Chapter 3

The Conservatives and the red menace

Socialism equals communism

From 1945 until 1951, the Labour Party determined how the state dealt with domestic communism. Fundamentally, the Conservative leadership agreed with the anti-communist agenda the Attlee government put forth. However, like in the US, where influential Republicans charged the Democratic administration with being woefully negligent in combating the ‘red menace’, the Conservatives made similar charges. On 5 March 1946, speaking from the heartland of the US, Winston Churchill cemented his credentials as a cold warrior of the utmost calibre. In the now famous ‘Sinews of Peace’ speech, while highlighting the explicit dangers of a totalitarian Soviet Union and decrying the iniquities of communist ideology, Churchill warned of the external threat that the adherents of Marxist-Leninist philosophy posed.⁷ For many Churchillian supporters, on both sides of the Atlantic, up until the present day, this speech encapsulates the heart of the emerging struggle between East and West of the initial postwar period.⁸ Yet, only a year earlier, he delivered a radio broadcast that champions of Churchill’s legacy are less likely to cite or emphasise. In this 4 June 1945 transmission, which Churchill used to open the Conservative General Election campaign, he attempted to highlight the perils of another adversary to the British people. In the wartime prime minister’s words, this enemy to British freedom was not a foreign threat, as it had been for the last seven years or would be again in his speech from a small town in Missouri, but one much closer to home, and of a domestic nature. It was the potential electoral success of the Labour Party. More specifically, Churchill denounced the socialist political ideology promoted by former members of his coalition government, who were now members of an opposition party. Although the Conservative leader did not openly use the term ‘communism’, the direct implication of voting for the Labour Party remained crystal clear. Not mincing words, Churchill declared, ‘I must tell you that a socialist policy is abhorrent to the British ideas of freedom … there can be no doubt that socialism is inseparably interwoven with totalitarianism and the abject worship of the states.’ Further adding to this sentiment, he stated, ‘No socialist government conducting the entire life and industry of the country could afford to allow, free, sharp or violently-worded expressions of public discontent. They would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo.’⁹ The implicit meaning of the broadcast boiled down to the suggestion that voting for a Labour government would bring the UK one step closer to a communist-style dictatorship. As the political fallout from the speech showed, few British citizens found this accusation credible. Churchill’s personal physician noted in his diary the speech ‘had not gone down well with anybody’ and that ‘no one agreed with the line that Winston had taken’.¹⁰ For his part, Attlee dismissed it as a ‘secondhand version’ of the academic views of the free-market economist Friedrich Hayek.¹¹ Although considered by most contemporaries and historians as a political misstep, Churchill never regretted or repudiated the speech, and only lamented that he should have omitted the word ‘Gestapo’ and substituted in its place the NKVD – the Soviet equivalent.¹² Dubbed Churchill’s ‘Gestapo speech’ or ‘crazy broadcast’, this incident is one of the first highly publicised cases of political red-baiting from the Anglo-American world during the early Cold War period.

Although Conservative attacks continued to occur, they paled next to the charges batted about across the Atlantic. After his infamous ‘Gestapo broadcast’, Churchill and other party leaders were more cautious in their charges. Very rarely did they directly charge specific Labour politicians. What transpired instead was an attempt to link the ideology of socialism to the eventuality of a communist takeover, forgoing any specific attacks on Labour itself. The associating of communism with one’s political opponents was not solely a Conservative tactic. In 1948, Herbert Morrison classified communism as a right-wing ideology more in line with Conservative ways of thinking: ‘I have never admitted, and I admit less and less, that the communists are on the left. They are on the right.’¹³ The same year, Attlee stated at a May Day rally in Plymouth that ‘there can be no greater mistake than to imagine that the Communist Party is a party of the left … the communists are extreme reactionaries’.¹⁴ Conservatives found it increasingly difficult to criticise the Labour Party when its leadership were aggressively purging its own elected MPs accused of communist sympathies. In fact, Churchill praised Labour after its 1946 decision barring communists from the party, stating he agreed ‘with every word’ of Attlee’s attacks on the CPGB. In 1947, during a Commons debate over conscription, he vowed to support the Labour government ‘on all occasions when they are challenged by the crypto-communists and pacifists and other trends of left-wing opinion, which they have exploited to the full in bygone days, and which they now very naturally and healthily resent’.¹⁵ As the Cold War increasingly took hold, Labour’s anti-communist credentials were becoming impossible for the Conservatives to dispute. An unofficial endorsement of Labour’s anti-communism came in March 1950 from Sir Paul Dukes, an ex-spy and expert on Soviet affairs. Dukes proclaimed that the Kremlin despised Attlee and Labour, whom the Soviets classified as renegades, far more than Churchill and the Conservatives.¹⁶ Dukes’s assertion carried weight since he was the most successful MI6 agent to operate in the Soviet Union during the interwar period and a celebrity for his endeavours. Sources closer to the heart of the Conservative Party agreed that Labour’s war on communism was genuine. Marjorie Maxse, in an inter-party memo to the general director, gave her assurance of Labour’s commitment to the cause. Maxse, chief organisation officer of the party, reminded her superior, ‘Transport House, as you know, is dealing very energetically with any suspected communist sympathisers’.¹⁷ ‘Nothing could be more unfair, or for that matter shortsighted’, Conservative MP Oliver Lyttelton wrote to Churchill in 1949, ‘than to pretend that the present socialist government is other than a bitter enemy of communism.’¹⁸ By all accounts, Churchill and the Conservative leadership could find little to criticise in Labour’s efforts combating communism. In 1946, Harold Macmillan went so far as to praise Herbert Morrison publicly for his stalwart anti-communism.¹⁹ Despite praising Labour in their efforts, the Conservative Party, seemingly for political reasons, still elected to focus on the perceived ideological connection between socialism and communism.

‘We are resolutely opposed to the communist way of life’, Attlee affirmed during a 1948 Commons debate on foreign affairs. He continued, ‘I am quite sure that Mr. Stalin is enough of a realist to appreciate the complete failure during the difficult interwar years of the communist creed to make any effective advance in this country.’ The prime minister suggested ‘he should give up that idea that somehow or other this country is going to turn to communism’.²⁰ Churchill and his followers did not dispute Attlee’s sincerity or choose to endorse stricter measures for combating Marxist-Leninism in the UK. In fact, the only suggested policy the Conservative Party recommended at their 1948 party conference was a more intensive campaign to publicise communist subversion – the same aim as Christopher Mayhew’s recently created IRD. In July the same year, the party formed a Committee on Communist and Fascist Activities whose objective was to report to the Conservative Executive Committee on the political aims and tactics of these subversive groups and also recommend methods of combating them. It was eerily similar to the Committee on Communism (Home), which the Labour government formed four years later. In its preliminary report the Conservative Committee on Communist and Fascist Activities conceded some credit to their political opponents and admonished their fellow party members for their inaction:

In the past the Conservative Party has been remiss in not issuing well-informed specifically anti-communist literature. While maintaining the outward appearances and practices of a legal political organization, the Communist Party is a conspiracy. Until recently the leaders of the socialist party were more ready to recognise that fact than the leaders of the other political parties, though they have proven themselves incapable of dealing with the conspiracy so recognised … The ignorance of the nature and extent of the danger is almost as widespread among Conservatives as among members of other parties.²¹

The simplistic answer of the committee to right these past wrongs was the hiring of a ‘full-time expert on communism whose special task should be the study of the conspiracy from the national and international aspect’. In turn, it ‘condemned absolutely’ the idea which some Conservatives had supported of a governmental outlawing of the Communist Party, arguing: ‘The effect of banning communism would be to ban anti-communism which would be a bad thing.’²² Shortly after its formation, the committee ceased to exist. Its duties of researching and reporting on the subject of communism for the party were turned over to the Conservative Research Department, though in its short lifespan it did have an impact on the party’s campaign strategy. The committee voiced support for the anti-communist actions of the Labour administration, but suggested ‘that a socialist government increases the danger and conspiratorial power of communism’ by reasoning ‘the socialist preaching of the class war creates the condition upon which communism thrives’.²³

This supposition, of socialism leading to communism, was a mainstay of Conservative rhetoric against the Labour Party, despite the overwhelming evidence of Labour’s support for anti-communist measures. ‘Communism is only socialism ruthlessly and vigorously applied by revolutionary instead of legal methods’, Harold Macmillan publicly stated in 1949, ‘hard instead of soft, red instead of pink.’²⁴ The same year, Conservative MP Alan Gomme-Duncan stated:

People say the great danger today is communism and I am convinced they are right. The immediate danger in Great Britain, however, is not the Communist Party, but the nursery in which communists are bred – the socialist party. Let us attack the nursery and the plant will wither. That is what we have got to go for hammer and tongs.²⁵

Only a few months earlier, Anthony Eden surmised that while ‘many socialists in this country are convinced, stout-hearted opponents of communism and yet to others, it must seem that communism is the only logical conclusion to full state socialism’.²⁶ During a speech in February 1950, voicing the same sentiment, Churchill warned his audience: ‘The British socialists do not appreciate clearly enough that socialism is a preliminary state to communism and communism is the accomplishment of socialism.’²⁷ Speaking to an American audience the previous year, he warned of how easily communism could take hold:

[A] church of communist adepts whose missionaries are in every country as a fifth column, in your country, ours, everywhere, and so on within every country is a fifth column … with a feeling that they may be running a risk, but if their gamble comes off they will be the masters of the whole land in which they are a minority at the present time. They will be the Quislings with power to rule and dominate all the rest of their fellow countrymen.²⁸

The timing of these attacks in 1949 and 1950 is telling. With a General Election approaching, the tone of the Conservatives turned from praising the anti-communist credentials of the Labour Party to claiming it sought democratic socialism, not a ‘third-way’ brand of social democracy. Hence Labour’s brand of socialism was just a harbinger of and gateway to a Marxist dictatorship. The baseless charges by leading Conservative politicians were an orchestrated campaign conceived by the party to win votes, not to protect the nation from the ‘red menace’.

