Too Secret Too Long, page 76
It so happened, however, that the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee had set up a study group to look into the security services and this had already started work in July 1979. The membership included Michael Foot. Its long deliberations were published as a Labour Party discussion document in March 1983, shortly before the general election, and it contained some surprising statements about Hollis, suggesting that the Committee was far from satisfied with the Prime Minister’s statement about him.[1]
The document’s introduction stated, ‘We have also taken note of the growing evidence of espionage cases covered up by the authorities – the most serious of which, concerning Sir Roger Hollis, the former Director-General of the Security Service itself, suggests that much of Britain’s security efforts may have been in vain.’ A few pages further on, under the heading ‘The Security Service (MI5)’, the document stated, ‘Recently the Prime Minister revealed during a Parliamentary debate that a former Director-General of MI5, Sir Roger Hollis, had been inconclusively investigated as a suspected K.G.B. double agent. Although this required a year-long investigation by former cabinet secretary, Sir Burke Trend, the enquiry was entirely covered up – despite the devastating implications for British security as far as foreign powers are concerned.’ The investigations had, of course, continued for at least nine years, and still continue, but the Labour Party document clearly disassociated itself from the Prime Minister’s assurances’, to which Foot had subscribed, on three counts: the inquiry into Hollis had been inconclusive; it had not been a routine matter to eliminate him from a general investigation; and it had been deliberately covered up.
I have tried to establish whether or not the Committee had access to any new information about the Hollis case and believe that they did not. The conclusions seem to have been reached mainly on the evidence supplied by my book and by other investigators covering the same field.[2]
The main purpose of the Labour Party’s report, entitled Freedom and the Security Services, however, was to show the party faithful and the electorate in general what a Labour Government intended to do to bring the secret services under very firm legal control with an extreme degree of accountability to Parliament.
Under existing arrangements responsibility for MI5 rests with the Home Secretary, while the Foreign Secretary answers for MI6 and G.C.H.Q., with the Prime Minister intruding, when necessary, on specially important issues. They can call in the heads of the secret services if they wish but the extent to which they do so depends very much on the interest that the Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary choose to take in secret affairs. There has to be some liaison because their permission is required for certain operations, but the regular channel between the secret services and ministers is the Cabinet Secretary, who is the chief accounting officer for them. In this function he is assisted by a committee of high-level civil servants, which he chairs, and by a Co-ordinator of Intelligence, currently Sir Anthony Duff, located in the Cabinet Office. There are also secret committees chaired by the Prime Minister.
In response to any Parliamentary demand for a more effective system of supervision, reigning governments always claim that existing arrangements are adequate but nobody is really tasked to know what the secret services are doing and Cabinet secretaries are told no more than the secret service chiefs are prepared to tell them. There is, in fact, no effective oversight, for the Cabinet Secretary has far too many other responsibilities and the Co-ordinator is more concerned with the ‘products’ – the results of intelligence and security operations – than with processes. The knowledge available to ministers – and therefore to Parliament – is severely limited by the system, which has allowed the secret services to consume so much of their own smoke that, on occasions, they have been able to conceal the fact that there has been a fire.
The extent to which Parliament has accepted the reluctance of successive governments to inform them about secret service matters does little credit to M.P.s or peers, and very senior civil servants whom I have questioned have expressed astonishment at Parliament’s passivity, though grateful for it when they were involved in secret affairs. For years Parliament has put up with a ‘blocking arrangement’ agreed to by ministers early in the life of a Parliament whereby the clerks are precluded from accepting many questions on security and intelligence issues.[3] Severe limitations are also imposed by the Speaker in his interpretation of custom and privilege. In January 1983, however, the giant stirred when a report of the Commons Liaison Committee courageously pointed out that existing select committees had the power to examine the work of the secret services and should do so because they would then become more accountable to Parliament and the committees’ inquiries would be a spur to efficiency.[4] As expected, the Government scowled, but in my view, and that of very senior mandarins, some degree of oversight is inevitable, not only because of the growing demand for more open Government, especially since the Bettaney case, but because its advantages far outweigh its drawbacks. The potential advantages accrue in three areas: to the secret services themselves; to ministers; and to Parliament and the public.
Much would depend on the degree of oversight and the powers accorded to the oversight body, particularly regarding the thorny issue of access to information about operations, but the case evidence presented in this book supports the belief that effective oversight would improve the general efficiency and competence of the services. The size of the services is, rightly, held secret and a body with on-going experience and some permanent professional staff could help to ensure that they are large enough for their tasks and do not become too large. There is private argument, for instance, whether MI5 is big enough to cope with the threat from what Macmillan called ‘the great hostile machine’ of Soviet bloc espionage in view of its recently increased role in combating terrorism in Ulster and elsewhere. An independent oversight body could be helpful in assuring governments, which tend to oppose expansion of MI5 for fear of being accused of running a ‘secret police’, that some increase is genuinely needed.
