generally, see Pidgeon, Secret Wireless War.
10 ‘No path of flowers leads to glory’ (from Lafontaine’s Fables, x, 14).
11 Rémy, Livre du courage, ii, 60-2, gives a French perspective.
12 Fourcade’s account is in her memoir, L’Arche de Noé, 339-452.
13 Lubicz’s network is reported to have grown to 1,500 members during 1944 (see Stirling et al. (eds), Intelligence Co-operation, 242).
14 For the Polish involvement see ibid., 221-3. Czerniawski was also known as ‘Armand Walenty’ (see TNA, KV 2/72-3).
15 See also Rygor’s memoirs, Rygor Słowikowski, In the Secret Service, 213.
16 For a further account of V-weapons intelligence, see Hinsley, British Intelligence, iii, part 1, 357-414.
17 For the threat from long-range weapons and the Allied response, see Collier, Defence of the United Kingdom, 331-421.
18 The intelligence situation during the planning stage and up to D-Day is described in Hinsley, British Intelligence, iii, part 2, 10-101.
19 Ibid., ii, 12-13, and iii, part 2, 11-12, 753-5. The Martian reports are in TNA, WO 219/1933-42.
20 See, for example, TNA, WO 208/4312, for MI14 appreciations from 1 Jan. to 11 June 1944. For pre-Mar. 1944 ‘Summary of MI14 indications files’, see TNA, WO 208/4307-12.
21 ‘Ossex’ teams served in the American sector, ‘Brissex’ in the British.
22 Foot, SOE in France, 366.
23 Loxley to Peter Koch de Gooreynd (PA to CSS), 17 Apr. and 7 May, and reply 19 Apr. 1944 (PUSD papers, FCO).
24 Menzies to Loxley, 11 May; minute by Cavendish-Bentinck, 13 May; Thomas Bromley (FO) to Charles Peake (British Political Officer at SHAEF), 16 May 1944 (ibid.).
25 For SCUs, see Pidgeon, Secret Wireless War, 67-70.
CHAPTER 16: VICTORY IN EUROPE
1 See, for example, Service Clarence reports nos 131-59 (Jan.-July 1944) (Service Clarence papers, boxes 5-6).
2 Documents from the War Crimes Group’s inconclusive investigation of Chamier’s fate are in TNA, WO 309/248.
3 Directive for British Section of Allied Control Commission in Finland, 12 Oct. 1944 (TNA, FO 371/43196). See also Magill, Tasavalta tulikokeessa, 112.
4 For Krämer see above pp.514-15.
5 For developments in Yugoslavia see Hinsley, British Intelligence, iii, part 1, 137-62.
6 Smith, Sharing Secrets with Stalin, 41-3. This book is excellent for Anglo-Soviet intelligence relations generally.
7 Menzies to Churchill, 17 July 1941 (TNA, HW 1/14). See also, Hinsley, British Intelligence, ii, 59-66.
8 Kitchen, ‘SOE’s man in Moscow’.
9 It is possible (though there is no indication in the documents that this was suspected by SIS) that these reports were provided with the knowledge of the NKVD.
10 Vivian to Loxley, and reply, 13 and 20 Oct; minute by Sargent, 18 Oct. 1943 (PUSD papers, FCO).
11 Thomas Bromley (FO) to Arnold-Forster (SIS), 8 Sept. 1944 (ibid.).
12 For Garbo, see Howard, British Intelligence, v, esp. appendix 2, 231-41.
13 For Ustinov’s relations with women, see Ustinov, Klop, e.g. 174 and 178.
14 Cholmondeley was one of the brains behind the famous Operation ‘Mincemeat’ deception scheme in 1942 (Howard, British Intelligence, v, 89).
15 ‘Technische/Luftwaffe’ was the Abwehr division devoted to aircraft industry intelligence.
CHAPTER 17: ASIA AND THE END OF THE WAR
1 Publicised in the London Evening Standard, 16 Mar. 1942.
2 The provenance and significance of these signals was raised during the US inquiry into the Pearl Harbor disaster.
3 For the Japanese offensive against Thailand and Malaya, see Kirby, War against Japan, i, ch. 12.
4 Wilkinson War Journal, 7 Jan. 1943 (Wilkinson papers, WILK 1/1). For Wilkinson, see also Thorne, ‘MacArthur, Australia and the British’.
