rilain's Spies: Meddling Through

rcond of a .tirrie• others half naked through the By Bernard Nossiter Other Cloaks, Other Daggers—II streets to prison. A parallel WalhoniiIcIl Pest Per.iiin Service plot a few days later to —British notable hits. The overthrow of victory after 10 years' assassinate Lenin misfired Intelligence stage-manages Messadegh in Iran has been struggle against Communist - only because Dora Kaplan's coups, burgles safes, black- popularly but wrongly supported tribes. The triumph pointblank shots somehow mails the vulnerable and credited to the CIA. According reflects a combination of failed to prove fatal. practices most of the other to the best sources here, It was forces from London and A long line of admiring curious arts familiar to well- a joint exercise with the Teheran. British journalists, some of endowed agencies with ov- British and their superior There have been some them undoubtedly on the erseas interests. Persian contacts playing the remarkable misses too. Bruce agency's payroll, have They have been at it here in senior role in selecting Lockhart, the British envoy to painted the Secret Intelligence a systematic way at least General Fazoltah Zahedi, Moscow and "Master Spy" Service (SIS), as the British since the 17th Century when father of the present Iranian Sidney Reilly used lavish foreign intelligence agency is Sir Francis Walsingham ambassador to Washington, to r bribes to buy up the now known, as the world's recruited bright Oxford and lead the "popular" revolt. Lithuanian regiments in 1918. greatest. When the U.S. got Cambridge clerics to spy for Just recently, Sultan Qaboos But they still failed to seize the into the business in World War the first Queen Elizabeth at of Oman, who owes his throne Bolshevik Party Central II, OSS officials sat ad- the French court. to a British-staged coup Committee and, as planned, See SPYING, All, Col. 1 There have been some against his father, claimed march Trotsky, Lenin and the

1111-1■. up with Foreign Office advice. A former British ambassador SPYING, From AI politics, at least since 1924. with an excellent entree to miiingly at the feet of SIS and But that one makes Watergate intelligence operations said he used it as a model. Look like the fumbling of was "satisfied that competent But the tarnish has long amateurs. SIS (or MI-IC as it political authority would be since corroded that shine. SIS Was known then/ planted, and clued in entree to intelligence was painfully damaged when probably created, the forged two of its most valuable of- operations said .he was "Zinoviev Letter." ficers, Kim Philby amd "Satisfied that competent ' It purported to come from George Blake, turned out to be political authority would be the Kremlin and urged the Soviet agents all along. In clued in on any intelligence thiniscule British Communist 1965, the agency endured the operation." party on to sabotage and supreme humiliation. .11 was This is not to say that free- subversion. entrusted to a new Chief or wheeling field officers would With the collaboration of not hold back on their bosses, "C" Sir Dick Goldsmith MI-5, top Foreign Office civil White, who came over from If I was instructed to report Servants and the Conservative the rival "firm", the counter- on,Swiss banks attacking the Party, the letter was made agency MI-5). pound,"+ a former spy public on the eve of an elec- Today, "C" is Sir Maurice recalled, "I certainly would tion. It had the desired result, omit the' bank that was Oldield, 60, a widely respected crushing Ramsay career spy-bureaucrat. He has laundering the payments to MacDonald's first Labor displayed remarkable success my agents, particularly if I Party government and in battle of Whitehall, ex- had bribed a clerk there." stopping cold proposed panding SIS budgets at a great The most notable modern treaties with the young rate while everyone else gaffe came in 1956 when an Bolshevik state. There was suffers cuts. How good the insouciant SIS asked an never any serious inquiry into information his agency oVerweight and middle-aged this fraud, partly because the frogman, Lionel Crabbe, to produces is another question. 'Daily Mail and The Times of A former SIS officer of great look at the bottom of the 'London had lent themselves to distinction says "SIS is cruiser bearing Bulganin and the scheme. tremendously amateurish, Khrushchev on a goodwill trip - Now, says a former MI-5 very, very bad. It is to London. Crabbe botched the ease officer, it would be un- irredeemably inefficient." job and died or was killed. The 'thinkable for a prime minister An ex-research officer who Soviet leaders publicly to ramble through that covered a key region from a trumpeted the perfidy of Igency's tens of thousands of desk in the 19-story, L-shaped , Albion and bad will was dossiers for the sake of a office tower that houses the spread all around. bedtime peek at the sexual agency behind Waterloo ,Even on that occasion, SIS p berra lions of the famous. He Station thinks its reports are had gotten clearance from the 'adds, however, that Labor not much better than those a Foreign Office adviser who 'prime ministers are "much skillled journalist could sits in on its secret doings. The more hawkish" than Tories produce. This is not sur- adviser, who is said to have over security breaches and prising. A