An oversight body could also play a constructive role in establishing adequate salaries, fringe benefits and career prospects, including trasfer to other Government departments for individuals whose cover has been broken or who are worn out by stress. While there has been frequent interchange between MI6 and the Foreign Office, it is now more limited and several officers have been only too happy to take jobs as clerks in the Parliamentary infrastructure. Salary scales and other factors governing recruitment are currently controlled by Treasury requirements which must conform to Civil Service scales and practice. It would seem to be significant that MI6, which has always paid better salaries than MI5, has consistently been able to attract better talent.
It seems doubtful that the cost-effectiveness of the secret services has ever been studied except, in a modest way, by the services themselves. The ‘customers’ – the various Government departments served by the secret services – tend to insist that they need everything that can be discovered instead of stipulating particular products and this has led to unnecessary extravagance. If they had to pay for their products out of their own votes, departments might be more selective. An oversight body might be empowered to keep an eye on cost-effectiveness.
There can be little doubt that incompetence on a scale which, one hopes, would not have been tolerated in other Government departments has flourished in the secret services. It should be possible to retire an incompetent chief early, but when a department is immune to oversight it is difficult to discern such a situation until a damaging scandal, like the Crabb affair, brings it to notice. One of the most disturbing results of my inquiries is the extent to which former officers criticize the secret services and individual managers after they have retired and feel free to talk. There might, perhaps, be some process whereby the oversight body could function as an ombudsman for the secret services so that glaring evidence of incompetence or suspected treachery could be reported to it in writing and in confidence. Interviews with the complainants should enable the oversight body to distinguish between those genuinely concerned and those with grudges. It was certainly wrong that de Mowbray could secure a review of the Hollis case only by knocking on the door of Number 10 Downing Street.
With access to secret service officers other than those belonging to the senior management an oversight body could check on the state of morale, which is normally hidden through the blanket ruling that staff are forbidden to speak to anyone outside about any aspect of their work. MI5, MI6 and G.C.H.Q. are big bureaucracies where morale is a crucial component of efficiency, and much depends on leadership. Few of the staff in MI5 knew Hollis or believed that he had any interest in them, yet this was quite unknown to the governments of his day.
Recently the Franks Committee on the Falklands conflict was given oversight facilities which enabled it to draw the Government’s attention to deficiencies in the intelligence system which might otherwise have continued.[5] Substantial changes were made as a consequence, providing further proof that when independent oversight is permitted shortcomings in the secret services are, almost invariably, revealed. An oversight body would provide such valuable surveillance on a continuing basis. It could also ensure that improvements to security procedures, such as those recommended by the Security Commission, have really been put into effect, for the Security Commission has no right of follow-up. Currently ministers assure Parliament that improvements are being practised but they have only the word of the secret services themselves and, with regard to positive vetting for example, spy cases have revealed some disregard of them.
The case evidence suggests that the mere existence of oversight could exert a deterrent effect, reducing slackness and the deliberate stifling of errors and disasters because of possible ‘embarrassment’.
Cases of suspect M.P.s and peers might be treated to the greater satisfaction of the Security Service through the existence of oversight. If there was some Parliamentary representation on the body the Government might find it possible to abolish the immunity of M.P.s and peers to telephone tapping and other forms of surveillance which, in equity, they should not enjoy.
While the recent record of the secret services would savour of lack of resolve rather than excess of zeal – except for the K.G.B. expulsions – oversight might conceivably save them, one day, from the kind of trauma suffered by the C.I.A. after the revelations of the 1970s and, more recently, by the R.C.M.P. security service. Ultimately the British secret services will be required to operate within the law which, currently, they have to transgress, when making surreptitious entries for example, and an experienced oversight body could be helpful in advising on the necessary legislation and later in ensuring that the agencies work within it with sufficient freedom of action to perform their tasks and with the minimum of interference from outside influences.
Regarding potential benefits to ministers, one has only to study Hansard to appreciate the problems presented to Harold Macmillan by a succession of spy cases. He was held responsible and, through misleading briefs, made the mouthpiece of statements which have subsequently been disproved. Mrs Thatcher has fared little better with the Blunt, Long, Hollis, Prime, Aldridge and Bettaney cases, and with more, possibly, to follow. Oversight would be a built-in deterrent to the preparation of misleading briefs and, in the knowledge that the truth was known elsewhere, ministers might be more restrained in going beyond their briefs. It could also benefit the nation if it prevented the misuse of ministers for the undeserved protection of the secret services and some of their officers.