5 Note by Wilkinson, 15 Oct. 1943 (Wilkinson papers, WILK 3/2/1).
6 Thorne, ‘MacArthur, Australia and the British’, part I, 53 n. 1.
7 Cross, Red Jungle provides a personal account.
8 For SOE’s intelligence work see Aldrich, Intelligence and the War against Japan, 281-4, and for SOE generally see Cruickshank, SOE in the Far East.
9 Wilkinson War Journal, 9 July 1943 (Wilkinson papers, WILK 1/2 (closed)).
10 Beddington, ‘Memoirs’, p. 291 (Beddington papers).
11 For a general review of air operations, see ‘Brief history of clandestine air operations in the South East Asia theatre of war’, 1 June 1942-31 Aug. 1944; and ‘Air operations for clandestine organisations’, 1 June 1944-31 May 1945 (TNA, AIR 23/1950).
12 Garnons-Williams to Bowden-Smith and Mackenzie, 16 and 28 Apr. 1945 (TNA, HS 1/304); Aldrich, Intelligence and the War against Japan, 220-31.
13 ‘Co-ordination of British organisations in China’, 3 Apr. 1945 (TNA, CAB 81/128, JIC(45)111(O)(final)).
CHAPTER 18: POSTWAR PLANNING
1 Duff Cooper to Churchill & reply, 23 Mar. and 4 Apr. 1943 (PUSD papers, FCO).
2 ‘SOE and SIS co-ordination’, 15 May 1942 (TNA, CAB 121/305A, JP(42) 502).
3 G. C. Vickers and Capel-Dunn to Cavendish-Bentinck, 24 and 26 May 1943 (PUSD papers, FCO).
4 Diary of Sir Alan Lascelles, 3 Feb. 1945 (quoted in Hart-Davis (ed.), King’s Counsellor, 291); The Times, 8, 9 Feb. 1945.
5 Draft memo by Loxley, n.d. (c. June 1943) (PUSD papers, FCO).
6 Minute by Loxley, 30 Aug. 1943 (ibid.).
7 Bland to Cadogan, 13 Oct.; minute by Loxley, 7 Apr. 1944 (ibid.). Ivone Kirkpatrick was also originally included on the committee but because he was unable to attend meetings did not participate.
8 Bland to Cadogan, 13 Oct. 1944 (ibid.).
9 Bland Report (ibid.).
10 At this point on one copy of the report a marginal note by a Foreign Office official reads: ‘Most important, otherwise the S.I.S. man abroad will concentrate on what is easy & amusing’ (ibid.).
11 Dansey to Loxley, enc. memo, 11 June 1944 (ibid.).
12 Bland Report, unrevised draft (ibid.).
13 Chiefs of Staff memo, 27 May 1945, COS(45)360 (TNA, CAB 80/94 (files retained in Cabinet Office)).
14 Cavendish-Bentinck to Loxley, 15 Apr.; Loxley to Leeper, 27 June 1944 (PUSD papers, FCO).
15 Minute by Menzies, 2 Nov. 1944 (ibid.).
16 Loxley to Menzies, 20 Oct. 1943 (ibid.).
17 Marginal note by Bland on copy of Menzies’s minute of 2 Nov. (ibid.).
18 Loxley to Cadogan, 8 Nov. 1944 (ibid.).
19 Draft amendments to report of Bland committee, 7 Dec. 1944 (ibid.).
20 In the final version the phrase ‘should always bear in mind . . . should therefore only engage’ was recast as: ‘should always bear in mind that political ideologies should not be investigated for their own sake alone; and that the S.I.S. should therefore only engage’ (TNA, CAB 163/4 (files retained in Cabinet Office)).
21 DMI and DNI to Cavendish-Bentinck, 16 Feb. and 30 Jan. 1945 (ibid.).
22 DMI to Cavendish-Bentinck, 16 Feb. 1945 (ibid.). Sinclair based his remarks on Edward Beddington’s comments on the Bland Report: ‘the expansion of S.I.S. took place in this war at an impossibly late date, mostly in 1942’ (Beddington to Sinclair, 7 Jan. 1945 (PUSD papers, FCO)).
23 DNI to Cavendish-Bentinck, 30 Jan. 1945 (TNA, CAB 163/4 (files retained in Cabinet Office)).
24 ‘The Intelligence Machine’, 10 Jan. 1945 (TNA, CAB 163/6).
