PAPERS BREAK SILENCE

Press, Volume C, Issue 29508, 9 May 1961, Page 15

PAPERS BREAK SILENCE

Work Of British Spy Revealed (U.Z. Press Association— Copyright) LONDON, May 8. Britain’s intelligence system has suffered a crippling blow through the work of a master spy, it was claimed today by one of three British newspapers breaking the secrecy surrounding the case of the Government employee, George Blake, who was sentenced to 42 years’ imprisonment last week for spying for Russia. Quoting their own sources and foreign press reports, the newspapers—the “Daily Telegraph,” the “Daily Express” and the “Daily Mail”—revealed that: Blake was a member of M. 1.6, the top-secret military service. His work had betrayed almost the whole of Britain’s intelligence network in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

The three of British agents may be in danger. Government . policy secrets based on Foreign Office files have been handed to the Russians. Incoming reports from British agents could not now be taken at face value, for they might be receiving false information. The intelligence networks in the Middle East and Eastern Europe will nowhave to be dismantled and practically rebuilt.

Britain, said the newspapers, was now without a reliable intelligence system.

The newspaper forecast that the Prime Minister (Mr Macmillan* would face a storm in the House of Commons this week.

The ‘‘Daily Telegraph" report said: “Intelligence officers are advising the Governme(t. that incoming reports Tftmnot be taken at face value. It is feared that the Russians may be allowing some of the agents betrayed to them to remain free, so that they can be fed with false information for transmission to London. “Warnings have been sent to all British intelligence circuits in Europe and the Middle East, and many agents are being recalled. “Crippling Blow”

“Britain’s intelligence system in East Germany, the Middle East and Iron Curtain countries will have to be practically rebuilt and many agents at present in the held must be recalled. This crippling blow to Britain's security is doubly damaging at a time of increasing Russian infiltration of Britain and the West.

‘‘Reports reaching Britain from Germany during the week-end say that six British agents have been arrested so far. The reports are thought to be Soviet-inspired.

“Blake has jeopardised the life of every agent and intelligence contact known to him through Foreign Office files. ’ it said. M. 1.6 now faced three immediate problems.

It had no means of knowing which agents were in imminent danger of arrest.

It feared the havoc that could be caused by even one trapped agent capitulating to Communist threats. It could not be sure that the Russians were not allowing some spies who had been betrayed to them already to go free, so that false information could be sent back to London. "Danger in Existence" “Britain is therefore without a reliable intelligence system at a time when accurate reports from the East are of great importance. The very organisation now endangers national security. The hapless position of those agents betrayed by Blake is causing extreme concern.

“A mass round-up of British intelligence officers and their contacts by the Soviet bloc could give Russia the chance for a show trial to overshadow that of Captain Powers, the American pilot of the U-2 ‘spy plane.’ "Whether Russia will decide on a purge of this scale is hourly in the balance. But me inwhile every agent who stays at his post is risking death," the “Daily Telegraph" said. Born in Holland The “Daily Telegraph” said that Blake entered the British intelligence during the war while he was working under an assumed name on a Dutch farm. (It was revealed last week that Blake was born in Rotterdam of a Dutch mother and a British father.)

The British agent who recruited him had found him bold and resourceful, and when Blake escaped to Britain he was commissioned into the Royal Navy and later taught the background of intelligence. His tutor was the agent who found him in Holland.

Blake had passed every scrutiny, and it was as a Government - sponsored undergraduate that he went to Cambridge to learn Russian. The closer a man destined for intelligence against Russia could be brought to the Iron Curtain the better. So after his release from a Communist prison camp in Korea he was sent to Berlin. In Berlin he had a cover appointment in the administrative organisation, but •in fact was a member of the Foreign Office intelligence staff, said the “Daily Telegraph " He made frequent trips into East Berlin, but anyone who showed interest in these trips was discreetly discouraged “Unwittinelv our

own intelligence officers were Blake's principal guarantee against discovery," said the newspaper. Questions for Premier In the “Daily Express," Chapman Pincher said that Mr Macmillan would be asked in Parliament whether Blake was really a renegade British agent who spied for Russia for nine years while the British secret service chiefs believed he was spying for them. He would also be asked, Pincher said, “If Blake has given away the names of other British agents operating behind the Iron Curtain, and if, as a result, some have been arrested by the Russians."

“Some M.P.’s suspect that Mr Khrushchev’s surprise introduction of the death penalty for espionage this week-end may be connected with the Blake case." Pincher said. “If these assertions are confirmed it will mean that a vital section of the British espionage network behind the Iron Curtain has been liquidated,” he said.

The “Daily Mail" said Blake was reported to have passed to the Russians top secret files, including papers covering British policy on Berlin.

“If so,” it said, “this could account for some uncanny instances of diplomatic skill by the Russians during the Berlin crisis last year.” The “Daily Express” said Blake had the closest association with. Foreign Office intelligence. It had not mentioned this in previous reports of the case because of a request by the national security authorities. New York Story

The “Daily Mail” quoted the international edition of the “New York Times." published in Paris, as saying that

Blake was either a member of or in close contact with M. 1.6.

“Blake apparently penetrated M. 1.6 while he was stationed in West Berlin with the British Military Government,’’ said the international edition. The American edition of the newspaper had elaborated, said the “Daily Mail.” It had revealed speculation that Blake had revealed the make-up of British intelligence forces.

“It was recalled that in 1959, while Blake was in Berlin. several British agents were caught by the East Germans." said the New York newspaper. Confidential talks on the Blake case between Government and Opposition Privy Councillors (the Queen’s senior advisers), announced by Mr Macmillan last week, will probably be held on Wednesday. The Labour Party leader (Mr Gaitskell) will tell his “shadow Cabinet” that he regards these talks as a preliminary step towards a “high-level independent inquiry” into Government security in general.