The Book the British Government Tried to Ban!
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THE BOOK THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT TRIED TO BAN! Here is the TRUE story about REAL Soviet agents who infiltrated the British intelligence services—after World War II. This book named so many names and revealed so many secrets that the High Court of Justice of Her Majesty's government issued an injunction against it's publication. Everybody knows about Philby, Burgess, Maclean and Blunt—But what about the others? • Details the many recent failures of British intelligence to detect Soviet spies high in its own ranks. • Reveals how these Russian agents have compromised Western secrets worth billions of dollars • Shows how this clandestine activity continues to this very day Readers cannot fail to be shaken by this remarkable investigation, the result of meticulous research and hundreds of hours of inter- views with past and present members of the British secret service who talked about those Soviet spies in The Circus who have hith- erto remained faceless and nameless. "Thoughtful, provocative and fascinating." —Dallas Times-Herald THE VERY PEOPLE WHO TRIED TO SUPPRESS THIS BOOK HAVE ACKNOWLEDGED IN A COURT OF LAW THAT IT TELLS THE TRUTH! Writes author Nigel West in his Introduction: "The Circus is the most detailed account of MI5's work ever published, or ever likely to be. For those who find it closer to fiction than fact, they have MI5's word for it that it is indeed all too terribly true." Contents ABBREVIATIONS 5 ILLUSTRATIONS 7 INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN EDITION 9 TABLES OF MI5's ORGANIZATION 13 1 TRANSITION 19 2 SIR PERCY SILLITOE 33 3 SIR DICK WHITE 77 4 SIR ROGER HOLLIS 101 5 KAGO's REVELATIONS 119 6 ENTRAPMENT 149 7 BETRAYAL 163 8 PENETRATION 199 9 SIR MARTIN FURNIVAL JONES 223 10 A MATTER OF TRUST 295 APPENDICES 313 INDEX 317 Abbreviations ASIO Australian Security Intelligence Organization BND West German Security Service BOSS South African Bureau of State Security BSC British Security Co-ordination CIA Central Intelligence Agency CID Criminal Investigation Department CIFE Combined Intelligence Far East CPGB Communist Party of Great Britain D-G Director-General of the Security Service DNI Director of Naval Intelligence DSO Defense Security Officer DST French Security Service FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation GRU Soviet Military Intelligence KGB Soviet Intelligence Service MI5 British Security Service MI6 British Secret Intelligence Service NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization NKVD Soviet Security Service NSA National Security Agency OSS Office of Strategic Services PROD Office of Production, National Security Agency RCMP Royal Canadian Mounted Police RSLO Regional Security Liaison Officer SDECE French Secret Intelligence Service SIME Security Intelligence Middle East SIS Security Intelligence Service (MI6) SLO Security Liaison Officer SOE Special Operations Executive UN United Nations Illustrations 1 Sir David Petrie, the wartime Director-General of the Security Service. 2 Captain Guy Liddell MC (Daily Express). 3 Klaus Fuchs, the atom bomb spy (Popperfoto). 4 Jim Skardon and Henry Arnold during Klaus Fuchs's trial (Keystone Press). 5 A unique newspaper story. The Daily Express catch the Director- General, Sir Percy Sillitoe, and Arthur Martin flying to Washington (Daily Express). 6 The KGB in action. Karpinsky and Zharkov hustle Mrs Petrov aboard an aeroplane bound for the Soviet Union after the defection of her husband. 7 Conon Molody, alias Gordon Lonsdale, the only Soviet 'illegal' caught by MI5 (Camera Press). 8 George Blake (Central Press). 9 John Vassall in his Dolphin Square flat (Popperfoto). 10 Colonel Oleg Penkovsky, the senior GRU officer who spied for MI6 and the CIA, at his trial in Moscow with Greville Wynne (Press Association). 11 Chief Technician Douglas Britten, the RAF Signals Intelligence officer who spied for Russia for six years from 1962 (Popperfoto). 12 The Soviet spy camera disguised as a wallet that the KGB supplied to Chief Technician Douglas Britten (Popperfoto). 13 Stephen Ward (Popperfoto). 14 Captain Eugene Ivanov (Keystone Press). 15 Frank Bossard, the Ministry of Aviation official from the Guided Weapons Research and Development Division, who was caught red-handed photographing classified documents in his lunch-break (Popperfoto). 16 Joseph Frolik, the Czech intelligence officer who defected to the CIA in July 1969. 17 Sir Roger Hollis, Director-General of the Security Service from 1956-65 (Press Association). 18 Oleg Lyalin, the Soviet trade official (and KGB officer) whose affair with his secretary caused him to spy for MI5 (London Express). 19 David Bingham, the Royal Navy officer who volunteered a confession to the Director of Naval Security soon after the defection of Oleg Lyalin in 1971 (Press Association). 