CHAPTER 19: ADJUSTING TO PEACE
1 Findlater Stewart report, 27 Nov. 1945 (Cabinet Office papers).
2 From January 1948 the Joint Intelligence Sub-Committee was renamed the Joint Intelligence Committee.
3 Caccia to Sir A. Cadogan, 29 Jan. 1946 (PUSD papers, FCO).
4 Caccia to Sir Orme Sargent, 25 Feb. 1946 (ibid.).
5 Cavendish-Bentinck to Cadogan, 25 June; minutes by Cadogan, Bevin and Attlee, 14, 21, 23 Aug. and 5 Sept.; ‘Directive to Special Operations Executive’, 10 Nov., COS(45)643(O) annex; minute by Sargent, 28 Nov. 1945 (ibid.).
6 Menzies to Caccia, 30 Jan.; minute by Caccia, 2 Feb.; circular FO telegram, 25 Mar. 1946 (ibid.).
7 Cabinet Office notes on costs of the Secret Service (Cabinet Office papers).
8 COS Committee, 30 Apr. 1947, COS(47) 59th meeting (TNA, DEFE 4/4).
9 Minute by A. V. Alexander, 30 June 1947, COS(47)135(O) (ibid., 5/5).
10 Forty-six meetings of the Regional Controllers were held between 26 Nov. 1945 and 15 Jan. 1947.
11 Sixty-four meetings of the VCSS’s Production Conference were held between 21 Jan. 1947 and 6 Dec. 1949. The minutes of these meetings were routinely marked: ‘To be destroyed after action taken’. On 2 Mar. 1948 PSO (?Principal Staff Officer) requested that all agenda and minutes of the conferences ‘up till end of 1947 should be destroyed and destruction certificates should be rendered’.
12 As follows: R.1 Political; R.2 Air; R.3 Naval; R.4 Military; R.5 Counter-Intelligence; R.6 Economic; R.7 Scientific (from 1948); R.8 Scientific (to 1948), then Liaison; R.9 Co-ordinating (1946-8).
13 Hayter to Sargent, 13 Jan.; Menzies to Hayter, 30 Jan 1947 (PUSD papers, FCO).
14 Sillitoe to Bridges, 11 Nov.; minute by Donaldson, 8 Dec. 1948 (Cabinet Office papers).
15 Notes by Bridges and Donaldson, 23 Dec. 1948 (ibid.).
16 Strang to Menzies, 28 July; Sillitoe to Menzies, 9 Sept. and reply, 28 Sept. 1949 (ibid.).
17 Menzies to Hayter, 17 Apr. 1947 (PUSD papers, FCO).
18 Menzies to Hayter, 17 Jan., enc. memo on ‘Future Indian intelligence liaison’; minute by Halford, 22 Jan. 1947 (ibid.).
19 ‘Future Indian intelligence liaison’, by Monteath; Monteath to Bridges, 6 Mar.; Shone to Hayter, n.d. [May]; Menzies to Hayter, 21 June 1947 (ibid.).
20 Posts in the Diplomatic and Consular Services were restricted to men until 1946, and a bar on married women was enforced in the Foreign Office up to 1972 (see McCarthy, ‘Petticoat diplomacy’).
21 Bland Report, 12 Oct. 1944 (PUSD papers, FCO).
22 Minute by Bridges, 14 Oct. 1946 (Cabinet Office papers).
CHAPTER 20: DEPLOYMENT AND OPERATIONS IN EUROPE
1 Requirements from SIS, 20 June 1946, JIC(46)57(O)Revise (TNA, CAB 81/133 (files retained in Cabinet Office)); Russia committee meeting, 9 Oct. 1947 (TNA, FO 371/66372); Bevin minute, 25 Nov. 1947, CM(47)90 (TNA, CAB 128/10).
2 A restaurant survives to this day at 8 Rue Tournefort.
3 The BEM (British Empire Medal) was a lower grade yet than the MBE.
4 Bland Report, 12 Oct. 1944 (PUSD papers, FCO).
5 Maj. A. E. E. Reade (War Crimes Unit) to Military Department, Judge Advocate-General, 19 Mar. 1948 (TNA, WO 309/248). Some of the results of Kopkow’s interrogation are in his MI5 file, TNA, KV 2/1500-1.