In January 1949, Mark Chapman-Walker, chief publicity officer of the Conservative Party, presented to Director General Stephen Pierssene a propaganda plan for the likelihood of a 1950 General Election. The plan consisted of three themes which the party would emphasise through posters, newspapers articles, speeches and radio broadcasts. The themes were (a) state control versus the individual, (b) constructive conservatism and (c) a Conservative government for security. Under the subheading for security, Chapman-Walker wrote:

This again must be a constructive theme. The defence of the West against communism, and the defence of British institutions against communism at home, cannot be considered apart from imperial policy and an adequate defence policy. The socialists are not an effective force against communism – on the contrary, they provide the ‘culture’ in which this germ best develops – and their pre-war record shows them to be incapable of taking the necessary measures for Imperial defence. The Conservative Party, on the other hand, is the national party; at a time of crisis the nation turns to the Tories.²⁹

The leadership of the Conservative Party accepted Chapman-Walker’s plan. This ‘constructive’ campaign linking the Labour Party to the likelihood of a communist police state was a coordinated effort. Party candidates mentioned the theme of socialism as a stepping-stone to communism in 32 per cent of their pre-election addresses.³⁰ Official campaign posters outlined the theme in no uncertain terms; they read: ‘Thought for to-day: Socialism leads to Communism’. In addition to attacking Labour, the Conservatives specifically targeted the seats of the supposed crypto-communists which Labour had expelled: D.N. Pritt, John Platts-Mills, L.J. Solly and Lester Hutchinson.³¹

How Labour and many on the pro-Labour left countered red-baiting was not in disparaging the Conservatives’ use of the tactic, but instead arguing their charges were predicated on a groundless assumption. Attlee, Morrison and others exerted little effort in denouncing the Conservatives for their accusations. Instead, they chose to defend two central tenets of British socialism as effective tools against the ‘red menace’. They contrasted both democratic socialism and social democracy with the evils of communism. In an editorial denouncing Conservative attempts at red-baiting during the gear-up to the 1950 General Election, the pro-Labour Socialist Commentary condemned the ‘deliberate confusing of socialism and communism’ by Churchill in a recent speech. The magazine called it a dishonest and mischievous tactic. However, the majority of the article addressed the matter by arguing against communism, and pointing out how democratic socialism existed as its ‘complete and irreconcilable antithesis’. The confusion of Churchill, and many ‘within the labour movement itself’, the article maintained, was that they believed that communists and socialists were working towards the same aims – the overthrow of capitalism – but only by different means. Such was not the case. The central takeaway of the editorial was quite simple: communism lacked the fundamental concept of human dignity – Labour socialism did not. It surmised, ‘the corner-stone of [Labour’s] programme has been this respect for the dignity of all human beings’, but through ‘communist collectivisation’, the Soviet government ‘had ridden roughshod over every facet of human dignity’.³² In a later issue, the magazine maintained that such a difference between British socialism and Soviet communism did not come from the misappropriation of Marxist ideals, but from fundamental flaws ingrained into that theory. ‘Marxism was never a guide for the techniques of government’, Lucjan Blit, a regular contributor to the Socialist Commentary, conceded in the December 1950 issue of the magazine, yet added, ‘but neither is it a guide in any respect for the advance of social democracy.’³³ In the same speech in which he denounced them as reactionaries, Attlee condemned communists for their prior attempts ‘everywhere … to undermine and destroy the parties of social democracy’.³⁴ In 1950, Ian Mikardo, a member of Labour’s NEC and a future party chairman, stated his party’s obsession in shoring up its anti-communist credentials was ironically playing into the hands of their opponents – both the communists and the Conservatives. Mikardo contended:

If a Labour leader can deliver a long and pungent speech of which every sentence is about communism, and which doesn’t, by so much as a word, make any mention of conservatism, that tells you where the real danger lies in the present situation and at the next election … Just as Soviet imperialism seeks to overthrow social democracy by diverting us into military expenditure and away from our positive task of work rehabilitation, so British communism achieves its only victory in diverting the Labour Party into negative anti-communism and away from our positive social and economic programme.³⁵

The Conservative effort against Labour in 1950 fell short. The election results saw Labour holding onto power, but with a decreased majority. For their part, Labour termed their returned majority as actually a victory against communism. In their electoral campaign, they sought to define a Conservative victory as an outcome wished for by the CPGB. A Labour flier entitled What Is the Communist After? claimed ‘communists would let the Tories in. It’s an old communist trick. In pre-Hitler Germany they worked with the Nazis to bring down a socialist government’.³⁶ Speaking after the election, Herbert Morrison called the results a ‘verdict of the British people on the communists and their hangers-on’. Morrison went on:

This verdict was utterly clear and may prove of historic importance. Far from being weakened by this election the authority of the British government in world affairs has been strengthened by the electorate’s clear-cut rejection of communism and of anyone who has any truck with communism. Those who have sought to weaken us and to strengthen anti-democratic influences abroad on vital matters of world affairs are out. The communists put their maximum effort into this campaign … [But] for every one British voter who supported them there were over 300 who voted anti-communist.³⁷

Both the Labour and Conservative Parties’ efforts against communism continued, but in the forthcoming 1951 General Election the Conservatives chose not to revive their anti-communist attacks against Labour. Their attempts to red-bait did not produce for their party any electoral advantage. Ultimately, it only resulted in Labour displaying more vigour in its rhetoric against their mutual enemy – namely, the communists.

Central Office witch hunt

Like the Labour Party, the Conservatives considered, but to a lesser extent, the threat of communist infiltration in general society as a serious matter – so much so that they conducted their own inquiries into the subject. While the Labour government instituted a formal investigative body – the Committee for Communism (Home) – the Conservatives used party connections. The Central Office requested party associations and constituency offices on the local level to ‘send all information about communist activities’ to it, since it had a ‘special section dealing with this’.³⁸ Working – in the same respects as an intelligence agency – Conservative Party members not only conducted inquiries ordered by the Central Office, they also infiltrated and surveilled CPGB meetings.³⁹ Directing these ongoings was Marjorie Maxse. As a former MI6 section chief of staff during the Second World War, Maxse was ably fitted for such a mission.⁴⁰ What she discovered attests more to the heightened paranoia over communism than to any type of grand conspiracy conducted by the CPGB. The cases she examined ranged from the trivial to the farcical.

In 1949, former MP and then-candidate Irene Ward wrote to Maxse, detailing her concern over communist membership in the National Union of Seamen. Ward recounted how a ‘reliable family’ told her that as much as 30 per cent of the union were communists. She urged that the party needed to sort out the situation. After looking into the matter, Maxse discovered the number of communist members in the union to be ‘nearer to 3% than 30%’, and its leadership was, in fact, very anti-communist.⁴¹ The same year the Central Office eyed the British Legion with suspicion, claiming communists were attempting to take over the organisation and ‘have succeeded in obtaining office in local branches and being elected delegates to national conferences’. An inter-party memo addressed to Maxse claimed communists sought to establish a federation of ‘ex-servicemen to use in connection with their bogus peace campaigns’.⁴² Alarmed by the prospect, Maxse contacted the British Legion. Answering on behalf of the Legion was its president Ian Fraser – a Conservative Party member and MP. ‘I must say that I have seen very little evidence that they [communists] use the British Legion in order to spread communism’, Fraser responded. Defending a number of the Legion’s communist members, he argued: ‘some of these men are genuinely proud of their army service and work for the British Legion voluntarily because they like to serve in this way’. Nevertheless, he did reassure her that ‘We are constantly watching the matter, however.’⁴³

Some of the other cases the Central Office dealt with were of a much more dubious nature. One involved an accusation by a worried party member in Glasgow that communists were using evangelists for propaganda purposes. Instead of dismissing the bizarre allegation outright, the Central Office suggested that the local Scottish association send an ‘observer’ to one of the evangelists’ gatherings and report back findings.⁴⁴ After having ‘thoroughly investigated’ the charge, the secretary of the Scottish Unionist Association reported: ‘there is no substance whatever in it’. ‘I know Mr. Thomson personally’, the secretary added about the party member who made the accusation. ‘He would like all communists to be exterminated. As a matter of fact, he is the type of Unionist who makes socialists and communists.’⁴⁵ An even odder complaint involved Blackwell Booksellers. A member of the South Shields Conservative Association claimed the company distributed communist propaganda through its book deliveries.⁴⁶ The party member stated he received a parcel of books from Blackwell wrapped in a copy of a communist broadsheet. The Central Office determined ‘it would appear that a packer employed … is inserting communist propaganda in books sent out’. A Central Office agent contacted Blackwell over the matter. Replying on behalf of the company was Basil Blackwell, the chairman and the son of its founder. It is not hard to imagine from Blackwell’s response that he probably found the affair quite amusing:

The facts are, we get scores of publishers’ parcels every day, and the wrapping of these, very often consisting of unsold sheets of books, is put within handy reach of the packers who whip it up indiscriminately to make the lining of the parcels. It is not impossible that a Labour minister might get from us a parcel protected inside by odd sheets of The Right Road for Britain. Imperial Caesar, dead and turned to clay, as you will remember, may serve to plug a vent-hole; and, in reverse, the bloody nonsense of the communist may serve to protect an honest book from damage.⁴⁷

Maxse considered Blackwell’s answer ‘quite reasonable’ but cautioned that the matter still needed watching.⁴⁸ Another incident arose when the local Golders Green chapter of the CPGB proposed adding a speed limit on a dangerous road. In 1951, the general director of the Unionist Party in Scotland reported members of the British Correspondence Chess Association were using chess move communications to spread communist propaganda. All such reports were taken seriously and investigated.

One unsettling level of extrajudicial oversight the party wielded was the collection of private information on individual members of the CPGB, which they used in attempts to hinder their livelihood. In particular incidents the Central Office investigated persons who were informed on by party members as potential troublemakers. One telling example dealt with the chief engineer at Ford Company’s Works in Dagenham. His brother, a Conservative, reported the engineer as a likely saboteur. After collecting his home address, work history and political affiliations, the Central Office concluded that ‘no action is called by us’.⁴⁹ The possibility of measures being taken against a member of the public is quite telling in its own right. In September 1950, fears arose concerning communists on the faculty of a Trent Park Training College indoctrinating students. Finding a ‘remedy’ to the problem was discussed among the various Conservatives in the Central Office.

After its narrow victory in the 1951 General Election, the Conservative Party sought to bolster its anti-communist propaganda and tapered off its private hunt for communist threats in society. A year earlier on 4 July 1950, the party established an office committee entitled ‘Party Literature on Communism’, which appeared to have succeeded the Committee on Communist and Fascist Activities. Its sole purpose was to ‘govern [the] production of the party’s literature on the subject of communism’.⁵⁰ In September 1951, the Conservative Political Centre published a thirty-seven-page pamphlet entitled Communism in Great Britain, which accused Marxism and its followers of a litany of evils.⁵¹ George E. Christ, the editor of the Conservative Weekly News Letter and former chief publicity officer of the Conservative Central Office, argued that with the party back in power it needed to shift its propaganda focus against Labour onto communism. Commenting on the party’s need for an updated strategy, he wrote:

Until now I have not been very much interested in anti-communist propaganda. I felt that our job was to get the socialist government out, and that we ought to concentrate on them. Communists were an embarrassment to the socialist government, and we could rely on Transport House doing the job for us. Now that we are in power the situation has changed. On political questions we can expect the communists and socialists to be more or less allies, while in the field of direct action troubles fermented by the communists will very much embarrass the Conservative government, and will be secretly welcomed by the socialist opposition.⁵²

The cause of the anti-communist measures of the party shifting towards propaganda, rather than more direct involvement, occurred in 1951. Marjorie Maxse retired this year from her post in the party. After her departure, the reportage of party investigations tapered off. Her successor in dealing with communism activities was Sylvia Sackville, the vice-chairwoman of the party and wife to David Maxwell Fyfe. Unlike the ex-MI6 officer Maxse, Sackville showed little enthusiasm for the cloak-and-dagger-type investigations conducted by her predecessor. Alongside with the change of personnel, the status of the party as a whole changed. The October 1951 General Election brought the Conservatives back into government and with this the power to investigate any type of communist activity through official means. No longer were the party’s private investigations necessary. Any concerns could now go directly to the Cabinet Level Committee on Communism (Home) which continued to function under the new government.

