Spycatcher (59 page)
I was not alone among the old guard, anti-Soviet officers in being disturbed by these new developments. We could see all that we had worked to achieve frittered away chasing these minor left-wing groupings. But more than that, the move into the computer generation signaled the relegation of the role of the individual officer. From now on we were to be data processors, scanning tens of thousands of names at the press of a button.
"The fun has gone" was a sentiment I heard more and more in those last few years.
Hanley himself was unable to grasp the difficulties he was getting himself into. It was easy to believe that we had the public's consent when we broke into a Soviet diplomat's house. But the wholesale surveillance of a large proportion of the population raised more than a question mark. "Big Brother" loomed.
Veterans of D Branch viewed groups like the WRP, SWP, and Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) as largely irrelevant pieces of the jigsaw. Certainly an eye should be kept on them, but we were quite satisfied they were not the major objects of KGB attack. These were the Intelligence Services, the Civil Service, and increasingly in the 1960s, the trade unions and the Labor Party.
Since the 1960s a wealth of material about the penetration of the latter two bodies had been flowing into MI5's files, principally from two Czechoslovakian defectors named Frolik and August. They named a series of Labor Party politicians and trade union leaders as Eastern Bloc agents. Some were certainly well founded, like the case of the MP Will Owen, who admitted being paid thousands of pounds over a ten-year period to provide information to Czechoslovakian intelligence officers, and yet, when he was prosecuted in 1970, was acquitted because it was held that he had not had access to classified information, and because the Czech defector could not produce documentary evidence of what he had said at the trial.
Tom Driberg was another MP named by the Czech defectors. I went to see Driberg myself, and he finally admitted that he was providing material to a Czech controller for money. For a while we ran Driberg on, but apart from picking up a mass of salacious detail about Labor Party peccadilloes, he had nothing of interest for us.
His only lasting story concerned the time he lent a Cabinet Minister his flat so that the Minister could try and conduct an affair in strict privacy. Driberg was determined to find the identity of the woman who was the recipient of the Minister's favors, and one evening after the Minister had vacated, he searched the flat and found a letter addressed to a prominent female member of the Labor Party. Driberg claimed to be horrified by his discovery and raised it with the Minister concerned, suggesting that he ought to be more careful in case word of his activities ever became public! Since Driberg was certainly providing the same stories to his Czech friends, his concern for Labor Party confidentiality seemed hollow, to say the least.
John Stonehouse was another MP who the Czech defectors claimed was working for them, but after he was interviewed in the presence of Harold Wilson, and denied all the charges, the MI5 objections against him were withdrawn.
This was the context which shaped the fraught relations between MI5 and the Prime Minister for much of this period. Much has been written about Harold Wilson and MI5, some of it wildly inaccurate. But as far as I am concerned, the story started with the premature death of Hugh Gaitskell in 1963. Gaitskell was Wilson's predecessor as Leader of the Labor Party. I knew him personally and admired him greatly. I had met him and his family at the Blackwater Sailing Club, and I recall about a month before he died he told me that he was going to Russia.
After he died his doctor got in touch with MI5 and asked to see somebody from the Service. Arthur Martin, as the head of Russian Counterespionage, went to see him. The doctor explained that he was disturbed by the manner of Gaitskell's death. He said that Gaitskell had died of a disease called lupus disseminata, which attacks the body's organs. He said that it was rare in temperate climates and that there was no evidence that Gaitskell had been anywhere recently where he could have contracted the disease.
Arthur Martin suggested that I should go to Porton Down, the chemical and microbiological laboratory for the Ministry of Defense. I went to see the chief doctor in the chemical warfare laboratory, Dr. Ladell, and asked his advice. He said that nobody knew how one contracted lupus. There was some suspicion that it might be a form of fungus and he did not have the foggiest idea how one would infect somebody with the disease. I came back and made my report in these terms.