6 New York to London telegrams, 9 and 10 Sept. 1945 (PUSD papers, FCO).
7 Moscow to London: Venona decrypt of 1 Feb. 1965 (www.nsa.gov/venona/releases/17_Sept_1945_R5_m5_p1.gif (accessed 27 June 2008)); FO minutes, Sept. 1945 (PUSD papers, FCO).
8 Minutes by Cadogan, 11 and 19 Sept.; brief by Makins, 21 Sept. 1945 (PUSD papers, FCO). For the Council of Foreign Ministers meeting, see Documents on British Policy Overseas, ser. 1, vol.ii.
9 New York-London telegrams, 11-13 Sept. 1945; minutes by Cadogan and Bevin, 27 and 28 Sept. 1945 (PUSD papers, FCO).
10 ‘One cannot make an intelligence service with a parish priest.’ Menzies to Caccia, 8 Mar. 1946 (ibid.).
11 Caccia to Menzies, 12 Mar. 1946 (ibid.).
12 ‘Revised directive to Special Operations’, 18 Feb. 1946, COS(46)50(O) (TNA, CAB 80/99); FO circular tel., 25 Mar. 1946 (PUSD papers, FCO); Slessor to Sir James Robb (Vice Chief of the Air Staff), 21 Jan. 1948 (TNA, AIR 75/116, JCS 37). For Slessor, see Aldrich, Hidden Hand, 145-6.
13 See History of SOE’s German Directorate (TNA, HS 7/145-8). On ME42 and Bonzos, see TNA, HS 6/689-90, and Rigden, How to be a Spy, 10.
14 Report by Lewis, 1 July 1946 (USA, NARA, RG226, 214/4/29). For the long-term tasking of the Control Commission, see Donnison, Civil Affairs, 195.
15 Foreign Office minutes, Apr.-May, Sargent to Menzies and reply (with Hayter minute), 14 and 16 June 1948 (PUSD papers, FCO).
16 Minutes by Garvey and Hayter, 7 and 11 Nov. 1947 (ibid.).
17 Minute by Speaight and Cavendish-Bentinck, 7 and 9 Oct. 1944 (ibid.).
18 Minutes by Loxley and Cadogan, 10, 13 and 20 Oct.; Cadogan to Menzies, 18 Oct.; Cohen (for Menzies) to Bromley (FO), 24 Dec. 1944; Duff Cooper to Cadogan, 17 Oct. 1945 (ibid.).
19 Minute by Halford, 17 June; Hayter to Manzies, 28 June 1948 (ibid.).
20 HO minutes and Paris-London correspondence, 7 May-21 June 1948 (ibid.).
21 See, for example, ‘Underrättelstjänst och sabotage: Brittisk underrättelstjänst’ (Intelligence and sabotage: British intelligence service), vols 16 and 17 (Krigsarkivet, Swedish National Archives).
22 Aspects of Communist activity in late 1940s Norway, and their ramifications in Britain, are explored in Insall, ‘Relationship between the British and Norwegian Labour parties from 1945 to 1951’.
23 For the Norwegian side, see Riste, Norwegian Intelligence Service, 1-33.
CHAPTER 21: A WORLDWIDE SERVICE
1 Andrew, Defence of the Realm, 352-66; Walton, ‘British Intelligence and the Mandate of Palestine’.
2 For a cool and painstaking study of the problem, see Liebreich, Britain’s Naval and Political Reaction to the Illegal Immigration of Jews to Palestine.
3 Menzies to Hayter, 19 Dec. 1946, enclosing ‘Proposals for action’ (PUSD papers, FCO).
4 Hayter to Menzies, 24 Feb. 1947 (ibid.).
5 For press coverage of the affair, see The Times, 19, 21 July, and New York Times, 21-22, 30 July 1947.
6 The Times, 28 July, 8 Oct. and 16 Nov. 1948.
7 Corres. between Sargent and Menzies, Jan.-Feb. 1948 (PUSD papers, FCO).
8 The general context in the region is admirably covered in Baxter, Great Power Struggle in East Asia.
9 For Blake, see Andrew, Defence of the Realm, 488-91.
10 CX reports and War Office minutes, Feb.-Sept. 1949 (War Office papers retained in Ministry of Defence).
11 Moscow to London and reply, 2 and 5 Apr. 1946 (PUSD papers, FCO).
12 Russia committee meeting, 25 Nov. 1948 (TNA, FO 371/71687, RC(48)16). The context of British policy-making on special operations against Communist states is usefully outlined in Aldrich, Hidden Hand, ch. 6.
