◆ SpookStack

va. searcely 4 senior officer inl : whole organisation who had not got sone axe to grind with me. I was ‘unched u. many clubs on business pectexts. The discussions over the. port covered many sub- - teiee ated jects, 2a": my hosts had one thing in commo,.-the desire for a freé trip te America, I did not discour- #:,: ‘nera. The’ more visitors I had in W:.-ninp on, the more pies I got niy finger into. That, after all, was my -im in ie. Avart trom these diverting inter- judes, my briefing caused me serious preoccupation in more than one respect. It became clear from East- :- on's succinct expositions of the situ- ‘ation that my path in Washington on the chin the unavoidable re- sentment of Hoover’s men. A corol- lary of this was that it would be , was likely to be thorny. I was to. , take over from Peter Dwyer, who had spent several years in the United States. I knew him for a brilliant wit, and was to learn that he had a great deal more to him than just wit. During the war, he had succeeded in the prickly task of establishing close personal rela-. tions with many leading figures in the FBI. These relations, tained after the war, had given the SiS representation in Washington _ & vies towards the FBI at the ex- rense ¢ : whe FBI, taking its cue ora y ds ‘Hea waa i ine prima@ aonna moover, Was lily, 1 sensitive on the subject : a, it was extremely diffi- rw a a my ry aan ve oF yeie emote. ing charges of double-crossing his old friends. One of my new jobs was to tilt the balance in the opposite direc- tion. The CIA and SIS had agreed to close cojlaboration over a wide range of issues which inevitably meant tnore day-to-day contact than SIf we “ou: 6. gut this change of policy acknowledged, of course. mv assignment was therefore to ccc. + links with the CIA and . « “hose with the FBI without i'4i noticing. It did not take -aflection to convince me that tau @ task was impossible and avsurd. The only sensible course [rr oe or . was to get in with the CIA on sub-. main- | .@ have with the FBI. dangerous to be too clever since the ‘ecards would be stacked too heavily — against me, It would be better to. play it silly and be ready to apolo- from time to time. My briefing on the counter-espi- onage side also aroused grave anxi- ety in my mind. This was given me by the formidable Maurice Oldfield, and included a communication of the first importance. Joint Anglo- ‘American investigation of Soviet intelligence activity in the United States had yielded a strong sugges- tion that there had been a leakage from the British Embassy in Wash- ‘ington during the years 1944-45, and another from the atomic energy | ' establishment in Los Alamos. I had -» some thought) of the | Dwyer to keep a balance - without exposing himself to snarl- ‘ jects of common interest and take - 8, ing what the British were no ide&s about Los Alamos. But a swift check of the relevant Foreign - Office List left me in little doubt about the identity of the source in . the British Embassy..My anxiety was tempered by relief, since I had -been nagged for some months by a question put to me by my Soviet contact in Istanbul. He had asked ‘me if I had any means of discover- 8 case Uundert-investicati ha #ha GErinvVestigation oF the ‘FBI, a case involving the British Embassy in Washington. At the - ‘time of asking, there was nothing that I could have done. But it seemed, after my talk with Oldfield, that ] had stumbled into the heart | of the problem. Within a few days, this was confirmed by my Russian friend in London. After checking with headquarters, he was left in no doubt that information from the “FBI and my own referred to one. ‘and the same case. A careful study of the ‘files ‘aia something to allay my immediate fears. As SIS was not supposed to operate inside the United States, investigation of the leads provided by the source was in the hands of the FBI. Characteristically, they had put ‘in an immense amount of work re- ‘sulting in an immense amount of cing in . waate paper. It had so far occurred - : paid, ( \fr to them nor to the British tnat a diplomat was involved, let alone a fairly senior diplomat. In-- . stead, the investigation had concen- strated on non-diplomatic employees of the Embassy, and particularly on , those locally recruited: the sweep- gise freely for the bricks which my ~ ‘position would force me to drop | ers, cleaners, bottle-washers and the ‘. yest. A charlady with a Latvian .’ grandmother, for instance, would rate a fifteen-page report crowded with insignificant detail of herse!f, her family and friends, her private life and holiday habits. 1t was testi- mony to the enormous. resources of the FBI, and to the pitiful extent _to which those resources were squandered. It was enough to con- ' vince me that urgent action would not be necessary, but that the case would require minute watching. Something drastic would certainly have to be done before I left Wash- ington. Heaven knew where my next appointment would lie; ] might well lose all control of the case. My last call in London was at the ’ Chief’s office. He was in the best of form, and amused me with mali- cious accounts of the stickier pas- sages in Anglo-American intelli- gence relations during the war. This turned out to be more than just pointless reminiscence. He told me that the news of my appointment to’ the Tinitead States apneared t to have co oppU Who upset Hoover. I] was then rated a fairly senior officer in the service, which Dwyer (most undeservedly} was not. Hoover suspected that my appointment might herald unwanted SIS activity in the United States. ‘To allay his fears, the Chief had sent him a personal telegram, as- suring him that there was no inten- tion of a change of policy; my duties would be purely liaison duties, The Chief showed me the telegram, then gave me a hard stare. “That,” he “is an official communication from myself to Hoover.” There was & pause, then he continued: “Un- officially . . . let’s discuss it over lunch at White's. " With my briefing as complet. as could reasonably be expected, I sailed on the 8.8. “Caronia” towards the end of September. ] had a mem- orable send-off. The first thing I saw on the foggy platform at cot ene ' mond ee <>