SPYING

In 2014 it was reported that changes to the Road Safety Act that were under consideration that would give spies the same right as police officers, firefighters and ambulance personnel to break speed limits and pass through red traffic signals. Up until then it had been illegal for them to do so.

The Admiralty

Room 40

During the First World War the naval intelligence's decryption operations were run from Room 40 of Admiralty House. There had been major advances in understanding the scope for intercepting hostile wireless traffic. Thanks to code books that given by the Russian and Australian navies, and a third one that retrieved from the North Sea, it became possible for the British to break Germany's naval codes. It became possible to learn when German vessels were going to go sea. It was an ancestor of Bletchley Park and G.C.H.Q..

Room 40's activities were not run as effectively as they might have been. Therefore, the Admiralty tended to discount some of the material that it provided. This had serious consequences with regard to Jutland.

In the wake of Jutland the German naval focus switched to submarine warfare in order to try to starve Britain.

In early 1917 Room 40 intercepted the Zimmerman Telegram. This was sent to the Mexican government. It revealed that the Germans were intending to engage in unrestricted U-boat warfare. It offered a number of inducements that were intended to induce Mexico to declare war upon the United States. The Telegram was a major factor in persuading America to join the Allied side.

Location: (32) Whitehall, SW1A 2DY (blue, brown)

Anthony Blunt

In 1979 the journalist Andrew Boyle published a book in which he strongly inferred that Blunt had been the fourth man. Blunt had confessed fifteen years earlier. Prime Minister Thatcher confirmed Boyle's allusion. Blunt then engaged with the media, he was unrepentant about what he had done.

Upon his exposure Blunt disappeared. It was widely assumed that he had fled to Moscow. Rather, he had taken refuge in the Stamford Brook home of the historian James Joll (d.1994) and the art historian John Golding (1929-2012). The latter had been a student of Blunt.

The B.B.C. radio reporter Brian Pitts interviewed Brian Sewell, a former student of Blunt s. While doing so he noticed that the art dealer had written a phone number on his hand. Pitts was able to make it out and memorised it. He passed the information on to his colleague Chris Underwood (1937-2012). The latter was able to have it traced to Joll and Golding's home address. He then turned up there with a television film crew. As he did so Blunt escaped over the property's back fence,

The novelist Anita Brookner was a colleague of Blunt. She remembered his enormous kindness .

In 1974 it was established that Blunt was the fourth man.

The Crown & Woolpack

In 1903 an upstairs room in Finsbury's The Crown & Woolpack pub was the venue for a meeting of the Russian Communist Party in exile. It was at this gathering that the party s Bolshevik and Menshevik factions began to pull away from one another. The police sent an officer to eavesdrop on the gathering. He was told to hide in a cupboard so that he could listen to what was said and take notes. The policeman who had been assigned to the task did not understand Russian.

Location: The Crown & Woolpack, 162 St John Street, EC1V 4JY. (The building is no longer a pub.) (orange, red)

The Intelligence & Security Committee

In 1994 the Intelligence & Security Committee of Parliament started to supervise M.I.5 and M.I.6.

Website: https://isc.independent.gov.uk

The Joint Intelligence Committee

Website: www.gov.uk/government/groups/joint-intelligence-committee

Klop

Jona von Ustinov (1892-1962) was born in Jaffa, the son of a German-Russian father and an Ethiopian princess. During the First World War he fought Germany. Following the country's defeat he spied for it in Russia under the pretext of looking for his parents who had fled as the war had started.

In 1920 von Ustinov settled in London as part of the White Russian community. He worked as a journalist attached to the German Embassy. In 1935 his employers asked him to produce proof of his Aryan descent. He declined to do so. One of his grandfathers had been a Polish Jew.

Von Ustinov offered his skills to the intelligence services. His tender was snapped up. He had a variety of codenames although his nickname was Klop. The quality of his work was appreciated. After the Second World War had begun Dick White recruited him to interrogate German spies. His best source was probably Wolfgang zu Putlitz, a Second Secretary.

Klop first encountered Moura Budberg in St Petersburg in 1920. He was required to interrogate in 1950. The pair knew one socially and were something of a double-act.

Special Branch

The government did not inform Parliament of Project Zircon, a 500m spy satellite. The Project's existence was revealed in 1986 by the journalists Duncan Campbell and the documentary programme maker Brian Barr (1942-2013). They invited the government scientist Professor Sir Ronald Machine to be filmed on another matter and surprised him with a question about the project. His reply confirmed its existence. B.B.C. Scotland's Glasgow headquarters were raided by Special Branch officers. The affair contributed to Alasdair Milne s resignation as Director-General of the Corporation the following year. The government took a series of injunctions to prevent the programme's screening. However, anti-censorship campaigners arranged a number of screenings. The programmed was aired on national television in 1988.

See Also: THE POLICE

Special Forces Club

Special Forces Club has a museum of that includes material on S.O.E., Popski's Private Army, and the Long-Range Desert Group. M.I.5 and the professionals hated S.O.E..

Location: 8 Herbert Crescent, SW1X 0EZ (purple, red)

Website: https://sfclub.org

Gareth Williams

Gareth William was a middle-ranking, mathematically-gifted G.C.H.Q. employee. In 2010 his corpse was retrieved from a hold-all that had been locked externally, as had his top floor flat. The bag was in his bath. In the flat there was copy of Alan Warner s novel Morvern Callar (1995), in which a corpse is dismembered in a bath.

Location: 36 Alderley Street, SW1V 4EU (orange, purple)

The Z Organisation

The Z Organisation was a secret body within the intelligence service. It used businesses as cover. Sir Alexander Korda's (n 's ndor Kellner) (1893-1956) London Films provided it with access to its offices in Europe.

In 1942 Korda became the first person in the film industry to be knighted. He regarded the honour as being for his espionage work.

Location: Bush House, Aldwych, WC2B 4PH. The Z Organisation was based in an office in the building. (blue, purple)

21-22 Grosvenor Street, W1K 4QJ. Korda's London Films was based in the building. (orange, grey)

David Backhouse 2024