Another voice

Looking under my bed

Auberon Waugh

If! were Mr A. N. Shevchenko, defecting head of the Soviet mission to the United Nations, I should be rather nervous of throwing myself on the mercy of President 'Jimmy' Carter. We in England know little about this sanctimonious man beyond what we learn from a study of his face. Various descriptions have been applied to it — 'plastic': Identikit'; 'disgusting' etc — but watching Lord Hankey's almost equally terrible face on television last week talking about his part in the transportation of two million victims of Yalta, I wondered if there was not a more sinister facial characteristic shared between these two men, a quality which, for want of a better word might be described as 'repatriative'.

The Russians are plainly very annoyed by Mr Shevchenko's defection. More than that, such is the odd constitution of the proletarian mind, they are genuinely indignant. America's granting of asylum will be seen as a grave provocation, a slap in the face for the policy of detente which all men of goodwill must believe in, a threat to peace, a boon to those mysterious 'hawks' in the Kremlin who relish nothing so much as the prospect of a nuclear holocaust . . . any chance of persuading the Soviets to abandon production of their SS-20 missile must fade beside such an act of bad faith On the American side.

Even apart from the anger of the Russians, high level defections of this sort are liable to be an embarrassment. When the Czech defector Joseph Frolik told Intelligence interrogators that among his English contacts were a Minister of the Crown and several high-ranking trade union leaders, the matter could be hushed up by a combination of MI5's babyish tradition of secrecy — more useful to the Soviet espionage effort than all the Russian agents in M16 —our own laws of libel and a few bland lies on the floor of the House. But in America, where control of the published word is less rigid, there is always a danger that defectors will spill the beans outside their debriefing sessions, and we already learn,of several New York publishers falling over each other with million-dollar contracts for Shevchenko. The existence of publicly known and active enemy agents sometimes gives rise to the awkward question of why they are not arrested, and the answer must be that either the counter espionage services are too incompetent to assemble enough evidence to stand up in court or that they are prevented from doing so by political pressure. Which may be one reason why M15 remains so silent in England.

In fact, the standard of proof required in

defending a libel action is not quite so high as it is in a criminal prosecution, although very nearly so (c.f. Denning L. J. in Homal v Neuberger Products (1957) 1 QB 247) on p.258: 'The more serious the allegation the higher the degree of probability that is required; but it need not, in a civil case, reach the very high standard required by the criminal law') and juries might be more impressed by the evidence of Major S or Y, a representative of the Security Service in lipstick and dark glasses, if he appeared as defence witness in a libel action than if he appeared as prosecution witness in a trial under the Offical Secrets Act.

But it needs administrative cooperation, of course, to allow officers of the Security Service to give evidence, and everything points to the conclusion that successive British governments have tended to use MI5 less for the protection of the realm against espionage and subversion than, through its public school tradition of omerta, as a means of covering up its own lapses. Perhaps one day we will learn the true his-, tory of the counter-espionage effort under Harold Wilson, and why the only MP or senior official they ever chose — or were allowed — to arrest was poor old Will Owen, who later turned out to be innocent. Owen, it will be remembered, was on the pay roll of the Dominion Export Trust run by Sir Rudi Sternberg (later Lord Plurenden), organiser of the Leipzig group of MPs and Paymaster of many interesting people besides. On this occasion the Security Services appear to have arrested the wrong man and he was the only person of any public importance they chose —or were allowed — to prosecute.

One of the ugliest momcnts in the whole Philby story was when a Russian would-be defector in Turkey offered to expose a high-ranking official in the SIS, and the man the SIS agent sent to organise his reception was Mr Kim Philby. A similar story was told to an uncle of mine by Anatoli Kuznetsov that, when he first defected in London, he went to see an Englishman thought to be sympathetic, only to discover the English man had telephoned the Soviet embassy. One would have thought that within the whole vast organisation of M15 there was one man who knows the full story of 'counter-espionage' in our time and is pre pared to spill the beans, whether from anti socialist motives or simple old-fashioned patriotism. Probably few newspapers will be prepared to print it, from the usual mix ture of timidity, internal left-wing pressure and 'statesmanlike' acceptance of official

guidance — off-hand I can think only of the Spectator and Private Eye, now that the Spectator 22 April 1978 Daily Mail has lost its nerve. But my address is in Who's Who, my telephone number in the Taunton directory . . .

My own first experience of the new spirit in the land came when trying to unscramble the various elements which combined te, prevent the Poles from building a memorisl to the victims of the Katyn massacre ill Chelsea. The opposition came, prima facie, from within the Church of England whose officials maintained (1) that it would be unrestful for old age pensioners who were prone to take their luncheon and indulge ill other recreational activities near the site and (2) that such a monument would be alien to the 'spirit of reconciliation'. The objectors were soon joined, of course, bY the whole chorus of bloody fools waiting le, every saloon bar to support any fatuous au° unjust cause, but I was never able to die" cover exactly how much of the real pressure was Soviet-inspired through sympathise15 within that quaint organisation we call the Church of England, and how much cattle from our own beloved Foreign Office doinS the same job. Kensington and Chelsea councillors allowed themselves to be walked over 011 that occasion. If they are to be walked over, in the matter of the Kensington Kremlin, 1, sincerely hope they will use their powers ot compulsory purchase to acquire a site immediately next to the new Soviet bar' racks for a 200-foot obelisk CO memorating the victims of Yalta. Without some such feature we will have taken Yet another step towards becoming a client,

state of the Soviet Union, obliged to hand

back all refugees from socialism just as the

Finns already do and the British, for that matter, in Hong Kong.

But a far more serious betrayal threatens over the neutron bomb. After everytbill! which has been written on the subject' tfte issue seems to me completely strairpci forward. Only a bloody fool (pace lior„, Chalfont) or a Soviet agent can pretend believe that the Western democracies Wild ever under any circumstances be prepare_ to bring their conventional forces in Eurut: to anything remotely representing Pati"t with the Warsaw Pact. Democracies, alrilos by definition, will always spend the moneilY on butter which tyrannies can spend ° guns.

Once the SS-20 missile is deploY

. the strategic deterrent will lose all rola''' ing credibility. Undoubtedly one half of the Russian mind is deeply shocked bY af,Y suggestion that it might launch an agget sive conventional war in Europe, but other half is fully determined to secure„,1 objectives by threatening to do so. I" t neutron tactical bomb is at the pres° moment our only known means of fra.s.; trating this intention. Hence, the gigea`.11 Russian propaganda campaign against , which seems to have woken every 'sleeping, t agent in the West. In that respect, at lea5t,110 has been quite instructive. But I can't he;ci feeling it is time we all took a long, ha* look under our beds.