Double cross
MI5's performance in running a stable of double agents during the Second World War is still regarded as a textbook example of how such operations should be conducted.
'MI5 established a secret detection centre at Ham Common in which suspects could be isolated and interrogated.'
The first agent to be recruited was the Welshman Arthur Owens who was arrested upon the outbreak of war because he was known to have been in contact with the German intelligence service. As the proprietor of a battery company he had often visited the Kiel shipyards, and had reported his observations to SIS. Unfortunately, as a mail intercept revealed, he was also in touch with the Abwehr, and this led to his detection.
While in custody Owens volunteered the fact that he had been entrusted with a wireless, and offered to make radio contact with the enemy under MI5's control. This unpromising beginning was to lead to a tremendous cryptographic breakthrough, because his hand ciphers were subsequently encrypted on the Abwehr's Enigma circuits, and he was also able to supply advance warning of the arrival in 1940 of several agents who were parachuted in Britain.
Two of these, codenamed 'Summer' and 'Tate', were to become important double agents. Indeed, 'Tate' was to continue his link with Hamburg from his arrival in September 1940 until the very last day of the war.
Through Owens, MI5 was able to acquire clues to the existence of other Abwehr spies, and provide suitably doctored documentation for future arrivals. Each individual was assigned a case officer from a specialist section within the counter-espionage branch to monitor every aspect of the agents' handling. A small inter-agency committee was created to liaise with other interested departments, especially to cope with the thorny issue of precisely what information could safely be conveyed to the enemy.
By January 1941 the system had been institutionalised under the supervision of the Double Cross Committee, under the chairmanship of an Oxford don, (Sir) John Masterman, and the number of double agents began to expand. Owens, who had outlived his usefulness and was considered unreliable, was incarcerated in prison, while MI5 established a secret detection centre at Ham Common in which suspects could be isolated and interrogated.
Published: 2001-07-01
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