My Silent War: The Autobiography of a Spy (7 page)

II. I
N AND
O
UT OF
SOE

Although the failure of our first training venture was depressing, it had the advantage of getting me back to London, where I could at least feel nearer to the corridors of power and decision. In practical terms, it did me little immediate good. I had no specific duties, and therefore could not lay claim to office space. I drifted around Baker Street, trying to memorize the new faces and fit them into a coherent organizational pattern, a most difficult task for anyone at that time. Everybody seemed very busy, if only moving furniture. In the presence of such activity, my idleness embarrassed me. It was like a cocktail party at which everybody knows everybody but nobody knows you.

Improbable though it seemed at the time, I was witnessing the birth-pangs of what was to become a formidable organization. If I have described its origins, such as I saw them, in flippant terms, it is because flippancy is unavoidable. Between the wars, the intelligence service had enjoyed a mythical prestige; but the myth had little substance. This statement may strain the credulity of many, especially in the absence of published records. But is it any more incredible than the known fact that the prestigious fleet sent to
Alexandria to frighten Mussolini away from Abyssinia was incapable of action because it had no shells? The truth is that, under a succession of complacent and indifferent governments, the secret service had been allowed to wither, just as the armed forces had withered. Apart from financial starvation, there was little serious approach to staffing and system. Just as horse-minded officers were allowed to dominate the army twenty years and more after the battle of Cambrai, so the secret service, because its Chief happened to be an admiral, was overloaded with naval rejects. No particular blame can attach to Admiral Sinclair
^*
for this; thrown entirely on his own slender resources, he naturally picked his subordinates from the circles he knew best.

As for system, there was virtually none. When, as a result of the Fifth Column scares in Spain, the potential importance of undercover action against an enemy seeped into what passed for British military thinking, the result was reluctant improvisation. Section D was grafted onto a sceptical SIS, to plan noisy acts of derring-do, while the theme of “black propaganda”
^†
became the toy of a number of government fringe organizations which stumbled about in the dark, bumping into one another. Small wonder that the results in the first year of war were minimal. In case I should be thought to exaggerate, let me quote Colonel Bickham Sweet-Escott,
^‡
one of the ablest and most perceptive officers to serve SOE throughout the war: “Our record of positive achievement (Summer, 1940) was unimpressive. There were a few successful operations to our credit, but certainly not many; and we had something which could be called an organization on the ground in the Balkans. But even there we had failed to do anything spectacular . . . our essays in Balkan subversion had succeeded only in making the Foreign Office jumpy. As for Western Europe, though there was much to excuse it, the
record was lamentable, for we did not possess one single agent between the Balkans and the English Channel.”
^*
Strange, but true.

This was the background of the changes described in the last chapter. But they were only small parts of a much bigger programme of reform. In July 1940 Churchill invited Dr. Dalton, the Minister of Economic Warfare, to assume the sole responsibility for all undercover action against the enemy. To discharge this responsibility, Dalton called into being an organization which he called the Special Operations Executive.
^†
Originally, it was divided into three parts: SO1, for black propaganda; SO2, for sabotage and subversion; and SO3, for planning. SO1 was later rechristened Political Warfare Executive, and SO2 took over the name originally given to the organization as a whole, Special Operations Executive. For the sake of brevity, I will refer to them in future as PWE and SOE, even if the events described took place before the change of name. SO3 need bother us no longer, as it soon drowned in paper of its own making and died an unlamented death.

I was beginning to wonder how long I could go on drawing pay without working for it when I received a summons from Colin Gubbins. He had been put in charge, among other things, of our training programme, and must have heard my name in connection with the abortive Brickendonbury experiment. Gubbins, of course, was to achieve great distinction by the end of the war,
^‡
and I am pleased to think that at that first interview I sat up and took notice. The air of his office crackled with energy, and his speech was both friendly and mercifully brief. A friend of mine nicknamed him “Whirling Willie” after a character in a contemporary comic strip. It was rumoured that he could only find time for his girl-friends at breakfast. But he was man enough to keep them.

