Personnel Security at Bletchley Park - Part One

Looking at the relationship between GC&CS and MI5 during the Second World War I have come across a few things which are tangential to my main area of interest, but which I feel are worth a bit of discussion. One of these is personnel security.

I've recently finished Chris Smith's excellent The Last Cambridge Spy, his biography of John Cairncross, the Soviet Agent who worked at Bletchley Park (as well as in SIS and elsewhere in Whitehall), who is famously alleged to have passed 5832 documents from Hut 3 to his Soviet handlers and to have passed the intelligence which enabled the Red Army to defeat the Wehrmacht at the Battle of Kursk in 1943.

In most of the popular literature Cairncross is usually portrayed as the only agent the Soviets had inside Bletchley Park: I believe it is more realistic to say that he was likely to have been the only successful Soviet agent inside BP (though I don't think that the 5832 documents are the measure of his success). We can certainly identify one person posted in to Bletchley – Duncan Taylor, the brother in law of Ursula Kuczynski ('Agent Sonya') – who was aware of (and comfortable with) the fact that most of his wife Barbara's family had worked or were working for the USSR. We also know the names of friends of Barbara who were communist sympathisers working at Bletchley. But a posting to Bletchley Park was less likely to enable a Soviet agent to acquire valuable intelligence than might have been possible in MI5 or SIS, and certainly less than in the Foreign Office of the Intelligence Divisions of the Service ministries.

The authorities responsible for security at Bletchley Park were well aware of the threat posed by the Communist Party of Great Britain and were alert to the need to look out for party members. Their response was more subtle than it might have been, and was effective – when it identified them.

In his Organisation and Evolution of British Sigint (HW 43/75-78 The National Archives) Nigel de Grey quoted the "Head of Security" (probably Henry Hayward, the Senior Security Officer from January 1942 to at least late 1945) as follows:

"Having been put wise by SIS and MI5 to the system adopted by the Communist Party for penetrating British secrets I asked that … the first [case] of its kind, and all subsequent ones should be left in my hands in the first place and to be allowed to ignore the Director's order [i.e. from 'C', the Head of SIS] that all Communists should be immediately dismissed. I appreciated that most of the reports would concern young and intelligent people from the Universities, who would have no idea of the thumbscrews that might later be put upon them by the Party if it were learnt that they were engaged in secret work. I had been made aware of the difficulties of split loyalties that would then be created and I did not fail to recognize the miseries of mind that might ensue. I felt sure that in the majority of cases I should find little hesitation on the part of such young people when they were squarely faced by the necessity of choosing one loyalty or the other, if it were done in a friendly and understanding way. Very different might be the position had they been entangled in the subtle net of the Party. The point was to warn them of the dangers and to prevent their becoming entangled and so faced with the grimmest of dilemmas.

All such cases I dealt with in private and found the majority comparatively easy to handle since they were mostly in fact but the mildest of adherents who were interested as most intelligent young people were in the subject of communism because it was new and were shocked and horrified when told of the trap that might be laid for them. I was able to quote specific cases (supplied to me by MI5) which carried conviction."

There were, however, two difficult cases. The first concerned a young man who had already been convicted of the grossest insecurity … he had revealed in the Common Room of his former college to a number of dons present not only that he was engaged in the solution of German submarine keys of the Enigma machine, but also the dilemma caused by the introduction of the fourth wheel. It would of course have been arranged for the case to be heard in camera, but the accusation and its importance would have to be revealed not only to the prosecuting counsel and solicitors but to the defending counsel and solicitors, to the boy's parents and to all the officers present in court – a calculated minimum of some 60 or 70 persons. 'C' declined to take such a risk on so delicate a subject and the young man was retained in GC&CS because he was a poor type whom we felt was better kept under our own eye than launched into military service with danger of reneged indiscretions that we should know nothing of. It emerged that his parents were ardent communists and that he himself attended Party meetings, though there was no proof that he had done so during the war. It was obvious that this was no case for an interview of the kind I have described. One could be sure that its tenor would be reported to his parents and that the Government' s knowledge of Communist methods would be revealed and probably under pressure more of the vital secrets of GC&CS. I consulted earnestly and long with MI5 and SIS and it appeared that all the arguments which had induced us to hold on to him after his case of insecurity still held good. All that we could do was to arrange for the head of his section to keep a fatherly eye upon him in this new direction and to report from time to time upon his behaviour. MI5 also took appropriate steps to keep an eye upon his outside movements. (This paragraph conflates two separate accounts of this story given by de Grey.)

"The other case concerned an Army Y officer who was due to visit GC&CS for instruction.    On the day he was to arrive it was discovered that his wife was a well-known 'Forces Contact' (a communist who acted as a link between the Party and members of the Armed Forces) who was under surveillance and he was obviously an unwelcome visitor. We felt obliged to tell DD Y (the Head of Army Sigint) so and consequently put MI8 in an extremely awkward position since the officer was due for promotion to the command of a Y unit in the field and had been sent home for instruction at GC&CS prior to taking up his new post. In spite of careful coaching by MI5 in the delicacy of handling these cases, the whole situation was bungled. The officer was denied his command and posted to India, where he was not only told the reason for his posting but placed in a job where every secret of Signal Intelligence passed through his hands. He became a thoroughly disgruntled man and threatened to bring his case of victimization to the notice of the Army Council.

Other cases of proved Party adherence by people of mature age were dealt with discreetly and the people dropped from the organisation as soon as opportunity – such as reorganisation and redundancy – occurred. Another means adopted way to post them to work they disliked and accept their resignations when offered. These methods may not sound very pretty but one cannot afford in my own view to put on kid gloves over Security in Signal Intelligence. The prime object is that 'Source' should be protected and the matter carried out in such a way that no sense of grievance is created."

(It says a lot about the Senior Security Officer that his vision of taking the kid gloves off, even when the UK was engaged in total war, was to post unwanted people to work they wouldn't like, so that they would resign and go to work elsewhere.)

More on the specific cases of Cairncross and Duncan Taylor tomorrow.