The direct benefit to Parliament and the public would depend on the extent to which the oversight body was permitted by its constitution to report to them. There would, presumably, be at least an annual report and that, supplemented perhaps by reports on special issues, could go far to satisfy the demand for accountability and for acceptable reassurance that the secret services are in good shape. There should be less fear, and fewer allegations, that disasters were being concealed, with enhanced respect for the services as a consequence. Perhaps the most important function of oversight for Parliament would be in ensuring that it could not so easily be misled by ministers making facile use of secrecy as a means of protecting the secret services or themselves.
An oversight body might play a constructive role in the reduction of unnecessary secrecy in Whitehall, which is at the root of many security problems and has, so far, proved intractable, whatever ministers may claim about their concern for more open government. As James Callaghan stated in the Blunt debate, ‘Secrecy allows incompetence and corruption to thrive’, treachery being the form of corruption he had in mind. The record presented in this book shows that secrecy and cover-up have been the most consistent enemies of efficiency in the services. That it still continues was glaringly demonstrated by the recent Government action in barring staff at G.C.H.Q. from union membership, as described in Chapter 59.
There are disadvantages with any new security procedure, and the one most volubly expressed in connection with oversight is the danger to the secrecy in which the services must function. The secret services, and ministers who have uncritically accepted their advice, insist that this danger is so severe as to neutralize any possible advantage. The most convincing answer to this blanket objection, which reflects little more than the secret services’ hostility to any intrusion, is the experience of the U.S., where oversight on a scale unlikely to be accepted in Britain has been working effectively, with very few exceptions, for more than seven years.[6] An oversight body worthy of the name would need a full-time professional staff which would offer another area for Soviet penetration, as would the oversight body itself, but the U.S. experience has shown that this risk can be countered by security procedures.[7]
In discussions with American officials about the possible adoption of oversight, Cabinet Office officials and ministers have expressed their horror at the prospect because of the danger that a future extreme left-wing government might abuse the system.[8] This ignores the fact that such a government would bring in the necessary legislation anyway, especially if the present system is allowed to continue. In view of the swingeing legislation projected in the Labour Party discussion document of 1983, the present Government would be well advised to take some moderate action to forestall the necessity – or excuse – for measures which could be damaging to the services.
One of the greatest advantages from the introduction of oversight would be the improvement it would bring to American trust in British security which has been undermined again and again by Soviet penetrations over more than thirty years, the Prime and Bettaney cases being the most recent at the time of writing. The U.S. security authorities and the leading politicians who deal with them are convinced that oversight has exerted a most beneficial effect on the efficiency and effectiveness of their own secret services and would do the same for the British counterparts.[9] Among the advantages would be its deterrent effect on the creation of legends and the increased chance that case-deaths would be more rigorously investigated, making the detection of ‘moles’ more likely.
The importance of the Anglo-American relationship on the sharing of intelligence cannot be overestimated and Parliament, especially the Labour side, seems not to be properly aware of it, again, perhaps, because of unnecessary secrecy. If the value of the partnership was fully known to the public, through officially released information, the left-wingers would be less able to maintain their anti-American stance on defence. (A major part of the intelligence essential to Britain’s survival as a free nation derives from reconnaissance satellites. Britain has none and no capability for launching any and is, therefore, entirely dependent on the U.S. for such information, which is freely given.)
The effectiveness of an oversight system would depend on its nature, which could take several forms. The House of Commons Liaison Committee called for the establishment of an all-party Select Committee on Security and Intelligence composed of Privy Councillors selected from the Commons and the Lords.[10] Such a system, involving select committees of both Congress and Senate, has been operating in the U.S. since 1976, having been placed on a statutory basis since 1980. Under legislation the heads of the various intelligence departments, including the F.B.I., are required to keep both committees ‘fully and currently’ informed of all intelligence activities, including counter-intelligence, and must also furnish further information on request. In particular, they must report any ‘signal failure’ so that the committees can inquire into it and satisfy themselves as to its causes. From time to time the committees issue expurgated reports on intelligence and security matters. Their full-time professional staffs have facilities for monitoring ‘performance’ and have detected various weaknesses which have been rectified. I have been assured that, to date, the benefits of oversight have outweighed any disadvantages and that the services themselves now favour it, if only because it spares them from unfounded criticism.[11]
The Canadian Government is currently in the throes of establishing a civilian security service, subject to scrutiny and controls, following disclosures about excesses of zeal by security officers of the R.C.M.P. and the realization that ministers had been kept in ignorance of what was being done in the name of national security.[12] It has rejected oversight by any Parliamentary committee as posing too great a security risk and raising the danger that M.P.s on the committee might use secret information for party purposes. The Canadian Parliament has decided to establish a ‘watchdog’ body of three to five Privy Councillors, who may not be sitting politicians. This will be an oversight body with limited powers but sufficiently informed to report to Parliament about failures, excesses and cover-ups, though not in any detail that would infringe security. In addition, there will be a single inspector-general to monitor operations and to report to the responsible minister who, in Canada, is the Solicitor-General.[13]