13 ‘Communist action in Albania’, memo by I. F. Porter, 3 Feb.; Sargent to Menzies, 18 Feb.; Menzies to Sir William Strang (FO), 4 Mar. 1949 (PUSD papers, FCO).
14 Strang to Menzies, 28 Apr.; FO minutes, May; ‘Albanian plan’, 16 June; report on Operation Valuable, Dec. 1949 (ibid.).
15 Minute by A. Rumbold, 15 Nov. 1949 (ibid.).
CHAPTER 22: SIS: LEADERSHIP AND PERFORMANCE OVER THE FIRST FORTY YEARS
1 Churchill, World Crisis, 406.
2 The Times, 2 June 1915; Walter Kirke, ‘Lieut.-Gen. Sir George M. W. Macdonogh’ (c. July 1947) (Kirke papers (IWM), WMK 12, folder VI).
3 The relevant records are in TNA, ADM 116/1265/B.
4 Menzies to Wilson, 6 Sept. 1940 (PUSD papers, FCO).
5 Knoblock, Round the Room, 257.
6 Williams, World of Action, 335-6.
7 Dukes, Story of ‘ST 25’, 35.
8 Knoblock, Round the Room, 257. From 1910 to 1914 eight issues a year of Le Nu au Salon par Georges Normandy (continuing a series initiated by the French poet Armande Silvestre in the 1880s) were published in Paris, containing reproductions of ‘tasteful’ pictures and sculptures of nude women, few of them by artists of the first rank.
9 A couple of entries in Walter Kirke’s diary, at a time when Cumming felt keenly under assault from the military authorities, are the only suggestions that he might have been out for ‘self aggrandisement’ (27 May and 23 July 1916, quotation from 27 May) (Kirke papers (IWM), 82/28/1).
10 Secret Service Committee 1931, notes of meetings (27 Apr., 11 and 22 June) (TNA, FO 1093/74).
11 Menu cards and associated papers, 16 Aug. 1928 and 18 July 1935; Noble to Sinclair, 19 July 1935 (Sinclair papers MS 81/091, scrapbook vol. 1).
12 O’Halpin, Head of the Civil Service, 95.
13 Trevor-Roper, Philby Affair, 72.
14 Howarth, Intelligence Chief Extraordinary, p. 115.
15 Beddington, ‘Memoirs’, p. 276 (Beddington papers).
16 TS memoirs, fols 207-9 (Reilly papers, MS. Eng. c. 6918).
17 Cadogan diary, 5 Nov. 1942 (Cadogan papers, ACAD 1/11).
18 TS memoirs, fol. 213 (Reilly papers, MS. Eng. c. 6918).
19 Rivet diary, 12-24 Dec. 1942, quoted in Rivet, Carnets secrets 1936-1944.
20 Cecil, ‘“C”’s war’, 181; Cadogan diary, 7 Dec. 1944 (Cadogan papers, ACAD 1/11); Winterbotham, Ultra Secret, p. 99); Paillole, Services spéciaux, 429-34.
21 This argument is advanced (for example) in Trevor-Roper, Philby Affair, 73-4.
22 The 1941-2 organisation of GC&CS is covered in Hinsley, British Intelligence, i, 271-4; ii, 21-7.
23 A. M. Turing et al. to Churchill, 21 Oct.; minutes by Churchill and Ismay, 22 Oct. and 19 Nov. 1941 (TNA, HW 1/155). Documents in the SIS archive show Menzies himself (before the code-breakers’ letter to Churchill) appealing to higher authority to secure priority equipment and accommodation for Bletchley Park.
24 Hinsley, British Intelligence, iii, part 1, 461. Menzies’s reorganisation was (curiously) drafted on the back of a racehorse sales catalogue dated 9 Sept. 1926 (TNA, HW 14/27).
25 Trevor-Roper, Philby Affair, 73.
26 Minute by Hayter, 30 Apr. 1949 (PUSD papers, FCO).
27 Minutes by Caccia, Aubrey Halford, Hayter and Strang, 2, 17 May, 5, 7, 8 and 14 July 1949 (ibid.).
28 He quoted this in a memo of 14 Feb. 1940.
29 670 officers; 900 ‘secretaries and clerks’; 800 ‘others’.