to America to establish a MI6(V) post within British Security Coordination (BSC), and after Pearl Harbor, to establish relations with the FBI and the COI (later the OSS). He returned to London in February 1942. He had placed Philby in charge of MI6(V) in his absence. Philby was given further responsibilities during 1942, until his role was expanded to that of deputy of the section. When the new military CE units were approved under the name SI(b) Units, Philby also took responsibility for their control, though the staff of these units was selected by Cowgill and were also subject to his direction. Philby was also a part of the welcoming committee for the new OSS London staff. David Bruce, the head of OSS/London, recorded being received at MI6(V) by “Colonel Cowgill and Major Philby”. [34]
In neutral countries counter-espionage matters were handled by MI6(V) officers based in British Embassies and Consulates. In Portugal, for instance, Ralph Jarvis was the MI6(V) representative who was involved in the recruitment of the famous agent GARBO. There are two versions, both by former MI6(V) officers, to the identification of Juan Pujol Garcia as the Abwehr spy ARABEL, and his recruitment by British intelligence as the Double Agent GARBO.
In the first version, Ralph Jarvis was visiting London in late February 1942 and met with TAR Robertson, the head of MI5’s B1a (double agent) section. [35] Robertson confirmed that a cut-out address provided to Pujol by the Germans was indeed real and had been issued to another agent under MI5 control. Thanks to this meeting, MI6 began to re-assess Juan Pujol Garcia, a Spanish “walk-in” whom they had regarded as a possible attempted “plant” by the Abwehr, or else an intelligence fabricator. MI6 spent the next 6 weeks searching for him in Portugal and Spain, while MI5 was busy laying claim to him as a potential DA to be operated from the UK. Cowgill was reluctant to pass to MI5 all information they had on Pujol, perhaps as a prudent security measure, fearing this might by an attempt by the Abwehr to penetrate the British services. The story of the conversation between Jarvis and Robertson is recorded in the Guy Liddell Diaries on 23 February 1942, and a subsequent talk between Liddell and Cowgill on 26 March noted that MI6(V) had known of Pujol since December, and that Cowgill wanted to debrief the agent in Britain and then return him to work from Lisbon. [36]
In the second version, ARABEL was identified from ISOS in late 1941 by Section Vd staff as a person of interest at the same time as MI5, who were reading the same ISOS decrypts. There was intense interest in both MI6(V) and in MI5 in the identity and location of this agent, who was thought initially to be in the UK. On 5 February 1942 Desmond Bristow of MI6(V) read a telegram from Lisbon describing a meeting between a US Naval Attache and Juan Pujol, and Pujol’s offer to work for the British. Realising from the text that this was probably the agent ARABEL, in the absence of the desk head Philby, Desmond Bristow notified Cowgill, who advised caution in case he was a double agent who might threaten the security of ISOS. His willingness to let the matter wait until Philby’s return made Bristow think that Philby had not kept Cowgill well informed on the intense interest in ARABEL. Philby returned to the office that afternoon and, after speaking to Cowgill, was immediately on the phone to MI5’s B1(a), getting agreement that MI6(V) personnel in Lisbon would interview Pujol and determine whether he was in fact ARABEL. Jarvis was told the following day to arrange this, and after several meetings between Pujol and a MI6(V) agent, it was decided to bring Pujol to the UK via Gibraltar. He arrived by seaplane in the UK on 25 April. [37]
Both versions agree that Pujol was brought to the UK in April 1942, interviewed by Desmond Bristow of MI6(V) who confirmed him as genuine, and was passed to Tomas Harris and Cyril Mills of B1a, who promptly named him GARBO. In either version, the importance of having MI6(V) personnel abroad to act for both MI5 and MI6 was clearly demonstrated. But the fact that we have two versions at such variance, both from prime sources, also makes it clear that personal recollection is sometimes insufficient evidence and recourse to documentary sources is often a better “official” confirmation of events. Of course, as any professional intelligence officer will know, what gets written for the file is sometimes not the whole story, and occasionally is not even the true story.