Policy continuation from Labour

The defeat of Labour in the 1951 General Election left it for the Conservative government of Winston Churchill to implement positive vetting. As mentioned previously, the transition of power did little initially to undermine the vetting process. However, when further details emerged regarding the missing diplomats Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess, this forced the Conservatives to contemplate adding even more security measures. Despite how ‘distasteful’ they found vetting, pressure from the US gave them little choice. In his authorised history of MI5, Christopher Andrew stated ‘the main pressure for extending positive vetting … came from the United States, whose concerns about weaknesses in British security were strengthened by the defection of Burgess and Maclean’.⁵³ The two main factors pushing the Churchill government to expand the vetting procedures were pressure from the US and the initial stages of the programmes which were already put into place by the preceding Labour administration. Regardless of British reservations about vetting, Churchill needed to press forward. In January 1952, he announced the expansion of positive vetting. Despite logistical issues, MI5 were instructed to ‘operate the PM’s purge to the utmost of [its] ability’.⁵⁴ The FO took a dim view of the effectiveness of these new measures: ‘Positive vetting, while the best safe-guard so far devised, will not necessarily reveal the skilful and dedicated communist agent.’ Nevertheless, after the Maclean and Burgess affair, the ministry grudgingly admitted: ‘The Russians are known to be very anxious to penetrate the Foreign Office now.’⁵⁵ The question shortly arose of whether this new extended vetting should include cabinet ministers. Churchill baulked at the suggestion, unlike Attlee, who confessed later in life that he felt such a measure was more than justified.⁵⁶

Another example of how the American way of thinking influenced the British security apparatus was when a proposal arose about granting MI5 policing powers like those held by the FBI in the US. With the flight of the two high-profile civil servants, the danger of future suspects also fleeing was considered substantial. Therefore, it was thought that the security service should have the ability to detain individuals deemed flight risks. In August 1952, the new home secretary, David Maxwell Fyfe, organised a committee to examine such a proposal.⁵⁷ Headed by Norman Brook, the committee drafted a parliamentary bill legalising the detention of persons suspected of violating the Official Secrets Act. Brook argued the measure would give ‘political advantage’ in escaping ‘American criticism’ over past failures of the British government concerning security-related affairs. The proposal did not move forward. This was not because of concerns based on civil liberties but the ever-present concern of public outrage to such a new law. The government feared the potential of ‘damaging criticism’ if it applied such ‘cat and mouse’ procedures to such persons who had not yet ‘any criminal charge against them’.⁵⁸

Heightened tensions over security matters brought another delicate issue to the fore of the government under the Conservatives. By the 1950s, across the Atlantic, anti-communist campaigners were explicitly linking homosexuality with an engrained proclivity for communist subversion and Soviet sympathies. Thus, gay and lesbian people employed by the US government were perceived as threats. In 1953, through an executive order, President Eisenhower officially legalised the termination of homosexual people’s employment for being security risks; the new law caused hundreds of State Department employees to lose their jobs and sparked thousands of firings of individuals throughout other sectors of the federal government. This moral panic over LGBT employees and their purging from governmental jobs is now known as the ‘lavender scare’.

Such a fear manifested in the UK as well, stoked by governmental attempts to placate American sensibilities over the matter. In 1951, MI5’s head of departmental security produced a list of justifications for the vetting of homosexual people in public service. He generalised these into the following claims which he surmised homosexual people typically held:

(a)  Maladjusted to the social environment and may therefore be of an unstable character;

(b)  they stick together and are backward in giving information even though it is their duty to do so;

(c)  in so far as their activities are felonious they are at least in theory open to blackmail by a hostile intelligence agency.⁵⁹

The following year, Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden approved a statement of general principles to deal with what FO mandarins colloquially called ‘the homosexual problem’.⁶⁰ These guidelines stated that when evidence of ‘guilt is clear’ and where it is evident that the offender ‘has brought public discredit’ on the FO, the individual would be ‘dealt with’ under ‘disciplinary regulations’. This meant probable dismissal from their position. If ‘guilt is confessed or otherwise clearly established’, but had not been brought to the public’s attention, then the policy stated it was best ‘to warn the officer that if any further case of homosexual practices comes to notice he will have to leave the service’. Mere ‘gossip among colleagues … sufficient to arouse suspicion of homosexual practices’ was grounds for a full investigation into an individual. If such ‘stories persist’ – true or not – the directive stated the usefulness of the accused needed to be considered ‘diminished’ and any ‘future appointments will naturally have to be carefully considered’.⁶¹ The measures would almost certainly have been more draconian if Robert Vansittart still reigned as permanent secretary at the ministry. Vansittart wrote that alongside communism and Deutschtum (Germanness), he held an ‘illiberal’ abhorrence for homosexuality as well.⁶²

In 1955, the political flap over the Maclean and Burgess defections forced Eden, now prime minister, to appoint a committee of Privy Counsellors to review security procedures, which produced a white paper in 1956. Part of the vetting protocols which the committee considered with ‘special care’ was the question of homosexuality. As in the US, some of its members explicitly linked sexual orientation with the question of loyalty. Lord Jowitt suggested that those accused individuals who displayed ‘character defects’ should be more thoroughly investigated for communist tendencies ‘to decide whether the two different facets can properly be regarded as having a cumulative effect’.⁶³ The FO advised the committee that thus far it did not think it ‘appropriate to lay down any hard and fast rules’ and dealt with allegations on a case-by-case basis. The lack of a formal policy did not mean the FO did not take the matter seriously. It labelled ‘practising homosexuals’ as ‘serious security risks’ because of their being liable to blackmail, thus ‘any members of the service suspected of indulging such tendencies’ were ‘carefully watched’.⁶⁴ The deliberations of the Privy Counsellors showed that they were opposed to homosexual people in the FO for a much more trivial reason than national security. The committee stated with regards to homosexual people:

The security risk arising from the possibility of blackmail was not so important as the fact that the individual might be the subject of scandal when posted abroad, and that foreigners, particularly Americans, would not trust him if he were known to be, or suspected to be, homosexual.⁶⁵

As was often the case on matters of security, the driving motivation for the banning of homosexual people from FO posts came from a desire to placate the US. Fears born and bred in the US again governed British official policy. In the final report, the probation against homosexuality was judicially worded. It was listed with a number of other ‘character defects’ such as drunkenness, addiction to drugs and ‘other forms of loose living’ which may ‘affect a man’s reliability’.⁶⁶

The Privy Counsellors on the committee were much less circumspect when addressing the dangers posed by other elements. They assessed that ‘today the chief security risk is that presented by communism’. ‘The risk is not confined to members of the Communist Party’, stated their report, ‘but extends to sympathisers with communism.’ The white paper gauged that governmental security protocols already in place were adequate, but more effort was required to implement them more effectively: ‘We are dismayed to find what a small proportion of positive vetting which needs to be done has so far been carried out.’ Also, it recommended that the primary responsibility of the vetting procedures was ‘to identify the members of the British Communist Party, to be informed of its activities and to identify that wider body of those who are both sympathetic to communism, or susceptible to communist pressure’, since these ‘present a danger to security’.⁶⁷ In defending the established procedures, the report shielded the government’s ‘right to continue the practice of tilting the balance in favour of offering greater protection to the security of the state rather than in the direction of safeguarding the rights of the individual’.⁶⁸

After the announcement of the Privy Counsellors’ report on security, opposition to vetting rose enough to affect mainstream politics. Speaking of the white paper’s recommendation of supporting the protection of the state over civil liberties, a Labour MP stated: ‘What appals me about this is that this sentence might very well have been written by Senator McCarthy.’⁶⁹ In October 1956, at the 55th Annual Conference of the Labour Party held in Blackpool, an amendment was introduced to a document entitled ‘Personal Freedom’. It held a five-point plan intended to protect subjects of vetting:

1.  Rules governing employment on security-work should be approved by the parliament and made known to every person engaged upon it.

2.  No person should be removed from his employment on a mendacious charge.

3.  Every person suspected of being a security risk shall be advised in writing of the charges against him.

4.  A right of appeal to three high court judges who, sitting in camera, shall examine the security officers who brought the charge.

5.  This court, if it has evidence of misconduct in the administration of security organizations, shall report the matter, through the Lord Chancellor, to the Privy Council.⁷⁰

The plan was the brainchild of a new pressure group called the Campaign for the Limitation of Secret Police Powers. Labour MPs Benn Levy and Will Griffiths headed the campaign and its sponsoring council included Aneurin Bevan, Michael Foot and Kingsley Martin. The group formed over the issue of John Lang, a solicitor who was dismissed from private employment because of his marriage to a former member of the Communist Party. The Spectator wrote: ‘Lang’s case may yet turn out to have been the last straw on the patient back of public opinion.’⁷¹ This did not prove to be the case. Despite the campaign for governmental reform of the purge and vetting protocols, governmental and industrial vetting procedures against communists and other leftists stayed firmly in place. Since the mid-1950s the use of positive and negative vetting have remained routine procedures that those working or seeking employment in sectors of the civil service and the intelligence and military branches have had to endure. These security regulations are now considered a necessary evil – effectively, they are now a sign of the times – and few today argue that the continuation of these measures is unwarranted.

In 1952, the Conservative government also standardised the unofficial ban on foreigners wishing to attend any functions or conferences associated with the WPC or what was then being identified as the ‘world peace movement’. Instead of the ad-hoc admissions policy under Labour, the new home secretary, David Maxwell Fyfe, took a zero-tolerance position on the issue. After taking office, he had to consider the admission of non-Britons to an upcoming meeting of the World Federation of Scientific Workers and a Youth Peace Festival – both events were closely tied to the peace movement supported by the Soviet Union. The tactic Maxwell Fyfe took for this blanket omission policy rested not on regarding these potential visitors as a ‘direct danger to security or to industrial peace’ or asking ‘were there any grounds peculiar to individual delegates for excluding them?’ He concluded that allowing any foreigners to participate in peace movement activities on British soil would weaken efforts by the FO to expose the movement as an instrument for Soviet policy and ‘mislead people in this country’.⁷² However, the new procedure did allow for foreign communists to attend meetings organised by CPGB, as long as the event did not develop into a large international gathering. In 1954, the Home Office refused all foreigners who attempted to attend a conference hosted by ‘Teachers for Peace’. Unaware of this decree, many teachers who arrived at various airports and seaports were immediately turned away and denied entry. A seventy-six-year-old delegate from Germany who came for the conference was detained in the airport detention block and had his cell patrolled by armed guards. When questioned about why these teachers were barred from entry, the Home Office stated they did not need to give specific reasons.⁷³ This policy laid out by the home secretary remained in place for subsequent years.

