Behind the scenes through the summer of 1940, the recruitment of the enemy spies had caused no end of difficulty to MI5’s internal organization. Since mid-July the day-to-day running of the double agents had gone from Liddell’s B Division to a new body called the Wireless, or W Branch. In theory this body was set up to search for all possible enemy channels of wireless communication in the United Kingdom — including double agents — and contained representatives from MI5, MI6 and other interested parties — namely the RSS (Radio Security Service).1
W Branch was run by Malcolm Frost, who was seconded to MI5 from the BBC where he had built up an extensive knowledge of German foreign broadcasting. In May 1940 Frost had put forward the theory that coded messages to Fifth Column subversives in the United Kingdom were being broadcast by the German propaganda service — the NBBS (New British Broadcasting Station). Unfortunately his appointment came as a mixed blessing. Although W Branch was supposed to be an independent division in its own right, in practice it was guilty of duplicating the workload of Liddell’s B Division and to some degree subordinated itself to that body.
In relation to double agents like Snow, W Branch had been providing mostly true information to the spies, including accurate meteorological reports in order to protect their bonafides. The biggest sponsor of information for Snow had actually been Air Commodore Boyle, the Air Force Director of Intelligence, who had taken it upon himself to provide MI5 with a lot of truthful information. But now, with a German invasion expected imminently, information would have to come from across the board if they were not to jeopardize future operations. The information would also have to be vetted at a high level. For instance, should the agents be encouraging the Germans to invade, or should they be trying to delay proceedings?
Such were the topics when Liddell held a meeting with the DMI on 10 September. The DMI was in favour of encouraging the Germans to come over, but when the matter was referred to the Chiefs of Staff Committee (the most senior military decision-making body below Churchill’s War Cabinet in 1940 and composed of the three service chiefs) it was decided
To deter the Germans by letting them have the truth about the strength of Britain’s defences, which were getting considerably stronger by the day.
During their meeting another subject arose, namely that of obtaining suitable information for the double agents to transmit. Until then the likes of Snow had been fed scraps from the various service intelligence chiefs on an unofficial basis, but as the demand for information grew, something more substantial would have be worked out.
Speaking with Liddell, Captain Felix Cowgill, the head of MI6’s Section V (the department responsible for counter-espionage outside the limits of the British Empire) expressed dissatisfaction with this arrangement. He said that the heads of service intelligence were on the one hand too important to provide the sort of low-level information — or chickenfeed as he called it — that the double agents required; but on the other hand were not important enough to make decisions on the high-level information that might be needed to be passed to the enemy.
At the same time information was not provided quickly enough — in the espionage game, the usefulness of the double agent required speedy decisions. Cowgill stated that every time someone asked for a piece of information, he was referred elsewhere and the delay became considerable. Privately Liddell sympathized with Cowgill’s point of view, but admitted in his diary that they were stuck with the present scheme for the foreseeable future at least.
On 16 September, the day after heavy German daylight air raids, Liddell started to make arrangements for a body that would oversee the running of Snow and the other double agents. His idea was to form a small committee to meet in future to deal with their traffic. It would consist of Malcolm Frost (MI5), Dick White (MI5), Jack Curry (MI5 — counter-subversion), Tommy Robertson (MI5), Felix Cowgill (SIS) and himself. Although this idea would eventually grow into something more substantial, at the time MI5 was under a lot of pressure from the government, which was looking to reorganize the service, and from the demands for quick action to keep the existing double agents active.
Meetings therefore continued on an informal basis. On 23 September Liddell called such a meeting in his office, inviting Valentine Vivian (SIS), Cowgill, Frost, White and Robertson to discuss the cases of the various double agents they had acquired. It was decided that because Summer had been provided with the papers of a sailor, they might be able to build a scenario where Summer met another seaman who would allow him to travel to Lisbon. They were also very anxious to get Tate working, but were concerned about his frame of mind after Colonel Scotland’s assault.
Liddell suggested using Tate or one of the other agents as a deliberate double cross agent. In other words they would have him send information so obviously false that the Germans would guess he had been captured and was not transmitting freely. This would make the traffic from the other double agents more believable and enhance their standing with the Abwehr. No firm decision was taken on this, but all agreed that it was important to get Tate on the air as quickly as possible.2
More progress in organizing a lasting system for providing information to the double agents was made on 30 September. Liddell attended a meeting in the DMI’s office along with Victor Cavendish-Bentinck, the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC). The subject of the meeting was the establishment of the W Committee — a secret body that would be responsible for the dissemination of false information to the enemy using the double agents.
This was exactly the sort of body Liddell had been lobbying for and one which had the support of Admiral John Godfrey, the Director of Naval Intelligence (DNI). Godfrey wanted this new organization to be informal and to avoid setting any rigid charters or directives. As for sanctioning the information provided, it was suggested that each of the three service directors could consult with their respective Chief of Staff, telling them vaguely that they had a means of delivering misinformation to the enemy, but it would mean having to give some true pieces of information in the bargain. To prevent the Chiefs of Staff from becoming too curious, they were to be told that it was all very hush-hush and the less they knew about it, the better it would probably be for them.3
The DMI was also keen on such a body. He explained how anxious he was to centralize the dissemination of rumours and false information and to take stock of the ‘channels’ through which such information could be distributed. These ‘channels’ were means of getting information to Germany indirectly — for example through foreign journalists and diplomats in London, through British embassies in neutral countries and through secret agents working abroad. As the DMI saw it, the double agents being run by MI5 had great potential as channels for deception purposes.
Liddell said that as far as B Division was concerned, the priority was keeping the double agents in the game and that meant getting quick answers to the questionnaires or enquiries that the enemy was sending over. In order not to compromise planning and security, Liddell explained that it was important for MI5 to know the actual truth and, secondly, how much of this truth could safely be put over to the enemy. Once this was known the
Double agents could be sent out to see how much information they could glean themselves — and if necessary they could then be censored.
This was an important part of running the double cross agents. Wherever possible, the agents had actually to live the life of a spy. This was especially important if the agents were ever sent to meet their German controllers in neutral countries like Portugal. Having actually carried out a reconnaissance in person, the agent would be able to stand up to cross-examination far more convincingly than if he had not visited the factory or town in question, or made the journey by train or bus from A to B. It was the sort of attention to detail that the Abwehr’s Lena spies had sadly lacked.
Liddell reiterated that they were in the business of sending true information over to the Germans, but he did not mind using the occasional half-truth that another government department was trying to put over. Indeed, some of the rumours being circulated by agencies such as SIS and the Ministry of Economic Warfare (MEW) were cropping up in the questionnaires coming back from the Germans. Unless they knew what the rumours were, the agents might end up contradicting the information another department was keen on pushing.
It was suggested that the correct place to pool all rumours and false information was the ISSB — the Inter-Services Security Branch. This organization was an off-shoot of JIC and was made up of representatives from the three services, MI5 and MI6. In addition to general security issues relating to military operations (including registering code words, mail censorship, supervision of neutral journalists, leaks to the press, sealing of camps, stopping leave, the security of ports and airfields, the movement of troops etc) the ISSB was also responsible for ‘cover planning’ — in other words putting out false information to act as cover for military operations.4 The DMI advised Liddell that they should submit their questionnaires to the secretary of ISSB, who would provide answers that would not contradict that body’s deception operations.
Liddell was concerned that enquiries might take too long to be answered by this route, but the DMI’s response was that he could always go directly to the individual Directors of Intelligence. In the meantime the W Committee would meet fortnightly to discuss the rumour policy.5
World History
