Christopher Andrew - The Sword and the Shield

35. vol. 7, ch. 9.

36. Paillole, Notre espion chez Hitler, p. 132. Which side provided what is generally unclear. Mitrokhin’s notes, however, record that OREL (Bertrand) handed Reiss a new Italian cipher in November 1933.

37. vol. 7, ch. 9, para. 18. The decision to award Bystroletov his inscribed rifle is recorded in KGB files as order no. 1042 of September 17, 1932.

38. The date of Oldham’s resignation is given in his “Statement of Services” in the 1933 Foreign Office List.

39. vol. 7, ch. 9.

40. vol. 7, ch. 11, para. 56.

41. vol. 7, ch. 9.

42. Foreign Office List, 1934. Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, p. 196.

43. vol. 7, ch. 9.

44. See below, chapter 3.

45. vol. 7, ch. 9.

46. Foreign Office List, 1934. Oake’s “Statement of Services” underlined his humble position. Whereas such statements for established staff gave full name, date of birth and a career summary, those for “temporary clerks” such as Oake gave only surname, initials and date of entry into the Foreign Office.

47. vol. 7, ch. 9, para. 20.

48. Foreign Office List, 1934.

49. Cornelissen, De GPOe op de Overtoom, pp. 156-7.

50. vol. 7, ch. 9, para. 22. King may or may not have believed Pieck’s story that the money he received for his documents came from a Dutch banker anxious for inside information on international relations; Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, p. 197.

51. West and Tsarev, The Crown Jewels, p. 94.

52. vol. 7, ch. 14, item 1; k-4,200.

53. Agabekov, OGPU, pp. 151-2, 204, 237-40.

54. vol. 7, ch. 14, item 1; k-4,200. Akselrod had previously used an Austrian passport in the name of “Friedrich Keil” (Agabekov, OGPU, pp. 240-2) and may well have used the same false identity in Italy. Significantly, the SVR version of Akselrod’s early career omits all mention of his membership of Poale Zion. The KGB tradition that Soviet intelligence heroes were untainted by Zionism appears to be preserved by SVR historians. Primakov et al., Ocherki Istorii Rossiyskoi Vneshnei Razvedki, vol. 3, pp. 158-9.

55. Primakov et al., Ocherki Istorii Rossiyskoi Vneshnei Razvedki, vol. 3, ch. 13. The original text of the Foreign Office records of the talks with Hitler, Litvinov, Beck, Benes and Mussolini are published in Medlicott et al. (eds.), Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919-1939, 2nd series, vol. 12, pp. 703-46, 771-91, 803-10, 812-17; vol. 13, pp. 477-84; vol. 14, pp. 329-33. The version of the record of Simon’s and Eden’s talks with Hitler given to Stalin consisted of translated extracts rather than the full Foreign Office document. The same probably applies to the records given to Stalin of Eden’s talks with Litvinov, Beck, Benes and Mussolini, which are not yet accessible.

56. Constantini may well not have been the only source for the document. The Foreign Office record of Simon’s and Eden’s talks with Hitler, also in March 1935, was provided by both King and Constantini.

57. Eden’s meeting with Stalin took place in the Kremlin on March 30, 1935, following his talks with Litvinov during the previous two days. His telegram on the talks to the Foreign Office records that a copy was sent to the Rome embassy. Medlicott et al. (eds.), Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1919-1939, 2nd series, vol. 12, pp. 766-9.

58. Medlicott et al. (eds.), Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1919-1939, 2nd series, vol. 12, p. 820.

59. On Eden’s policy on the Soviet Union and collective security, see Carlton, Anthony Eden, p. 63.

60. See below, chapter 3.

61. The report by a committee headed by Sir John Maffey concluded that British interests in and around Ethiopia were not sufficient to justify opposition to Italian conquest. Mussolini’s decision to publish it in February 1936, at a time when the British government was considering oil sanctions against Italy, caused predictable embarrassment in the Foreign Office. Dilks, “Flashes of Intelligence,” pp. 107-8. Andrew, Secret Service, pp. 567-8. There is no mention of the Italian publication of the Maffey report in the two accounts of Constantini’s career based on authorized access to selected material from his file: West and Tsarev, The Crown Jewels, ch. 5; Primakov et al., Ocherki Istorii Rossiyskoi Vneshnei Razvedki, vol. 3, ch. 13.

62. According to Mitrokhin’s notes on KGB files, Francesco Constantini lost his job at the British embassy in 1936 (vol. 7, ch. 14, item 1). The current SVR version of his career claims that Constantini was sacked in 1931. (West and Tsarev, The Crown Jewels, ch. 5; Primakov et al., Ocherki Istorii Rossiyskoi Vneshnei Razvedki, vol. 3, ch. 13.) In Mitrokhin’s notes Constantini’s codename appears as DUDLEN—probably an error of transcription for DUDLEY.

63. Andrew, Secret Service, pp. 568-9.

64. [Valentine Vivian], “Report on Measures to Enhance the Security of Documents, etc., in H. M. Embassy, Rome (February 20, 1937), PRO FO 850/2 Y775. This report, though not its authorship, was first revealed in Dilks, “Flashes of Intelligence,” pp. 107ff. On Vivian’s investigation in Rome and his authorship of this report, see Andrew, Secret Service, pp. 568-71, 771 n. 102.

65. Andrew, Secret Service, pp. 571-2.

66. Interview by Christopher Andrew with Lord Gladwyn (who, as Gladwyn Jebb, had served at the Rome embassy in the years up to the Ethiopian war), broadcast on Timewatch, BBC2 (July 10, 1984).

67. Andrew, Secret Service, p. 572.

68. The exact nature of the Centre’s confused suspicions about Francesco Constantini at the height of the Great Terror in 1937 are unclear. Mitrokhin’s one-sentence summary of the suspicions recorded in DUNCAN’s file reads as follows: “He was in contact with the OVRA [Italian intelligence], was engaged in extortion, and the documents were probably supplied by the Special [intelligence] Services” (vol. 7, ch. 14, item 1. Cf. West and Tsarev, The Crown Jewels, ch. 5; Primakov et al., Ocherki Istorii Rossiyskoi Vneshnei Razvedki, vol. 3, ch. 13).

69. “Mrs. Petrov’s Statement Concerning Her Past Intelligence Work” (May 15, 1954), CRS A6283/XR1/14, Petrov papers, Australian Archives, Canberra.

70. As chairman of the Petrograd Cheka, Boky reported on October 15, 1918 that 800 individuals had been shot and 6,229 arrested. k-9,218.

71. Petrovs, Empire of Fear, pp. 129-31.

72. vol. 7, ch. 1, para. 13.

73. An official Soviet collection of intelligence documents for the period 1938 to 1941 includes a limited and far from comprehensive selection of (mainly German, Italian, Japanese and Turkish) intercepts; Stepashin et al. (eds.), Organy Gosudarstvennoi Bezopastnosti SSSR v Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voine: Sbornik Dokumentov, vols. 1 and 2.

74. Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, pp. 237-42.

75. British interwar codebreakers were able to break all French diplomatic ciphers until 1935 (Andrew, Secret Service, p. 375). Given the classified French diplomatic cipher material supplied to Bystroletov by LAROCHE, it is barely conceivable that Boky’s unit was entirely defeated by French diplomatic traffic.

76. Degras (ed.), Documents on Soviet Foreign Policy, vol. 3, p. 224. Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, pp. 194-5. Though unusual, such public allusions to codebreaking were not unknown between the wars. In the 1920s, two British foreign secretaries and several other ministers had referred publicly to British success in breaking Soviet codes. Andrew, Secret Service, chs. 9, 10.