Notes

Prologue

1 Hertford College, Oxford, was a much less well-endowed establishment in the 1960s than it has since become. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, it had just one or two fellows who were said to be mad. But the college, and its predecessor, Hart Hall, has many illustrious alumni. They include William Tyndale, John Donne, Jonathan Swift, Thomas Hobbes, Charles James Fox and Evelyn Waugh. More recent alumni include a future head of MI6, David Spedding, who also read history under Felix Markham, and former Cabinet Secretary, Jeremy Heywood. My ground floor rooms were very close to Hertford’s ‘Bridge of Sighs’, inspired by Contino’s bridge in Venice and completed in 1914.

2 W Somerset Maugham, Ashenden or The British Agent (Pan 1952).

3 College of Europe alumni include two prominent Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg and Sir Simon Hughes, and Andrew Tyrie, former Tory MP and chair of the Commons Treasury committee and a formidable pursuer of successive governments over their role in secretly transporting terror suspects to jails where they were tortured.

4 William Heinemann (1945).

5 Review, GCHQ De-Unionisation 1984, Public Policy and Administration Volume 8, No.2 Summer 1993.

Chapter 1

1 The decision not to hold a formal inquest into Kelly’s death, with the government arguing that the Hutton inquiry in effect replaced it, encouraged claims that Kelly was murdered. But there was no motive for killing him. By the time of his death, the government had managed to tarnish his reputation so much that his credibility was seriously damaged.

2 Report of the Inquiry into the Circumstances Surrounding the Death of Dr David Kelly, CMG, by Lord Hutton (The Stationery Office, 2004). 153.

3 Biteback Publishing, 2014

4 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26079957

Chapter 2

1 https://cryptome.org/mi6-disinfo.htm and Ed Vulliamy, Anthrax Follies, the Guardian, 25 March, 1998

2 https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jan/24/freedomofinformation.uk, and https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jan/24/freedomofinformation.uk, and https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jan/24/freedomofinformation.uk, and The story of the spy and the Spectator, the Guardian, December 12, 1998

3 http://media.leeds.ac.uk/papers/pmt/exhibits/206/leigh.htm

4 https://www.theguardian.com/media/2000/jun/12/pressandpublishing.mondaymediasection

5 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/26/west-indians-flamingo-magazine-m6-anti-communist-mission

6 Glenn Greenwald, No Place to Hide (Penguin Books, 2014), 190.

7 Many of the examples I cite here I first reported in an article, Forty years’ personal experience, in Volume 10, Issue 1, April 2017, Media, War & Conflict, SAGE journals.

8 Hugh McManners, Falklands Commando (HarperCollins, 2002).

9 Lawrence Freedman, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, Routledge, 2005, Chapter 28, The Information War.

10 Freedman, op.cit, Chapter 37, Goose Green

11 Storm Command, HarperCollins, 1992

12 Bravo Two Zero (Bantom Press, 1993)

13 Why Yugoslavia Died, Lecture to the UN Association, Oxford, 2 February 1999. Conversations with Milosevic, Syracuse University Press, 2016)

14 Conduct of the allies, Guardian, 4 May 1999.

15 Kosovo: Communications Lessons for NATO, the Military and the Media, Royal United Services Institute, 9 July 1999.

16 UK Politics: Media attacked over Kosovo campaign http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/389910.stm

17 General David Richards, Taking Command (Headline 2014), Chapter 8, Operation Palliser.

18 A Good Man in Africa, The Guardian, 17 May 2000, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/may/17/sierraleone4

19 https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/mar/11/iraq.military

20 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-410175/Sir-Richard-Dannatt--A-honest-General.html

21 https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/oct/18/military.iraq

22 https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/sep/24/army-chief-quits-over-troops-treatment

23 Emile Simpson, War from the Ground Up (Hurst 2012).

24 Mike Martin, An Intimate War (Hurst, 2014).

25 Cameron irritated over military chiefs’ Libya comments, BBC News, 21 June 2011.

26 Future RAF missions under threat if Libyan operations continue, Telegraph, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/8588125/Future-RAF-missions-under-threat-if-Libyan-intervention-continues.html

27 British Generals in Blair’s Wars (Ashgate, 2013). Conclusions.

28 Annual Chief of the Defence Staff lecture, RUSI, 18 December 2013 https://rusi.org/event/annual-chief-defence-staff-lecture-2013

29 David Cameron gags Top Brass, Guardian, 23 February 2015 https://www.theguardian.com/news/defence-and-security-blog/2015/feb/23/david-cameron-gags-top-brass

30 https://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmselect/cmdfence/690/690.pdf

