"What do you mean?" he asked.
I told him that procedures for vetting MI5 recruits were clearly less strict than those the Service laid down throughout other Whitehall departments.
"Look at me," I told him, "I still haven't had a vet since I joined in 1955."
The next day the forms were sent down for me, and the issue was never discussed again, although shortly after this the vetting procedure changed, and candidates had in future to provide more referees, one of which could be nominated by the Service.
The most memorable thing about those evenings with Hollis was his extraordinary supply of the filthiest jokes I had ever heard. It was almost as if they were a defensive mechanism, an excuse for talking, or else a way of easing the burden when he stepped down from the Olympian heights of power to mix with the troops. I asked him once where he had amassed such a fund of stories.
"China," he told me. "Everyone drank and told jokes. It was the only way to pass the time."
Early on I decided to search a small desk in the corner of Mitchell's office, and I asked Hollis for the key.
"It was Guy Liddell's desk," he said. "He left it when I took over from him. It's been there for years..."
I asked him for his consent to pick the locks of two of the drawers which were locked. He agreed and I brought the lockpicking tools the next day, and we inspected the insides of the two drawers. They were both empty, but one caught my attention. In the dust were four small marks, as if an object had been very recently dragged out of the drawer. I called Hollis over, and showed him the marks. He seemed as nonplussed as I, especially when I inspected the lock mechanism and found scratch marks, as if the drawer had recently been opened.
Hollis went back to his office through the interconnecting door which ran between Mitchell's office and his own. I finished the search alone.
"Only Hollis and I knew I was going to open that drawer," I thought to myself, "and something has definitely been moved. Could even be a tape recorder. Why not Mitchell? Because he didn't know. Only Hollis knew Guy Liddell's desk. Hollis took over the Deputy's office from him. No key? A man like Liddell doesn't leave the desk, and take the key. Only Hollis knew. Only Hollis..."
I looked up. Through the door Hollis was staring at me. He said nothing. He just stared, and then bent over his file again.
Throughout the summer months of 1963, as Mitchell's retirement neared, the investigation continued at full pitch. But the whole thing was hopelessly compromised. It had all been too hasty, and too ill-planned. Battling the deadline, and lacking the support of Hollis, it was inevitable that the security of the operation began to crumble at the seams. Mitchell realized that something was wrong. For a start, he noticed that the circulation of papers through his in-tray became erratic, as Hollis sought to restrict his access. Then he began to take evasive action against the Watchers, doubling back on himself, and practicing standard countersurveillance. There was little doubt that he knew he was being followed. Through the television monitor, Mitchell exhibited all the signs of a man under terrible stress, as if he were sunk in a massive depression. He was a tall, thin man at the best of times, but he looked positively cadaverous toward the end, with dark, sunken eyes. When people were in the room with him he made an effort to appear normal, but as soon as he was alone, he looked tortured.
"Why are they doing this to me?" he moaned one day, gazing at Hollis' office door.
In the final month the whole affair became almost a farce. There was no chance of finding anything under those circumstances, so Arthur and I pressed Hollis to sanction an interrogation to resolve the case one way or the other. Hollis refused to commit himself, but a few days later he arrived unannounced at the small house in Pavilion Road.
"I have been to see the PM," he said stiffly to the half dozen of us who were in the room, "and I am afraid an interrogation is quite out of the question."
Out of the comer of my eye I could see Arthur brewing for another outburst.
"Another defection at this stage would be calamitous," he said. He thanked us all briskly for our efforts and disappeared down to his waiting car. It was typical Hollis mismanagement of personnel. Here were experienced officers, working at a pitch of desperation, and he could barely spare us two minutes. The dirty work was done. Best leave it to the dirty workers!
It was, as well, a naive approach. The MI6 Watchers, led by a hot-headed and overimpressionable young officer named Stephen de Mowbray, were appalled by Hollis' decision, and immediately took it to be a crude attempt at in-house suppression, the very thing MI5 accused MI6 of with the Philby affair. Moreover, no closedown could remove the fact that the Mitchell case had been done. A full report on the investigation had been written by Ronnie Symonds, a senior D1 officer assigned to handle the paperwork in the case. Symonds' report outlined the history of allegations of penetration of MI5 and concluded that there was a strong likelihood that a spy existed at a high level inside the Service. It raised the obvious question of whether the Americans should be alerted.
Symonds' report was sent to Hollis and Dick White, and after private consultations between the two chiefs, we were summoned for another Sunday afternoon council-of-war, this time at Hollis' house in Campden Hill Square. The contrast between Dick White and Roger Hollis was never clearer than in their homes. Hollis' was a tatty, bookless townhouse, and he appeared at the door wearing his dark pinstripe weekday suit. He showed us into the dingy breakfast room, and launched straight into business. He wanted to hear our views. He gathered there was some concern about the Americans. Consultation never came naturally to Hollis, and there was more than a trace of irritation in his voice now that it had been forced on him.
Arthur acerbically said that we had to find a way of telling them now, in case it became necessary to tell them later, when the effect, if the case against Mitchell was ever proved, would be much more traumatic. Hollis was utterly opposed. He said it would destroy the alliance, especially after Philby.
"For all we know," I reminded Hollis, "the Americans might have sources or information which might help resolve the case. But we'll never get it unless we ask."
For the next hour Hollis debated the issue with the two of us, tempers fraying on all sides. The others in the room - Ronnie Symonds, Arthur's desk officer for the Mitchell case, Hugh Winterborn, and F.J. - tried desperately to keep the temperature down. Symonds said he wanted to keep his options open. Perhaps Mitchell should be interrogated, but then again, it was always possible to regard the issue as closed. As for America, he said he did not know the scene out there well enough to have a view. Winterborn was solid and sensible, supporting Arthur's view that the bigger disaster would be to say nothing now, only to find the case proved later. F.J. finally burst out in exasperation.
"We're not a bloody public school, you know. There's no obligation for us all to 'own up' to the Americans. We run our Service as we think fit, and I wish some of you would remember that!"
But even F.J. acknowledged that there was a problem which had to be resolved. He said that on balance he felt it would be quite prudent to keep the Americans informed, the question was how to do it. Hollis could see he was outnumbered, and suddenly announced that he would visit Washington himself.