Gubbins began by asking if I knew anything about political
propaganda. Guessing that he would like a monosyllabic answer, I replied: Yes. He went on to explain that the new training establishment was being planned on an ambitious scale. There would be a considerable number of technical schools for demolition, wireless communication and the rest. In addition, he was setting up a central school for general training in the techniques of sabotage and subversion. Underground propaganda was one of the techniques required, and he was looking for a suitable instructor. He wanted me to go away and produce a draft syllabus on the subject. He showed me to the door with the words: “Make it short.”

When I got down to it, I realized that my knowledge of propaganda left much to be desired. I had no inside experience of modern advertising methods. My few years in journalism had taught me to report what was happening, often a fatal mistake in a propagandist whose task is to persuade people to do things. I consoled myself with the unconvincing reflection that the world had seen many successful propagandists who had been equally ignorant of the techniques of selling soap. But, to be on the safe side, I took the trouble to consult a few friends of mine in the advertising world from whom I picked up some basic principles that could be padded out to fill quite a few lectures. I have found that advertising people can be relied on for two things. First, they will warn you on no account to go into advertising; second, they will expatiate at length on the dirtier tricks of their profession.

Within a few days I felt that I had enough to sustain the draft syllabus which Gubbins wanted, provided I lent it reality by drawing on examples from European politics and from Fascism in particular. I compressed it all into a page and a half of foolscap and telephoned Gubbins to say that it was ready. In five minutes he was back again, saying that he had arranged a meeting in Charles Hambro’s
^*
office to discuss the paper that afternoon. It was the first time since the fall of France that I had seen any action to speak of.

Gubbins brought several of his staff officers along to the meeting. Hambro greeted us in his friendly, comfortable way, making us all feel at home. He took my paper and read it aloud, slowly and deliberately. At the end of it, he remarked that it all sounded very sensible. Gubbins’s officers nodded in brisk, no-nonsense manner; they looked intensely military. To my surprise Gubbins himself was smiling happily. “Exactly what I wanted,” he said emphatically. “
Exactly
 . . . what do you say, Charles?” Hambro said nothing in particular. Perhaps the Great Western Railway was on his mind. “Go ahead and do just that,” Gubbins told me. The meeting was over.

I had now got specific duties which entitled me to a desk in Gubbins’s offices. These were not at No. 64, but farther up Baker Street towards Regent’s Park. I set about expanding my draft syllabus into a series of full lectures. But I was still far from happy. The new school was to be located in Beaulieu, Hampshire, far from London. Such a distance would interfere horribly with my other pursuits. Sometimes it seemed that I would do better to throw my hand in, but I was deterred by two considerations. In the first place, it was essential to keep my foot in the door of the secret world to which I had gained access. It would be stupid to resign until I had a clear prospect of other employment in that same world. In the second place, knowledge is seldom wasted, and I could not lose by finding out what was going on in the Special Operations’ far-flung establishments. I decided to stay on until something more rewarding turned up.

I had little doubt that the training people would let me go when the moment came. I knew that I would make a lousy lecturer. Since the age of four, I have had a stammer, sometimes under control, sometimes not. I also had qualms about the subject matter of my course. The prospect of talking about political subversion did not worry me. There were very few people in England at that time who knew anything about it, and I had at least had a little practical experience in that field. But I was disturbed by my rudimentary acquaintance with propaganda techniques. I had drafted leaflets before but had never printed one.

It was some time before we foregathered at Beaulieu, and I used it to fill some of the gaps in my knowledge. As often as possible, I visited Woburn Abbey, where Leeper
^*
presided languidly over the black propaganda people in PWE. (More than four years later, I found him little changed. It was the summer of 1945; he was languidly swatting flies in the British Embassy in Athens while Greece came to the boil.) But I was surprised to learn that he could be pettish on occasion. It was said that he clashed with Dalton more often than not, and gave the good Doctor much food for exasperated thought.
^†
There is some confirmation of this story in Dalton’s memoirs.

If the new Baker Street was the preserve of banking, big business and the law, Woburn had been stormed by the advertisers. Outside Leeper’s own sanctum, the place sounded like a branch of J. Walter Thompson. There were exceptions, of course: Dick Crossman, Con O’Neill, Sefton Delmer
^‡
and Valentine Williams, to mention a few. But the majority, so it seemed, had just the sort of expertise I stood most in need of.

