The Defence of the Realm (45 page)

The Security Service, like the military authorities, was unhappy with the extent of the releases. Its main concern was the potential support of those released for a German invasion. British intelligence did not know that German invasion plans (codenamed Operation SEALION) had been indefinitely postponed on 17 September and cancelled on 12 October. Military intelligence declared on 29 September that ‘the time will never come when it will be safe to say that there will be no invasion.' On 10 October, though reporting that the threat of invasion had declined, the JIC concluded that it would persist as long as the Luftwaffe remained larger than the RAF.
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Harker, as the Service director, did not put the case for maintaining mass internment well. When the Security Executive discussed a recommendation by the Advisory Committee on Internment on 24 October that interned domestic servants of established repute should be released, Harker declared that ‘experience had shown that German and Austrian domestic servants were not always as harmless as they appeared.'
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Apart from unsubstantiated claims after the conquest of France and the Low Countries that German maids had led paratroopers to their targets,
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it is difficult to guess what ‘experience' Harker had in mind.

Influenced by the treachery exposed by the Kent–Wolkoff case (which at the time the Security Service could not know was as untypical as it now appears), the Service exaggerated the potential threat to national security posed by the phasing out of mass internment. But it is still impossible to be certain how loyal enemy aliens and British Fascists would have been if
Operation SEALION had gone ahead. ‘It must never be forgotten', wrote Sir David Petrie later, that many of those British Fascists who had protested their patriotism ‘might have behaved very differently if ever a German invasion had become a reality'.
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A (probably small) minority of enemy aliens and British Fascists, consisting mainly of those who remained interned throughout the war, might well have supported it. At the Peveril internment camp in the Isle of Man on Hitler's birthday in April 1943 ‘there was community singing of the Horst Wessel Lied in the Camp canteen.'
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In the midst of the controversy over ending mass internment, the Security Service was forced to move its headquarters. As soon as the London Blitz began in September 1940, it became clear that Wormwood Scrubs was insecure. During air-raids three-quarters or more of the staff on upper floors were ordered to leave their rooms; only the ground floor was regarded as being reasonably safe.
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The Registry index and files were particularly vulnerable, following the unwise decision to house them in a glass-roofed workshop which had formerly been the prison laundry. One member of staff recalls arriving at the Scrubs on 29 September:

to find firemen and hosepipes everywhere. An incendiary bomb had dropped on the Registry and apparently the night duty officer could not find the keys quickly enough so the hosepipes had to be worked through the barred windows and doors and the mess was simply awful. The half-burnt files were soaking wet and there was a disgusting smell of burnt wetness.
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The whole central card index and about 800 files were badly damaged. Though the index had been microfilmed at the suggestion of Victor Rothschild, the quality of the film was so poor that registry clerks could work on it for only a few hours at a time and the index took nine months to reconstruct.
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In October 1940 the greater part of the Security Service moved to the safer and far more scenic surroundings of Blenheim Palace at Woodstock, near Oxford, which had just been vacated by the boys of Marlborough College. The Director, some other senior officers and the counter-espionage operations officers stayed in London at a building in St James's Street whose role was camouflaged by a large ‘To Let' sign outside. St James's Street was known as the ‘town office' and Blenheim Palace as the ‘country office'.
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After the miseries of Wormwood Scrubs and the London Blitz, one member of staff found arriving at the Palace during ‘wonderful autumn weather' a ‘blissful' experience:

At Blenheim the trees were gold with autumn and the sky was blue, the palace pale yellow, really lovely. Our desks were set up under the tapestries which were still on the walls. The Duke had his own wing and we had the run of the grounds in the lunch hour . . . I swam in the lake occasionally and, when it snowed, a lot of the staff tobogganed using the intrays, or skated on the frozen lake to the confusion of the sentries stationed at the edge to repel intruders.
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The Registry occupied most of the ground floor, including the Great Hall, the Long Library and some of the state rooms. Anthony Blunt, who was based in St James's Street, came from time to time to lecture on the architecture of Blenheim Palace.
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Not all staff, however, worked in the Palace itself. John Stephenson's office was a hut in the courtyard, ‘inadequately warmed by paraffin and imperfectly ventilated. Though draughts of cold air came in, fumes of paraffin and tobacco were unable to get out.'
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Initially, 250 female staff
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(later considerably more) were lodged in rooms at Keble College, Oxford, usually two to one undergraduate set. Since there were no telephones in the rooms, messages had to be left with the college porters, who would stand in the quad and bellow the names of the recipients. Coal for the coal fires in rooms was rationed; cold and condensation were constant problems in the winter months. After a usually Spartan breakfast in the College Hall, served by the scouts (male servants), buses were waiting in a side road to take staff to Blenheim Palace.
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In May 1941 Keble's Bursar complained that Service staff were responsible for considerably more breakages than undergraduates. M. B. Heywood replied on behalf of the Service:

It is difficult to envisage that, among other things, our staff have broken 28 large coffee pots, 740 plates of [all] sorts and 104 dishes of [all] sorts in the dining room, unless there has been a free fight.

I feel that the bulk of the breakages must occur between the kitchen and the dining room and be attributable to the College staff.
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A minority of female staff, as Milicent Bagot later recalled, lived in greater comfort in nearby country houses:

One of our hostesses startled her billetees on their arrival, wearied by many sleepless nights in London, by enquiring whether any of them fished, shot or hunted. She herself went off regularly once a week for hunting. Her domestic staff included a butler, personal maid, cook and housemaid, as well as a girl especially detailed to look after the billetees. It was a strange world for most of us!
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MI5 defends itself against complaints that its female staff occupying rooms at Keble College, Oxford, destroy more crockery than the students.

