◆ SpookStack

va. scarcely a senior officer ink i whole organisation who had ‘not got some axe to grind with me. I was au. many clubs on business ts. The discussions over the my hosts had one thing O.~ the desire for a free » America, I did not discour- 4:,: ‘hema, The’ more visitors I had in W..sning-un, the more pies I got niy finger into. That, after all, was my im in ‘ie, Syart trom these diverting inter- ludes, 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 cic port covered many sub- « was likely to be thorny. I was to. . take over from Peter Dwyer, who had spent severa] 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. Tnese relations, main- tained after the war, had given the on the chin the unavoidable re- sentment of Hoover's men. A corol- lary of this was that it would be dangerous to be too clever since the ‘eards would be stacked too heavily against me. It would be better to play it silly and be ready to apolo- gise freely for the bricks which my position would force me to drop 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 jncluded & 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. J] had 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 SiS representation in Washington | @ vies towards the FBI at the ex- se ‘++ some thought) of the cne FBI, taking its cue na donna Hoover, was sensitive on the subject A, it was extremely diffi- - Dwyer to keep a balance 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 collaboration over a wide range of issues which inevitably meant tnore day-to-day contact than SIS -vo .d have with the FBI. x out this change of policy acknowledged, of course. ignment was therefore to > links with the CIA and ~ “hose with the FBI without i noticing. It did not take . ceflection to convince me that sat @ task was impossible and avsurd. The only sensible course was to get in with the CIA on sub- jects of common interest and take i I | Soom - ~ 18 ut exposing himself to snarl- ‘ 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- ing what the British were doing in @ case undert-investigation by the FBI, a case involving the British Embassy in Washington. At the time of asking, there was nothing that 1 could have done. But it seemed, after my talk with Oldfield, that I 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 did 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 waste paper. It had so far occurred - \fler 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 localiy recruited: the sweep- * ers, cleaners, bottle-washers and tie -rest. A charlady with a Latvian : grandmother, for instance, would rate a fifteen-page report crowded with insignificant detail of herself, her family and friends, her private life and holiday habits. It 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; J 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 United States appeared to have 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 » said, “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 S.S.““Caronia” towards the end of September. I had a mem- orable send-off. The first thing I saw on the foggy platform at