Spycatcher (60 page)

"Prime Minister," said Victor, "I think you should meet Peter Wright, he is one of the stranger phenomena in Whitehall..."

Heath looked humorlessly over in my direction, and asked me where I worked.

"The Security Service, sir," I replied. He grunted.

"Peter is responsible for the briefing on subversion which is currently causing the problem," said Victor cheerfully.

Heath immediately fixed me with a steely glare.

"You should not be indulging in politics," he glowered, "there are mechanisms for this sort of material."

He turned on his heel and stalked out. "Christ, Victor," I said.

"Don't worry, " replied Victor, "Ted's always like that. I'll talk to him later."

The following day Victor rang up. He told me Heath had devoured the briefing that night.

"Is this true, Victor?" he asked in amazement, and when told it was, redoubled his crusade to remain in power.

But not all the requests for information were legitimate. One evening Victor invited me around for drinks at St. James's Place.

"There's a businessman I think you should meet," he told me. "He is a wealthy industrialist."

I had been discussing retirement with Victor at the time. In 1972 I finally learned that the promise MI5 had made to me in 1955 about my pension was not to be honored. In order to join the Service I had been forced to give up fifteen years of pension rights with the Admiralty. At the time Cumming had talked smoothly of ex-gratia payments, and ways the Service could iron out these problems. But in the new, gray MI5 a gentleman's agreement was a thing of the past. According to the rules, I had no case for a pension, even though every scientist who joined the Intelligence Services after me (some fifty in number) was able to transfer his pension, largely through my pressure to rectify the inequity.

It was a bitter blow, and did much to sour my last few years in the Service. Inevitably I thought about the possibility of security work. It did not greatly appeal to me, but it seemed a stable way of propping up my savagely depleted pension. At first Victor and I discussed my joining N.M. Rothschild, but Hanley was unhappy about the proposal, so when Victor heard that this businessman was looking for someone to do security work, he suggested a meeting.

I took an instant dislike to the man. It was clear to me that he was on the make. Over drinks he talked loosely about needing advice and guidance from someone "in the know" without quite spelling out what he meant, or how much he was prepared to pay for it. Eventually he suggested I lunch with him and some colleagues at a London hotel to discuss his proposition in more detail.

His colleagues were a ramshackle bunch. They were retired people from various branches of intelligence and security organizations whose best years were well behind them. There were others, too, mainly businessmen who seemed thrilled to be in the same room as spies, and did not seem to care how out of date they were.

This time my would-be employer came straight to the point.

"We represent a group of people who are worried about the future of the country," he intoned.

He had something of the look of Angleton on a bad night about him. He said they were interested in working to prevent the return of a Labor government to power.

"It could spell the end of all the freedoms we know and cherish," he said.

The others nodded.

"And how do you suppose I can help?" I asked.

"Information," he replied, "we want information, and I am assured you have it."

"What precisely are you after?" I inquired.

"Anything on Wilson would be helpful. There are many people who would pay handsomely for material of that sort."

"But I am a serving member of the Security Service..." I began. He waved his hand imperiously.

"Retire early. We can arrange something..."

I played along for the rest of the evening, but gave nothing away. The following day I went to see Hanley and told him what had happened. I suggested that I continue to monitor the group's activities as an agent, but Hanley thought discretion was a better policy.

"Leave it alone, Peter," he said, "it's a dirty game, and you're well out of it."

Hanley knew little about the material which had been gathered on Wilson and the Labor Party during the 1960s, so I encouraged him to study it. Elections were in the offing, and it could become relevant again, I told him.

"It's like FLUENCY," he said when he had read the files, "there's lots of smoke, but not a lot of fire."

Nevertheless, he agreed that it was prudent to reexamine the material. Angleton, in particular, was beginning to badger us constantly about Wilson, and I told Hanley it would be politic to be seen to be doing something.

