RETIRED SPY CLAIMS COVER-UP IN BRITISH SERVICE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000706940052-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 27, 2010
• Sequence Number: 52
• Publication Date: July 24, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/27: CIA-RDP90-00552R000706940052-0
ARTICLE APPEARED
ON PAGE;=~ BOSTON GLOBE
24 July 1984
Retired spy claims cove~t -up jait
By Steven Erlanger-
Staff
Globe British sei ? ice
LONDON - Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher tried to revive the flagging
spirits of her Conservative Party last
week by stating that as her govern-
ment had steadfastly fought "the en-
emy without" in the Falklands, so it
would fight "the enemy within." which
was just as dangerous to liberty.
Thatcher had in mind the long min-
ers strike and the challenge to her gov-
ernment of the National Union of
Mineworkers, but some who listened to
her thought it an unfortunate turn of
phrase. Only a few days before. a dis-'
gruntled. retired officer of Britain's
counterintelligence service. M15, had
appeared on television to claim that the
service was still covering up the extent
of Soviet penetration.
Peter Wright. a 69-year-old "mole
hunter" for 15 years, broke his oath of
secrecy from his retirement home in
Australia to accuse a former chief of
M15. the late Sir Roger Hollis. of having
been a "long-term Soviet penetration
agent."
Wright said that four inquiries into
Hollis. who ran MI5 from 1956 to 1965
and died in 1973, left him "99 percent
certain. intelligence-wise," that Hollis
was a major Soviet spy.
Wright, who suffers from a heart
condition, said he was prepared to
come to Britain and risk prosecution
under the Official Secrets Act in order
to give evidence of the continuing dam-
age done to Ml5 by its refusal to clean
its own house. He said he has prepared
a 150-page dossier describing M15's fail-
ure to root out Soviet moles, which he
claims includes an unwillingness to
weed out disinformation in its files.
Sir Anthony Kershaw. chairman of
the House of Commons Foreign Affairs
Committee, has called for a close look at
Wright's dossier, saying: "Wright does
seem more solidly based than some of
the characters involved, and I have
some private information." Some Labor
Party members of Parliament are also
expected to press Thatcher this week
for a new investigation.
For years, the gradual exposure of
"Stalin's Englishmen" - most notably
H.A.R. (Kim) Philby, Guy Burgess, Don-
ald Maclean and most recently, in
1979, Sir Anthony Blunt - has capti-
vated Britons but deeply, embarrassed
the security services. M15 is responsible
for counterintelligence and internal se-
curity, and M16 (now known as the Se-
cret Intelligence Service), is responsible
for spying abroad.
The hold such tales of upper-class
betrayal have over Britons is exempli-
fied by the success of John le Carre's
novels, and most recently, the long-run-
ning play, "Another Country," just
turned into a film, that fictionalizes
Burgess' time at Eton. Last year, Brit-
ish television showed a teleplay, "An
Englishman Abroad," that starred
Alan Bates as a lonely Burgess trying to
keep up his standard of life in Soviet
exile.
All are dead except Philby, who lives
in Moscow, but the reverberations of
their collective betrayal continue, so
much so that US intelligence is said to
remain skeptical'oI'the British sei- ices.
Even after the 1979 public exposure
of Blunt, many MIS investigators felt
the trail continued, and pointed to Hol-
lis. Wright, by going public, is only con-
tinuing a 30-year battle within British
intelligence - which began as soon as
Burgess and Maclean fled to Moscow in
1951 - over whether the costs of full in-
vestigation and disclosure outweighed
the damage that would be done by such
a witch-hunt.
For the most part, the "damage-con-
tainment" forces have won, and as late
as 1981, Thatcher told the House of
Commons that Hollis had been thor-
oughly investigated and cleared. But
Wright alleges that Thatcher misled
the Commons, that Hollis did not re-
ceive "a clean bill of health," and that
Thatcher had been "advised by the se-
curity service, who were anxious that
there shouldn't be a high-level indepen-
dent inquiry.... That might drag skele-
tons out of the cupboard."
Hollis was head of MIS in 1963 when
Philby. apparently alerted of his im-
pending arrest by a high-level mole, dis-
appeared from Beirut to re-emerge in
Moscow, where he was later promoted
to general's rank in the KGB.
Wright. who was leading an investi-
gation of Hollis, said Hollis called him
into-his office in 1965 and asked: "Why
do you think I'm a spy'?"
Wright said he summarized the evi-
dence and "pointed out that he was by
far the best suspect. His reply to that
was, 'Peter, you have the manacles on
me.' He said: 'I can only tell you that 1
am not a spy.' I shrugged my shoulders
and that was that."
Hollis was called back for additional
questioning In 1970, and still another
investigation, which Thatcher relied on
in 1981, finally concluded that Hollis
had not been a spy.
Still, in a 1983 book called "The Cir-
cus: M15 Operations 1945-72," which
was only published in uncensored form
in America. Nigel West examines the
Hollis case in significant detail. One of
his important sources, identified only
as "Peter W.," is clearly Wright. West
goes through the Hollis evidence. which
is substantial, though only circumstan-
tial, on both sides.
West draws no conclusion, but sug-
gests an alternative explanation: that
the Soviets may have used Hollis as "an
innocent dupe ... to distract the mole
hunters away from the real culprits."
And MI5's inability positively to
identify its remaining spy, if. indeed
there was one. West suggested. "actual-
ly leaves M15 worse off than other secu-
rity organizations.which have been
penetrated and have recognized the
fact." Without knowing the true extent
of the damage. there can be no confi-
dence in "damage-control assess-
ments."
That is Peter Wright's concern, too.
"I have spent the best years of my life
trying to defend the security of my
country." he says. "I have spent many
years trying to get this [Hollis case;
looked into. I did this while I was in the
service and since. Nov. I am prepared to
go public."
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/27: CIA-RDP90-00552R000706940052-0