THEIR TRADE IS TREACHERY was originally the title of a booklet prepared in 1964 by the security service (MI5) for restricted circulation among Whitehall officials with access to secret information. The booklet’s purpose was to describe, by means of genuine case records, the ruthless methods used by the Russians and their allies to trap the unwary into serving as spies and saboteurs.
Though, after securing a copy, I regarded it as a feeble effort, ludicrously restrained by Foreign Office sensibilities about offending the Kremlin, I believed that it should have a much wider circulation because – as this book will show – the most dangerous spies tend to be recruited long before they secure any official position of trust. Whitehall put so many obstacles in my way, however, culminating in resort to threat of prosecution under the copyright laws, that I was able to do little more than mention the booklet’s existence in the newspaper for which I then worked.
I decided then that, one day, I would produce my own version of Their Trade is Treachery, giving the general public the fullest possible details of the appalling penetration of Whitehall, including the security and intelligence services, by Soviet spies and saboteurs. Where relevant, I thought I should include details of the penetration of the comparable services of Britain’s allies. Here it is.
I sincerely hope that the facts that I have checked at every available point and which have been studiously suppressed by authority will alert thinking people to the true extent of the communist conspiracy against them. It is my belief that, through Whitehall’s exaggerated zeal for secrecy, even senior ministers have been kept in ignorance of the extent of the penetration of what is our first line of defence. As the former Home Secretary, Merlyn Rees, said in the parliamentary debate on the Anthony Blunt affair, ‘My view is that security is a matter for the nation.’ It is also mine.
Though much that I shall disclose is bound to generate criticism of the past history of the security and intelligence services, making both look like a mountain of ‘mole hills’, that is not my purpose. They are bastions of the nation’s freedom against an opponent growing more dangerous and more daring day by day; for, in an age of nuclear stalemate, the threat from subversion is probably greater than that from direct attack. Wherever Soviet-style communism has been imposed on a nation, it has been accomplished by very small minorities, a few thousand zealots, backed and often controlled by Soviet professionals, who secretly undermine a few key objectives – the security and intelligence services being top-priority targets.
If one nation can penetrate the security and intelligence services of another, it can then control them like puppets on a string. During the Second World War, by means of brilliantly contrived deception techniques and double agents, the British were able to do just that to the Germans. Since then, for many years and with equal skill, the Russians have penetrated and exerted control over both MI5 and the secret service to an extent that has been so successfully suppressed that the public is scarcely aware of it. The facts disclosed here will speak for themselves as regards the extent of the cover-up.
I have taken professional advice on the security aspects and am completely satisfied that, while many of the events that I reveal may anger those who wished them to remain secret, none can prejudice current or future operations. The security aspects of the various situations are outdated. It is the truth that is new.
Furthermore, some of the formerly sensitive information originates from American sources – the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) being both intimately concerned – who have been involved in the investigations into the Soviet penetration of the British security services. Such information is not subject to official secrecy restrictions.
I also risk being accused of censuring dead men who are unable to defend themselves, but it is the facts that do that, not I. All the allegations made against the men that I name arose from their own colleagues, who were witnesses to secret events that infuriated them.
Researchers looking for source references will find few here, for in the main this book deals with prime source material, collected over the years from people who insisted on remaining anonymous in their lifetime. I am confident that the reader will be able to assess the truth of the statements from the detail with which they are presented. As far as possible, I have avoided drawing on published material, so much of which is inaccurate and tends to be perpetuated from one book to the next, for the security services eschew correcting published errors on the principle of ‘keeping the waters as muddy as possible’.
There is some confusion in the public mind between the security service (MI5), concerned with counter-espionage, mainly in Britain, and the secret intelligence service (MI6), concerned with intelligence gathering and espionage, mainly abroad. In this book, therefore, I shall generally refer to the security service only by its well-known initials, MI5, and to the secret intelligence service by its simpler and better-known name, the secret service. (There is no direct American counterpart of MI5 because its work is shared by the CIA and the FBI. The CIA also carries out the functions of the secret intelligence service.)
For similar reasons, I shall refer to the Soviet espionage and security organisation by its well-known name, the KGB, though it has had different names in the past. There are currently other lesser-known arms, like the GRU, the military branch, to which I will refer only when necessary.
After thirty-five years of investigative journalism, I have seen many intelligence and security officers and senior civil servants go to their graves with secrets that are part of the fabric of history. I do not propose to make that error.