Copyright
William Collins
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This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2018
Copyright © 2018 Richard Davenport-Hines
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Source ISBN: 9780007516674
Ebook Edition © January 2018 ISBN: 9780007516681
Version: 2017-12-11
Dedication
With love for † Rory Benet Allan
With gratitude to the Warden and Fellows of All Souls
Epigraph
The lie is a European power.
FERDINAND LASSALLE
Great is the power of steady misrepresentation.
CHARLES DARWIN
No great spy has been a short-term man.
SIR JOHN MASTERMAN
Men are classed less by achievement than by failure to achieve the impossible.
SIR ROBERT VANSITTART
Men go in herds: but every woman counts.
BLANCHE WARRE-CORNISH
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Author’s Note
Glossary
Illustration Credits
Aims
PART ONE: Rules of the Game
Chapter 1: The Moscow Apparatus
Tsarist Russia
Leninist Russia
Stalinist Russia
The Great Illegals
Soviet espionage in foreign missions
The political culture of everlasting distrust
Chapter 2: The Intelligence Division
Pre-Victorian espionage
Victorian espionage
Edwardian espionage
Chapter 3: The Whitehall Frame of Mind
The age of intelligence
The Flapper Vote
Security Service staffing
Office cultures and manly trust
Chapter 4: The Vigilance Detectives
The uprising of the Metropolitan Police
Norman Ewer of the Daily Herald
George Slocombe in Paris
The Zinoviev letter and the ARCOS raid
MI5 investigates the Ewer–Hayes network
Chapter 5: The Cipher Spies
The Communications Department
Ernest Oldham
Hans Pieck and John King
Walter Krivitsky
Chapter 6: The Blueprint Spies
Industrial mobilization and espionage
Propaganda against armaments manufacturers
MI5 watch Wilfrid Vernon
MI5 watch Percy Glading
The trial of Glading
PART TWO: Asking for Trouble
Chapter 7: The Little Clans
School influences stronger than parental examples
Kim Philby at Westminster
Donald Maclean at Gresham’s
Guy Burgess at Eton and Dartmouth
Anthony Blunt at Marlborough
Chapter 8: The Cambridge Cell
Undergraduates in the 1920s
Marxist converts after the 1931 crisis
Oxford compared to Cambridge
Stamping out the bourgeoisie
Chapter 9: The Vienna Comrades
Red Vienna
Anti-fascist activism
Philby’s recruitment as an agent
Chapter 10: The Ring of Five
The induction of Philby, Maclean and Burgess
David Footman and Dick White
The recruitment of Blunt and Cairncross
Maclean in Paris
Philby in Spain: Burgess in Section D
Goronwy Rees at All Souls
Chapter 11: The People’s War
Emergency recruitment
The United States
Security Service vetting
Wartime London
‘Better Communism than Nazism’
‘Softening the oaken heart of England’
Chapter 12: The Desk Officers
Modrzhinskaya in Moscow
Philby at SIS
Maclean in London and Washington
Burgess desk-hopping
Blunt in MI5
Cairncross hooks BOSS
Chapter 13: The Atomic Spies
Alan Nunn May
Klaus Fuchs
Harwell and Semipalatinsk
Chapter 14: The Cold War
Dictaphones behind the wainscots?
Contending priorities for MI5
Anglo-American attitudes
A seizure in Istanbul
Chapter 15: The Alcoholic Panic
Philby’s dry martinis
Burgess’s dégringolade
Maclean’s breakdowns
The VENONA crisis
PART THREE: Settling the Score
Chapter 16: The Missing Diplomats
‘All agog about the two Missing Diplomats’
‘As if evidence was the test of truth!’
States of denial
Chapter 17: The Establishment
Subversive rumours
William Marshall
‘The Third Man’
George Blake
Class McCarthyism
Chapter 18: The Brotherhood of Perverted Men
The Cadogan committee
‘Friends in high places’
John Vassall
Charles Fletcher-Cooke
Chapter 19: The Exiles
Burgess and Maclean in Moscow
Philby in Beirut
Bestsellers
Oleg Lyalin in London
Chapter 20: The Mole Hunts
Colonel Grace-Groundling-Marchpole
Robin Zaehner and Stuart Hampshire
Anthony Blunt and Andrew Boyle
‘Only out for the money’
Maurice Oldfield and Chapman Pincher
Envoi
Picture Section
Notes
Index
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Also by Richard Davenport-Hines
About the Publisher
Author’s Note
In MI5 files the symbol @ is used to indicate an alias, and repetitions of @ indicate a variety of aliases or codenames. I have followed this practice in the text.