remarkable been egged on by an over- 'tend to "love all the (security) number of British journalists eager subordinate, demon- `stuff about their colleagues." abroad are reputed to be SIS s:trated incredible .The Tories in contrast, "still officers. misjudgment, but the affair Nave a whiff of the gentlemen There is little evidence that was not one in which SIS ran a :and respect the notion that you SIS wavers from the foreign solo off the rails. don't open other people's policy line laid down by the . There is no solid evidence 'mail" provided, of course, Foreign Office, Even its that the spy agencies have they are of the same class and research projects are drawn interfered in domestic ,nationality. On paper, there is a tidy ..division of labor between the Secret Intelligence Service and the Security Service, or •MI-5. SIS does the spying abroad and organizes sabotage and subversion outside the United ,Kingdom. It is ultimately responsible to Foreign Secretary James Callaghan . and, the highest ranking civil servant in the Foreign Office. The relationship between

THOMAS BRIMELOW MAURICE OLDFIELD ...weekly dinner partners

the Permanent Under exaggeration. Nevertheless, a Secretary and "C" is crucial. contributing editor at one of "C" not only needs Foreign Britain's most distinguished Office approval for operations journals estimates that more but also its cooperation in than half of the that particular placing officers at British paper's full time foreign embassies abroad. If an SIS staffers are on the SIS payroll. man wants to approach a There is no evidence, foreign official or civil servant however, that this high overseas, tap an Oleg proportion is found elsewhere Penkovsky in Moscow for in Fleet Street. information, he nust get Who is and who Is not, is a Foreign Office approval. game non-British foreign "SIS must go cap in hand to correspondents often play the Foreign Office," says on among themselves. None is authority. "They are fleas on known to have guessed that the FO back." Philby was still working in Until recently, Sir Thomas 1962 for the SIS' Ito say Brimelow was the Foreign nothing of the KGB) when he Office Permanent Under was correspondent in Beirut Secretary and he reportedly for both The Observer and The dined once a week with "C", Economist. The fact that Sir Maurice Oldfield. More Foreign Office intervention recently, Sir Maurice has had had landed him The Observer to rebuild this intimate con- job was successfully con- tact with Brimelow's suc- cealed. cessor, Sir Michael Palliser. SIS London headquarters, a Oldfield is planning to retire characterless office block on soon, reportedly giving way to Westminster Bridge Road, is one of his deputies, thereby labeled only "Century preserving the post of "C" for House." Innocent callers are a career spy-bureaucrat. told it houses the Department Abroad, many SIS officers, of the Environment. But each like their counter parts in morning, a West Indian bus CIA, employ a diplomatic driver piloting the No. 53 for cover, using the title of em- Plumstead Common cries out" bassy first, second or third as he pulls to the stop: "All secretary. Senior officers may right. This where all you be listed as embassy coun- spooks get off." selor in Washington, Paris and The structure is built around Harms end Ewing Bonn. a Mobil gas station, fitting Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, left, on a visit Other SIS officers use the symbol for the agency's long with Herbert Hoover in 1929, after recovering from cover of businessman. An interest In oil and the Middle electoral defeat attributed to 'Zinoviev letter.' unknown number are posing East, its area of greatest as journalists. expertise. The young Cockney "Fleet Street relies on the woman at the pump says of secret vote to keep its course she knows who her correspondents in the field neighbors are. "CIA, inn't it'?" these days," one authority • The "other firm" or "those insists. The "secret vote" is shits across the river," as they the figure publicly published often refer to each other, is for the SIS budget. MI-5, the Security Service. It This statement is surely an is a gamekeeper to SIS' poacher, as night watchmen to English sense." burglar. MI-5 is charged with helped Yemen's royalists in Some critics think that MI.5 their long and losing battle keeping spies and subversives can be overly scrupulous, at out of Britain. with left-supported least toward Establishment "Republican" tribes. Its director general, Sir figures of influence. In SIS Michael Hanley, reports to The 'IRA's charges, no Home Secretary Roy Jenkins. certainly, Philby's West- matter how dubious, raise the In fact, he has direct access to minster School and question of whether the Prime Minister Harold Wilson ChristChurch, Oxford, con- British services ever resort to on any important or delicate nection protected him for acsassinatiOn today. One well- . years. This at least was the matter. , placed ex-diplomat says: MI-5's case officers have no 'judgment of "The Philby "Of course there are con- power to arrest anyone. They . Conspiracy" by Bruce Page, tingency plans for the must nail their ,targets David Leitch and Philip assassination of leaders. It's through the Special Branch Knightley of The Sunday perfectly normal in this sort of detectives of Scotland Yard. Times, one of the