The Philby affair

While analysing the anti-communist responses in the UK and the US, Herbert Hyman identified a key feature that separated the two cultures. ‘At the popular level’, posed the Columbia University professor, ‘it may be in the area of deference, not tolerance, that we will find one key to the puzzle of the political tolerance that emerged in England in the fifties.’⁷⁴ Although the Conservatives supported Attlee’s purge procedures, they, like many others, viewed official vetting as somehow un-British and unpleasant. Prior to the Cold War, recruitment to the civil service involved a relaxed process of personal contacts, privilege and school ties – effectively an ‘old boys’ network.⁷⁵ Class, cultural capital and deference to prestigious educational institutions played a larger role in attaining a position in the security services and government jobs than ideology, discretion and political reliability. This notion permeated throughout the British political landscape, often blinding inquiries into individuals and making ministers wary of implementing strong vetting processes.⁷⁶ A sense that a person’s societal position or pedigree could determine their loyalty did not entirely leave the British mindset during the early Cold War period. The blinding power of class and privilege affected the judgement of many whose occupation was to root out security risks. Even when evidence of irregularities and purported espionage mounted up against certain government officials, they were considered by many of their peers as ‘hav[ing] been given an unfair shake’. This prejudice existed outside the Conservative Party, but it had less of a hold inside Labour ranks, a fact that rankled some. Writing in his diary in 1946, Duff Cooper lamented that ‘the lack of the old school tie may prove the undoing of the Labour Party and so finally of our governmental system’.⁷⁷ Unbeknownst to Cooper, forthcoming events pertaining to the Cambridge spy ring proved the opposite opinion better suited the facts.

Evident during Labour’s years in power, this deference to class persisted throughout the 1950s. Conservatives did not diverge from the anti-communist measures and policies constructed under Attlee. Yet they could not fathom that the ranks of the British establishment could possibly be a breeding ground for communist-motivated treason. However, by the time the Conservatives regained power in 1951, the proof that this worldview rested on false premises was increasingly evident. The embarrassment and shock after the disappearance of Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess shifted the attitudes of many in the British establishment, but not all. Although the defection of these highly placed government officials happened on Labour’s watch, the Conservatives refused to investigate the matter further openly. Both in Transport House and Washington, DC, talk of an attempted Tory cover-up and whitewashing of the affair circulated.⁷⁸ Unlike in the US, where the Republicans targeted Alger Hiss, the archetypical Ivy League-educated member of the political elite, the Conservatives and the British establishment shielded the upper-class Cambridge graduate Kim Philby in 1955.

The 1955 public debate over Philby is the quintessential example of Conservative deference to position and class overshadowing security concerns; a point which scholars have yet to make. Although the life and times of the infamous spy have been well recounted, the 1955 Commons debate is one key event of his life that rarely receives the attention it deserves. Even with the copious amounts of published works on Philby, it is still quite an unexamined turning point in contemporary British history. The affair both contextualises how one aspect of class worked in the framework of anti-communism of the era and sets the stage for a growing paranoia that more Philbys – namely, undetected traitors in high places – were in government working for a much redder and less free UK; such paranoia lasted deep into the final decades of the Cold War. The affair held all the hallmarks of a would-be McCarthyite moment, typified by an accuser flinging reckless accusations of treason and communist subversion. While the atmosphere and circumstances appeared straight out of a meeting of the HUAC in Washington, DC, it occurred in the House of Commons. Marcus Lipton, Labour MP for Brixton, accused the government of whitewashing and refusing to investigate thoroughly the charges that the ‘third man’ tipping off the flight of Burgess and Maclean was Kim Philby.⁷⁹ On 7 November 1955, he demanded a full and public investigation into communist penetration of the civil and security services. Charged with making slanderous statements against Philby, Lipton was viciously attacked for his seemingly outrageous accusations. No attack was more stinging than that by Richard Brooman-White, Conservative MP from Rutherglen. He stated in a heated debate with Lipton that:

After listening to the hon. and gallant member [Lipton], one is at least quite clear where he stands on that. He is in favour of acting on suspicion, of smearing on suspicion, by directing public suspicion on to an individual [Philby] against whom nothing at all has been proved. We must leave it to his own conscience to straighten out what that may cost in personal suffering to the wife, children and friends of the person involved.⁸⁰

These very poignant words rang false once the details of the Philby case became publicly known. Brooman-White’s defence of Philby did not only come from a sense of fair play but a personal motivation as well. Philby obtained a wartime position with the MI6 through the direct intervention of Brooman-White. Philby recounted that a friend, Tomás Harris, had placed a call to Brooman-White and ‘the old-boy network began to operate’.⁸¹ In combination with allegiances from the so-called old boy network, Philby found an ally in Harold Macmillan, who in the same debate recounted that ‘no evidence has been found to show that he [Philby] was responsible for warning Burgess or Maclean’. Going even further in his defence, the foreign secretary stated that ‘while in government service [Philby] carried out his duties ably and conscientiously. I have no reason to conclude that Mr. Philby has at any time betrayed the interests of this country’.⁸² During his defence of the accused, Macmillan mentioned both Philby’s education at Cambridge and his position as first secretary at the British embassy in Washington, DC. Macmillan later wrote that with regards to the Philby affair, his chief concern was the protection of individual rights. Such a motivation rings disingenuous.⁸³

Cover-up and whitewashing

The events leading up to the abovementioned confrontation paint an enlightening portrait. Since Burgess and Maclean’s vanishings, rumours had circulated regarding their loyalties and current whereabouts. From the start, the FO decided the entire affair needed concealing and ‘publicity should be avoided as long as possible’. This cover-up extended to the UK’s closest ally. Although pressured by the American State Department for answers over the disappearances, FO mandarins ‘decided that we should not take the State Department into our confidence’ and that they should actively ‘limit US governmental knowledge of the affair’.⁸⁴ Despite the enduring intrigue and the potential for scandal, the Conservative government showed little concern over the case of the missing diplomats. The prime minister’s personal secretary, John Colville, recounting Winston Churchill’s attitude of the ongoing saga, wrote:

I don’t think he was much interested in the case of Burgess and Maclean. In fact I had to press him to ask the cabinet office to provide a note on the incident. I think he merely wrote them off as being decadent young men, corrupted by drink and homosexuality … He certainly did not look upon it as an indication of widespread communist infiltration – and I doubt if he had ever heard of Philby.⁸⁵

The aged Churchill’s interest in domestic intelligence ebbed and flowed. On occasions, MI5 felt they were humouring a confused old man rather than dealing with the national leader. At times, his concerns for state security were less grounded than MI5 would have liked. During the summer of 1952, Churchill requested Dick White to investigate the problem of UFOs.⁸⁶

In April 1955, KGB defector Vladimir Petrov confirmed both men were currently residing in Moscow after travelling there on their own accord.⁸⁷ The press and parliamentary attention rapidly returned to the now five-year-old mystery. In response, the British government attempted to discredit Petrov, calling his information nothing more than hearsay. It marked an odd turn, since it represented one of the only times a Western government had sought to discredit a Soviet defector – a task more likely attempted by the KGB.⁸⁸ The government’s attempt to question Petrov’s revelation failed. The public now knew that the two diplomats were communist spies. But the question remained: how did they know to flee on the same day that Foreign Secretary Herbert Morrison ordered the arrest and questioning of Maclean? All eyes turned to the current Conservative foreign secretary Harold Macmillan for answers. In late April, he was first questioned by Marcus Lipton, the MP who later forced Macmillan to defend Philby publicly. On the floor of the Commons, Marcus Lipton asked about the ongoing investigation into the disappearances. The foreign secretary replied that he needed more time to consider the situation. Adding to the tension, and further embarrassing Macmillan, Lipton’s Labour colleague, Jean Mann suggested ‘asking the Russians if they know anything about Burgess and Maclean’.⁸⁹ She then made a not-so-veiled reference to the possibility of more traitors existing: ‘if they would like any more like Burgess and Maclean they have just to ask us and we will send them over’.⁹⁰ Macmillan wisely chose not to respond.

Lipton and Mann were both correct. Many in British intelligence had already drawn the same conclusion: that someone strategically placed in government service had tipped off Burgess and Maclean. Another mole existed who had told the two that the time had come for them to exit the stage post haste. An MI5 report sent to the FO in January 1952 stated: ‘There is no room for doubt that it was as a result of a leakage of information that Burgess and Maclean disappeared from this country on 25 May 1951’.⁹¹ On MI5’s list of suspects for this ‘third man’, Kim Philby ranked number one. Yet certain government authorities were less willing to accept the fact. Philby’s chief accuser was Helenus Milmo, the man MI5 selected to interview him in 1951 regarding the disappearances. After interrogating Philby and reviewing the facts of the case, Milmo, an experienced barrister and former MI5 employee, reported: ‘I find myself unable to avoid the conclusion that Philby is and has for many years been a Soviet agent and that he is directly and deliberately responsible for the leakage which in fact occurred.’ But deference and personal ties clouded the already muddled situation. MI6, Philby’s employer, refuted Milmo’s assessment and responded: ‘We feel that the case against Philby is not proved and moreover is capable of a less sinister interpretation than is implied by the bare evidence.’⁹² Despite MI6 backing their man, Philby was forced to resign. Tim Milne, an MI6 agent and close friend of Philby, claimed the chief reason for Philby’s departure was ‘simply to preserve good relations with the Americans’, and if not for that, Philby would have been allowed to stay.⁹³ After the defections of Burgess and Maclean, CIA Director Walter Bedell Smith requested that William Harvey, the CIA station chief in Berlin, who knew Philby personally, write up his views on Philby’s potential involvement. Harvey unequivocally denounced Philby as a Soviet spy.⁹⁴ Smith sent a letter to MI6’s Director General Stewart Menzies stating Philby, by no means, should return to Washington, DC.⁹⁵ Shortly afterwards, Philby found himself unemployed.