Though the staff worked long hours, the office circulars at Blenheim provide evidence of a working environment unimaginable at the Scrubs. For example: ‘The practice of leaving bunches of flowers in the fire buckets militates against the efficiency of our fire fighting arrangements, and causes much extra work for the fire fighting staff. Will all members of the staff therefore please refrain from placing their flowers in the fire bucket.'
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Staff also had to be reminded about the rules of the road in the Palace grounds:

A great deal of horn-blowing, mud-splashing and general confusion would be avoided if both pedestrians and car-drivers would conform to the normal rule of the road, viz where no footpath is provided, pedestrians should walk on the RIGHT hand side of the road, so as to face oncoming traffic, while car-drivers should proceed on the LEFT hand side of the road. Car owners are also reminded that in order to avoid excess damage to the drive and unnecessary splashing of pedestrians, a speed limit of 10 MPH is in force in the Palace Grounds.
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In addition to swimming, tennis and cricket in summer, as one member of staff recalled:

There was plenty of entertainment in the evenings for those who wanted it . . . There were lists that you could sign should you wish to be what was called a ‘hostess' at parties given by the RAF and the American [Army] Air Force stationed at the many airfields near by; we were usually picked up, and of course returned, in a five (or was it a ten) ton lorry. We were herded like cattle on benches at the back all in our finery for an evening out. As the lorries were far from clean, we feared that our own dresses, skirts etc would be ruined and stained before we even got to the party. On arrival, there was certainly no shortage of drink, the one idea was to get us, shall we say, more than merry.
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At Blenheim Palace, the Security Service had its first royal visitor, Queen Mary (widow of George V), who was shown round by the Duke of Marlborough, but disconcerted staff by ‘looking through' them.
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Other visitors included Winston Churchill, who was an occasional weekend guest of his cousin the Duke.
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As one member of staff wrote:

Churchill was born in the downstairs room where Constant and Mounsey had their office. These two ladies (no one would call them girls) gave us our monthly salary in pound notes in envelopes (‘no lady talks about her pay' we were told). New faces appeared on the staff. Strange Mr Croft-Murray with the booming voice started up a little orchestra which gave lunchtime concerts. He was once seen playing the violin in an open car as it sped along near Marlow . . . The first time I saw Lord Rothschild (Sabotage section) must have been a Sunday morning. He was wearing an open neck
shirt and carrying a leather holdall. I thought he was a plumber until he asked the way in beautiful educated English.
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Despite the dramatic improvement in working conditions at Blenheim, during the early months administration remained confused, further complicated by the need to ferry files to and fro between the Palace and the St James's Street headquarters. Confidence in Jasper Harker's leadership continued to decline. The controversy over the release of a majority of the internees also continued. The leadership of the Security Service knew that despatch of a new wave of Abwehr agents to Britain which began in September had been intended as part of the preparations for a German invasion,
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and feared that freed internees might assist the invading forces. The Service objected to 111 of the 199 cases in which the Advisory Committee on Internment recommended the release of British Fascists interned under Defence Regulation 18B. At a meeting of the Security Executive on 6 November, however, it was forced to back down and, faced with opposition from both Swinton and the Home Secretary, dropped its objections to all but fifteen cases.
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By the end of 1940 almost a third of enemy alien internees had been released.
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Churchill complained to the Foreign and Home Secretaries on 25 January 1941 that ‘the witch-finding activities of MI5 are becoming an actual impediment to the more important work of the department.'
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This harsh criticism was coloured by the Prime Minister's more general unease at the state of the Security Service. In late November he had received a cryptic handwritten letter from an old political ally, Baron Croft of Bournemouth, Parliamentary Under Secretary for War in the House of Lords, reporting that all was not well ‘in certain quarters' and urging him to send for Major Gilbert Lennox, MI5's liaison officer with military intelligence, and ask him to speak freely. ‘Do not consult
anyone,'
he added.
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After retiring from the Indian army in 1932 at the age of fortyfour, Lennox had begun a successful new career as a playwright. His pre-war play
Close Quarters
, about a left-wing couple who commit suicide after being wrongly accused of the assassination of a Fascist dictator, had been a hit in the West End and also played more briefly on Broadway. Lennox joined the Service at the outbreak of war on the recommendation of Jane Archer and Dick White. In Archer's view, as well as being ‘a playwright of some standing', Lennox was ‘an extremely “hearty soul” . . . a man of the world, shrewd and of sound judgement with a taking manner'.
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Harker's decision to sack Archer in November 1940 probably brought to a head Lennox's dissatisfaction with the management of the
Security Service.
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Lennox was taken aback, however, to be summoned to see Churchill on 26 November.
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When shown into the Prime Minister's study, Lennox explained his views about MI5 and the Security Executive. He was then further taken aback to be asked by Churchill why he had come, and replied, ‘Because you sent for me.' Churchill said that he left such matters to his intelligence adviser, Major Desmond Morton, and sent Lennox to see Morton in his room in Number Ten.
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Lennox told Morton that the Service was suffering from inadequate leadership and internal jealousies. On Churchill's instructions, Morton then consulted the directors of intelligence in the three armed services. He reported to the Prime Minister on 3 December that the directors believed the Security Service was close to collapse, that Harker was not up to the job, and that Swinton's ‘executive control' of the Service was unsatisfactory. In their view, MI5 required a strong civilian, non-political head who would report to a minister, not to Swinton. By this time the former Home Secretary Sir John Anderson, then Lord President, had taken the initiative in commissioning an inquiry into the Security Service from the former head of the Delhi Intelligence Bureau and chairman of the Indian Public Service Commission, Sir David Petrie, a sixty-year-old Scot.
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Petrie was also asked if he would be willing to take over from Harker. But, he wrote later, ‘I refused outright to take charge until I had examined things for myself.'
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Once he had completed his review, Petrie agreed to take charge.