IN BRITAIN, REAL SPIES STILL A SECRET

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504160010-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 9, 2012
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: March 14, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504160010-8
4R IcLE APPWO LOS ANGELES TIMES
CJ! PAT7 14 March 1986
In Britain,
Real Spies
Still a Secret
By TYLER MARSHALL,
Times Staff Writer
LONDON-Besides their ability
to spin a good yarn, John le Carre,
Graham Greene, Ian Fleming and
W. Somerset Maugham have some-
thing else in common: All were
British intelligence officers.
Their books have spread through
the world a pervasive fictionalised
version of Britain's Secret Intelli-
gence Service, but the real SIS is
still the most secretive of the
world's espionage agencies.
The CIA and the KGB, for exam-
ple, publish the names of their
directors, but the identity of the
man who heads the SIS is an official
secret. So, too, is the exact location
of its drab, unmarked headquarters
in South London, which is known
as Century House.
In fact, the SIS itself is a secret.
Since World War I, it has been a
part of the Foreign and Common-
wealth office, but spokesmen for
the department are instructed to
deny all knowledge of its existence.
'Don't Know the Kan'
A Foreign Office spokesman,
asked for personal details about
Mansfield Cumming, the eccentric
former naval officer who was the
the service's first chief and led it
through World War I and into the
mid- 1920s, responded with a polite
but firm,-I'm afraid we don't know
the man here."
Cumming is known, however, to
have been as colorful as any Ian
Fleming character. He liked dis-
guises; his false mustaches are still
classified as secret. After losing a
leg in an automobile accident in
World War I, he terrorized his staff
by roaring along the office corri-
dors on a child's scooter.
Because Cumming signed official
documents with a single initial,
successor chiefs have been known
simply as "C" (not "M," as he is
known in Fleming's James Bond
stories).
Documents Secret
Historically, government docu-
ments that contain even a passing
reference to the SIS, which is also
known by its , original military
intelligence classification, M16, are
classified secret and not made
available to the public. Papers that
refer to the counterespionage
agency, MI5, are treated with the
same secrecy.
Several years ago, a parliamen-
tary committee studying the ques-
tion of academic access to impor-
tant Cabinet papers was told that
documents dating as far back as
1919 were still secret because they
referred to intelligence activities.
After a prolonged campaign,
some aging documents were finally
made public in the early 1980s, and
this was the first tacit admission by
the government of the SIS's exist-
ence. Even then, the government
referred to the documents of "cer-
tain organizations," preferring not,
to name either M15 or MI6.
In most Western countries, pres-
sure for public accountability has
gradually eroded some of the se-
crecy that shields intelligence
agencies. In the United States,
congressional committees were es-
tablished in the 1970s to monitor
CIA activities after Congress dis-
.,covared that the agency was en-
gaged in domestic spying.
- After French intelligence agents
were linked to the sinking of a
jmcksr protest ship in New Zea-
land last July, France tightened
parliamentary control over its
clandestine activities.
., fut MI5 and 106 continue to
above any such scrutiny.
are are responsible only to a
hap" of Cabinet ministers and
aesior civil savants.
Jonathan Aitken, a Conservative
-_member of Parliament and a cam-
, for change, said the other
4w, "It's an almost ostrich-like
,~~ it on a highly
, _peaonalized basis. There is strong
jetlatence to parliamentary In-
volvement"
UIeW Secrets Act
The British penchant for secrecy
in this area contradicts a strong
dssocratic tradition. Helping to
preserve the secrecy is a tough
Official Secrets Act that dates back
to 1911 and deals sternly with
-a gone leaking or publishing sen-
sitive government information.
in addition, the British press
eipeeates under a system of vdlun-
r restraints that tends to dis-
4ourage reporting on intelligence
. acttvitia. And social convention
has made it taboo to raise the
stt6j _ in any formal setting.
"Talking about intelligence ac-
tivities in this country is about as
tasteful as bringing up the subject
of oral sex at a Victorian dinner
party." Cambridge University
torkn Christophr Andrew noted.
"It's crude and crass."
Andrew, whose recent book
'Ver Majesty's secret service," is
considered the most comprehen-
sive history of the British intel i-
genie establishment, believes that
all theme conventions have helped
;,,preserve the anonymity of the
y, secret services.
Somerset Maugham
,.spied for Britain
,during World War I.
I "There have been some cracks,
but the amazing thing is how long
it's lasted," he said.
The British intelligence coup of
breaking the German secret code
the early days of a secret kept by about 10,000
; 'people for over 30 years. It finally
`came to light in the early 19708.