In the spring of 1952, a year after his resignation from MI6, Philby lunched with his former boss, Menzies. Recounting the meeting with Guy Liddell, Menzies, despite the mounting evidence, told the MI5 deputy general that he believed Philby innocent. Suspicious of Philby, Liddell advised his superior not to allow personal connections to impact his judgement. Liddell had ‘come to the conclusion that the only thing in cases of this kind, where one knew an individual fairly intimately, was to sink one’s personal views … otherwise one was liable to get misled’.⁹⁶ Wise guidance for any intelligence officer, but not advice Liddell himself consistently practised. His close friendship with Guy Burgess had all but shattered any chance for further career advancement.⁹⁷ Yet this earlier damning association did not stop Liddell from meeting frequently and discussing intelligence and state matters with his close friend Anthony Blunt.⁹⁸ During their friendship, Blunt passed on a wealth of secrets he garnered from the British agent to his Soviet handlers. Like Philby, whom Liddell distrusted, a fog of suspicion also hung over Blunt. In July 1952, only months after giving his warning to Menzies, an MI5 informant suggested to Liddell that Blunt ‘was a far more active communist’ during his time at Cambridge than had previously been disclosed. Instead of turning his suspicion on to his friend, Liddell doubted the informant, a former communist, who Liddell classified as ‘a hot anti-communist’. He argued that people who go through such a political conversion are ‘inclined in self-justification to exaggerate things’. Liddell conceded that Blunt ‘dabbled in communism’ but maintained that his friend was never a communist; he only cared for ‘artistic matters’ and held no real interest in politics. Blinded by personal connections and class prejudices, both Liddell and Menzies refused to believe their friends were capable of treachery. To this point, the day after Liddell received the accusations against Blunt, the deputy director of MI5 did not order the surveillance of this still undetected communist spy. Instead, Liddell dined out with Blunt at the Travellers Club – the most exclusive gentlemen’s club in London – and discussed security matters.⁹⁹

On 19 September 1955, a spokesman for the FO conceded for the first official time that Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess were long-term agents of the Soviet Union. That same week the Eden government released a white paper on the investigation. The anonymous author of the unsigned paper was Graham Mitchell, then in charge of MI5’s counterintelligence branch. Almost everyone outside of the FO found the explanations within it unconvincing, incomplete and even misleading. The paper claimed that grounds did not exist to doubt Maclean’s loyalty and no proof existed he was a past member of the Communist Party. Both assertions were false. The white paper then contradicted itself by claiming that MI5 held doubts about Maclean and Burgess and was ‘on their track’ but had ‘insufficient evidence’ to stop them from leaving or formally arresting the two. These statements challenged the claim British authorities requested the French government to ‘intercept’ and detain Maclean shortly after his disappearance. If the British authorities had no legal power to stop Maclean in England, then why would they in France?¹⁰⁰ For many, the white paper was more of a whitewash. Summing up this sentiment was none other than the persistent Marcus Lipton: ‘This disappointing White Paper adds nothing at all to what everyone already knows.’ Cleverly voicing contempt in a populist manner, Lipton added, ‘There are two kinds of intelligence, the intelligence of the average citizens and the intelligence of the Foreign Office. The White Paper is an insult to both.’¹⁰¹ The consensus among the press and the general public was that the official report raised more queries than it answered. For those outside of government following the case, one question stuck out more than any others. The question appeared in stark black and white on the front page of the Western Mail – ‘DID THIRD MAN WARN BURGESS AND MACLEAN?’¹⁰² In an attempt to alleviate the frustration and resolve lingering questions, the Conservative government immediately announced that a public debate regarding the white paper was forthcoming. It was a foregone conclusion to everyone that Harold Macmillan was the man who would be in the eye of the storm.

Writing to the cabinet prior to the debate, Macmillan’s concerns focused solely on how to defuse the issue over both the white paper and the revelations of the two now not-so-missing diplomats. He conceded, ‘there are certain questions which have been pushed hard especially by the press, which have to be answered’ and his task ‘will not be very easy’ in defending the government’s handling of the Burgess and Maclean affair. His primary concern was halting any calls for an official parliamentary investigation. The foreign secretary argued that such an open inquiry into the affair was ‘dangerous’ since ‘nothing could be worse than a lot of muckraking and innuendo’. He then likened the prospect of any public investigation into the espionage charges to messy divorce cases which made daily headlines. Macmillan desired to leave the whole affair untouched. He recommended shifting the focus of any forthcoming inquiry ‘not into the past but into the future’. He maintained the primary advantage for this was that ‘the public will feel that something is being enquired into’.¹⁰³ Nowhere in the memorandum did Macmillan voice concern over the prospect of a ‘third man’ or show any willingness to speak on the topic. He personally considered the affair over ‘Burgess and Maclean, a perennial and sordid topic. It takes up a lot of time and we get nowhere. I shall be glad when the debate is over’.¹⁰⁴ It is evident that Macmillan never even considered conducting a thorough investigation for any more communist agents.

Macmillan exonerates Philby

On 25 October 1955, six days after the delivery of the memorandum, Marcus Lipton interrupted Macmillan’s sanguine plans to focus the coming debate on the future while leaving the past untouched. Shielded by the armour of parliamentary privilege, Lipton named Philby as the ‘dubious third man’. In a leading question directed at Eden, he accused the prime minister of covering up Philby’s treasonous activities; Lipton claimed the prime minister was attempting to stifle any debate over the whole affair. Pressed to respond, Macmillan, replying for the prime minister and the Conservative government, promised an upcoming opportunity to debate the issue.¹⁰⁵ Macmillan faced a choice. The mysterious ‘third man’ now had a human face. Questions about such a contentious charge against Philby could not go unanswered. To condemn Philby – or even to plead ignorance, as he had done in the past – would further embarrass the FO and darken the reputations of a number of civil servants and intelligence officers who earlier promoted and later defended their friend and former colleague. Macmillan ventured down the opposite path, seeking to protect one of his own, both occupationally and socially. He was certainly not the first to venture along this road for Kim Philby. While investigating Philby in 1952, MI5 received a list of six acquaintances he knew from university. Five out of the six, they discovered, had ‘communist traces’. However, it was determined it ‘would not be possible to interrogate these individuals without it being apparent’ to them that Philby was under ‘considerable suspicion’. The risk, if they spoke out about this suspicion, was too high for the simple reason that it would embarrass Philby’s former employer.¹⁰⁶

To no avail, the head of MI5, Dick White, pleaded with Macmillan to reject both his instincts and the advice of his ministry to clear Philby.¹⁰⁷ Agreeing with White, former Chairman of the JIC and ambassador to the Soviet Union and France Patrick Reilly called Macmillan’s conduct regarding Philby a grievous error.¹⁰⁸ Macmillan, and to a lesser extent Eden, were not the only Conservatives who proclaimed the innocence of Philby. Even before he defended Philby during the 7 November Commons debate, Richard Brooman-White had tirelessly laboured in the protection of the communist agent. The right-wing anti-communist MP played a role in having the initial investigation of Philby officially terminated. At the request of Macmillan’s private secretary John Wyndham, Brooman-White authored a brief for the foreign secretary on the case. Wyndham considered Philby’s friend a respectable candidate since Brooman-White had been in the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) and recognised the political subtleties of the whole affair. The brief he produced for Macmillan led profoundly in the favour of his friend’s innocence.¹⁰⁹ After Philby’s resignation from the SIS, the Conservative MP used his contacts to procure a job for his friend in the field of journalism.¹¹⁰ As a cover for his MI6 activities, the agency persuaded the Observer and the Economist to hire Philby as a foreign correspondent.

Alongside Macmillan’s publicly exonerating Philby, the Commons debate over the Maclean and Burgess white paper emphasised the stark differences between the Labour and Conservative Parties in regard to their attitudes to the entire sordid affair. Because of the circumstance that a Labour government was in power during the defections of the two Soviet agents, the debate was framed as a non-partisan matter. As customary standards mandated, Macmillan as current foreign secretary gave a statement and answered questions regarding the issue at hand, but joining him in this task from across the aisle was Herbert Morrison, the foreign secretary in office when Maclean and Burgess disappeared. Although speaking on the same topic, the tone and substance of the two men’s speeches were starkly different.

In addition to defending Philby, Macmillan cast doubt on the entire notion of a ‘third man’, praised the FO, underscored the recently introduced new vetting procedures and emphasised – as he had planned – the future. Recounting the event in his memoirs, Macmillan framed the debate as a towering contest between those who championed civil liberties versus those who wished for a curtaining of them in the name of security. Although his fellow MPs assembled in the Commons to hear the government’s explanation over the worst case of espionage in the nation’s history, in recounting the atmosphere and the mindset of his colleagues, Macmillan described an assembly of competing ideologies. ‘Members seemed divided between those who would be prepared to give the executive far more drastic powers’, Macmillan argued, ‘and those who preferred to run some risk in order to maintain the older traditions of the British system of law and equity’.¹¹¹ It took no guesswork on the part of his readership to determine the side the author championed. If his account is believed, Macmillan’s responsibility and task were not to answer credible questions about past failures of the FO and to shed light on the defection of two government officials. He fashioned his duty as one to prohibit ‘Morrison from turning this into a party matter’ and refuting Morrison’s calls for ‘a general inquiry into the Foreign Office and the system of security’.¹¹² If Macmillan’s own gallant attempt to halt the erosion of freedom was on his mind when he wrote his memoirs, he had a less lofty concern when travelling to the Commons on that day. While in a car going to the debate, he remarked to his assistant private secretary: ‘I hope the opposition doesn’t know that Maclean’s brother Alan is employed by my family’s publishing company.’¹¹³ If he had any lingering doubts about exonerating Philby, these were absent as well. Mulling over the debate in his private diary, Macmillan viewed it as a personal success. ‘Altogether a great relief that this is over’, he wrote on the day and then added, without a hint of irony, ‘My speech is said to be the best I have ever made.’¹¹⁴

Unlike Macmillan, his predecessor was not content to look only to the future or frame the debate as one of high principles. A man of humble origins and a political fighter, Morrison used the Commons discussion as a platform to defend his record as foreign minister and to continue his fervent battle with communism. Contrasting with Macmillan, who spurned even saying the word, Morrison took the opportunity to denounce the ideology and its disciples. He classified the very existence of communism as a security problem, since it stripped away loyalty to the nation and created enemy agents from the ranks of the British citizenry. ‘It is sometimes said that communism is a religion’, Morrison remarked. ‘I do not think that is fair to religion. I think that in some ways it is a disease.’ Lingering on the topic of communism, he challenged the notion that the upper class of society was immune to this particular disease:

[T]he new situation of a voluntary act of service in the interests of a foreign power against one’s own country is a very serious matter for security in all sorts of ways. Let no one think that this aspect is confined to the working classes: I do not think that anyone does think so. In fact, the cases with which we are concerned are not of that character. There have been some working-class cases, but the funny thing about the middle and upper classes, the well-to-do class, is that if they go wrong in this fashion they are, if anything, worse than other people. It is so. They begin by revolting against their families and they may finish up by secretly revolting against the state. That is rather curious.¹¹⁵

Touching on points which his predecessor refused to comment on, the former foreign minister criticised the protection and the deference given to those accused from an elitist and privileged background. Referring to Macmillan’s earlier words, he retorted, ‘I am not quite as satisfied as he is with things as they are.’ Morrison reminded his audience that Maclean and Burgess were both communists during their time at the prestigious Cambridge University. He maintained that while this fact on its own was not enough to mistrust an individual, it should be a contributing factor in assessing an individual’s loyalty – ‘all sorts of things happen at the universities … abnormal ideas are evolved’. Emphasising his working-class background, he added, ‘I am a product of the elementary schools, and I am not ashamed of the fact.’ Alongside class and privilege, Morrison attacked another facet of exclusivity which shielded the two communist agents from detection. Morrison condemned the ‘old boy network’ which perpetuated the employment of the erratic and alcoholic Burgess:

In my judgment, in the case of Burgess … a severe reprimand was not good enough. I think that in both of these cases they should, for those offences, have been dismissed. I think that in the Civil Service as a whole – whether it is more so in the Foreign Office I do not know – there is a tendency, if an officer falls down on his job or is guilty of an offence which is somewhat serious, to say, ‘He is an old colleague. Can we not do something about it to prevent him from being fired?’ … I think that a little sacking now and again would not do any harm. It would do some harm to the men concerned but it might do a lot of good to the rest of the service.¹¹⁶

Concerning the issue of ‘the third man’, Morrison – contradicting Macmillan – assessed that such an individual existed, and had thus so far evaded detection. He put forth the case that the evidence that at least one more Soviet mole remained was too damning to discount. Originating from a self-interested motivation, Morrison furthermore sought to absolve himself of any blame for the defections occurring under his ministerial watch. He ended his speech by demanding from the Conservative government a full investigation. ‘The country will not be satisfied without an inquiry of some sort, covering an adequate field’, he asserted, ‘for our country has a right to know that adequate action is being taken arising out of an experience which is disturbing and worrying to us all.’

