Peter Wright
Encyclopedia
Peter Maurice Wright was an English scientist and former MI5
counterintelligence
officer, noted for writing the controversial book Spycatcher
, which became an international bestseller with sales of over two million copies. Spycatcher was part memoir, part exposé of what Wright claimed were serious institutional failings in MI5 and his subsequent investigations into those. He was a friend of the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) counterintelligence chief James Jesus Angleton
.
Peter Wright was born in 26 Cromwell Road, Chesterfield
, Derbyshire
, the son of (George) Maurice Wright, who was the Marconi Company
's director of research, and one of the founders of signals intelligence during World War II. It was said that he arrived prematurely because of shock to his mother, Lous Dorothy, née Norburn, caused by a nearby Zeppelin
raid. Peter was a sickly child; he stammered, suffered from rickets
, and wore leg braces almost into his teens. Raised in Chelmsford, Essex, he attended Bishop's Stortford College
until 1931, where he was an excellent student. He then worked for a while as a farm labourer in Scotland before joining the School of Rural Economy at the University of Oxford
in 1938. On 16 September 1938, he married Lois Elizabeth Foster-Melliar (b. 1914/15), with whom he had two daughters and a son. Despite showing an early aptitude for wireless work, during the Great Depression
Wright was obliged to get work as a farm labourer to help make ends meet. He did study for one year at Oxford, but was obliged to leave since his father had been laid off and could not find a new job.
During World War II, however, he joined the Admiralty
's Research Laboratory. After the war, Wright joined Marconi's research department and, according to Spycatcher, he was instrumental in resolving a difficult technical problem. The Central Intelligence Agency
sought Marconi's assistance over a covert listening device
(or "bug") that had been found in a replica of the Great Seal of the United States
presented to the U.S. Ambassador in Moscow in 1945 by the Young Pioneer organization of the Soviet Union
. Wright determined that the bugging device, dubbed The Thing
, was actually a tiny capacitive membrane (a condenser microphone) that became active only when 330 MHz microwaves were beamed to it from a remote transmitter. A remote receiver could then have been used to decode the modulated microwave signal and permit sounds picked up by the microphone to be overheard. The device was eventually attributed to Soviet inventor, Léon Theremin
.
. According to his memoirs, he then was either responsible for, or intimately involved with, the development of some of the basic techniques of ELINT, for example:
In addition, Wright claimed that he was regularly involved in black bag jobs to illegally install bugs for the government, and that MI5 was so well organised for this they even had expert tradesmen on hand to rapidly and undetectably effect repairs in the event that someone bungled and made a mess whilst installing a bug. He also claimed that a cabal inside MI5 was involved in a conspiracy to remove Labour
prime minister Harold Wilson
.
had been killed by the KGB
, a notion put forward by CIA chief of counter-intelligence James Jesus Angleton
. With like-minded MI5 officers, Wright became convinced that senior figures in the intelligence world, in politics, and in the trade unions were Soviet agents. After Kim Philby
's defection in 1963 following a tip-off, Wright became convinced that the KGB had penetrated the higher reaches of the intelligence agencies. In 1964 he became chairman of a joint MI5/MI6 committee, codenamed Fluency, appointed to find the traitor and investigate the whole history of Soviet penetration of Britain. As claimed in Spycatcher, Wright believed that Roger Hollis
was the highest traitor in MI5. However, operation Fluency involved others not necessarily given to this view, and began to systematically examine evidence.
According to Wright, his suspicions were first raised by Hollis' seeming obstruction of any attempt to investigate information from several defectors that there was a mole in MI5, but he then discovered that Hollis had concealed relationships with a number of suspicious persons, including:
Later during his investigations, Wright looked into the debriefings of a Soviet defector
Igor Gouzenko
, and found to his surprise that the revelations of that debriefing were not reported or recorded. After a lengthy check, he discovered that it had been Hollis who was sent to Canada to interview Gouzenko. Gouzenko had provided Hollis with clear information about Alan Nunn May
's meetings with his handlers. Gouzenko also noted that the man who met him seemed to be in disguise, not interested in his revelations and discouraged him from further disclosures. Gouzenko had not known about Klaus Fuchs
, but he had named a low level suspected GRU
agent, Israel Halperin
, a mathematician
, who was later completely cleared. When the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
searched Halperin's lodgings, they found Fuchs' name in his address book. Fuchs immediately broke off contact with his handler, Harry Gold
, and shortly afterward took a long vacation to Mexico. Wright alleges in Spycatcher that Gouzenko himself deduced later that his interviewer might have been a Soviet double agent
and was probably afraid that he might recognise him from case photos that Gouzenko might have seen in KGB
or GRU files, which would explain why Hollis was disguised.