20 Sir Martin Furnival Jones, the Director-General of the Security Service from 1965-72 (Syndication International). Introduction to the American Edition On 12 October 1982, Her Majesty's Attorney-General, The Rt Hon Sir Michael Havers QC MP applied to Mr Justice Russell for an ex parte injunction in the High Court of Justice to prevent the publication of this book. The judge, sitting in private and without any representation from the defence, heard evidence in support of an application that made British legal history. One part of the evidence included an affidavit sworn by the Home Office's Principal Legal Adviser who explained that he had been fully briefed by MI5. He stated that the book contains previously unpublished information classified as SECRET and identifies, inter alios, present members of the Security Service who have not previously been identified in any publication. He went on to confirm that there are many references in the manuscript to incidents, operations and investigations which are said to have taken place since the end of the Second World War, and which can only have been related to the Defendant by past (or present) members of the Security Service. Some of these references relate to incidents, operations, investigations and other matters which have not previously been made public. 11 12 The applicant concluded that should the said manuscript be published either in the United Kingdom or elsewhere, the conduct of investigations and operations may be prejudiced and put at risk. The judge agreed, and he granted the injunction. The delivery of the Court's Order was the first time that either the author or the British publisher were even aware that legal proceedings had been taken! Some weeks later, after intensive negotiations had taken place, and after MI5 had ascertained that a copy of the manuscript had reached the United States before the Court Order had been applied for, the Order was discharged, and The Circus was allowed to be published. The Security Service's clandestine intervention had been almost exactly a month too late. Why the court action? Why the change of heart? Only a handful of people know the full story, and only a smaller number know the details of how a senior MI5 officer stole and copied an unauthorized copy of the author's draft manuscript. The details behind this extraordinary episode would read like a thriller but to describe them would also jeopardize the liberty of many who believe that the public has a right to make up its own mind about the postwar record of Britain's premier counterespionage organization. But that is not to say that the motive behind this book is a desire for total disclosure. It is instead the combination of a desire to safeguard secrets of real importance, and a determination to possess a yardstick by which the performance of our intelligence bureaucrats can be assessed. In the weeks of discussion following the ban on the book 13 it was agreed that certain names would be deleted from the version published in England. The reader will notice that there are now half a dozen blank spaces in the organizational charts that immediately follow this introduction. It was conceded by the Defence that it would not be in the public interest to identify these officers, who had all undertaken dangerous missions abroad and whose identifi- cation might compromise them. The release of the original version in England has in part been overtaken by events. The MI5 officer who recruited Stephen Ward as an agent was traced by the London Sunday Times, and he confirmed this account of his entrapment operation that went so badly wrong and helped bring down the Macmillan government in one of the most notorious political scandals ever seen in the West. Identified by his MI5 cover-name of Mr K Woods, he commented that he and his colleagues "felt very sorry for Ward. We were very cut up when we heard he was dead." Ward had played a central part in what was to become known as the Profumo Affair, and subsequently committed suicide when MI5 failed to acknowledge his work and save him from a jail sentence. In another development it has been conceded that Sir Michael Hanley, Director-General of MI5 from 1972-79, was himself once the subject of a molehunt that sought to identify a Soviet spy inside the Security Service. The secret inquiry, which eventually cleared Hanley, was code-named HARRIET. His subsequent promotion was to create a storm of controversy within the British intelligence community. Details of this sensitive investigation were deleted from the British edition of The Circus. 14 This final version of The Circus is the most detailed account of MI5's work ever published, or ever likely to be. For those who find it closer to fiction than fact, they have MI5's word for it that it is indeed all too terribly true. Nigel West February 1983 Tables of MI5's Organization POST-WAR DIRECTORS-GENERAL OF MI5 Sir David Petrie KCMG Kt CIE CVO CBE 1940-6 Sir Percy Sillitoe KBE Kt 1946-53 Sir Dick White KCMG KBE 1953-6 Sir Roger Hollis KBE Kt CB 1956-65 Sir Martin Furnival Jones Kt CBE 1965-72 Sir Michael Hanley KCB 1972-9 Sir Howard Smith KCMG 1979-81 POST-WAR DEPUTY DIRECTORS-GENERAL Brigadier A.W.A.