Although Macmillan and his fellow Conservatives defended the integrity of the FO, many on the other side of the chamber did not follow this line. Joining Morrison’s condemnation of the underwriting factors of class and governmental privilege which had allowed the now evident communist subversion to take place were several of his fellow Labour MPs. Frank Tomney accused Macmillan of conspiring with members of the FO to attempt a cover-up ‘to protect somebody from the follies of misjudgement, mismanagement and neglect’. He claimed that an independent inquiry was the only way to reassure the public and to prepare the nation to face the looming threat. ‘We have moved on into another world populated by opponents of a cunning and vicious nature’, warned Tomney, ‘into a world of communism whose methods and policies, and the way in which they must be fought, do not yet seem to be fully understood in some circles in Whitehall.’¹¹⁷ Addressing the prime minister directly, Labour MP Alfred Robens accused the FO of covering up for its employees and argued that the public did not believe denials to the contrary coming from either political party. Speaking of the FO, John Cordeaux said although the ministry held a reputation ‘of having too many receptions and cocktail parties’ and ‘being staffed by too many old school ties’, he contended none of its critics would ever imagine it ‘harboured traitors’ until now. Cordeaux added that the FO still might be doing so. Speaking to the heart of the privilege issue, Alfred Robens, the MP representing Blyth, remarked:

Another interesting thing is that while these men were protected and excuses were made for their drunkenness and perversions, ordinary working men who had communist affiliations were kicked out of their jobs almost at a moment’s notice. Does this mean that there is one law for a communist sympathiser from Bermondsey and another for a communist sympathiser from Cambridge University?¹¹⁸

Although Labour MPs clamoured for a full investigation into the possibility of a ‘third man’ and the conduct that allowed for Burgess and Maclean to stay undetected in governmental service for such an extended period, the Conservative government refused to bend. It determined that the whole affair was better off left alone.

The day after the parliamentary debate, all eyes were on Kim Philby, who had scheduled a press conference for that morning. Charming and cocksure, Philby played the part of an innocent man proved vindicated. Although Lipton sought to indict Philby as a traitor, he had the reverse effect. With Macmillan publicly proclaiming his innocence, the Soviet spy revelled in his time in the public spotlight. ‘I have never been a communist’, protested Philby, then wryly added with a grin, ‘The last time I spoke to a communist, knowing he was one, was in 1934.’ When reporters directly asked if he was the so-called third man, he gave a direct no. Left with no choice, Lipton took back his accusation. Showing bitterness over the incident later, Lipton accused members of both parties of attempting to silence him: ‘I was shouted down in the House … Their instinct was to protect him.’¹¹⁹ In Washington, DC, the news was received with fury and also bewilderment.¹²⁰ But if lingering doubts regarding Philby’s loyalty existed in the upper ranks of MI5, none showed with his former employers at SIS or the FO. After his exoneration in the Commons, MI6 re-employed Philby and the FO requested the Observer to hire him as their correspondent for the Middle East.¹²¹ He would go undetected until British intelligence finally received conclusive indication of his betrayal in 1962. Even then, he eluded them by following his earlier confederates in escaping to the Soviet Union. It is still debated how much Macmillan knew about the evidence mounting against Philby. The chances he was unaware of the warning signs over Philby are quite slim. Others in the Conservative government of the time indicated such knowledge, even if they had their doubts about its validity. In a 1952 meeting with Guy Liddell, Home Secretary David Maxwell Fyfe inquired ‘whether we were still keeping an eye on Philby’. Liddell stated in the affirmative.¹²²

‘The establishment’ versus anti-communism

In September 1955, an article appeared in the Spectator, a Conservative-leaning magazine, which popularised a term now defined as ‘a social group exercising power generally, or within a given field or institution, by virtue of its traditional superiority’. Penned by Henry Fairlie, the article predicted the forthcoming cover-up by the Conservative government in the Commons debate over Philby. Writing on the government, he stated, ‘their answers would almost certainly [be] unsatisfactory’. Fairlie excoriated the FO as well. ‘Somewhere near the heart of the pattern of social relationships which so powerfully controls the exercise of power in this country is the Foreign Office’, he maintained. Fairlie argued, ‘No one whose job it was to be interested in the Burgess-Maclean affair from the very beginning will forget the subtle but powerful pressures which were brought to bear by those who belonged to the same stratum as the two missing men.’¹²³ He ended the piece by stating this was simply how ‘the establishment’ worked. It may be thought appropriate that the phrase ‘the establishment’ came into the vernacular in an article decrying the governmental whitewashing of the Maclean and Burgess investigation.

The question can be asked why the blame resides with the Conservatives more than their Labour opponents. As Duff Cooper lamented in 1946, Labour politicians did not cling tightly to the ‘old school tie’ or have a long-established loyalty to the mandarins of the FO or the upper echelons of the intelligence services. Lingering animosities between Labour and these governmental departments were not forgotten. For many a Labour politician, when they viewed the FO and the intelligence services they still saw the ‘guilty men’ who supported appeasement and were instigators of the Zinoviev Letter. Alan Bullock writes: ‘The Foreign Office was a powerful symbol for many members of the Labour Party of all they had objected to in the traditional foreign policy.’¹²⁴ Feelings of mistrust worked both ways. When Attlee appointed Percy Sillitoe, an outsider and former policeman, to head MI5, many insiders considered it a deliberate slight against their agency. After taking office in 1945, the first priority of Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin was the implementation of the 1943 Foreign Service Act, which curbed elitism in the diplomatic service. It was a reform many in the FO thought unnecessary and a political decision to satisfy Labour’s backbenches. Evidence shows an atmosphere of lingering wariness impacted the whole affair. Despite a cloud of suspicion falling upon Philby immediately after the disappearance of Maclean and Burgess, Herbert Morrison was never informed of Philby’s likely involvement or of the financial settlement Philby received after he resigned from MI6.¹²⁵ On 27 September 1955, while having lunch with Attlee, Richard Crossman asked the Labour leader what he termed ‘the 64-dollar question’. Did anyone from the security services bring to him the matter of security concerns about Maclean or Burgess before they disappeared? Attlee replied they kept him completely in the dark: ‘I knew nothing whatsoever.’ Crossman asked Attlee if he agreed that a special tribunal should be appointed, to which Attlee grunted his approval. The former prime minister added: ‘If I’d been at the Foreign Office I’d have been more brutal when that sort of thing was discovered. I am more brutal than people imagine.’¹²⁶ When it came to rooting out communists, as the record of their time in government proved, both Attlee and Morrison had the capacity of fierceness – if not also brutality. Past incidences show that neither men let deference to traditions stop them from originating hunts for communists inside the Labour Party or the civil service. It is almost certain that if Attlee (or Morrison as his successor) had been in Downing Street in the autumn of 1955, Philby’s fate would have taken a decidedly different turn.

The parliamentary affair over Philby showcases the ingrained preference in the UK for maintaining systemic deference to privilege and class. This led to an environment where segments of society sought to preserve the status quo by covering up irregularities and discounting warning signs of members of the British ‘establishment’. From 1951 to 1956, the Conservative Party in government defended this traditional social order by refusing to investigate the FO and effectively exonerating a communist traitor. Even when pressured by the likes of Morrison and Lipton, alongside Fleet Street, the Conservatives chose to cleave to the time-honoured notion that class defined an individual more than political beliefs. They were not alone in these suppositions.

During a 1954 interview with a US magazine, when answering the question of if the British government was as concerned about communists as its American counterpart, Home Secretary David Maxwell Fyfe summoned up the Conservative position:

Well I should say there is the concern, only we think, in our country, that the best method of dealing with them is to know who they are, have complete records about them, know what you’re going to defend and keep them out of it, but try not to drive them underground and don’t make them look more important than they are. We are quite concerned with the problems of the communists, and – if I may, I hope I’m not deviating too much – remember that the great answer to communism, as an ideology and in part as a faith, is that we have a better faith.¹²⁷

As Maxwell Fyfe maintained, the Conservatives did view the Cold War as a contest of ideologies, but they failed to envisage that the enemy had infiltrated the ruling class. Nor did they grasp the danger that came from such a threat. No one epitomised this point more than Macmillan. He essentially viewed the infiltration of communist spies as little more than a public relations concern. In a BBC interview later in life, he said such things as espionage and defection were ‘not very important … it’s all rather exaggerated’.¹²⁸ Macmillan’s official biographer stressed his blasé approach to security matters showed ‘an insensitivity to the fundamental demoralization that unresolved fear of traitors in their midst could cause in government departments, let alone among the public at large’.¹²⁹ Writing on such a blind spot that Macmillan never grasped, David Caute cautioned, ‘One Philby or Fuchs can do as much for Russia as fifty communist MPs.’¹³⁰ This proved accurate. By Soviet estimates, Burgess, Maclean and Philby provided over 20,000 pages filled with secrets during their treasonous careers.¹³¹ Patrick Reilly was correct in saying that Macmillan’s ‘generous words’ regarding Philby had a tangible impact. After the ‘whitewash’, MI5 refused to make any resources available further to investigate him, which frustrated those in the agency who correctly suspected his treason.¹³²