rare adult dirty game," - Together, then, MI-5 and non-fiction books in this He insisted, however, that Special Branch constitute a overripe field. books in this he had never heard of any kind of political police, overripe field. such plan having been ap- roughly equivalent to the FBI. A less irregular and vital proved since World War II. arm of SIS are the dirty tricks If either SIS or MI-5 want a "We might winkle out the commandos, the Special Air inconvenient odd sheikh or safe burgled in Britain, they raised here abdut the utility Service or SAS. SAS was two," he said, but those are must turn to Special Branch. and more or less law-abiding founded in World War II by planned as bloodless affairs. Its detectives will either character of MI-5, the coun- Col. David Stirling and grew Playing around with the employ their own skill or find terspy agency. But whether to several regiments of politics of sheikhdoms is a pliable underworld SIS does very much that is character. handpicked fighters trained in probably as much as a the black arts. It was used for helpful or learns a great deal Those familiar with SIS and diminished British lion can long -range raids behind take on these days. Even in that could not be learned from MI-5 agree that the latter is more conventional sources is enemy lines, a characteristic Uganda, when Milton Obote remarkably scrupulous. unclear. Every wiretap, house search that still makes SAS a was toppled, the London or other questionable invasion valuable tool. services are said to have Unfortunately for its own of privacy sought by MI-5 SAS belongs to the army but played second' string to image, it has recruited at its forces are on tap for SIS should be approved by "The Washington. (That they got Idl various times some Mothers"— the elderly ladies operations. "If we .ever take Amin In Obotes's place is just remarkably able writers- out Andrei Sakharov from who review all such ap- another In an endless series of -1-Grahain Greene, Compton some Baltic port at night, the plications for, the Home sour projects by all in- MacKenzie. John Le Carre Secretary. His signature is men in that rubber dinghy will telligence agencies. ) among others. Their novels be SAS," one espionage Despite Britain's shrinking picture the service as a haven applications for the Hone authority here says. influence and wealth, SIS has for Silly, reckless and easily Secretary. His signature is SAS officers and noncoms prospered. Its real budget is gulled characters, hotly required on each one. have worked for SIS in Oman secret. But the published pursuing either the worthless Interviews with even the for years, staged assaults and "secret vote" at least gives a or the absurd, frequently most skeptical of former MI-5 ambushes to help topple clue to spending trends. leaving sordid tragedies in officers did not turn up an Sukarno in Indonesia and ' In fiscal 1967, the secret vote their wake instance in which this operate in. some murky was 10 million pounds (about safeguard was said to have fashion in Ulster. There, they $20 million at today's ex- "They no doubt exaggerate. been violated. presumably are working for change rates.) Five years • But the judgment of a To explain the difference MI-5 and the army. The IRA later, it had grown only 750,000 professional customer is in- between the two services, one accuses SAS operatives of pounds: But then It rose in teresting. Admiral Rosslyn man who had been an officer assassination, but no con- successive years to 13 million Wemyss, Pirst Sea Lord in in both, told these stories: vincing evidence has been pounds, 17 million pounds and World War II, concluded that "MI-5 was vetting presented. for the current fiscal year is 22 secret intelligence produces (examining) a candidate for a When SIS is interested in a million pounds. This suggests "uncertain information from sensitive nuclear post and civil war in which the British the budget has more than questionable people." discovered his mistress had presence must be at least doubled in three years, a great NEXT: How the Soviets Spy been a Communist at thinly disguised, it turns to tribute to the skill of "C", Sir university. Under in- Stirling, now a retired colonel, Maurice Oldfield. terrogation, the man lied to supply mercenaries from "Trade is good, never about his relationship with discharged SAS types. Thus, it better," an SIS ;nail remarked her. Even so, MI.5 cleared was ex-SAS operatives who at a party the other night. him, contending that it really Some authorities think the had no business inquiring into real budget is two to three his private, sexual life." times "secret vote" figure, "An SIS field officer suggesting that SIS disposes of seduced the mistress of a key a littlemore theif$100 minister in a 'hot' country. He What it spends the extra then threatened to expose her money on is unclear. SIS infidelity unless she turned dislikes the James Bond agent for him. She committed gadgetry favored by the CIA. suicide, and that was that." It does, however, pay out a lot "The life or an SIS man is for electronics, intercepting squalid and, in human terms, the messages of others and very sad," this ex-officer said. trying to keep its own secure. "In MI-5, you feel you're a There are few questions virtuous man, that Mother London is in your care. MI-5 is anti-revolutionary in the