The next development was that Golitsin told us quite independently that during the last few years of his service he had had some contacts with Department 13, which was known as the Department of Wet Affairs in the KGB. This department was responsible for organizing assassinations. He said that just before he left he knew that the KGB were planning a high-level political assassination in Europe in order to get their man into the top place. He did not know which country it was planned in but he pointed out that the chief of Department 13 was a man called General Rodin, who had been in Britain for many years and had just returned on promotion to take up the job, so he would have had good knowledge of the political scene in England. We did not know where to go next because Ladell had said that it wasn't known how the disease was contracted. I consulted Jim Angleton about the problem. He said that he would get a search made of Russian scientific papers to see whether there was any hint of what the Russians knew about this disease. A month or two later he sent us a paper about lupus which he had had translated from a Russian scientific journal. The paper was several years old and Angleton reported that there were no other papers in the Russian literature that they could find. This paper described the use of a special chemical which the Russians had found would induce lupus in experimental rats. However, it was unlikely that this particular chemical could have been used to murder Gaitskell because the quantities required to produce lupus were considerable and had to be given repeatedly. I took the paper to Ladell and, while surprised by this area of Soviet expertise, he confirmed that it was unlikely that Gaitskell could have been poisoned by the coffee and biscuits. But he pointed out that the paper was seven years old and if the Russians had continued to work on it they might have found a much better form of the chemical which would require much smaller doses and perhaps work as a one-shot drug. He told me there was no way of proving it without doing a lot of scientific work and Porton was unable to do the necessary work as it was already overloaded.
I said I would take the matter home and discuss it with my management. Once again I wrote an account of what Ladell had said and confirmed its accuracy with him personally. Back in M15 we discussed the problem at length in the office and it was agreed that nothing could be done unless we had further evidence of the Russians' using such a drug to assassinate people. Over the next few years I watched out for any evidence and asked Ladell also to watch out for it. Needless to say we had no further example of anybody who was in a vulnerable position dying of lupus. However, if there was a high-level leak in MI5 to the Russians, they would have been informed of our suspicions and I am sure they would have ensured that no other case came our way.
Harold Wilson meanwhile had become Prime Minister. It was inevitable that Wilson would come to the attention of MI5. Before he became Prime Minister he worked for an East-West trading organization and paid many visits to Russia. MI5, well aware that the KGB will stop at nothing to entrap or frame visitors, were concerned that he should be well aware of the risk of being compromised by the Russians. When Wilson succeeded Gaitskell as Leader of the Labor Party, there was a further source of friction between himself and MI5. He began to surround himself with other East European emigre businessmen, some of whom had themselves been the subject of MI5's inquiries.
After Harold Wilson became Prime Minister in 1964, Angleton made a special trip to England to see F.J., who was then director of counterespionage. Angleton came to offer us some very secret information from a source he would not name. This source alleged, according to Angleton, that Wilson was a Soviet agent. He said he would give us more detailed evidence and information if we could guarantee to keep the information inside MI5 and out of political circles. The accusation was totally incredible, but given the fact that Angleton was head of the CIA's Counterintelligence Division, we had no choice but to take it seriously. Not surprisingly the management of MI5 were deeply disturbed by the manner in which Angleton passed this information over. After consideration, they refused to accept Angleton's restrictions on the use to which we could put the information, and as a result we were not told anything more. However, Angleton's approach was recorded in the files under the code name Oatsheaf.
After Hollis retired and Furnival Jones became Director-General, I went to F.J. and said I was paying a visit to the USA and asked whether I should tackle Angleton on the Oatsheaf information, with a view to getting more details. He said that I could, but again insisted that we could not give Angleton any guarantee about any information which he gave us. I tackled Angleton in Washington. He put up a vintage performance. There were dark mutterings about "clandestine meetings" with the Russians. But when he was pushed for details, there were none, and I knew from bitter experience that Angleton was more than capable of manufacturing evidence when none existed.