Conclusion

In a similar manner to Clement Attlee’s time in office, powerful extraneous forces affecting their decision-making compelled his Conservative successors. Akin to the Labour Party, the Conservatives viewed the Soviet Union, and its principal domestic agent the CPGB, as the foremost enemies of the nation. In the 1950 and 1951 General Elections, the CPGB were decimated at the polls. Although the Conservatives still considered domestic communists a potential ‘threat’, this peril had decreased publicly. Yet for political purposes they sought unsuccessfully to attack Labour with a negative anti-socialism agenda, which included linking it with communism – in hindsight, such efforts rang decidedly false.¹³³ When in power, both Churchill and Eden broadly accepted Labour’s creation of a welfare state and its commitment to full employment, and kept the same approach to managing the economy along what David Carlton termed ‘corporatist’ lines.¹³⁴ No ‘radical assault’ or attempts to roll back Labour ‘socialism’ occurred after the return of the Conservatives to power. In terms of domestic policy, the 1951 victory marked the least transformative shift between governments of one party to another until 1997.¹³⁵ Far from reversing the tide of socialism, which he vigorously denounced in campaign speeches, Churchill legitimised it.¹³⁶ Although Churchill held reservations over this new consensus-driven style of governing, the more left-leaning Eden did not. Prior to and during the Second World War, Eden showed disdain for the Conservative Party and its more right-wing supporters. He contemplated joining Labour and gave serious consideration to forming a new party consisting of left-wing Conservatives and right-wing members of Labour.¹³⁷ He envisioned the only opposition to this new postwar coalition would be the communists.¹³⁸ When Eden succeeded Churchill, he offered ‘platitudes about favouring a property-owning democracy’, but kept the postwar consensus firmly in place.¹³⁹

Unlike the Labour leaders – Herbert Morrison, Morgan Phillips, Clement Attlee and Ernest Bevin – the Conservative leadership of Anthony Eden, Winston Churchill and David Maxwell Fyfe viewed the ‘communist menace’ from a different perspective. Because of their philosophical make-up, these men disdained Marxism and were as dedicated to the cause of anti-communism as their Labour contemporaries. However, for these Conservatives, the nature of the communist threat to the UK varied from that of their main political opponents. The Labour leadership – prior to and during their time in power – confronted communists and fellow travellers in both their party and the affiliated trade union movement. This anxiety over crypto-communists in the House of Commons and the battle with communistic influence in unions forged, and later strengthened, for Labour leaders the belief that the communist ideology had not just fostered international and political rivals. It both rested at the heart of and functioned as an insidious conspiracy. The Conservatives rejected this notion; they refused to categorise domestic communism as such.¹⁴⁰ During their time in office, Morrison and Attlee railed against the supposed covert actions of the CPGB and their supporters. The same was not the case for the Conservatives. After taking power, Churchill conceded in early 1952 there was little feasibility in arguing that the reds were the ‘root of all our troubles’.¹⁴¹ The Conservatives gauged the threat of domestic communism by the influence the CPGB exerted at the ballot box. The fiery denunciations of communists by ministers, so common during the Attlee government, were non-existent after Churchill returned to the premiership. Attlee’s two successors viewed the face of the Marxist-Leninist danger much differently than him.

Before the Second World War, in both the US and UK, the lower classes were routinely suspected of communist sympathies. Yet in the US, the panic of communism morphed into one which feared the betrayal of the upper class. Leading this shift of targets were politicians such as Joseph McCarthy and Richard Nixon. The same transition did not occur in the UK. One reason was the rejection of populism by the Conservative Party. The second was that the Conservative Party sought to uphold the traditional elements of society and class.¹⁴² Unlike with Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White, where the Republicans attacked the establishment and the elitism that created these men, in the UK the Conservatives protected their own.

The 1955 exoneration of Philby and the whitewashing of the affair brought with it a backlash. After Philby’s eventual 1963 defection became public – compounded by the uncovering of the double agent of George Blake in 1961 – ‘mole-hunting’ became one of the nation’s unofficial pastimes. The failure to unmask the likes of Blake and Philby sooner opened the floodgates in the minds of many, leading to the suspicions of communist spies to deluge the national psyche. Despite Labour’s renewed calls for a more thorough investigation of communist penetration inside government, Harold Macmillan, now prime minister, again refused. Hence, little was done to alleviate the growing problem. Whitehall continued to conceal the extent to which Soviet agents had penetrated its institutions. These included refusals to publicise the discovery of both Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross – other members of the Cambridge spy ring – alongside the discovery of the treachery of others, such as Melita Norwood. After the cover-ups of these spies became public, official denials could no longer be trusted. Thus, anyone and everyone was under suspicion. During the 1970s and 1980s the names of those accused routinely made the headlines.¹⁴³ The list of those accused was long and illustrious; class and privilege no longer protected those who were now falling under suspicion. Those accused of being a communist agent included Guy Liddell, Roger Hollis, Lord Rothschild, Lord Mountbatten, Graham Mitchell and even Prime Minister Harold Wilson.

To the internationally minded Churchill and a lesser extent his protégé Eden, the perils of communism came from the opposite side of the Iron Curtain and not from the boroughs of East London or the banks of the River Clyde. One of the first concerns of Attlee after gaining the premiership was rooting out communists from his backbenches. Conversely, after regaining power Churchill worried about the lack of sufficient troops in the UK to defend the country against a possible Soviet invasion. In the atomic age, it was baffling for his generals when he ordered the revival of the Home Guard to compensate.¹⁴⁴ Churchill viewed the Soviet Union as an existential threat to the West. Despite his decision to revive the anachronistic Home Guard, Churchill was still well aware of the atomic age and its destructive potential. ‘Europe would have been communized and London would have been under bombardment some time ago’, he maintained, ‘but for the deterrent of the atomic bomb in the hands of the United States.’¹⁴⁵ If the recollections of Senator Styles Bridges are believed, then Churchill privately held a bellicose solution to the external communist threat. Bridges recounted to the FBI a conversation he had with Churchill in late December 1947 in which the Conservative leader advocated a pre-emptive atomic strike to decapitate the Soviet leadership, followed by all-out war with the Soviet Union.¹⁴⁶ Less than horrified by the suggestion, Styles, a future McCarthy loyalist, readily agreed with Churchill and wished for his country to quickly attack. With Churchill leading the Conservatives, the emphasis of fighting communism was directed to the international level. However, by 1951, as the Conservative Party returned to government, core anti-communist tendencies existed in British society. Just as they refused to overturn established policies of Labour in other areas of domestic affairs, the Conservatives allowed the anti-communist directives to stay in place. These formed another facet of the postwar consensus.

Notes

1. 1.  A. Eden, Days for Decision (London, 1950), p. 126.

2. 2.  Hansard, HC, vol. 496, c. 703 (25 February 1952).

3. 3.  Bernard Montgomery to Oliver Lyttelton, 27 December 1951, TNA PREM 11/121.

4. 4.  R. Thurlow, The Secret State (Oxford, 1994), p. 309.

5. 5.  R. Aldrich and R. Cormac, The Black Door (London, 2016), p. 161.

6. 6.  M. Kandiah, ‘The Conservative Party and the early Cold War: Construction of “New Conservatism”’, in Cold War Britain, 1954–1964, ed. M. Hopkins, M. Kandiah and G. Staerack (New York, 2003), 30–8, at p. 30.

7. 7.  R. Toye, Churchill’s Empire (London, 2010), p. 267.

8. 8.  See P. White, Our Supreme Task: How Winston Churchill’s Iron Curtain Speech Defined the Cold War Alliance (New York, 2012).

9. 9.  Victory: War Speeches by the Right Hon. Winston Churchill, ed. Charles Eade (London, 1946), pp. 88–9.

10. 10.  L. Moran, Churchill: Taken from the Diaries of Lord Moran (Boston, MA, 1966), p. 271.

11. 11.  C. Attlee, Purpose and Policy (London, 1947), p. 7.

12. 12.  R. Toye, ‘Winston Churchill’s “crazy broadcast”: Party, nation, and the 1945 Gestapo speech’, Journal of British Studies, 49 (2010): 655–80, at p. 655; R. Cockett, Thinking the Unthinkable (London, 1995), p. 94.

13. 13.  Herbert Morrison speech, issued by the Labour Party, 11 January 1948, LPA/LID/Anti-communist propaganda 1948.

14. 14.  Western Morning News, 3 May 1948, p. 2.

15. 15.  Hansard, HC, vol. 435, cc. 1688–9 (31 March 1947).

16. 16.  Hull Daily Mail, 18 March 1950, p. 3.

17. 17.  Marjorie Maxse to General Director, 22 December 1950, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Conservative Party Archive (henceforth CPA): CCO 4/4/36.

18. 18.  Oliver Lyttelton to Winston Churchill, 4 March 1949, CHAN II/4/5, Churchill College, Cambridge.

19. 19.  ‘Is Mr. Morrison a socialist?’, 18 October 1946, MS Macmillan 379, Papers of Harold Macmillan, Bodleian Library, Oxford.

20. 20.  Hansard, HC, vol. 446, c. 619 (23 January 1948).

21. 21.  Report by Committee on Communist and Fascist Activities, 8 July 1948, CPA: NUA 6/2/5.

22. 22.  Report of Committee on Communist and Fascist Activities, undated, CPA: NUA 6/2/5.

23. 23.  Report by the Committee on Communist and Fascist Activities, 8 July 1948, CPA: NUA 6/2/5.

24. 24.  Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail, 11 March 1949, p. 6.

25. 25.  Fife Free Press, 3 December 1949, p. 5.

26. 26.  Yorkshire Evening Post, 2 June 1949, p. 7.

27. 27.  Western Morning News, 16 February 1950, p. 1.

28. 28.  W. Churchill, In the Balance (New York, 1952), text of speech given on 25 March 1950.

29. 29.  T.F. Lindsay to Henry Hopkinson, 4 February 1949, CPA: CDR D-2-5.

30. 30.  H.G. Nicholas, The British General Election of 1950 (London, 1951), p. 222.

31. 31.  Charles Gill, ‘Fellow travellers’, 18 January 1950, CPA: CCO 4/3/38.

32. 32.  Socialist Commentary, September 1949, pp. 205–6; Socialist Commentary, April 1956, p. 4.

33. 33.  Socialist Commentary, December 1950, p. 286.

34. 34.  Western Morning News, 3 May 1948, p. 2.

35. 35.  Tribune, 3 November 1950, p. 7.

36. 36.  What Is the Communist After?, Labour Party leaflet, LPA/LID/Anti-communist Propaganda 1950.

37. 37.  Speech by Herbert Morrison, issued by the Labour Party, 24 March 1950, LPA/LID/Anti-communist Propaganda 1949.

38. 38.  Marjorie Maxse to Robert Short, 24 July 1950, CPA: CCO 4/3/38.

39. 39.  Numerous detailed reports on communists meeting are in CPA: CCO 4/4/36.

40. 40.  Irene Ward to Marjorie Maxse, 1 June 1949, CPA: CCO 4/3/38.

41. 41.  Charles Gill to Marjorie Maxse, 3 June 1949, CPA: CCO 4/3/38.

