The Secret History of MI6 - Keith Jeffery [205]
None of Hankey’s findings so far was very contentious and his conclusions regarding signals intelligence were equally uncontroversial. He recommended no changes or developments at all for the cryptographical work of GC&CS, although he did propose that, because there had been an enormous expansion of sigint work, a separate ‘Y’ Committee should be established to oversee and co-ordinate the technical interception side of things.20 Covert action (which Hankey called ‘subterranean activities’) had been ‘forced on the Government by the conditions of modern warfare’, and had proved to be ‘by far the most difficult of the activities of [the] S.S. to assess correctly’. ‘At first sight,’ he observed, ‘the natural instinct of any human person is to recoil from this undesirable business as something he would rather know nothing about.’ But he then provided the classic rationale for any kind of dirty tricks: if the enemy do it, so must we. The Germans, he wrote, ‘have brought the development of sabotage and kindred subterranean services to a high pitch of efficiency and it is unavoidable to maintain them ourselves unless we are to be placed at a serious disadvantage’.
Hankey noted that propaganda and sabotage were entrusted to Section IX. So far as ‘large scale sabotage’ was concerned, it was ‘too early to express an opinion as to the efficiency of this Section as, up to the present time, none of the planned major operations have been put into practice’. Rather ambiguously, he added that ‘when called upon to produce schemes for particular operations at short notice, the Section has displayed ingenuity and resource’. Some ‘useful’ small-scale sabotage had been achieved ‘on the Danube and on the Polish Railways, particularly in Galicia’, where communications between Germany, Romania and Russia had been ‘hampered to a considerable extent’. He noted, however, the friction which had arisen between Section IX and MIR in the War Office and recommended that Menzies and the Director of Military Intelligence should ensure ‘the closest co-operation and pooling of ideas’ between the two organisations. As for propaganda, Hankey found himself ‘on much more delicate ground’. Although both Grand and, apparently, Menzies had put up a vigorous argument for SIS to continue to produce and distribute material, Hankey felt that the production of propaganda should be left to the existing Foreign Office organisation and that SIS should be responsible for its distribution only in ‘enemy countries and Russia’. There was clearly also a worry about Grand’s maverick independent-minded-ness. In order to ensure ‘complete mutual understanding’ between the Foreign Office organisation and SIS, it was proposed that weekly meetings should be held, and that ‘if any difficulties arise which cannot be settled jointly’ they should be reported to Hankey himself to sort out.
One of the problems Hankey had in producing any sort of definitive report was the fact that most of the issues raised - for example that of liaison with the service ministries - were actually being addressed while he was conducting the inquiry. Menzies, too, had begun his time as Chief with some administrative reorganisation. Hankey remarked that on appointment Menzies had been ‘considerably overloaded with immediate charge of the War Station as well as of headquarters’, but had ‘now carried out considerable measures of decentralisation’. Colonel Vivian had been confirmed as head of the War Station at Bletchley and ‘Deputy Director [sic]’, for which Hankey thought him ‘admirably qualified’. Claude Dansey had ‘taken over the control of a number of sections which previously reported direct to Colonel Menzies’. These included all agents run from London, as well as the Italian and Swiss stations. Dansey, while continuing in charge of the Z Organisation based in Switzerland, came to London to be Assistant Chief (ACSS). In February 1940 Rex Howard became