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By Root 2670 0

concerns about Bolshevik, trade union and German-fomented subversion in Britain. He shared these with a friend, Basil Thomson, Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and head of the Special Branch, whose remit was political crime. Thomson, an enthusiastic empire-builder who wanted to concentrate all domestic security work into a Directorate of Intelligence, in turn encouraged Long’s ideas for an expanded and co-ordinated domestic intelligence organisation which might combine Special Branch and MI5 (and clearly could be led by Thomson himself ).3 Disturbed by ‘elements of unrest’, and manifestations of Bolshevism, Long told his Cabinet colleagues that ‘we must be vigilant, and, above all, have an efficient, well-paid Secret Service on the civil side’. His memorandum prompted one from the Home Secretary, Edward Shortt, who agreed ‘that the question of the Secret Service is of very great importance’ and worried about ‘serious attempts to disseminate Bolshevist doctrines in this country’. These were ‘exceedingly dangerous, requiring most careful watching and strong anti-Bolshevist propaganda’.4

While the primary concern of both ministers was domestic security, when the matter came before the Cabinet on 24 January, the discussion widened out to include the organisation of secret service in general. It was noted that, apart from the Home Office, several other departments had an interest, and Long stressed the need for some sort of co-ordinating authority. ‘The matter’, he insisted, ‘was of urgent importance in view of the danger of Bolshevism’, which he was ‘sure was on the increase.’ It was decided to set up a committee under the chairmanship of Lord Curzon to find out ‘what was being done at present by the Secret Service branches of the several Departments’ and ascertain ‘how that work could best be co-ordinated with a view to the necessary action being taken with the utmost promptitude’.5 Curzon, acting Foreign Secretary while Arthur Balfour was at the peace conference in Paris (and who was to succeed him at the end of October 1919), was a toweringly grand British imperial proconsul. As a former Viceroy of India and long-time observer of the ‘Great Game’ between Britain and Russia over influence in Central Asia, Curzon was likely to appreciate the critical importance of foreign intelligence.

Following the appointment of the committee (which, apart from Curzon, comprised Shortt, Long, Winston Churchill (Secretary of State for War) and Ian MacPherson (Chief Secretary for Ireland)), Cumming, evidently concerned about the position of his Bureau, went to see Long, who he noted had ‘confused “Secret Service” with Secret Police’, but felt he had been able to put him right on this, and wrote that he ‘appeared quite sound as regards my work’. He also saw Hardinge, who had prepared a ‘very satisfactory’ letter to Curzon embodying Cumming’s views on the matter. Hardinge was concerned, as he telegraphed to Curzon on 28 January, that if Curzon’s committee was going to discuss the ‘Foreign Secret Service’ (which was ‘quite distinct from [the] Home Office and Irish Office organisations’), the control hitherto exercised by the Foreign Office should be maintained.

Usefully describing the position of Cumming’s Bureau as it was in early 1919, and reiterating principles which underlay the Foreign Office’s relationship with SIS over its first forty years, in a letter of 7 February Hardinge impressed on Curzon that ‘the Secret Service run by the Foreign Office deals with foreign countries alone’. It had ‘nothing to do with information to be obtained in Great Britain, Ireland or the Colonies’, and it was ‘essential that the control of secret service operations in foreign countries should be in the hands of the Foreign Office’, which was ‘the only Government Department in a position to decide whether such operations may or may not conflict with the general foreign policy of H.M. Government, and to consider whether they may not create serious difficulties with foreign Governments if discovered’. This, he added, was ‘even more important