31 http://www.itv.com/news/2015-02-08/exposure-ghkfshfsjkdfn/

32 Nicholas Wilkinson, Secrecy and the Media (Routledge, 2009).

Chapter 3

1 See Stephen Dorril, MI6, Fifty Years of Special Operations (Fourth Estate 2000), 474.

2 https://www.theguardian.com/comment/story/0,,181836,00.html

3 George Brown, In My Way (Penguin 1972), 165.

4 Geoffrey Taylor, Changing Faces (Fourth Estate 1993), 265.

5 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/26/boris-johnson-latest-euro-myth-brexit

6 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/01/the-guardian-view-on-the-may-juncker-dinner-one-continent-not-two-galaxies

7 http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/107332

8 The Private Office (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1984).

9 Telegraph, 16 June 2016, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/16/why-this-lifelong-patriot-is-voting-remain/

10 https://www.theguardian.com/news/defence-and-security-blog/2016/jun/20/remain-in-https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=twitter+%40NortonTayloreu-say-former-uk-security-and-intelligence-chiefs

11 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/commissioners/2014-2019/king/announcements/commissioner-julian-king-provides-keynote-address-managing-insecurity-centre-european-reform-london_en

12 https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/apr/30/brexit-uk-may-have-to-recognise-ecj-court-rulings-to-keep-security-cooperation

13 John Lambert, Britain in a Federal Europe (Chatto and Windus 1968).

Chapter 4

1 In the arms-to-Iraq case, Heseltine was the only cabinet minister who questioned the need to signed PII certificates.

2 Their Trade is Treachery, 1981.

3 The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations notes that Burke used the phrase in his Letters on a Regicide Peace published in 1796. ‘Falsehood and delusion are allowed in no case whatever’, he wrote. ‘But, as in exercise of all the virtues, there is an economy of truth. It is a sort of temperance, by which a man speaks truth with measure that he may speak it the longer.’

4 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1436836/Blair-puts-Hoon-on-spot-with-Kelly-denial.html

5 https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=W2igBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA40&lpg=PA40&dq=wilding+talleyrand+surtout+civil+service&source=bl&ots=A4KZRp5Rya&sig=uL0Eb0zmkJGa2GNF7cp_NAEVues&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj8186vgdbTAhUDShQKHXiBC6YQ6AEIIzAA#v=onepage&q=wilding%20talleyrand%20surtout%20civil%20service&f=false

6 ‘How the mandarins find themselves in the middle ground’, Guardian 6 May 1983.

7 Richard Stone, Hidden Stories of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, Personal Reflections (The Policy Press 2015), Introduction.

8 https://capx.co/meet-the-men-who-really-ruled-britain/

9 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/30/why-britain-needs-written-constitution

10 Richard Norton-Taylor, Blinded by the Light of Technology, Guardian, 6 June 1990.

11 https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publications/whitehall-monitor-2018

12 https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/feb/11/mod-it-consultant-paid-2000-day-cover-civil-servant-job

13 Evidence to the Commons Public Administration Committee, 20 March 2012.

Chapter 5

1 Letter from Marychurch to Gordon Welchman, see Intelligence and National Security, Vol 1, No 2, May 1986.

2 ‘Codebreaker breaks ranks’, Guardian, 15 October 1985.

3 In July 1914, shortly before the start of the First World War, Childers smuggled German arms to nationalists in Ireland. Though he fought for the British in the war and was decorated, he was opposed to the deal with Britain agreed by the provisional Free State government under Michael Collins. Childers was convicted by a Free State military court and executed by a firing squad in 1922.

4 Malcolm Turnbull, The Spycatcher Trial (Heinemann, 1988).

5 House of Lords, 17 April 1989.

6 https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/maurice-frankel/roots-of-blairs-hostility-to-freedom-of-information

7 https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/oct/16/national-security-leaks-gchq-nsa-intelligence-agencies

8 https://www.cfoi.org.uk/latest-news/

Chapter 6

1 https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/jul/18/richardnortontaylor

2 https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/apr/18/archives-diego-garcia. The UN early in 2019 told the UK to abandon its claims on the Chagos islands.

