I decided to try Watson's name out on Blunt at our next meeting. I knew it would be a waste of time to approach the matter directly, so I prepared a list of all known members of the Apostles including Watson, and asked him to pick out those he had known, or felt I should take an interest in. He went down the list, but made no mention of Watson.
"What about Alister?" I asked him finally.
"No," said Blunt firmly, "he's not relevant."
The time had come to confront Blunt. I told him he was lying again, that he knew as well as I did that Watson was a close friend and fellow Communist at Cambridge. Blunt's tic started again. Yes, it was true, he admitted. They were friends. They still saw each other regularly at Apostles dinners and the like, but he had not recruited him, and nor had Guy so far as he knew.
Alister, he said, was a tragic figure, whose life had gone terribly wrong. He was a man who promised so much, yet had achieved so little, whereas his undergraduate friends, like Blunt himself and Turing, had achieved eminence, and in Turing's case immortality.
"I learned my Marxist theory at Alister's feet," Blunt told me.
"I suppose you know where he works?" I asked.
"The Admiralty, isn't it?"
"You said there were no more, Anthony. You said you were telling me the truth..."
Blunt raked the fire vigorously.
"I could never be Whittaker Chambers," he said after a while, referring to the famous American Communist who renounced his creed in the 1950s and named his former accomplices, including Alger Hiss, in a series of sensational appearances before Congressional committees.
"It's so McCarthyite," he went on, "naming names, informing, witchhunts..."
"But, Anthony, that's what you are - that's why we gave you immunity. It was your choice. It's no good putting the hood on, if you won't point the finger..."
Blunt fell silent. Years had passed since 1937, but the weight never lifted.
"I suppose you'll turn the works on him," he said finally.
I wrote a lengthy report on Watson in early 1965, recommending an urgent investigation. I submitted it to Hollis and F.J. via the head of D Branch, Alec MacDonald, who had replaced Cumming when the latter retired, aware at last that he would never attain the Deputy's chair. MacDonald was a sensible former Indian policeman, with a taste for cordon bleu cooking and the other good things in life, and a dislike of excessive administration. He was good to be with, but could be infuriating to work for.
Nothing happened for five months, and finally, when I attended my D3 annual review meeting with Hollis and F.J., I raised the subject. Why, I asked, had an investigation not been sanctioned? At first there was a lot of talk about priorities, and limits on resources. I reminded them that the whole rationale for D3 was that it should produce leads, which were then to be taken on by D1 (Investigations) if their strength warranted it. Here was a strong lead to a suspect currently enjoying prime access to NATO secrets. I said that if this was to be the procedure, they might just as well close down D3 entirely.
F.J. was very sensible. Hollis was surly and defensive. The mistake had occurred at D Branch level. Somehow or other, in the confusion of the handover from Cumming to MacDonald, the case had not been given the priority it needed. Hollis instructed there and then that the case be activated.
Patrick Stewart, then D1 (Investigations), took it on. He was a great friend as well as a brilliant officer, with an uncomplicated, clear mind. He was a man of great personal courage. During the war he was severely crippled, but despite his wheelchair he continued working at MI5 until ill-health finally drove him into early retirement. Watson was immediately placed under full surveillance, and we soon discovered that his wife and daughter were both current Communists, and from the tenor of his conversations, so was Watson himself, although he had declared none of this during his vettings.
The investigation, however, was limited. Watson was due to visit the USA to be indoctrinated into the latest American antisubmarine-detection techniques, and the Admiralty insisted that the case be clarified before his departure. We decided to interrogate him. Every day for six weeks Watson reported to the Ministry of Defense, where he was questioned by MI5's top interrogator, and today the Deputy Director-General of the Service, Cecil Shipp.
Watson began by acting like an affronted senior civil servant. What right had we to question him? he wanted to know. But this soon disappeared as Shipp probed his story.
Did he know Guy Burgess?
Of course.
Did he ever visit Guy Burgess' flat?
On occasions, yes.
Whom did he meet there?
Guy, Anthony...
Anyone else?
Yes, a foreigner. He couldn't remember his name...
Could he describe him?
At first he couldn't. Then he could. He was Central European.
He had dark hair, slicked down, he thought. It sounded very like "Otto," the controller of the Ring of Five in the late 1930s.
"Does the name 'Otto' mean anything to you?" asked Shipp.
"Yes - that was the man's name. That's right, Otto..." answered Watson, a shade too enthusiastically.
For a while Shipp pursued other areas of questioning, but then he returned to Otto. Had Watson ever met him again? At first Watson couldn't remember. Then he thought perhaps he had met him, but he could recollect no details. Then he remembered that they used to meet in parks, and under lampposts on street corners, and on tube trains.
"Did he give you anything?"
"No, I'm quite sure of that..."
"Did you give him anything?"
"No, I don't think so..."
"Tell me, Mr. Watson, why did you meet him like that? Why not at your flat, or at a restaurant?"
No answer.
A long, long pause.
"I was interested in these people," he said lamely. "I wanted to find out more about Russia..."
"You were interested in these people..." reiterated Shipp with crushing sarcasm.
The next day Shipp showed Watson thirty photographs spread out in a neat fan on the table in front of him. They contained portraits of some of the most important KGB officers since 1945, who had been in Britain.
"Do you recognize any of these people?" he was asked.
Watson stared at the photographs, fingering one or two hesitantly. He muttered to himself as he sorted them, resorted them, stacked them in piles, and unstacked them again, every word captured on the hidden microphones. We were certain, from his answers about Otto, that Watson feared or suspected that we had direct evidence against him, perhaps a surveillance photograph of him meeting a KGB officer, or a confession which implicated him. At night he went home, and we could hear him mumbling there via the SF we had installed on his telephone.
"They've got something," he kept whispering. "They've got something, but I don't know what it is..."