But if the Oatsheaf affair was nothing more than a diversion, by the end of the 1960s information was coming to MI5's attention which suggested that there almost certainly was Soviet penetration of the Labor Party. First the Czechoslovakian defectors, Frolik and August, arrived in the West and named a series of Labor MPs and trade unionists as successful recruits. Then we received the most damaging information of all from Oleg Lyalin. While Lyalin was still in place, he told MI5 about a friend of his called Vaygaukas. Vaygaukas was a KGB officer working under cover in the Soviet Trade Delegation in London. Lyalin told us that Vaygaukas had claimed to him to be in contact with a man called Joseph Kagan, a Lithuanian emigre who was a close friend of Harold Wilson's. Kagan had helped finance Wilson's private office, and had even lent him an aircraft during elections, and Wilson had been much photographed wearing Kagan's raincoats, which he manufactured in a factory near Leeds.
Inevitably MI5 were extremely anxious to discover whether or not Kagan had any relationship with Vaygaukas. We placed him under intensive surveillance and attempted to recruit agents inside his factory. Then, following the expulsion of the 105 Soviet diplomats in 1971, we finally got the opportunity to discuss the matter with both men. Harold Wilson, by then out of office, approached Sir Arthur Young, head of the City of London police and a consultant to one of Kagan's companies. Wilson asked to be put in touch with MI5 because he wished to discuss Kagan.
Furnival Jones thought this approach bizarre, but agreed to send Harry Wharton, who was then handling Lyalin. Wharton briefed Wilson on Lyalin's information about Kagan's alleged dealings with Vaygaukas.
Wilson told him bluntly that he knew nothing about it and had never discussed confidential matters with Kagan at any time. Kagan himself later admitted meeting Vaygaukas for chess games, but strenuously denied that any espionage was involved.
Wilson interpreted MI5's interest as a crude attempt to smear the Labor Party and him. But once the Conservative Government came into power they began to take a great interest in the material as well. Victor often used to complain to me about the quality of the intelligence reports No. 10 received from F Branch.
"They pull their punches all the time," he would say, "can't you give us something better?"
In 1972 he told me that Heath had been appalled at a recent Cabinet meeting, which was addressed by Jack Jones and Hugh Scanlon, the two powerful trade union bosses of the early 1970s.
"Ted thought they talked like Communists," he said. "I asked F Branch if they had anything, but of course they've got nothing substantial."
He knew from gossip that the recent Czech defectors were providing material about trade union and Labor Party subversion, and began pumping me for the details. I told him to minute me formally with a request and I would see what I could do. Later that day I got Victor's minute.
"The Prime Minister is anxious to see..." he began, in typical Victor style.
I sent Victor's note to F.J. for guidance. He returned it to me with a handwritten message in the margin: "Tell him what he wants to know!"
I drew the files, and began patiently to compose a lengthy brief on the intelligence provided by Frolik and August. I drew no conclusions, but neither did I leave anything out.
The whole of Whitehall came thundering down on my head. I was summoned by Sir John Hunt, the Cabinet Secretary, who asked what on earth I thought I was doing passing material about an opposition party into the government party's hands at such a delicate time.
I defended myself as vigorously as I could. It was not a question of politics. The head of the Central Policy Review Staff had requested a briefing, and I had given it to him and it had been approved by DOSS. It was not my fault if the material was unpalatable or embarrassing.
"If we refused to circulate intelligence because it was embarrassing, there would be little purpose in our sending anything at all!"
Both F.J. and Victor supported me loyally throughout. Victor relished the row and composed a series of elegant memorandums which winged their way through Whitehall defending the Security Service's right to provide intelligence requested of it by No. 10 Downing Street. Philip Allen was outraged by this flagrant flouting of Home Office prerogative, and refused to speak to me for years. To Victor he sent a terse note which he showed me gleefully. "Keep off the grass," thundered Allen ominously.
One afternoon, at the height of the row, I was in Victor's room in the Cabinet Office when Ted Heath put his head around the door.