The 'FLUENCY' committee, which examined Hollis' record of service in great detail, unanimously concluded that Hollis was the best fit for the Soviet spy allegations; however, Hollis had retired in late 1965 as MI5 Director-General
, by the time the committee finished its report.
A retired civil servant, Burke Trend, later Lord Trend, was brought in during the early 1970s to review the Hollis case. Trend studied the case for a year, and concluded that the evidence was inconclusive for either convicting or clearing Hollis; this was announced by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
in 1983.
Wright's sights were also focused on Labour prime minister Harold Wilson
, whom he suspected to be a Soviet agent. The ‘Wilson plot’ resulted in an investigation into Wilson's background by MI5. This, however, did not result in any conclusive evidence. When Wright retired in 1976, Harold Wilson was again prime minister.
The primary case around which Spycatcher is based, that the Director General of MI5 - Roger Hollis - was a Russian spy, is brought up-to-date by Chapman Pincher (2009).
, a former MI5 director who was in MI5 while Peter Wright was still working there, says that he retracted his statement about the MI5 group of thirty officers who plotted to overthrow Wilson's government. She also criticised Wright as a disruptive and ineffective officer, taking case files that interested him off other officers, failing to return them to their proper place and failing to write up any interviews he conducted.
. He subsequently returned to Britain at the request of Victor Rothschild, who asked Wright to help dispel rumours that Rothschild was a Soviet agent. Wright agreed, and the result was Chapman Pincher
's Their Trade is Treachery (1981), which carried the allegations that Hollis (by then dead) had been a traitor. When Wright's role in supplying information for the book became known, journalists besieged him. Because of the interest and because of the rancour following the pension, in 1985, he decided to publish his memoirs, Spycatcher, in Australia in order to make ends meet. The British government did all it could to suppress publication, under the pretext that such a publication would be in violation of the Official Secrets Act
. They brought an injunction against Wright in Sydney. The Australian court, however, ruled against the British government, thus turning a book that might have had moderate success into an international best seller. Furthermore, the verdict not only vindicated Wright but also represented a victory for press freedom.
With trans-Atlantic repercussions, Spycatcher first revealed the details and name of the Venona project
, a cryptographic collaboration between the U.S. and U.K. that had succeeded in deciphering more than 2000 messages from Soviet agents in the two countries and elsewhere. Wright's revelations led to the public release of the Venona messages in 1995. The released texts incriminated a number of public figures who had previously been defended as victims of McCarthyism
by progressive historians, causing considerable reassessment of the period of the second Red Scare
(1947-1957).
The publication of Spycatcher temporarily unlocked the doors of official secrecy as far as former intelligence officers were concerned. With the enactment of the Official Secrets Act 1989
, an absolute prohibition on revelations by serving or former intelligence officers was imposed.
Wright went on to publish The Encyclopaedia of Espionage in 1991, which had little impact. By this stage of his life he had become increasingly reclusive, suffering from diabetes and heart trouble; a year before his death in Tasmania
on 27 April 1995 (aged 78), he was diagnosed as having Alzheimer's disease
.
MI5
The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...
counterintelligence
Counter-intelligence
Counterintelligence or counter-intelligence refers to efforts made by intelligence organizations to prevent hostile or enemy intelligence organizations from successfully gathering and collecting intelligence against them. National intelligence programs, and, by extension, the overall defenses of...
officer, noted for writing the controversial book Spycatcher
Spycatcher
Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer , is a book written by Peter Wright, former MI5 officer and Assistant Director, and co-author Paul Greengrass. It was published first in Australia...
, which became an international bestseller with sales of over two million copies. Spycatcher was part memoir, part exposé of what Wright claimed were serious institutional failings in MI5 and his subsequent investigations into those. He was a friend of the Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
(CIA) counterintelligence chief James Jesus Angleton
James Jesus Angleton
James Jesus Angleton was chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's counterintelligence staff from 1954 to 1975...
.
