The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5 by Christopher Andrew
Allen Lane, £30
If you believe MI5 is staffed by red-necked crypto-fascists who push sharp splinters under the fingernails of the innocent when not arranging with the CIA, FBI and Mossad to destroy New York’s twin towers or blow up London’s Underground, then nothing in this review or this book is for you. You might as well spend your time with the little green men who’ve been in your garden shed for the past 30 years awaiting the return of Leon Trotsky.
If, as I trust, you’re part of the thinking left, then I urge you to beg, borrow or buy this first ever history of the nation’s secret service. It will make uncomfortable, even shocking, reading, shatter illusions and destroy beloved myths.
It is not a complete history. The nearer it gets to today, the more is omitted. But anyone not mentioned shouldn’t take it that they’ve escaped detection. I could fill in a few gaps myself. For example, Professor Andrew says: “One significant excision as a result of [the requirements of other government departments] in Chapter E4 [The Wilson Plot] is, I believe, hard to justify.” I could make three or four educated guesses about what that is.
I was with Harold Wilson for seven and a half years. I could say what I liked to him and he to me. I expected us both to speak the truth. Now, in these pages, I find he lied to me. If you think it funny that a press secretary should be lied to by a Prime Minister, then have a cheap laugh. But for me it is serious.
In 1975, a senior Foreign Office official heard on the grapevine that Wilson was intending to ennoble Rudi Sternberg, who did extensive business with Soviet Russia and the Eastern bloc. “He can’t,” said the appalled FCO man. “Sternberg is a Soviet spy.” I went straight to Wilson and faced him with it. Wilson told me he had thought it so, too, but when he checked it with the security services he was told Sternberg was a “double agent.” I took his word for it. But Professor Andrew, who was allowed to read all the MI5 records, says: “There is no evidence that the Security Service ever suggested to the Prime Minister that Sternberg was a double agent.”
Do I believe him, rather than Wilson? Yes, I do. In 1976, I spoke to Wilson about a number of other honours he was intending to bestow. I believe I stopped two of them, but I failed with Sir Joseph Kagan, the most unscrupulous, unprincipled and dislikeable man I ever met. I told Wilson he was under investigation for fraud or customs evasion. Wilson brushed that one aside. “I’ve heard those rumours, too,” he replied, “but they are untrue.” My reluctance to believe him then was reinforced when Kagan was subsequently jailed, well after he became a peer and swore allegiance to a crown he almost certainly had betrayed on behalf of the Soviets for many years.
Wilson’s “disreputable business friends” have always been the hardest to justify for those who believed, as I did, that at heart he was a decent and kindly man. Sir Desmond Brayley, for example, introduced to Wilson by one of his disreputable political friends, George Wigg, only escaped the Old Bailey by dying first. Wilson unforgivably made him an Army Minister in the House of Lords. A deputation of peers, led by Lord Elwyn-Jones, had asked Wilson to sack him, complaining that not only could he not write the speeches written for him but he couldn’t read them, either.
He went soon afterwards, as the Fraud Squad moved in on him to inquire about the disposals of money properly belonging to the Canning Town Glass Factory which he had owned. Another crook, on whom a knighthood was bestowed, was Eric Miller, who subsequently shot himself before he could be arrested. They all gave Wilson money to “run his office” which would have ruined him if it had happened today. Harry Kissin was deemed by MI5 as “obviously” unsuitable for a role as Prime Minister’s confidant.
Professor Andrew says the Director General of MI5 “doubtless had in mind Kissin’s indiscretions to, and corrupt use of, prostitutes.” He appears to have passed on confidential information acquired from Wilson to at least one call girl agency.
More shocking and much more serious, however, were the records of people revered in some sections of the party.
Abroad, Teddy Kollek, renowned Mayor of Jerusalem, was a British informant and Jomo Kenyatta and other African leaders co-operated with MI5 and had agents stationed in their countries.
At home, Professor Andrew says Jack Jones, everyone’s trade union hero, was regarded by the KGB as their agent for four years, passing on information about the Labour Party as well as information on his colleagues and contacts. Though he was thought by the KGB to be motivated by ideological reasons, he did accept “modest contributions to his holiday expenses.” Alex Kitson was another Soviet informant. Bert Ramelson, industrial organiser of the Communist Party, was the conduit for them and many others.
George Brown was a Daily Express “leak” for many years and was involved in passing to MI5 a list of 16 Labour MPs whom the leadership alleged were secret communists, plus another nine “possibles”. Some of them were Soviet agents, some were ridiculous and some were too stupid.
The “certainties” were: Will Owen, fortunate to be acquitted at the Old Bailey of passing secrets, William Warbey, Leo Abse, Frank Allaun, Julius Silverman, John Baird, John Mendelson, Tom Driberg, R Parkin, Stephen Swingler, John Rankin, Harold Davies, Leslie Plummer (both close to Wilson), R Kelley, Tom Swain and Judith Hart.
Possibles were Konni Zilliacus, Victor Yates, Arthur Lewis, SO Davies, Barnett Stross, Emrys Hughes, Will Griffiths, Sidney Silverman and Ernie Fernyhough.
Are you shocked? You should be. Apart from several on that 1961 list, each and every one of these men, and more I haven’t mentioned, were looked up to and respected within the party. Some betrayed you and the country. Their treachery makes The Defence of the Realm compulsive reading.