3 The National Archives, Piece No: FO 1093/87

4 https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/jul/11/egypt.past

5 https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/apr/18/britain-destroyed-records-colonial-crimes

6 https://batangkalimassacre.wordpress.com/2016/04/27/seven-reasons-why-batang-kali-still-matters/

7 Gordon Brooke-Shepherd, Iron Maze (Macmillan 1998).

8 Mike Rossiter, The Spy Who Changed the World (Headline 2004). https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jun/13/the-spy-who-changed-the-world-mike-rossiter-review

9 TNA, KV2/3980-3987

10 TNA, KV2/4054-4058

11 TNA, KV2/3456

12 TNA, KV2/3523-3524

13 https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/may/23/ministers-ordered-bugging-king-edward

14 https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/may/23/winston-churchill-jospeh-stalin-night-drinking

15 https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jan/05/freedomofinformation.uk

16 https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2011/dec/30/thatcher-cabinet-opposed-trident-purchase. The former head of the Army, General Lord Dannatt, described Trident in a BBC interview on 1 February 2019 as Britain’s ‘independent so-called nuclear deterrent’.

17 https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/apr/10/2

18 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/29/secret-stories-ministers-national-archives-lost-whitehall

19 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/government-digital-records-and-archives-review-by-sir-alex-allan

20 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/better-information-for-better-government

Chapter 7

1 Secret sensations, Prospect, November 1999

2 https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/dec/08/james-bond-would-not-get-job-with-real-mi6-says-spy-chief

3 Richard Aldrich, GCHQ (HarperPress, 2010) Trouble with Henry.

4 A Modern-Day Requirement for Co-ordinated Covert Action, RUSI Journal, April/May 2016, Volume 161, No 2.

5 Intelligence and Security Committee, annual report, 2016–2017.

6 Prospect, ibid.

7 Intelligence and National Security, Volume 5, Number 1, Intelligence and Policy.

8 Falkland Islands Review, HMSO, Cmd 8787, 1983.

9 Max Hastings, The Secret War (William Collins, 2016).

10 ibid.

11 Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, Instructions from the Centre (Hodder & Stoughton, 1991). 124.

12 Zinoviev letter was dirty trick by MI6, Guardian, 4 February 1999, History Notes, The Zinoviev Letter of 1924, Historians, LRD, Foreign & Commonwealth Office, February 1999.

13 House of Commons, 15 January 1988, Column 612.

14 Andrew Fowler, Shooting the Messenger (Routledge, 2018), 189.

15 David Leigh, The Wilson Plot (Heinemann, 1988), and https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2012/aug/09/brian-crozier

16 see https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/oct/03/lord-healey

17 Through the Looking Glass: British Foreign Policy in an Age of Illusions, Anthony Verrier (Jonathan Cape, 1983).

18 Paddy Hayes, Queen of Spies (Duckworth, 2015).

19 Anthony Verrier, The Road to Zimbabwe (Jonathan Cape, 1986).

20 Speech to RUSI Land Warfare Conference, 27 June, 2017.

Chapter 8

1 See Richard Norton-Taylor, The Lying Classes, Guardian, 16 December, 1988.

2 The Spectator, 23 September 1955.

3 For TNA files on the Cambridge spies, see the KV2 and KV4 series, the latter includes the diaries of Guy Liddell, then deputy director general of MI5 (KV4/466- 475). The disappearance of Burgess and Maclean and the frantic investigations in Whitehall also feature in the FCO158 and CAB 301 series.

4 TNA, FCO158/178, and see Geoff Andrews, Agent Moliere, (I.B.Tauris, 2019).

5 John Cairncross, The Enigma Spy (Century, 1997).

6 See George Blake, No Other Choice (Jonathan Cape, 1990), and Michael Randle & Pat Pottle, The Blake Escape (Harrap, 1989).

7 Christopher Andrew, The Defence of the Realm (Penguin, 2010). 489.

8 Thomas Grant, Jeremy Hutchinson’s Case Histories, paperback edition (John Murray, 2016).

9 Robert Cecil, A Divided life: A Biography of Donald Maclean (Bodley Head, 1988).

10 https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/dec/07/security-chiefs-block-release-report-1983-soviet-nuclear-scare

11 Michael Herman, 16 May 2014, Conference on the Able Archer crisis, 1983

12 Richard Tomlinson, The Big Breach (Cutting Edge, 2001).

13 vhttps://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmhaff/231/140318.htm

14 House of Lords, 2 December, 1992, Column 1341.

15 https://www.theguardian.com/news/defence-and-security-blog/2015/mar/12/britains-spy-agencies-the-only-watchdog-is-the-workforce

16 https://terrorismlegislationreviewer.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/IPR-Report-Print-Version.pdf

17 https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/feb/17/government-exploiting-terrorism-fear

18 https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200708/ldhansrd/text/80708-0004.htm

19 https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jun/21/legal-loopholes-gchq-spy-world

20 Andrew Fowler, Shooting The Messenger (Routledge, 2018).

Chapter 9

1 https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/jul/11/mi5-interviews-uk-security-terrorism

2 http://www.michaelsmithauthor.com/the-downing-street-memos.html

3 Sir Ivor Roberts created more waves as he was about to retire in 2006. By tradition, British ambassadors wrote a personal and frank Valedictory Despatch that would be circulated throughout the FO. Ivor’s was remarkably frank, describing the latest agenda written in what he called ‘Wall Street management-speak which is already tired and discredited by the time it is introduced. He referred ‘a game of bullshit bingo’ an explosion of the use of consultants many of whose recommendations did little more than reverse the conclusions of the previous consultants. His dispatch was the last one of its kind. Ministers and the FO establishment had enough of such frankness.

