The Secret History of MI6 - Keith Jeffery [58]
As British intelligence officers in the Netherlands, Scandinavia and Switzerland discovered, running operations in neutral countries potentially raised difficulties, not only with the host authorities, but also with the Foreign Office and the British diplomats in the country concerned. Although the prewar line that consular officials, and even service attachés, should have nothing to do with secret intelligence was in some places (notably the Netherlands) modified somewhat once hostilities had commenced, problems continued elsewhere. In March 1915 Kirke wrung some concessions from Ronald Campbell of the Foreign Office. Consuls, he agreed, could be used for the transmission of messages and would be permitted to recommend individuals as possible agents, but they ‘must have no direct relations with agents’. Discussing the situation in Switzerland in November 1915, Campbell told Kirke that Nicolson would not let the military attaché ‘have anything to do with Intelligence’. Kirke countered that ‘if he did not help in Intelligence the M.A. was useless’ and that anyone who was sent out to work in Switzerland had to have some ‘official position’ or he could not stay in the country ‘without becoming an object of suspicion & embarrassing the F.O.’. ‘It is clear’, grumbled Kirke to his diary, ‘that the prejudices of peace time still exist very strongly, and that we are much hampered as compared with the Germans or even the French.’29
Part of the perennial Foreign Office worry about mixing diplomacy with espionage concerned cover. Giving intelligence personnel positions as diplomats might, if they were discovered, jeopardise the status of the entire mission. But for the intelligence agencies ‘natural’ cover, for example as a businessman or journalist, might not provide a secure enough situation especially (as Kirke argued) in wartime.30 Much also depended on the particular diplomats concerned. The attitudes of ambassadors and heads of mission varied. Sir Horace Rumbold proved to be more accommodating than most after he became minister at Berne in September 1916, allowing the appointment of Cumming’s man Captain Edward Harran as assistant military attaché and other individuals to consular posts. Harran had been working since December 1915 as a Military Permit Officer, which, with the title Military Control Officer (MCO), emerged as the most plausible cover adopted during the First World War. Working in Military Control Offices set up under Kell’s counter-espionage Bureau during 1915 (initially in London, Paris, Rome and New York), these officers issued permits for people to travel to and from the United Kingdom and into British military zones. It was a role which usefully involved an overt information-gathering function, licensing the officers, for example, to question individuals, to enquire into their background and reasons for wishing to travel, and (perhaps most importantly) to liaise with local police and security agencies. It was, it seemed, almost perfect cover for anyone wanting to run an intelligence network. In due course Cumming was given the job of administering the MCOs in foreign countries, but this did not come cheap. In July 1916 he requested from the Foreign Office, and received, ‘£5000 more per month’ (approximately £243,000 at current values) to fund eleven additional officers, for Petrograd, Paris, Madrid, Lisbon, Rome, Athens, Alexandria, Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen and New York.
In June 1916 Harran replaced Campbell as Cumming’s chief representative in Switzerland and by the end of the year had a core staff of four: one doing the travel permit work; one liaising with the local French secret service, as well as recruiting and training agents; and one (under civilian cover) focusing on information from Austria, while Harran himself concentrated on Germany ‘and information from behind