Glossary
Abwehr
German military intelligence, 1920–45
active measures
Black propaganda, dirty tricks
agent
Individual who performs intelligence assignments for an intelligence agency without being an officer or staff member of that agency
agent of influence
An agent who is able to influence policy decisions
ARCOS
All Russian Co-operative Society, London, 1920–7
asset
A source of human intelligence
BSA
Birmingham Small Arms Company
C
Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service
case officer
An officer of an intelligence agency responsible for operating a particular agent or asset
Cheka
Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage, USSR, 1917–22
CIA
Central Intelligence Agency, USA, 1947–
CID
Committee of Imperial Defence, London, 1902–39
CIGS
Chief of the Imperial General Staff, London, 1909–64
Comintern
Third Communist International, USSR, 1919–43
CPGB
Communist Party of Great Britain, 1920–91
CPUSA
Communist Party of the United States of America, 1921–
cut-out
The intermediary communicating secret information between the provider and recipient of illicit information; knowing the source and destination of the transmitted information, but ignorant of the identities of other persons involved in the spying network
dead drop
Prearranged location where an agent, asset or case officer may leave material for collection
double agent
Agent cooperating with the intelligence service of one nation state while also working for and controlled by the intelligence or security service of another nation state
DPP
Directorate of Public Prosecutions, UK
DSO
Defence Security Officer, MI5
FBI
Federal Bureau of Investigation, US law enforcement agency, 1908–
FCO
Foreign & Commonwealth Office, 1968–
FO
Foreign Office
Fourth Department
Soviet military intelligence, known as the Fourth Department of the Red Army’s General Staff, 1926–42
Friend
Source
GC&CS
Government Code & Cypher School, 1919–46
GCHQ
Government Communications Headquarters, 1946–
GPU
State Political Directorate, USSR, 1922–3
GRU
Soviet military intelligence, 1942–92
HUAC
House Un-American Activities Committee, USA, 1938–69
HUMINT
human intelligence
illegal
Officer of an intelligence service without any official connection to the nation for whom he is working; usually with false documentation
INO
foreign section of Cheka and its successor bodies, USSR, 1920–41
intelligence agent
An outside individual who is used by an intelligence service to supply information or to gain access to a target
intelligence officer
A trained individual who is formally employed in the hierarchy of an intelligence agency, whether serving at home or abroad
legal
Intelligence officer serving abroad as an official or semi-official representative of his home country
MGB
Ministry for State Security, USSR, 1946–53
Ministry of Internal Affairs, USSR, 1953–4 (as secret police)
negative vetting
background checks on an individual before offering her or him a government job
NKGB
People’s Commissariat of State Security, February–July 1941 and 1943–6
NKVD
People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (responsible for state security of Soviet Union 1934–February 1941 and July 1941 to 1943)
NUPPO
National Union of Police and Prison Officers, 1913–20
OGPU
Combined State Political Directorate, USSR, 1923–34
OSINT
open source intelligence
OSS
Office of Strategic Services, Washington, 1942–5
PCO
Passport Control Officer: cover for SIS officers in British embassies and legations
positive vetting (PV)
The exhaustive checking of an individual’s background, political affiliations, personal life and character in order to measure their suitability for access to confidential material
principal
Intelligence officer directly responsible for running an agent or asset
protective security
Security to protect personnel, buildings, documents, communications etc. involved in classified material
PUS
Permanent Under Secretary
PWE
Political Warfare Executive, UK
rezident
Chief of a Soviet Russian intelligence station, with supervisory control over subordinate intelligence personnel
rezidentura
Soviet Russian intelligence station
ROP
Russian Oil Products Limited
SIGINT
Intelligence from intercepted foreign signals and communications. Human intervention is needed to turn the raw product into useful intelligence
SIME
Security Intelligence Middle East
SIS
Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), 1909–