Since the outbreak of World War
II, British agents have been re-
cruited for the most part from the
cream of the country's youth on the
campuses of Oxford and Cambridge
universities. Here the SIS is known
jokingly as "the funny end of the
Foreign office."
Experts who have compared the
record of British intelligence with
espionage agencies in other coun-
tries argue that a willingness to
accommodate unusual personalities
Is a factor that has helped it
succeed. Certainly there have been
some eccentrics, especially among
the code breakers.
There was, for example, Dilly
Knox, one of Britain's great cryp-
tographers, who insisted that he
could do his work only in the
bath-and was given a tub in his
office. And there was Frank Birch,
who coupled his code-breaking
work with an acting career. This
included a successful run as the
widow Twanky in "Aladdin" at the
London Palladium.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504160010-8
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504160010-8
The success of British intelli-
gence officers as writers is a tradi-
tion that goes back as far as the
court of Queen Elizabeth I in the
late 16th Century. The poet Chris-
topher Marlowe, who is regarded as
Shakespeare's most important pre-
in English drama, was an
English agent in France, charting
the Spanish Catholic threat. Daniel
Defoe, best known as the author of
"Robinson Crusoe," gathered intel-
ligence on the public mood in
Scotland after political union with
England in the early 18th Century.
More recently, Somerset
Maugham was recruited for work
in neutral Switzerland in World
War I, and later in the war in
Russia. A play entitled "Caroline"
was written as a cover while he
was in Switzerland. His short sto-
ries about the agent Ashenden, set
mainly in Switzerland, are known
to be partially autobiographical.
Despite the exotic travels of his
leading character, James Bond,
Agent 007, it is doubtful that
Fleming left Britain while he was
with naval intelligence in World
War IL But Greene and Le Carre
both served at British embassies in
Africa and Europe before resigning
to devote themselves to writing.
Film Company Cover
The Hungarian-born film direc-
tor Alexander Korda, whose films
included "The Third Man," was
never a British agent, but he
worked closely with M16 for sever-
al years beginning before World
War IL
Korda's film company, London
Films, was used as a cover for
British agents going abroad to such
an extent that, according to one
report, the MI6 deputy director, Sir
Claude Dansey, was eventually
given a scat on the company board
so that he could keep track of his
men.
The success of any intelligence
network can be difficult to assess.
Last autumn's defection of the
KGB's senior operative in Britain,
Oleg Gordievski, was judged a
significant coup. But there have
also been setbacks, only partially
hidden by the restrictions on the
press.
A few years ago an M15 agent
tried without success to sell secrets
to the Soviets. A scandal ensued,
and it led to renewed pressure to
lift the secrecy from British intelli-
gence. The agent, 36-year-old Da-
vid Bettaney, was sentenced to 23
years in prison.
A former colleague of Bettaney,
who left the service in 1983, blamed
"an obsessive aura of secrecy" and
a lack of accountability as contrib-
uting causes to the affair.
Apreaeb to Students
The student unrest that damp-
shed CIA recruitment on Ivy
League campuses in the late 19606
y 1870s had little impact in
Promising students at Ox-
Cambridge are said to be
approached, either infor-
;ans of direct contact at the
former Oxford student who
being interviewed by a mid-
,'bow tie who grew lively only when
the subject turned to bird-watch-
, ing.
One of the greatest embarrass-
.ments to British intelligence in the
postwar era stemmed from the fact
stoat the KGB also recruited. suc-
+cxadully from British universities
in the 19306, placing some brilliant
graduates as counterspies in British
intelligence.
Between the early 19506 and late
1870, a series of senior British
;agents, all Cambridge graduates,
,were found to have been working
' for the KGB. There have even been
charges that a former head of
British counterintelligence, Sir
'Roger Hollis, was also a Soviet
agent, but this has not been proved.
CbaagiWAttitudes
The historian Andrew recalls
that it was suggested several years
ago that Parliament be given at
least limited control of British
intelligence and that the notion
was rejected "like a rude remark
about the Royal Family." He says
attitudes have begun'to change, in
part because of the scandals.
A small but growing group of
influential members of Parliament
are now advocating that a small
bipartisan committee, consisting of
respected senior members of Par-
liament, be set up to monitor
intelligence activities.
Few expect this to come to pass
as long as Margaret Thatcher is
prime minister, because of her
personal opposition to any such
plan. But most believe it will come
soon after she departs.
"The security services need tc
understand what democratic pres.
sures are," Aitken, the Conserva
tive member, said. "One of thes,
days the logjam will be broken.
believe it's better done in an order
ly fashion rather than have a leitist
government come in and open the
flood gates."
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/09: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504160010-8