Father's footsteps
Chesterfield
Chesterfield is a market town and a borough of Derbyshire, England. It lies north of Derby, on a confluence of the rivers Rother and Hipper. Its population is 70,260 , making it Derbyshire's largest town...
, Derbyshire
Derbyshire
Derbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England. A substantial portion of the Peak District National Park lies within Derbyshire. The northern part of Derbyshire overlaps with the Pennines, a famous chain of hills and mountains. The county contains within its boundary of approx...
, the son of (George) Maurice Wright, who was the Marconi Company
Marconi Company
The Marconi Company Ltd. was founded by Guglielmo Marconi in 1897 as The Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company...
's director of research, and one of the founders of signals intelligence during World War II. It was said that he arrived prematurely because of shock to his mother, Lous Dorothy, née Norburn, caused by a nearby Zeppelin
Zeppelin
A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship pioneered by the German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin in the early 20th century. It was based on designs he had outlined in 1874 and detailed in 1893. His plans were reviewed by committee in 1894 and patented in the United States on 14 March 1899...
raid. Peter was a sickly child; he stammered, suffered from rickets
Rickets
Rickets is a softening of bones in children due to deficiency or impaired metabolism of vitamin D, magnesium , phosphorus or calcium, potentially leading to fractures and deformity. Rickets is among the most frequent childhood diseases in many developing countries...
, and wore leg braces almost into his teens. Raised in Chelmsford, Essex, he attended Bishop's Stortford College
Bishop's Stortford College
Bishop's Stortford College is a co-educational independent school for day and boarding pupils from the ages of four to eighteen, with a campus located on the edge of Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, England...
until 1931, where he was an excellent student. He then worked for a while as a farm labourer in Scotland before joining the School of Rural Economy at the University of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
in 1938. On 16 September 1938, he married Lois Elizabeth Foster-Melliar (b. 1914/15), with whom he had two daughters and a son. Despite showing an early aptitude for wireless work, during the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
Wright was obliged to get work as a farm labourer to help make ends meet. He did study for one year at Oxford, but was obliged to leave since his father had been laid off and could not find a new job.
During World War II, however, he joined the Admiralty
Admiralty
The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...
's Research Laboratory. After the war, Wright joined Marconi's research department and, according to Spycatcher, he was instrumental in resolving a difficult technical problem. The Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
sought Marconi's assistance over a covert listening device
Covert listening device
A covert listening device, more commonly known as a bug or a wire, is usually a combination of a miniature radio transmitter with a microphone. The use of bugs, called bugging, is a common technique in surveillance, espionage and in police investigations.A bug does not have to be a device...
(or "bug") that had been found in a replica of the Great Seal of the United States
Great Seal of the United States
The Great Seal of the United States is used to authenticate certain documents issued by the United States federal government. The phrase is used both for the physical seal itself , and more generally for the design impressed upon it...
presented to the U.S. Ambassador in Moscow in 1945 by the Young Pioneer organization of the Soviet Union
Young Pioneer organization of the Soviet Union
The Young Pioneer Organization of the Soviet Union, also Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization The Young Pioneer Organization of the Soviet Union, also Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization The Young Pioneer Organization of the Soviet Union, also Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer...
. Wright determined that the bugging device, dubbed The Thing
Thing (listening device)
The Thing, also known as the Great Seal bug, was one of the first covert listening devices to use passive techniques to transmit an audio signal...
, was actually a tiny capacitive membrane (a condenser microphone) that became active only when 330 MHz microwaves were beamed to it from a remote transmitter. A remote receiver could then have been used to decode the modulated microwave signal and permit sounds picked up by the microphone to be overheard. The device was eventually attributed to Soviet inventor, Léon Theremin
Léon Theremin
Léon Theremin was a Russian and Soviet inventor. He is most famous for his invention of the theremin, one of the first electronic musical instruments. He is also the inventor of interlace, a technique of improving the picture quality of a video signal, widely used in video and television technology...
.
Intelligence
In 1954, Wright was recruited as principal scientific officer for MI5MI5
The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...