At first, I was treated with some reserve. Like all departments, especially new ones, Woburn was on the lookout for trespassers. But they soon realized that my interest in getting to know them was sincere, and that I was more than ready to accept advice. It was clear that secret agents in Europe would indulge in propaganda, whether we wanted it or not. That being the case, it was good policy for Woburn, as the authority responsible for black propaganda, to get a foot in the door in the shape of a co-operative instructor. After a few visits, I qualified for a lunch with Leeper. Valentine Williams, who was present, offered to drive me back to London in his official Rolls-Royce. I would have liked to talk to him about Clubfoot. But we had lunched well and he slept all the way.

There was another, perhaps more important, field for my
researches at this time. It was all very well to teach agents the forms of propaganda. But the content of propaganda was just as important. Doubtless, the agents would get their orders on the day; but it was necessary to prepare them in advance for the sort of orders they would receive. This required a certain amount of political indoctrination, so that they would reach their fields of operation with at least some general idea of what the British Government had in mind for the future. Woburn was not a good place to seek answers to such questions. Leeper and his men were themselves complaining of the lack of political direction from London.

For this purpose, I turned to Hugh Gaitskell.
^*
I had known him slightly before the war, when we had discussed Austrian problems. I cannot remember the nature of his interest, and I am quite sure that he did not know mine. At the time of which I am speaking, he was Principal Private Secretary to Dalton, sitting right under the horse’s mouth. He was closely associated with Gladwyn Jebb,
^†
whom Dalton had made responsible for Baker Street operations. Gaitskell was a very busy man and usually suggested our meeting for dinner at a pub off Berkeley Square. We would discuss my problems over sausages and mash. Sometimes we would go back to his office and consult Jebb or perhaps the Doctor himself. The latter was always ready with a hospitable whisky-and-soda. (I have already boasted of having recognized Gubbins as a man of distinction. To restore the balance, I must confess that I never suspected in Gaitskell the first-class Front Bench material which emerged later.)

On the whole, the result of these meetings was disappointing. Dalton was having his troubles with the Foreign Office. It was facile then, as it is now, to speak of a Foreign Office view. There are a lot of people in the Foreign Office and quite a few views. But when all
the objections to a given course of action were taken into account, the common denominator which was left was usually unexciting. It often appeared that the British wanted a simple return to the status quo before Hitler, to a Europe comfortably dominated by Britain and France through the medium of reactionary governments just strong enough to keep their own people in order and uphold the
cordon sanitaire
against the Soviet Union.

This view of Europe was incompatible with the very existence of SOE. Its aim, in Churchill’s words, was to set Europe ablaze. This could not be done by appealing to people to co-operate in restoring an unpopular and discredited old order. It could not even be done by working on the feelings of the moment; they were conditioned largely by Hitler’s uninterrupted sequence of victories. We could operate effectively only by anticipating the mood of Europe after a few more years of war and Nazi domination had steeled them to take the future into their own hands. This would, without doubt, be a revolutionary mood. It would sweep away the Europe of the twenties and thirties.

Dalton and Gaitskell, of course, saw the contradiction between their SOE mission and the Foreign Office view. But they had to walk warily because they themselves had no clear alternative. Both were sure, like good Socialists, that the European trade unions held one of the most important keys to the situation. But it was doubtful whether the unions would take the risks involved at the behest of a British Government, even if it contained Attlee, Bevin, Dalton and other Socialists. To many, it seemed that wartime Britain was very different from the Britain of Baldwin and Chamberlain. But how could a foreigner be sure that it was not just a different cloak for the betrayer of Abyssinia, Spain and Czechoslovakia? Suspicion was kept alive by the failure of the British to unfold a truly revolutionary propaganda. The lack of suitable political direction dogged us through the war. All resistance groups took our money and supplies; very few paid heed to the voice of London. They emerged only when they saw their own way to the future, not the way envisaged for them by the British Government. Thus the comparative
success of SOE on the side of physical demolition and harassment was matched by its comparative failure in the political field.