FROM QUEEN'S SCOUT TO UNDERCOVER COURIER IN MOSCOW THE REAL GERALD BROOKE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01315R000400050001-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 29, 2004
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: July 27, 1969
• Content Type: NSPR

Ro d i c c
G P nt i dC ~
f
/ '
~nl~ '~ Approved For Relea%e2 t 1 WSW ' FN&88-01315R0004000~Q 15 (I t
Yurii Titov a letter and copy of
the 'Gospels'."
It was while Brooke was vis-
iting Konstantino?, a 29-year-old
medical research scientist, that
three plain-clothes Russian secu-
rity men called at the apart-
ment and bundled Brooke away
in a car.
Brooke was later sentenced
for "subversive activities" to a
year in prison and four years in
a labour colony.
How far was Gerald Brooke's
offence "a minor infringement"
which produced "savage penal-
Anyone visiting the house was ties"-tilt line taken by Sir Alec
left in no doubt as to the couple's,' Douglas-Home in the Commons
interests: the rooms seemed to debate last week?
be full of bookshelves, virtually On television Brooke admitted
a library of books in Russiap, that he had been carrying
Bus Ia coding instructions for receiving
ig
t
ds
St
h
b
k
.-.
J? ?a? ,
u
----- But toed: were ot
er
s {{{ - ?
oo
By the CLOSE-UP team
degree in Russian with honours, other languages. Brooke also had a much more close can
r~HE confusion surround-Ile spent a year in Moscow on nection with espionage than.
?anti-Soviet literature" he said.
ing the release last week a British' Council scholarship. 'and Span sh h, German, Italian'
v on did 19th-century By this time, Brooke, like Whether his offence deserved
of Gerald Brooke, the Shef In
afe ree search arch on a 1 tu
! -,,,,, others to the Russian the savage penalty depends on
t
h
pare
i th
s
e
a^???e,
leges, had learned oti the 1v. a. +. ?. ,?,u??r ? ?-
p
h
s r1119Alll:y I1V111U LAVAUe other? Englishmen had high
Soviet prison camp at Pot- grants and were allowed to , (Popular Labour Alliance), t academics the N.T.S. is best
ma, centres on one }(ital about reasonably freely. most active of the many po - known for the material it pub-
question : Was Brooke an in- move Some of the English students tical Russian Gout migr td' groups scat fishes in its literary quarterly,
nocent idealist, or was he found themselves being followed ? novels, tered throughout the world. These short stto o sries and p manuscripts oems,
s,
something much closer to a when they moved about Moscow; It is dedicated to the over- often of the highest literary
espy? strangely enough, this rarely, throw of the Soviet regime and calibre, smiigglcd out of Russia
happened to Brooke. One of to the establishment of a demo- where censorship forbids their.
.- ?. The story of how he be- the things lie particularly en-; cratic system in Russia. publication.
came involved with a Russian joyed during his visit was skiing One lecturer In Russian told "I was assured this was its
anti - Soviet organisation on the outskirts of Moscow. i CLOSE-UP: "I ran up against"main activity," one Russian
throws light on his curious Brooke's year in Moscow ~ the N.T.S. in London when I was teacher told us, " and that it
television confession that he would have made him aware of at the London School of Eta- met with general approval in the
r --a-
ll tit-... rr
a
Was UCIVIng IIALU actiVILies
" Russian life. Every student re-. kinds of Russian friends and In fact the Russian Press takes
{{close to espionage."
.1 a Foreign nn;ra briefing through dinner parties and at ;t for morn seriousl
making 'red
i
y
ve
ce
where he was born on July 152------ in their first week.therel "Nobody ever asked me dir-'secret agents decaR'arted to the
l
th s a
:
man fore J{{,,. ., -
unionist, ws aant. His mfor, a talking among themselves about. courier, but two or three times The N.T.S. has its headquar-
fllr, men who trailed them round during conversations, people ters in Paris and a Swiss bank
hi
d
'
s at
in Brooke
s own wor
s the streets-occasionally so, were obviously waiting for me to 'account fo - contributions. Its
trial, "deprived herself of all the
that it scented as if' offer
ublishin
and
" main
ublicit
bviousl
.
g
y
y
p
P
o
necessities, in , giving him the they wanted to be noticed. Brooke was approached in centre is in Frankfurt, where it.
Marion Brooke, now widowed, "-- '
back fn Britain at Oxford doing and reliability were checked.. It claims thousands of mem-
passed on to her son the a year's Diploma of Education. Someone in the organisation who. bers in the West, particularly.
Methodist ideals of self-better- course. This was followed byl knew him told us: "Gerald was, in the United States and Canada,
ment that were to take him from. three years teaching Russian? never a formal member of the
financed
and terraced house in Pearson and French at Tiele's School,.! N.T.S. He was approached in nd maintains frien ds' that anity is members'
Place, Sheffield, to Oxford and Souham Exeter, actin as Scout'` 1965 by a sympathiser ,in Brit- 'Only by ony
Moscow Universities. ' ' g " contributions. It says that any
master of the school troop. sin:' official C.I.A. A . or government
Brooke's love for "Russia stem-, In April 1962 Brooke returned' In Germany, CLOSE-UP was, money is out of the question.
,mcd from Dr. Walter Chapman; to Sheffield to marry Barbarat given the official N.T.S. version although possibly agencies may
his old headmaster at Firth Park Brown, a night-watchman's of what Brooke was doing for. try to subsidise their activities had ,School his talc tefor lang agessand Inglginevarous Shetfiellnbranciit! ineMoscowawth his wifeaandca d sorsi"the hclp,of "private spon?'
put him into a Russian language libraries and had risen to thee; party of young tourists on April. It claims never to have agreed
class at the school when he wal,post of Senior Assistant in the, 18, 1965. ! to carry out intelligence work,
only 12. - Commerce, Science a d Techno? . Brooke, arrested seven days, and its main work is anti-Soviet
Chapman recalled: "I remem logy section of the city's central after arriving In the Russian propaganda. Two small N.T.S.
ber Gerald well. He was brighti~' libr?ai?y, capital, had gone to Moscow on radio transmitters beam Radio
Intelligent and rather extrovert.', U, They got married at Hanover his own Initiative and his own Free Russia for up to ten hours
Brooke Joined the Scouts;; ! Chapel, a great draughty hall ' money, say the N.T.S. ? daily.
Sheffield's 46th St. Paul's Norton, of a lace now no longer in For ideological reasons he . The. N.T.S. headquarters ? in
Lees troop. By February 1954 uSc,/ said a friend. she wore
agreed to carry out certain
'
'
guests were
s Scout, being
e was a Queen
wh jte, and the h
chosen to attend the Eighth Jam- m work for N.T.S. There were
chose in Canada in 1955? atinly friends from the chapel,' three commissions: , to l post
I ants Gerald s old school . some letters; to give CYuriil
'Ife left home for Lo ill
1956 to take a three-yea tl ~c~~14/ I(il~idddtl10001-5
ive
,
at the London University School1? of the couple, told ,CLOS =JP?;, wore concealed: and ,to .g
of Slavonic and East I/uropcan.
u fl 6 Uui to U11e" ' uMul M
"There is one word that acs.
tribes her perfectly: staunch.
She is a very strong-willed person
Indeed. I have tremendous ad-
miration for her."
From the West Country,
Brooke moved to London, teach-
ing Russian to other school-
teachers at the Holborn College
of Law, Languages and' Com-
merce. His wife took a librarian's
job for the London Borough of
' i Camden.
a house with a garden"in High-