As events moved to their political climax in early 1974, with the election of the minority Labor Government, MI5 was sitting on information which, if leaked, would undoubtedly have caused a political scandal of incalculable consequences. The news that the Prime Minister himself was being investigated would at the least have led to his resignation. The point was not lost on some MI5 officers.

One afternoon I was in my office when two colleagues came in. They were with three or four other officers. I closed the file I was working on and asked them how I could help.

"We understand you've reopened the Wilson case," said the senior one. "You know I can't talk about that," I told him.

I felt a bit lame, but then I did not much enjoy being cornered in my own office.

"Wilson's a bloody menace," said one of the younger officers, "and it's about time the public knew the truth."

It was not the first time I had heard that particular sentiment. Feelings had run high inside MI5 during 1968. There had been an effort to try to stir up trouble for Wilson then, largely because the DAILY MIRROR tycoon, Cecil King, who was a longtime agent of ours, made it clear that he would publish anything MI5 might care to leak in his direction. It was all part of Cecil King's "coup," which he was convinced would bring down the Labor Government and replace it with a coalition led by Lord Mountbatten.

I told F.J. in 1968 that feelings were running high, but he responded in a low-key manner.

"You can tell anyone who has ideas about leaking classified material that there will be nothing I can do to save them!"

He knew the message would get back.

But the approach in 1974 was altogether more serious. The plan was simple. In the run-up to the election which, given the level of instability in Parliament, must be due within a matter of months, MI5 would arrange for selective details of the intelligence about leading Labor Party figures, but especially Wilson, to be leaked to sympathetic pressmen. Using our contacts in the press and among union officials, word of the material contained in MI5 files and the fact that Wilson was considered a security risk would be passed around.

Soundings in the office had already been taken, and up to thirty officers had given their approval to the scheme. Facsimile copies of some files were to be made and distributed to overseas newspapers, and the matter was to be raised in Parliament for maximum effect. It was a carbon copy of the Zinoviev letter, which had done so much to destroy the first Ramsay MacDonald Government in 1924.

"We'll have him out," said one of them, "this time we'll have him out." "But why do you need me?" I asked.

"Well, you don't like Wilson any more than we do... besides, you've got access to the latest files - the Gaitskell business, and all the rest of it."

"But they're kept in the DG's safe!" "Yes, but you could copy them."

"I need some time to think," I pleaded. "I've got a lot to think about before I take a step like this. You'll have to give me a couple of days."

At first I was tempted. The devil makes work for idle hands, and I was playing out my time before retirement. A mad scheme like this was bound to tempt me. I felt an irresistible urge to lash out. The country seemed on the brink of catastrophe. Why not give it a little push? In any case, I carried the burden of so many secrets that lightening the load a little could only make things easier for me. It was Victor who talked me out of it.

"I don't like Wilson any more than you do," he told me, "but you'll end up getting chopped if you go in for this."

He was right. I had little more than a year to go. Why destroy everything in a moment of madness?

A few days later I told the leader of the group that I would not get the files.

"I'd like to help you," I told him, "but I can't risk it. I've only got half a pension as it is, I can't afford to lose it all."

Some of the operational people became quite aggressive. They kept saying it was the last chance to fix Wilson.

"Once you've retired," they said, "we'll never get the files!"

But my mind was made up, and even their taunts of cowardice could not shake me.

Throughout the rest of 1974 and early 1975 I kept out of the country as much as possible, chasing VENONA traffic throughout the world. Although the full Wilson story never emerged, it was obvious to me that the boys had been actively pushing their plan as much as they could. No wonder Wilson was later to claim that he was the victim of a plot!

In the summer of 1975 I dined with Maurice Oldfield at Locketts. We regularly met for dinner. He was a lonely man, and liked nothing better than a good gossip at the end of the day. He finally made it to the top of MI6 after two abortive attempts, and I was happy for him. Maurice was a good man, but inclined to meddle. That night I could tell something was on his mind.

He turned the conversation to Wilson. How high had feelings been running in there? he asked. He kept hearing all sorts of rumors.

I was noncommittal.

"Most of us don't like him. They think he's wrecking the country."

