Personnel Security at Bletchley Park - Part Three

The Right Club was a British fascist organisation, set up by Archibald Ramsay MP just before the start of the Second World War. It was virulently anti-Semitic and opposed to war with Germany. One of the people associated with it was Tylor Kent, a clerk at the US Embassy in London. He had access to messages which Winston Churchill, when First Lord of the Admiralty, and President Roosevelt exchanged through the US diplomatic bag. Another member of the club, Anna Wolkoff was instrumental in getting this, and other, information to the Axis powers via the Italian Embassy. This was discovered, and Kent and Wolkoff were both convicted under the Official Secrets Act and imprisoned.

MI5 was responsible for the investigation, and among Anna Wolkoff's possessions a membership card for the Right Club was found in the name of Muriel Wright. It took little time to work out that she was working at Bletchley Park and SIS confirmed that she was working for them "in their code and cypher department", ie GC&CS. MI5 and SIS agreed that Maxwell Knight, an MI5 officer would go to Bletchley to question her – SIS was particularly keen that the police should not be brought in.

Her statement is available on Anna Wolkoff's file which has been released to The National Archives (TNA) as KV 2/841.

Statement of MURIEL JOYCE WRIGHT, Room 47 Foreign Office. London. S.W.1.

I have been cautioned by Captain Maxwell Knight that anything I say will be taken down in writing and may be used in evidence. To show that I understand the nature of this caution I herewith append my signature. 

Signed: Muriel J Wright

My name is Muriel Joyce Wright. I am a spinster aged 30. I have been employed in a clerical capacity under the Foreign Office since 22nd April 1940.

I first met Anna Wolkoff in September 1938 having been introduced to her by my cousin Bridget Hurt (now Mrs Mellon). I worked in Anna Wolkoff's dress shop In Conduit Street during September and October 1938 when I left her employment after a disagreement with her over international affairs and the racial question. I did not see Anna Wolkoff again until a date in May 1939 when at the invitation of my aunt Lady Winifred Elwes I attended a meeting held - I think at the Caxton Hall, Westminster - which was addressed by Captain Ramsay M.P., another M.P. whom I believe was Mr. McGovan and a third speaker who had been some kind of an observer during the Spanish Civil War. While I cannot remember details of the speeches made, the general trend of Captain Ramsay's remarks were (sic) very favourable to the Nazi regime in Germany.

As I was leaving the meeting I saw Anna Wolkoff who asked me to join the Right Club. She handed me a card which I filled in and signed. I recognise the writing on the photographic copy of the Right Club card shown to me by Captain Knight as being my handwriting and signature. Anna Wolkoff also said something to me about distributing pamphlets saying that she would ring me up about it but she never did so. I only saw Anna Wolkoff once again between the date of the above meeting and the present date, this was about October or November 1939. I met her in the street in Lowndes Square. She stopped and talked to me about her holiday in Germany just before the outbreak of war saying that she did not think this country had a chance against Germany as their army was superior to ours in every way.

I have never seen Captain Ramsay except at the meeting referred to before and I have never taken any part in the activities of the Right Club, in fact when questioned about the Right Club by Captain Knight the title of the club conveyed nothing to me until I was shown the photograph of my membership card. I have never been a member of the British Union but I have known Captain Robert Gordon Canning for seven or eight years and I know that he was acquainted with Anna Wolkoff.

To the best of my knowledge and belief Anna Wolkoff does not know the nature of my employment or where I am employed.

I should like to state that I am not politically minded and have never belonged to any Pro-German organization.

This statement has been read over to me and it is true.

Signed: Muriel. J. Wright.

Witnessed by Maxwell Knight.

Captain General Staff, War Office, S.W.1.

June 30th 1940.

Based on this statement and her explanation of what had happened Maxwell Knight exonerated her completely: "I am satisfied from Miss Wright's behaviour and statement that she is not implicated in any sinister activities of the Right Club".

Maxwell Knight appears not to have been told (and did SIS know?) that Muriel Wright had been one of Ian Fleming's lovers since 1935. Fleming was, by now, personal assistant to Admiral Godfrey, the Director of Naval Intelligence. She had been working as an Air Raid warden late in 1939 and by the end of 1940 she was working for Fleming as a despatch rider for the Naval Intelligence Division. It isn't clear why she left Bletchley Park, but Andrew Lycett's biography of Ian Fleming suggests that she was neither temperamentally nor intellectually suited to GC&CS, and that the patronage that Fleming could dispense from this period onwards would easily extend to getting her into a more congenial job.

As far as I am aware this investigation is the only one carried out by MI5 on a member of Bletchley Park that has been released to TNA. I mentioned the case of Duncan Taylor yesterday: the MI5 officer on his case seems to have been unaware of what Taylor's work entailed, but the extract written by the Head of Security that I posted a couple of days ago, and some of the inferences about unreleased files one can draw from those that have been released, suggest that personnel security at Bletchley Park was a rather more complicated matter than many people suppose.