. According to his memoirs, he then was either responsible for, or intimately involved with, the development of some of the basic techniques of ELINT, for example:
- Operation ENGULF: acoustic cryptanalysisAcoustic cryptanalysisAcoustic cryptanalysis is a side channel attack which exploits sounds emitted by computers or machines. Modern acoustic cryptanalysis mostly focuses on sounds emitted by computer keyboards and internal computer components, but historically it has also been applied to impact printers and...
of Egyptian HagelinBoris HagelinBoris Caesar Wilhelm Hagelin was a Swedish businessman and inventor of encryption machines.Born of Swedish parents in the Caucasus , Hagelin attended Lundsberg boarding school and later studied mechanical engineering at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, graduating in 1914...
cipher machines in 1956; - Operation RAFTEROperation RAFTERRAFTER was a code name for the MI5 radio receiver detection technique, mostly used against clandestine Soviet agents and monitoring of domestic radio transmissions by foreign embassy personnel from the 1950s on.- Explanation :...
: remote detection of passive radio receivers used by Soviet agents through detecting emanations from the local oscillator, in 1958 (a technique now more commonly used to enforce payment of television licenceTelevision licenceA television licence is an official licence required in many countries for the reception of television broadcasts...
s); and - Operation STOCKADE, analysis of compromising emanationTEMPESTTEMPEST is a codename referring to investigations and studies of compromising emission . Compromising emanations are defined as unintentional intelligence-bearing signals which, if intercepted and analyzed, may disclose the information transmitted, received, handled, or otherwise processed by any...
from French cipher machines in 1960.
In addition, Wright claimed that he was regularly involved in black bag jobs to illegally install bugs for the government, and that MI5 was so well organised for this they even had expert tradesmen on hand to rapidly and undetectably effect repairs in the event that someone bungled and made a mess whilst installing a bug. He also claimed that a cabal inside MI5 was involved in a conspiracy to remove Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
prime minister Harold Wilson
Harold Wilson
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...
.
Claims about Roger Hollis
Wright was convinced that the KGB was infiltrating British institutions; among the theories he looked into was the idea that the Labour leader Hugh GaitskellHugh Gaitskell
Hugh Todd Naylor Gaitskell CBE was a British Labour politician, who held Cabinet office in Clement Attlee's governments, and was the Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1955, until his death in 1963.-Early life:He was born in Kensington, London, the third and youngest...
had been killed by the KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
, a notion put forward by CIA chief of counter-intelligence James Jesus Angleton
James Jesus Angleton
James Jesus Angleton was chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's counterintelligence staff from 1954 to 1975...
. With like-minded MI5 officers, Wright became convinced that senior figures in the intelligence world, in politics, and in the trade unions were Soviet agents. After Kim Philby
Kim Philby
Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby was a high-ranking member of British intelligence who worked as a spy for and later defected to the Soviet Union...
's defection in 1963 following a tip-off, Wright became convinced that the KGB had penetrated the higher reaches of the intelligence agencies. In 1964 he became chairman of a joint MI5/MI6 committee, codenamed Fluency, appointed to find the traitor and investigate the whole history of Soviet penetration of Britain. As claimed in Spycatcher, Wright believed that Roger Hollis
Roger Hollis
Sir Roger Henry Hollis, KBE, CB was a British journalist and secret-service agent, who was Director General of MI5 from 1956 to 1965.-Early years:...
was the highest traitor in MI5. However, operation Fluency involved others not necessarily given to this view, and began to systematically examine evidence.
According to Wright, his suspicions were first raised by Hollis' seeming obstruction of any attempt to investigate information from several defectors that there was a mole in MI5, but he then discovered that Hollis had concealed relationships with a number of suspicious persons, including:
- a longstanding friendship with Claud CockburnClaud CockburnFrancis Claud Cockburn was a British journalist. He was well known proponent of communism. His saying, "believe nothing until it has been officially denied" is widely quoted in journalistic studies.He was the second cousin of novelist Evelyn Waugh....
, a communistCommunismCommunism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
journalist who was at the time suspected of ties to Soviet intelligence; and, - an acquaintance with Agnes SmedleyAgnes SmedleyAgnes Smedley was an American journalist and writer best known for her semi-autobiographical novelDaughter of Earth. She was also known for her sympathetic chronicling of the Chinese revolution...
whilst Hollis was in Shanghai, at a time when Smedley was in a relationship with Richard SorgeRichard SorgeRichard Sorge was a German communist and spy who worked for the Soviet Union. He has gained great fame among espionage enthusiasts for his intelligence gathering during World War II. He worked as a journalist in both Germany and Japan, where he was imprisoned for spying and eventually hanged....
, a proven Soviet spymasterSpymasterA spymaster is a ring leader of a spy ring, run by a secret service.-Historical spymasters:*Dai Li *Francis Walsingham *James Jesus Angleton *Joseph Peters...
