Letters

Espionage Secrets

SIR: Harry Gelber’s reflections (May 2010) on the constraints under which Christopher Andrew and his publisher operated in writing the authorised history of MI5, as well as his reflections on the possibility that the British government ran “double cross” intelligence operations against the USSR during the Second World War, are an interesting line of speculation. They prompt three questions, however. (1) Why would a serious historian agree to write an authorised history that, sixty-five years after the end of the Second World War, omitted such significant facts? (2) Can such speculation do anything to deflect the thoroughly documented fact of massive Soviet hostile penetration of Britain at that time? (3) If Christopher Andrew had any reason to believe that he was being denied access to crucial materials regarding Roger Hollis (or some other Soviet mole in MI5), why would he not have protested at this, as one would expect from an historian of stature and…