4 https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/nov/16/immigrationandpublicservices.politics

5 https://www.theguardian.com/law/2013/nov/14/torture-inquiry-gibson-report-intelligence-detainees

6 Intelligence and Security Committee, The Handling of Detainees by UK Intelligence Personnel in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay and Iraq (Cm6469, 2005).

7 Intelligence and Security Committee, Rendition (Cm7171, 2007).

8 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/07/iraq-death-secret-detention-camp

9 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/legal-gloves-come-off-in-row-over-torture-1898141.html

10 https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/may/31/revealed-britain-rendition-policy-rift-between-spy-agencies-mi6-mi5

11 https://www.extraordinaryrendition.org/component/jdownloads/send/2-all-other-documents/381-appg-response-to-consolidated-guidance-consultation-october-2018.html

12 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/sep/04/truth-torture-terrorism-secrecy-manningham-buller

Chapter 10

1 Allen gave evidence to the Chilcot inquiry in private. Passages were later released and he was identified only as SIS4. He was subsequently identified as this witness.

2 http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/. The website contains consumer-friendly search engines.

3 Heywood was made a peer shortly before he died of cancer in November 2018.

Chapter 11

1 Mainstream Publishing (2006).

2 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/onthefrontline/3332417/Exclusive-SAS-chief-quits-over-negligence-that-killed-his-troops.html

3 General Sir Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force (Allen Lane, 2005).

4 Frank Ledwidge, Investment in Blood (Yale, 2013).

5 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-nimrod-review

6 See Sunday Times, The Bomb factory starts to implode (27 January 2019).

7 https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-u-s-navy-s-big-mistake-building-tons-of-supercarriers-79cb42029b8

8 https://www.theguardian.com/uk/defence-and-security-blog/2013/mar/15/trident-nuclear-disarmament

9 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/09/houghton-trident-military-corbyn-uk-armed-forces

10 http://www.basicint.org/publications/trident-commission/2014/trident-commission-concluding-report

11 Penguin, 2016.

12 https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/end-of-special-relationship-america-britain

13 http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-defence-trident-exclusive-idUKKCN0SJ0ER20151025

14 https://qz.com/1416362/the-uk-war-games-cyberattacks-that-could-black-out-moscow/

15 https://www.sipri.org/publications/2016/other-publications/special-treatment-uk-government-support-arms-industry-and-trade

16 https://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmselect/cmfaff/860/86005.htm

17 https://www.caat.org.uk/media/press-releases/2017-10-25

18 https://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/policy-institute/research-analysis/the-uk-saudi-arabia-security-relationship.aspx

Chapter 12

1 Marcel v The Metropolitan Police Commissioner, 1992 1All ER 72, Ch225.

2 http://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Interview-the-original-NSA-whistleblower

3 https://www.mi5.gov.uk/ru/node/410

4 Private information.

5 Fowler, op.cit.

6 Houghton https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/building-a-british-military-fit-for-

7 https://rusi.org/annual-conference/rusi-land-warfare-conference/2017-presentations

8 Emile Simpson, op.cit.

9 https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-latest-activity/news/2016/october/14/161014-royal-navy-tests-unmanned-fleet-of-the-future

10 The government’s policy on the use of drones for targeted killing: Government Response to the Committee’s Second Report of Session 2015-16, 18 October, 2016.

11 Reprieve, press release, 19 October, 2016.

12 Intelligence and Security Committee, UK Lethal Drone Strikes in Syria, 26 April 2017.

13 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38408296

14 https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/dec/28/british-approach-falklands-neglect-hope

15 https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/jun/28/falklands.past

16 Ministry of Defence, Strategic Trends Programme, Fifth Edition.

17 Correlli Barnett, seminar on Overstretch, Churchill College, Cambridge, 25 October 2007.

18 https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/nov/13/biography.politicalbooks

19 https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/IFGJ6279-Preparing-Brexit-Whitehall-Report-180607-FINAL-3b-WEB.pdf