SS
Security Service (MI5, under which name it was founded in 1909), 1931–
tradecraft
Acquired techniques of espionage and counterintelligence
vorón
Literally ‘raven’: a male Russian operative used for sexual seduction
Illustration Credits
– Sir Robert Vansittart, head of the Foreign Office. (Popperfoto/Getty Images)
– Cecil L’Estrange Malone, Leninist MP for Leyton East. (Associated Newspapers/REX/Shutterstock)
– Jack Hayes, the MP whose detective agency manned by aggrieved ex-policemen spied for Moscow. (© National Portrait Gallery, London)
– MI5’s agent M/1, Graham Pollard. (Esther Potter)
– MI5’s agent M/12, Olga Gray. (Valerie Lippay)
– Percy Glading, leader of the Woolwich Arsenal and Holland Road spy ring. (Keystone Pictures USA/Alamy Stock Photo)
– Wilfrid Vernon, the MP who filched aviation secrets for Stalinist Russia and spoke up for Maoist China. (Daily Mail/REX/Shutterstock)
– Maurice Dobb, Cambridge economist. (Peter Lofts)
– Anthony Blunt boating party on the River Ouse in 1930. (Lytton Strachey/Frances Partridge/Getty Images)
– Moscow’s talent scout Edith Tudor-Hart. (Attributed to Edith Tudor-Hart; print by Joanna Kane. Edith Tudor-Hart. National Galleries of Scotland / Archive presented by Wolfgang Suschitzky 2004. © Copyright held jointly by Peter Suschitzky, Julie Donat and Misha Donat)
– Pall Mall during the Blitz. (Central Press/Getty Images)
– Andrew Cohen, as Governor of Uganda, shares a dais with the Kabaka of Buganda. (Terence Spencer/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images)
– Philby’s early associate Peter Smolka. (Centropa)
– Alexander Foote, who spied for Soviet Russia before defecting to the British in Berlin and cooperating with MI5. (Popperfoto/Getty Images)
– Igor Gouzenko, the Russian cipher clerk who defected in 1945. (Bettmann/Getty Images)
– Donald Maclean perched on Jock Balfour’s desk at the Washington embassy, with Nicholas Henderson and Denis Greenhill. (Popperfoto/Getty Images)
– Special Branch’s Jim Skardon, prime interrogator of Soviet spies. (Associated Newspapers/REX/Shutterstock)
– Lord Inverchapel appreciating young American manhood. (Photo by JHU Sheridan Libraries/Gado/Getty Images)
– A carefree family without a se
cret in the world: Melinda and Donald Maclean. (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)
– Dora Philby and her son in her Kensington flat. (Photo by Harold Clements/Express/Getty Images)
– Philby’s wife Aileen facing prying journalists at her front door. (Associated Newspapers/REX/Shutterstock)
– Alan Nunn May, after his release from prison, enjoys the consumer durables of the Affluent Society. (Keystone Pictures USA/Alamy Stock Photo)
– The exiled Guy Burgess. (Popperfoto/Getty Images)
– John Vassall. (Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy Stock Photo)
– George Blake. (Photo by Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
– George Brown, Foreign Secretary. (Clive Limpkin/Associated Newspapers /REX/Shutterstock)
– Richard Crossman. (Photo by Len Trievnor/Daily Express/Getty Images)
– Daily Express journalist Sefton Delmer. (Photo by Ronald Dumont/Express/Getty Images)
– Maurice Oldfield of SIS – with his mother and sister outside Buckingham Palace. (©UPP/TopFoto)
Aims
In planning this book and arranging its evidence I have been guided by the social anthropologist Sir Edward Evans-Pritchard. ‘Events lose much, even all, of their meaning if they are not seen as having some degree of regularity and constancy, as belonging to a certain type of event, all instances of which have many features in common,’ he wrote. ‘King John’s struggle with the barons is meaningful only when the relations of the barons to Henry I, Stephen, Henry II, and Richard are also known; and also when the relations between the kings and barons in other countries with feudal institutions are known.’ Similarly, the intelligence services’ dealings with the Cambridge ring of five are best understood when the services’ relations with other spy networks working for Moscow are put alongside them. The significance of Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross, and the actions of counter-espionage officers pitted against them, make sense only when they are seen in a continuum with Jack Hayes, Norman Ewer, George Slocombe, Ernest Oldham, Wilfrid Vernon, Percy Glading, Alan Nunn May, William Marshall and John Vassall.