The Secret History of MI6 - Keith Jeffery [216]
No consideration at all is given to the fact that during this period our annual estimates rose from an original figure of £63,000 to £178,000 and we were working at the highest pressure, forming a military unit, equipping some 60 technical vehicles, putting up two Broadcasting stations and a recording centre, at a speed which many experts would consider impossible, carrying ever-increasing telegraphic traffic, developing the new science of agents communications, coping with S.O.2 communications, carrying an expanding circulation of J.Q. [Polish signals] at home and abroad, and endeavouring to contribute to the process of winning the war. But, then, these auditors wouldn’t want to know that we do any of these things. It seems to be of greater importance that one order has become entangled with another.
Sykes, although himself a stickler for correct office procedure, was only doing his job, and arguably a fastidious attention to detail was of particular importance in wartime when administration and expenditure could so easily get out of control. Yet the fact that Gambier-Parry’s outbursts (of which there were many) were tolerated, and he remained in charge of communications for the rest of the war and after, suggests that he was sufficiently good at his job for generous allowances to be made for his excitable temperament.
Headquarters changes
The increased tempo of SIS work in 1939-40 put pressure on the United Kingdom organisation and necessitated a reform of the existing headquarters. By late 1940 this was largely complete. Claude Dansey, back from Switzerland, was installed as Assistant CSS, effectively Menzies’s second-in-command, despite Vivian’s existing designation as Deputy CSS (which he tried without success to defend).43 Dansey took charge of two new sections, A and O. A Section, under Frank Foley (ex-head of the Berlin station and latterly in Norway), was charged with rebuilding networks in occupied Europe and had sub-sections for Scandinavia, Holland, Belgium and A.5, the Free French. O (for Operations) Section was headed by Commander Frank Slocum (a former regular naval officer who had served with the Grand Fleet in the First World War), whose job was to organise SIS’s sea and air communications.44
Valentine Vivian, meanwhile, ran the War Station at Bletchley Park, and handled counter-espionage (Section V), including liaison with MI5. The presence of Allied governments-in-exile and large numbers of foreign servicemen and refugees meant that a great deal of work which would normally have been ‘performed by M.I.6 in certain foreign countries’ (such as recruiting agents) was now ‘automatically transferred to the U.K.’, thus trespassing on MI5’s territory. In order to ‘interlock the functions of M.I.5 and M.I.6’, it was arranged in July 1940 that Section V should simultaneously be Section B.26 of MI5 and the SIS officers therein would communicate with the British police and civil authorities as if they were members of MI5.
SIS also made plans against the possibility of a German invasion of Britain itself. A new Section VII was set up which by July had begun to identify potential stay-behind agents. Working jointly with Vivian and David Boyle, Gambier-Parry