M15 may have been out of control—former P.M.

Press, 16 September 1987, Page 10

M15 may have been out of control—former P.M.

NZPA-PA London Lord Callaghan said yesterday in the wake of recent allegations about MIS, that he was no longer confident he had been fully in control of the secret services as Prime Minister. “I felt at the time that I was. I don’t feel so confident now,” he said in a live television interview. “I don’t think that anything was deliberately concealed from me. I think I did not inquire probably as much as I should have done, as much as I could have done in the light of some of the things that have appeared since I left office eight years ago.” Speaking on the 8.8.C.’s “State of Secrecy” programme, Lord Callaghan refused to comment on allegations in Peter Wright’s “Spycatcher” book.

But he did say that not all those asked to take part in his investigations in 1977 into allegations of a plot to bring down the Wilson Government came forward.

“They didn’t come for-

ward then. I wonder why they have come forward now,” he said.

He advocated the setting up of what he called an “oversight” committee.

But he conceded that it was impossible to legislate against a group of “disaffected people” within the secret services.

They would carry on until they were found out, “if indeed they ever are found out.” He also clashed with his former Home Secretary, Merlyn Rees, over whether he had acquiesced to lawbreaking by MIS. Mr Rees admitted on the programme that as Home Secretary he had agreed to MIS breaking the law.

“The Home Secretary is responsible for M 15,” he said.

“He is responsible for their actions. But MIS are not covered in law, they don’t exist and many of the things that they have to do — a breakin for example — is illegal. “The Home Secretary depends on them to do this. He is acquiescing in the breaking of the law.”