.
Later during his investigations, Wright looked into the debriefings of a Soviet defector
Defection
In politics, a defector is a person who gives up allegiance to one state or political entity in exchange for allegiance to another. More broadly, it involves abandoning a person, cause or doctrine to whom or to which one is bound by some tie, as of allegiance or duty.This term is also applied,...
Igor Gouzenko
Igor Gouzenko
Igor Sergeyevich Gouzenko was a cipher clerk for the Soviet Embassy to Canada in Ottawa, Ontario. He defected on September 5, 1945, with 109 documents on Soviet espionage activities in the West...
, and found to his surprise that the revelations of that debriefing were not reported or recorded. After a lengthy check, he discovered that it had been Hollis who was sent to Canada to interview Gouzenko. Gouzenko had provided Hollis with clear information about Alan Nunn May
Alan Nunn May
Alan Nunn May was an English physicist, and a confessed and convicted Soviet spy, who supplied secrets of British and United States atomic research to the Soviet Union during World War II.-Early years, education:...
's meetings with his handlers. Gouzenko also noted that the man who met him seemed to be in disguise, not interested in his revelations and discouraged him from further disclosures. Gouzenko had not known about Klaus Fuchs
Klaus Fuchs
Klaus Emil Julius Fuchs was a German theoretical physicist and atomic spy who in 1950 was convicted of supplying information from the American, British and Canadian atomic bomb research to the USSR during and shortly after World War II...
, but he had named a low level suspected GRU
GRU
GRU or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye is the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation...
agent, Israel Halperin
Israel Halperin
Israel Halperin, was a Canadian mathematician and social activist.Born in Toronto, Ontario, the son of Russian immigrants Solomon Halperin and Fanny Lundy, Halperin attended Malvern Collegiate Institute, Victoria University in the University of Toronto, graduated from the University of Toronto in...
, a mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
, who was later completely cleared. When the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Royal Canadian Mounted Police
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police , literally ‘Royal Gendarmerie of Canada’; colloquially known as The Mounties, and internally as ‘The Force’) is the national police force of Canada, and one of the most recognized of its kind in the world. It is unique in the world as a national, federal,...
searched Halperin's lodgings, they found Fuchs' name in his address book. Fuchs immediately broke off contact with his handler, Harry Gold
Harry Gold
Harry Gold was a laboratory chemist who was convicted of being the “courier” for a number of Soviet spy rings during the Manhattan Project.-Early life:Gold was born in Switzerland to poor Russian Jewish immigrants...
, and shortly afterward took a long vacation to Mexico. Wright alleges in Spycatcher that Gouzenko himself deduced later that his interviewer might have been a Soviet double agent
Double agent
A double agent, commonly abbreviated referral of double secret agent, is a counterintelligence term used to designate an employee of a secret service or organization, whose primary aim is to spy on the target organization, but who in fact is a member of that same target organization oneself. They...
and was probably afraid that he might recognise him from case photos that Gouzenko might have seen in KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
or GRU files, which would explain why Hollis was disguised.
The 'FLUENCY' committee, which examined Hollis' record of service in great detail, unanimously concluded that Hollis was the best fit for the Soviet spy allegations; however, Hollis had retired in late 1965 as MI5 Director-General
Director-general
The term director-general is a title given the highest executive officer within a governmental, statutory, NGO, third sector or not-for-profit institution.-European Union:...
, by the time the committee finished its report.
A retired civil servant, Burke Trend, later Lord Trend, was brought in during the early 1970s to review the Hollis case. Trend studied the case for a year, and concluded that the evidence was inconclusive for either convicting or clearing Hollis; this was announced by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
in 1983.
Wright's sights were also focused on Labour prime minister Harold Wilson
Harold Wilson
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...
, whom he suspected to be a Soviet agent. The ‘Wilson plot’ resulted in an investigation into Wilson's background by MI5. This, however, did not result in any conclusive evidence. When Wright retired in 1976, Harold Wilson was again prime minister.
The primary case around which Spycatcher is based, that the Director General of MI5 - Roger Hollis - was a Russian spy, is brought up-to-date by Chapman Pincher (2009).
Retractions
Peter Wright reportedly made a retraction of at least one aspect of his memoirs, Spycatcher. Dame Stella RimingtonStella Rimington
Dame Stella Rimington, DCB is a British author, who was the Director General of MI5 from 1992 to 1996. She was the first female DG of MI5, and the first DG whose name was publicised on appointment...