42. 42.  Charles Gill to Marjorie Maxse, 12 July 1949, CPA: CCO 3/3/28.

43. 43.  Ian Fraser to Marjorie Maxse, 29 July 1949, CPA: CCO 3/3/28.

44. 44.  Charles Gill to Marjorie Maxse, 18 October 1949, CPA: CCO 4/3/38.

45. 45.  J. Cranna to Colonel Blair, 1 December 1949, CPA: CCO 4/3/38.

46. 46.  J.C.D. Dodds to Brigadier Clarke, 4 April 1950, CPA: CCO 4/3/38.

47. 47.  Homan to Marjorie Maxse, 8 May 1950, CPA: CCO 4/3/38.

48. 48.  Marjorie Maxse to Homan, 9 May 1950, CPA: CCO 4/3/38.

49. 49.  Charles Gill to Marjorie Maxse, 29 September 1950, CPA: CCO 4/4/36.

50. 50.  General Director to Heads of Departments, ‘Party Literature on Communism’, 4 July 1950, CPA: CCO 4/3/30.

51. 51.  ‘Communism in Great Britain: A short history of the British Communist Party’, by H.A. Taylor, CPA: PUB/24.

52. 52.  George Christ to D. Spencer, 16 November 1951, CPA: CCO 4/4/36.

53. 53.  C. Andrew, The Defence of the Realm (London, 2009), p. 393.

54. 54.  Liddell diary, 16 December 1952.

55. 55.  ‘The possibility of present Soviet penetration of the Foreign Service’, November 1955, TNA 158/133.

56. 56.  Andrew, Defence of the Realm, p. 294.

57. 57.  David Maxwell Fyfe to Winston Churchill, 2 August 1952, TNA PREM 11/999.

58. 58.  Cabinet report by Committee on Restriction on Travel of Security Suspects, 2 April 1953, TNA PREM 11/999.

59. 59.  Quoted from Security Service Archives in Andrew, Defence of Realm, p. 398.

60. 60.  A.J. de la Mare, cover letter to FO report on Maclean and Burgess, undated, TNA FCO 158/177.

61. 61.  ‘Policy towards homosexuality in the Foreign Service’, TNA FCO 158/177.

62. 62.  Vansittart, The Mist Procession (London, 1958), p. 413.

63. 63.  Report by Lord Jowitt, 28 December 1955, TNA CAB 134/1325.

64. 64.  Foreign Office to Security Conference of Privy Counsellors, 30 November 1955, TNA CAB 134/1325.

65. 65.  Meeting conclusions of Security Conference of Privy Councillors, 12 December 1955, TNA CAB 134/1325.

66. 66.  Security Conference of Privy Councillors, ‘Report of the Conference’, 7 January 1956, TNA CAB 134/1325.

67. 67.  Security Conference of Privy Councillors, ‘Report of the Conference’, 7 January 1956, TNA CAB 134/1325.

68. 68.  Statement on the Findings of the Conference of Privy Councillors on Security Volume 9715 of Cmd. (HM Stationery Office, 1956).

69. 69.  J. Mahoney, ‘Constitutionalism, the rule of law, and the Cold War’, in The Legal Protection of Human Rights: Sceptical Essays, ed. T. Campbell, K. Ewing and A. Tomkins (Oxford, 2011), 127–47, at p. 141.

70. 70.  The Secret Police and You, pamphlet published by The Campaign for the Limitation of Secret Police Powers, 1956.

71. 71.  Spectator, 13 July 1956, p. 7.

72. 72.  J. Mahoney, ‘Civil liberties in Britain during the Cold War: The role of the central government’, The American Journal of Legal History, 30 (1989): 53–100, at p. 72.

73. 73.  Dundee Courier, 29 December 1953, p. 5.

74. 74.  H. Hyman, ‘England and America: Climates of tolerance and intolerance’, in The Radical Right, ed. Daniel Bell (New York, 1962), 269–306, at p. 334.

75. 75.  M. Hollingsworth and R. Norton-Taylor, Blacklist (London, 1988), p. 25.

76. 76.  B. Porter, Plots and Paranoia (London, 1989), p. 186.

77. 77.  Duff Cooper Diaries, 1915–1951, ed. J. Norwich (London, 2005), p. 143.

78. 78.  R. Davenport-Hines, Enemies Within: Communists, the Cambridge Spies and the Making of Modern Britain (London, 2018), p. 562.

79. 79.  K. Philby, My Secret War (London, 1968), pp. 193–4.

80. 80.  Hansard, HC, vol. 545, cc. 1497–8 (7 November 1955).

81. 81.  Philby, Secret War, p. 37.

82. 82.  Hansard, HC, vol. 545, c. 1497 (7 November 1955).

83. 83.  For Macmillan’s brief account, see H. Macmillan, Tides of Fortune (London, 1969), pp. 683–6.

84. 84.  Arthur de la Mare to Donald Maitland, 6 November 1955, TNA FCO 158/177.

85. 85.  Quoted in A. Boyle, The Climate of Treason (London, 1979), p. 394.

86. 86.  Aldrich and Cormac, Black Door, p. 168.

87. 87.  See V. and E. Petrov, Empire of Fear (London, 1956), pp. 271–6.

88. 88.  S. Kerr, ‘British Cold War defectors: The versatile durable toys of propagandists’, in British Intelligence Strategy and the Cold War, 1945–51, ed. R. Aldrich (London, 1992), 110–39, at p. 123.

89. 89.  On 2 November Macmillan did ask Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov for help with the location of Maclean and Burgess. His inquiry was expressed as a joke, further evidence that Macmillan did not treat the investigation seriously. Macmillan Diaries: The Cabinet Years, ed. P. Catterall (London, 2003), p. 502.

90. 90.  Hansard, HC, vol. 540, cc. 909–10 (27 April 1955).

91. 91.  ‘Notes on the early stages of the Philby case’, prepared for Macmillan after Philby’s defection in 1963. TNA PREM 11/4457.

92. 92.  ‘Notes on the early stages of the Philby case’, TNA PREM 11/4457.

93. 93.  T. Milne, Kim Philby (London, 2014), p. 172.

94. 94.  N. West, Cold War Spymaster (Barnsley, 2018), p. 165; T. Weiner, Legacy of Ashes (New York, 2007), pp. 255–6.

95. 95.  N. West, The Circus (New York, 1983), p. 63.

96. 96.  Liddell diary, 1 April 1952.

97. 97.  M. Carter, Anthony Blunt (London, 2001), p. 356; Philby, Secret War, p. 69.

98. 98.  Carter, Blunt, p. 285.

99. 99.  Liddell diary, 7 and 8 July 1952.

100. 100.  For a full text of the white paper and a list of its many known errors, see appendix 1 in N. West, Mole-Hunt (London, 1987).

101. 101.  Northern Whig, 24 September 1955, p. 1.

102. 102.  Western Mail, 24 September 1955, p. 1.

103. 103.  Cabinet Memorandum by Harold Macmillan, 19 October 1955, TNA CAB 129/78.

104. 104.  Macmillan Diaries: The Cabinet Years, p. 493.

105. 105.  P. Knightley, Philby (London, 1988), p. 194.

106. 106.  Liddell diary, 6 February 1952.

107. 107.  Bower, English Spy, p. 157.

108. 108.  A. Glees, The Secrets of the Service (London, 1987), p. 364.

109. 109.  Knightley, Philby, p. 195.

110. 110.  Boyle, Treason, p. 397.

111. 111.  Macmillan, Tides of Fortunes, p. 682.

112. 112.  Macmillan, Tides of Fortunes, pp. 682–3.

113. 113.  Bower, English Spy, p. 157.

114. 114.  Macmillan Diaries, The Cabinet Years, p. 503.

115. 115.  Hansard, HC, vol. 545, cc. 1509–10 (7 November 1955).

116. 116.  Hansard, HC, vol. 545, c. 1516 (7 November 1955).

117. 117.  Hansard, HC, vol. 545, c. 1456 (7 November 1955).

118. 118.  Hansard, HC, vol. 545, cc. 1598–9 (7 November 1955).

119. 119.  Quoted in Knightley, Philby, pp. 96–197.

120. 120.  Bower, English Spy, p. 158.

121. 121.  E. Harrison, The Young Kim Philby (Exeter, 2012), p. 182.

122. 122.  Liddell diary, 24 November 1952.

123. 123.  Spectator, 23 September 1955, p. 5.

124. 124.  A. Bullock, Ernest Bevin: Foreign Secretary (London, 1983), p. 72.

125. 125.  B. Donoughue and G. Jones, Herbert Morrison (London, 1973), p. 496.

126. 126.  Diary transcript, p. 219, Papers of Richard Crossman, MSS 154-8-18, MRC.

127. 127.  U.S. News and World Report, 15 October 1954, p. 87.

128. 128.  D. Thorpe, Supermac (London, 2010), p. 310.

129. 129.  A. Horne, Macmillan 1894–1956 (London, 1988), p. 366.

130. 130.  D. Caute, Fellow-Travellers (London, 1977), p. 305.

131. 131.  V. Mitrokhin and C. Andrew, The Mitrokhin Archives (London, 1999), p. 209.

132. 132.  C. Pincher, Their Trade Is Treachery (London, 1981), p. 27.

133. 133.  P. Addison, Churchill on the Home Front (London, 1992), p. 387.

134. 134.  D. Carlton, ‘Anthony Eden, 1955–1957’, in From New Jerusalem to New Labour, ed. V. Bogdanor (London, 2010), 42–59, at p. 44.

135. 135.  V. Bogdanor, ‘Winston Churchill, 1951–1955’, in From New Jerusalem to New Labour, ed. V. Bogdanor (London, 2010), 23–41, at p. 30.

136. 136.  Bogdanor, ‘Winston Churchill, 1951–1955’, p. 26.

137. 137.  D. Dutton, Anthony Eden (London, 1996), p. 251.

138. 138.  D. Carlton, Anthony Eden (London, 1981), p. 185.

139. 139.  Carlton, ‘Anthony Eden, 1955–1957’, p. 44.

140. 140.  U.S. News and World Report, 15 October 1954, p. 88.

141. 141.  Hansard, HC, vol. 496, c. 703 (25 February 1952).

142. 142.  On the topic of populism, Richard Thurlow wrote: ‘The Conservatives’ ingrained dislike of populism and suspicion of American culture and values meant they were loath to imitate the practices of American anti-communist politics, no matter how much they sympathised with the sentiments behind it.’ R. Thurlow, Secret State (Oxford, 1994), p. 309.

143. 143.  Observer, 15 March 1987, p. 13.

144. 144.  A. Seldon, Churchill’s Indian Summer (London, 1981), p. 296.

145. 145.  Quoted in M. Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: Never Despair (London, 1988), p. 566.

146. 146.  D. Milton Ladd to J. Edgar Hoover, 5 December 1947, FBI archival files, ‘Winston Churchill part 3’.