Around this time, according to Terry Crowdy’s “Deceiving Hitler” (Osprey Publishing, 2008), MI5 had “felt obliged to lease a number of officers and secretaries to SIS in order to help out [the] underfunded and understaffed Section V” because it was so important to B Division’s work (this might be when Brooman White transferred from MI5 to Section Vd, though he was mentioned as an MI5 officer in Liddell's Diaries in October 1942). At the same time (in April 1942), MI5’s Director Petrie made an attempt to have Section V transferred and amalgamated into his B Division, a move rejected by the head of MI6. [38]
MI6(V) had meanwhile continued to expand its representation in stations abroad. In mid-1941, Kenneth Benton, recruited to MI6 in 1937 and with service in Vienna prior to the war, [39] was given a MI6(V) posting in Madrid. [40] In December 1941 MI6(V) officer Major Rodney Dennys was posted to Cairo to establish what would become the main office for CE work in the Middle East. Dennys was given cover as a member of the Inter-Services Liaison Department (ISLD, an MI6 cover organization) and was located in the same building, but on a separate floor to the offices of SIME (Security Intelligence Middle East, which worked back to MI5). This made convenient the transportation of ISOS material and the meetings of the Thirty (XXX or 30) Committee, consisting of SIME, ISLD and A Force representatives.
During this posting Dennys developed his relationship with his future wife, Elizabeth Greene, sister of Graham Greene, the author. She had joined MI6 in 1938, working at Bletchley Park (where she first met Dennys) before becoming secretary to Captain Cuthbert Bowlby, the MI6 Cairo Station Head. It was apparently Elizabeth who was responsible for introducing both Graham Greene and Malcolm Muggeridge to MI6. [41]
MI6(V) officers were posted to Algiers, Madrid and Gibraltar, as well as to exotic posts like Freetown and Laurenҫo Marques (Greene and Muggeridge, respectively). One officer, Nicholas Elliott, was sent to Istanbul in May 1942, travelling via Freetown (where he was met by Graham Greene), before moving on to Lagos, then Cairo, Jerusalem and Beirut before finishing his journey by train. Neutral Turkey was the base for German intelligence activity against the Middle East, and became an important area for monitoring the German Intelligence Services (GIS). ISOS provided a good overview of Abwehr operations from Turkey, but coverage of the SD was always spotty; fortunately, local agent coverage of SD officials and suspect agents helped to fill out the picture.
“In general, throughout the latter period of the war ISOS, combined with our local records and agents’ reports, gave our representatives a clear picture of almost all Abwehr activities in Turkey and helped establish ideal conditions for offensive C.E. work, which culminated in the rapid series of defections from the Abwehr during the first half of 1944”. [42]
Other officers were later sent to Baghdad, Beirut and Smyrna, and after the liberation of Greece in October 1944 a MI6(V) office was set up in Athens with a subordinate office in Salonica. The Baghdad and Smyrna postings were not permanent positions. [43]
In September 1944, Philby, by then designated ‘Vk’ (for Kim) as the controller of several subsections of MI6(V), was posted away to command the new anti-communist Section IX, and Milne took his place (Milne had been Philby’s successor as ‘Vd’ and after that, head of ‘Vf’, the new German subsection). In December 1944 Col Cowgill resigned as head of MI6(V) in protest after being overlooked for the job as Head of Section IX, and Tim Milne took over MI6(V). [44] Milne estimated the Ryder Street establishment at home and abroad at around 200 officers and secretaries at this time. By war’s end in 1945 this figure was down, but still over a hundred staff, at home and abroad. [45]
The move by Philby to become the head of the new section was a stab in the back for Cowgill, who had originally joined MI6 under the impression he would be put in charge of anti-communist work post-war. With Cowgill out of the way, and with his old friend Tim Milne as head of MI6(V), Philby was able to head-hunt
