Christopher Andrew: The Sword and the Shield

8 John Symonds (interviewed by David Rose), “I told you I was a spy,” Guardian (G2) , September 14, 1999. Cf. below, pp. 559-63.

9 Interview with Oleg Kalugin on ABC Nightline , September 9, 1999.

10 ABC News report by John McWethy, September 9, 1999.

11 New York Post , 7 November 1999. Philadelphia Daily News , 8 November 1999.

12 For a selection of Italian newspaper articles, see: Dossier Stampa: L’Affare Mitrokhin (Rome: Camera dei Deputati, Ufficia Stampa, October 22, 1999). Some of the IMPEDIAN reports are published in the Italian edition of The Mitrokhin Archive: L’Archivio Mitrokhin (Milan: Rizzoli, 1999), Appendix F.

13 Intelligence and Security Committee, The Mitrokhin Inquiry Report , pp. 48, 52-5.

14 In 1963, after a long investigation had failed to find enough usable evidence to secure a conviction, the Soviet spy Sir Anthony Blunt had been offered immunity from prosecution in return for a full confession (not a bargain he seems to have completely honoured). It was later alleged, on no adequate evidence, that the real reason for the decision not to prosecute had been an establishment or MI5 coverup.

15 In stating this conclusion, I should perhaps declare an interest. Since the late 1970s I had argued the case for the establishment of a parliamentary intelligence committee with roughly the role of the present Intelligence and Security Committee. (See, for example, the introduction to Andrew and Dilks [eds.], Missing Dimension , and the conclusion to Andrew, Secret Service .) The proposal was initially given a frosty reception in Whitehall.

16 Intelligence and Security Committee, The Mitrokhin Inquiry Report , p. 12.

17 Intelligence and Security Committee, The Mitrokhin Inquiry Report , p. 69.

18 See below, p. 168. It is difficult to see how Mrs. Norwood could have provided atomic intelligence of such “great value” in March 1945 if, as claimed by Phillip Knightley, she did not return to work in the British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association (BN-FMRA) after extended maternity leave until 1946 (Knightley, “Norwood: the spy who never was,” New Statesman , December 13, 1999). MI5 evidence to the ISC confirms that in 1945 Mrs. Norwood was secretary to the Chairman of the BN-FMRA (Intelligence and Security Committee, The Mitrokhin Inquiry Report , p. 67).

19 This is the view of a government scientist who prefers not to be identified. Precise details of the atomic intelligence provided by Mrs. Norwood are unavailable. Not until they have been carefully analyzed and compared with the other atomic intelligence obtained by Soviet intelligence will it be possible to form a final judgement on the importance of her role as an atom spy. Atomic intelligence provided by Mrs. Norwood after 1945 was irrelevant to the construction of the Soviet bomb which, thanks chiefly to Hall and Fuchs, was an exact replica of the American — not the British — bomb. It remained, however, of some significance. Probably the most important secret in post-war Britain — a secret so sensitive that Prime Minister Clement Attlee withheld it from most of his cabinet — concerned the construction of the British atomic bomb. Mrs. Norwood’s intelligence must have provided some insight into the highly classified progress of British atomic scientists. (See below, pp. 518-19.)

20 According to a file noted by Mitrokhin (vol. 7, ch. 2, item 19), up to November 1944 the NKGB obtained 1,167 documents on “nuclear secrets” from the USA and UK. Of these 88 from the USA and 79 from the UK were rated as “very valuable.” Mitrokhin’s notes contain no similar statistics for the period after November 1944. Further atomic intelligence was received from the GRU.

21 See below, pp. 550-53, 567-8.

22 In 1992, while head of Line X (ST) at the Paris residency, Oshchenko defected to Britain, where he now lives.

23 Intelligence and Security Committee, The Mitrokhin Inquiry Report , pp. 13, 20, 26.

24 Intelligence and Security Committee, The Mitrokhin Inquiry Report , p. 4.

25 Intelligence and Security Committee, The Mitrokhin Inquiry Report , pp. 4, 16. The government’s response welcomed the ISC’s endorsement.

26 Intelligence and Security Committee, The Mitrokhin Inquiry Report , p. 4.

27 See below, pp. 13-14.

28 See below, pp. 429-30.

29 See below, pp. 418-19.

30 Intelligence and Security Committee, The Mitrokhin Inquiry Report , p. 4.

31 See below, p. 25.

32 The KGB had similarly sought to discredit Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB: The Inside Story , after its publication in 1990, by claiming that its best-publicized revelation — the identification of John Cairncross as the “Fifth Man” and the first agent to provide warning of plans to build the atomic bomb — was wrong. The SVR now acknowledges that the identification was correct on both counts.

33 In devising this ill-advised active measure, Department MS may have been encouraged by the fact that two somewhat similar suggestions had surfaced independently in the Western media. A writer in Le Monde had suggested that “…The Mitrokhin archive operation was organized in Moscow either by an undisciplined Stalinist faction in the KGB or by the provisional leadership of the [intelligence] agencies between November 1991 and February 1992.” (“Voyages en mémoire soviétique,” Le Monde , November 5, 1999.) In her review of The Mitrokhin Archive in The Times Literary Supplement (November 26, 1999), Dr. Amy Knight also could not “help but wonder whether [Mitrokhin] had a little help from his former employers in making known the KGB’s archival secrets.” “This,” she added, “is by no means a farfetched suggestion.” Dr. Knight’s earlier review of my book with Oleg Gordievsky, KGB: The Inside Story , had included the eccentric suggestion that I might not have written the lengthy introduction ( TLS , December 7, 1990). My own review of Dr. Knight’s book, Spies Without Cloaks , makes clear my respect for her research on Russian intelligence. There is, however, occasionally a mild element of conspiracy theory in her work — as evidenced, for example, by her suggestion in Spies Without Cloaks that Gorbachev was complicit in the attempted coup against him in August 1991.