But Angleton's distress had nothing to do with Israel. I learned the truth. Just before the CAZAB conference an internal CIA inquiry led by a security officer named Bruce Solie had concluded that Nossenko was almost certainly a genuine defector, although it could offer no explanation for the curious contradictions in his story. Angleton had never told the British this fact, despite its implications for Nossenko's and Golitsin's information. He was obviously frightened that if I visited Washington I might get to hear of Solie's report through another channel.
Incidents like these began to undermine Angleton's credibility. The Nossenko and Lyalin incidents did much to shake the faith of even those who knew him best and defended him longest. We began to doubt whether, after all, the secret sources to which Angleton claimed he had access actually existed. Perhaps it was, after all, just a three-card trick.
In 1970 Angleton suffered the greatest blow of all. He lost his administrative officer and effective number two, Jim Hunt. Hunt was a hard man, who treated Angleton's obsessions with balanced skepticism. He had his feet on the ground, and he made things happen. Angleton, like myself, was a hopeless administrator, and Hunt ensured that papers were circulated, requests replied to, and the day-to-day routine, upon which an efficient intelligence service relies, was maintained. Without him, Angleton became a ship without anchor, drifting slowly toward the abyss.
Lyalin's defection and the expulsion of the 105 Russian diplomats were not the only signs of a new dawn which seemed to be breaking for British Intelligence in the 1970s. Following his election as Prime Minister in 1970, Edward Heath appointed Victor Rothschild as head of the Central Policy Review Staff (CPRS) - the Think Tank. Never was a man more perfectly suited to a job. Victor had the right qualities of inspiration and radicalism to provide the kind of challenging policy unit Heath wanted. The call came at just the right time for Victor. I could tell that he was becoming slightly bored toward the end of the 1960s. He had no regard for Harold Wilson, and there was no role for him in public life. He maintained his links with British Intelligence, utilizing his friendship with the Shah of Iran, and running agents personally for Dick White in the Middle East, particularly Mr. Reporter, who played such a decisive role in MI6 operations in the 1950s. It was exciting, but he hankered after a real challenge, and the Think Tank was exactly what he needed.
As head of the Think Tank, Victor Rothschild took a close interest in security, and Heath encouraged him to do so, much to the irritation of the Home Office, and in particular the powerful Permanent Secretary of the time, Philip Allen (now Lord Allen of Abbeydale, and a member of the Security Commission). Victor became, in effect, the Lord Wigg of Heath's Government. Once inside the Cabinet Office Victor teamed up with Dick White, the newly installed Cabinet Intelligence Coordinator following his retirement from MI6. Together they combined to give British Intelligence its highest ever postwar profile.
Victor's finest achievement for MI5 was securing F.J.'s succession. F.J. was never a popular figure in Whitehall. He was too much his own man, and too secret even for that bastion of secrecy. Normally the outgoing Director-General has the right to choose his successor, but as F.J. approached retirement in 1972, the Home Office, and especially Philip Allen, decided it was time to exert authority. Allen was convinced that an outsider should be appointed. He had become suspicious of MI5 and feared they had become a dangerous repository of scandal. He knew only sketchy details of the full extent of the traumas of the mole hunts, but he knew about Blunt and Long, and he knew enough to be worried. He was alarmed by what seemed to him to be the cavalier use of immunities, and the undoubtedly poor caliber of MI5 management. He wanted a safe pair of hands at the helm of the organization - someone who could tell him what was going on, someone he could trust.
Simkins finally retired, to my great relief, about a year before F.J.'s scheduled retirement, and was replaced by Michael Hanley. As far as Allen was concerned, Hanley was neither experienced enough nor independent enough to be entrusted with the top job. Allen's preferred candidate was Sir James Waddell, a deputy secretary at the Home Office, who was responsible for Police and Security Affairs, and handled all day-to-day liaison between MI5 and the Home Office. Waddell was a dependable mandarin who had somehow missed out on a permanent secretary's job. Allen, to whom he had given loyal service, wanted to install him as Director-General of the Security Service.
Waddell's prospective appointment was viewed with considerable concern inside MI5. He was a finicky man who insisted on the last dot and comma on intercept warrant applications. He lacked the experience as an intelligence officer to gain the respect of its senior officers. Many of us felt his candidacy was pure Whitehall expediency, which would set the Service back a decade, in the same way that Rennie's appointment as C just a few years before had caused a massive slump in morale in MI6.
Of course, there was another consideration as well. There were many secrets which M15 had kept from their political and Civil Service masters, and the last thing anyone in MI5 wanted at that stage was the explosive story of the mole hunts to receive an airing around Whitehall.
The first I heard of the problem of succession was when F.J. mentioned it in late 1971. He told me he was determined to stop Waddell taking over the Service, and said he had already approached Dick White to ask for assistance. But the situation looked gloomy. A committee of top permanent secretaries chaired by the Cabinet Secretary and attached to the Senior Appointments Selection Committee had already recommended Waddell, and although F.J. had put forward Hanley's name he had received no votes at all. He was too new, too inexperienced, and the mandarins knew too little about him.
"Is there anything you can do with your powerful friend?" asked F.J., referring in his customary manner to Victor.
At the time I used to see Victor informally once a week - sometimes in his room at the Cabinet Office, more often at his home. On my next visit I raised the question of the succession. It had all the right elements to fire Victor's imagination - a heady brew of intrigue and secrecy.
He told me he had already been alerted to the situation by Dick White, who had told him that he supported Hanley for the job. Dick had initially given some thought to supporting Maurice Oldfield for the job. Sir John Rennie, anxious to remove the man who effectively ran MI6, even though he himself was the titular head, had put Oldfield's name forward, but Oldfield had made it plain he preferred to sit it out and wait for another chance as Director C if Rennie retired. (Rennie did retire prematurely after the disclosure that his son had been convicted of a drugs charge, and Oldfield succeeded him.)
"Do the Service want Hanley?" asked Victor. He often used me as a sounding board for Service as opposed to management opinion.
"Certainly," I replied.
"Do you have anything against him?"
I told him the story of the HARRIET affair. Although Victor already knew of my suspicions about penetration, and I had discussed both Hollis and Mitchell with him, the fact that Hanley had once been a suspect was new to him.
I told him I was quite convinced he was in the clear, and so were the Americans. I told him the Service were dead set against Waddell, and that there would undoubtedly be serious trouble if he were appointed.