Maurice was clearly preoccupied with the subject, because he returned to it again and again.

"You're not telling me the truth," he said finally. "I'm not with you, Maurice..."

"I was called in by the Prime Minister yesterday," he said, his tone suddenly changing. "He was talking about a plot. Apparently he's heard that your boys have been going around town stirring things up about him and Marcia Falkender, and Communists at No. 10."

He trailed away as if it were all too distasteful for him.

"It's serious, Peter," he began again, "I need to know everything. Look what's happening in Washington with Watergate. The same thing will happen here unless we're very careful."

I ordered another brandy and decided to tell him everything I knew. When I had finished describing the plans of the previous summer he asked me if Hanley knew.

"No," I replied, "I thought it best just to forget the whole thing."

"I want you to go back to the office tomorrow and tell him everything." Maurice tottered up to bed.

"Don't worry," he called back over his shoulder.

"I won't," I said, "I've only got a few months to go!"

When I saw Hanley the next morning, he went white as a sheet. He might have suspected that feelings against Wilson ran high in the office, but now he was learning that half of his staff were up to their necks in a plot to get rid of the Prime Minister. It was at times like that I was glad I never climbed the executive ladder.

Ironically, his first reaction was anger with Maurice.

"Bloody Maurice!" he raged. "Poking his nose into our business!" When he had calmed down he asked me for the names.

I gave them. Having come so far, I could not very well refuse. As I reeled them off, I knew suddenly what Blunt had felt like. It was never easy to put on the mask and point the finger.

"Look after them, won't you?" I asked Hanley.

"There will have to be an inquiry, of course," he replied.

I left before the Wilson story ended, and Hanley and I never discussed it again. I heard that a member of the Security Commission was called in to make a private inquiry for the Cabinet Office, and it has since been reported that Hanley made a number of changes, mainly in the field of recruitment, with a view to introducing new blood into MI5. This presumably explains the cryptic letter I received from Michael Hanley shortly after I retired to Australia.

"You'll be pleased to note," he wrote, "that the firm has passed its recent examinations, and is doing rather well!"

Shortly afterward Wilson resigned. As we always used to say in the office: "Politicians may come and go, but the Security Service goes on forever."

The shambles surrounding Harold Wilson blew up just as the Hollis affair flickered briefly back into life in 1974. The case had remained buried since his interrogation in 1969. Originally I was hopeful that Hanley might revive things when he took over, but I could soon see that he took the view that sleeping dogs should lie. He had a deep desire to put the traumas of the past behind him, and was anxious to separate me as far as possible from current investigations and K Branch cases.

"I've got an open mind," he used to tell me whenever I raised the question.

Fear of scandal became the most important consideration affecting everyone with responsibility for the turmoil of the 1960s, now that there was a growing certainty that whatever the problem had been, it was at an end. I discussed with Victor whether there were any ways of reopening the case.

"Now is not the time," he would say. "We should bide our time, and I will look for a way of raising the matter with Ted. But not now. We'll just end up jeopardizing Hanley's job. The whole thing is too potent. We must let some time go by."

Fear of scandal reached fever pitch when, in 1975, Blunt was thought to be suffering from cancer, and likely to die. Victor approached me again, and asked me whether I thought it likely that Blunt would leave a last will and testament to be published on his death, blowing the lid off the whole affair. I had often asked Blunt about this, and he had always denied making any preparations, but there was a streak of vindictiveness in him which I never quite trusted.

Victor knew better than any outsider just what damage Blunt could do. Both he and Heath were obsessed with the damage the Profumo scandal had done to the last Conservative Government, and were terrified that Blunt could bring them down in the same way. It was not just the problem of the immunity; there was the horrendous possibility that he might name fellow conspirators, both living and dead, as well as the chance that he might choose to leave a more intimate record of the halcyon days of the 1930s. More than a handful of reputations stood to suffer if their sexual peccadilloes from that time were circulated on Fleet Street, not least the former Prime Minister, Anthony Eden.