, a former MI5 director who was in MI5 while Peter Wright was still working there, says that he retracted his statement about the MI5 group of thirty officers who plotted to overthrow Wilson's government. She also criticised Wright as a disruptive and ineffective officer, taking case files that interested him off other officers, failing to return them to their proper place and failing to write up any interviews he conducted.
Later life
When Wright retired from MI5, bitter over disagreements regarding his pension rights, he moved from Britain to Australia, settling in TasmaniaTasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
. He subsequently returned to Britain at the request of Victor Rothschild, who asked Wright to help dispel rumours that Rothschild was a Soviet agent. Wright agreed, and the result was Chapman Pincher
Chapman Pincher
Harry Chapman Pincher is an Indian born British journalist and novelist whose writing mainly focuses on espionage and related matters, after some early books on scientific subjects.-Family and education:...
's Their Trade is Treachery (1981), which carried the allegations that Hollis (by then dead) had been a traitor. When Wright's role in supplying information for the book became known, journalists besieged him. Because of the interest and because of the rancour following the pension, in 1985, he decided to publish his memoirs, Spycatcher, in Australia in order to make ends meet. The British government did all it could to suppress publication, under the pretext that such a publication would be in violation of the Official Secrets Act
Official Secrets Act
The Official Secrets Act is a stock short title used in the United Kingdom, Ireland, India and Malaysia and formerly in New Zealand for legislation that provides for the protection of state secrets and official information, mainly related to national security.-United Kingdom:*The Official Secrets...
. They brought an injunction against Wright in Sydney. The Australian court, however, ruled against the British government, thus turning a book that might have had moderate success into an international best seller. Furthermore, the verdict not only vindicated Wright but also represented a victory for press freedom.
With trans-Atlantic repercussions, Spycatcher first revealed the details and name of the Venona project
Venona project
The VENONA project was a long-running secret collaboration of the United States and United Kingdom intelligence agencies involving cryptanalysis of messages sent by intelligence agencies of the Soviet Union, the majority during World War II...
, a cryptographic collaboration between the U.S. and U.K. that had succeeded in deciphering more than 2000 messages from Soviet agents in the two countries and elsewhere. Wright's revelations led to the public release of the Venona messages in 1995. The released texts incriminated a number of public figures who had previously been defended as victims of McCarthyism
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...
by progressive historians, causing considerable reassessment of the period of the second Red Scare
Red Scare
Durrell Blackwell Durrell Blackwell The term Red Scare denotes two distinct periods of strong Anti-Communism in the United States: the First Red Scare, from 1919 to 1920, and the Second Red Scare, from 1947 to 1957. The First Red Scare was about worker revolution and...
(1947-1957).
The publication of Spycatcher temporarily unlocked the doors of official secrecy as far as former intelligence officers were concerned. With the enactment of the Official Secrets Act 1989
Official Secrets Act 1989
The Official Secrets Act 1989 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It repeals and replaces section 2 of the Official Secrets Act 1911. It is said to have removed the public interest defence created by that section....
, an absolute prohibition on revelations by serving or former intelligence officers was imposed.
Wright went on to publish The Encyclopaedia of Espionage in 1991, which had little impact. By this stage of his life he had become increasingly reclusive, suffering from diabetes and heart trouble; a year before his death in Tasmania
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
on 27 April 1995 (aged 78), he was diagnosed as having Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...
.
Sources
- Penrose, Barrie & Freeman, Simon (1987), Conspiracy of Silence: The Secret Life of Anthony Blunt, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux.
- Pincher, Chapman (2009). Treachery: Betrayals, Blunders, and Cover-ups: Six Decades of Espionage Against America and Great Britain. New York: Random House.
- Turnbull, Malcolm (1989), The Spycatcher Trial: The Scandal Behind the #1 Best Seller, Topsfield, Massachusetts: Salem House Publishers.
- West, NigelRupert AllasonRupert William Simon Allason is a military historian and former Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom. He was the Member of Parliament for Torbay in Devon, from 1987 to 1997...
(1987). Mole Hunt. London: Wiedenfeld & Nicolson. Nigel West is the pen-name of Rupert Allason. - Wright, Peter (1987). Spycatcher. New York and London: Viking Penguin Inc.