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 integrity?

Since the appearance of my essay in Quadrant in April, I have re-read Andrew’s account of the case and have exchanged e-mails with a number of overseas specialists in these matters. It seems clear that Andrew believes that Hollis is innocent, because the Soviet mole Elli was in fact Leo Long. Gouzenko, he claims, misunderstood the identity of Elli, because the GRU had approached Long in 1943, unaware that he already worked for the KGB (or NKGB, as it was then called), and had been warned off by the latter. Having accepted this line of reasoning from Oleg Gordievsky many years ago, Andrew saw no need to revisit the matter in writing his book. The problem with his conclusion, however, is that we now know from declassified KGB files that Long’s codename was not Elli at all, but Ralph. Moreover, according to Alexander Vassiliev, Vsevelod Merkulov informed Beria and Stalin in a personal memo in late 1945 that Gouzenko had betrayed “the GRU mole in MI5 codenamed Elli”. If Vassiliev is correct, the Andrew–Gordievsky hypothesis stands refuted. There was a GRU mole still operating inside MI5 in 1945—who was never uncovered, despite Gouzenko’s warning, and who, clearly, was not Leo Long.

Whatever possible double-cross ingenuities MI5 or the War Office may have run against the USSR during the war, it is clear that the Elli case remains unsolved. Hollis has long been the prime suspect as far as professional intelligence officers are concerned. That MI5 should still place restrictions on documentation pertaining to Hollis is surely unacceptable in these circumstances.

I am pleased at the response my review of Andrew’s book has received from overseas. But I had hoped to find in the authorised history a systematic and revealing refutation of the charges against Hollis and was taken aback to discover no such thing. However, the case remains unproven and the key to good investigation, apart from insisting on declassification of appropriate records, is the attempt to eliminate errors of fact and reasoning. I hope Christopher Andrew will join in this effort, rather than wave it away as a “paranoid conspiracy theory”.

Finally, as regards the matter of the Mitrokhin documents in Australia, I cannot agree with Harry Gelber that withholding them can be justified in the case of Australia when so much has been published regarding many other countries. Those who betrayed this country during the Cold War surely do not deserve to be given the protection of anonymity when so many of their foreign counterparts have been named. No one has been lynched in the light of these revelations, but at least we stand better informed. As for current systems and practices, how can we have any confidence in them while serious doubts remain as to their integrity during the Cold War? We face a growing challenge from Chinese espionage, under conditions in which the Chinese Communist Party enjoys extraordinary advantages. Perhaps it’s time to show that those who betray their country will, sooner or later, stand accused and dishonoured.

Paul Monk,

Melbourne, Vic.

Historical Research

SIR: Your article “Manne Avoids the Real Debate” (May 2010) poses the question: What is historical research? Our father (the late Bede Nairn) used to tell us that it was the most difficult and exacting research that you could do. You had to make sure you had found and reviewed all of the available research documents, especially the things that negated your ideas, not just the bits that supported your thesis. I decided to become an accountant because I knew I could never sit still long enough.

Now we know and accept that you can never find all the primary documents—they might be missing, destroyed or illusory. Also they are open to interpretation. However, I am prepared to accept that Keith Windschuttle has had a fair go at it and his detractors have not. And I now understand the term “ad hominem”. Not bad for a CPA!

This then poses the next question about the social sciences in universities. I remember not so long ago when two senior physical science academics, one from Monash and one from Deakin, were sacked for poor research. Now over the years there has been a lot of discussion in Quadrant about the “dumbing down” of university education. By implication the finger has always been pointed at the former CAEs sneeringly referred to as “Dawkins universities”. Yet it seems to me that the current incomplete historical research emanates from any but these newer universities, for example, Melbourne and the ANU.

I am also reminded that some “great” figure in history (was it Mao, Hitler or Stalin?) said if you are going to lie make sure it is a Big Lie.

All history needs to be revealed for all sorts of reasons, be it good, bad or ugly. We don’t want or need fairy stories masquerading as historical research. We don’t fear the truth.

Where does this leave all of us with the famous Apology?

Roger Nairn,

North Melbourne, Vic.

Beauty Defiled

SIR: If any Quadrant reader had doubts about the veracity of A.G. Evans’s article on modern architecture (May 2010) they should visit Marysville, Victoria, which was destroyed by the fire storm of February 7, 2009, with the loss of more than forty lives, and which is now very slowly recovering from that disaster.

Two new government buildings are near completion. One is an information centre, located in the heart of the main street. The other is a primary school, just a few metres from the village centre. Both of these buildings display all the horrors described by A.G. Evans. They are universally detested by the local community, and they symbolise all that is wrong with attempts by government authorities to impose a postmodern architecture on a town that grew organically, over a century, into one of the most beautiful mountain villages in Australia.

Ray Evans,

Newport, Vic.

Resisting Arts Vandalism

SIR: Heinrich Heine famously observed that “those who start out by burning books finish up burning people”. His words could legitimately be paraphrased as “those who start out by trampling on books finish up trampling on people”.

The disinclination of patrons to walk over Keith Windschuttle’s pages in Julie Gough’s “installation” Forcefield (as recounted by William Briggs, Letters, May 2010) suggests that the general public is more resistant to mindless, obscurantist vandalism than the arts community might like to imagine.

Bill James,

Bayswater, Vic.

Faith and Hope

SIR: Not being a philosopher or Sydneysider, I don’t know what if any were Professor Anderson’s religious beliefs. But I was disappointed that David Barnett (May 2010) seemed to claim an Andersonian authority for his snipe at religious belief. Anderson would surely have been disappointed with the effort.

Of course, religious belief is a matter of faith. But then so, perhaps even more so, is true atheism. The true atheist who asserts that there is no God is asserting the unprovable. After all, Thomas Aquinas set out what he argued were fourteen proofs for the existence of God. Don’t ask me what they are; my faith is sufficient for me for now. But the true atheist cannot go even that far.

Barnett gives the game away with his mockery of various religious beliefs, but these are superficialities, although he seems to suggest that the act of faith demands some specific beliefs or practices, as with Hillsong or the creationists. And holding up Kerry Packer as an authority on the absence of an afterlife is a bit rich. After all, Packer did not die in any permanent sense on the occasion to which Barnett refers.

The reality is that the Dawkinses, Hitchenses and Barnetts of this world are not atheists but agnostics, defined in my Concise Oxford as “One who holds that nothing is known, or likely to be known, of the existence of a God or of anything beyond material phenomena” (my emphasis). They seem to lack not only faith but also hope that their lives have any real meaning. Intellectual honesty would seem to demand that they continue searching.

Michael O’Connor,

Gisborne, Vic.

Defending to the Death

SIR: Reference the letter from George Fairbanks (March 2010). The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Quotations (edited by Peter Kemp), page 34, reads as follows: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” The words are in fact S.C. Tallentyre’s summary, in The Friends of Voltaire (1907).

I find myself in agreement with Peter Coleman (October 2009) that the quotation per se is “inspirational” if not a trifle theatrical, but intended to convey, no more, no less, a powerful message.

John Thomson,

Winthrop, WA.