Use of ISOS by Section V during the War”, dated 2 May 1946, p 24, HW19/321, NA Kew.
43 “The Use of ISOS by Section V during the War”, dated 2 May 1946, p 23, HW19/321, NA Kew.
44 “Kim Philby”, by Tim Milne, p 138, Biteback Publishing Ltd 2014; this date conflicts with that given by Winks (“Cloak & Gown”, p 288) as 18 January 1945.
45 “Kim Philby”, by Tim Milne, p 71, Biteback Publishing Ltd 2014.
46 “My Silent War”, by Kim Philby, pp 98-101, Panther Books Ltd paperback, 1973.
Chapter 2 - A Force, SIME and ISLD
A FORCE
During WW2 the British developed a system of deception to convince the Axis powers that they were better armed and had more armed forces than they in fact had at their disposal, in order to deter the enemy from attacking. This evolved first in the Middle East in late 1940, where an organization called A Force was used for both tactical and strategic deception. The organization was operational well before the London Controlling Section (LCS) came into existence, and it was mainly because of the success of A Force that the LCS was created. Col Dudley W Clarke arrived to work under Gen Wavell in September 1940, and was given the title “personal intelligence officer (special duties) to the commander in chief”. His role was to formulate deception for General Wavell, but in January 1941 he also became head of MI9 for the Middle East, responsible for helping Allied PoW to escape and obtaining intelligence from them.
A Force officially began on 28 March 1941. Even the unit title was aimed to deceive, intending to hint that an Allied (A)irborne force existed in the Middle East. Over the next several years Clarke was to have a number of colleagues and subordinates whom he had known for many years – his first deputy, Noel Wild; his successor in 1944, Michael Crichton; Col AC Simmonds, A Force’s Deputy Head overseeing MI9 operations, and Oliver Thynne, who joined A Force in 1942. [1]
The staff of A Force needed the means to deliver the main thrust of their lies and stratagems to the enemy. They used physical deception – dummy tanks and trucks, fake tracks, fake formation insignia – to sell the story on the ground, and audio deception - sound trucks broadcasting the sounds of equipment and battle. They also created false radio traffic to give the Germans and Italians more evidence for the existence of these units. At the same time they were asking higher authorities back in London to use their deception channels to sell their part in these deceptions. A channel available both locally and back in London was the use of controlled enemy agents (CEAs) and double agents (DAs) to pass parts of the deception story to the enemy.
SIME and CHEESE
Security Intelligence Middle East (SIME) was created in December 1939, tasked to monitor enemy agents in the ME, coordinate action against them, organize security services throughout the theatre, and work with other intelligence services and military organizations. In the spring of 1940 when the GSI (General Staff, Intelligence) was formed in GHQ, SIME was reconstituted as GSI(b) to provide a framework for its functions to which senior staff officers were already accustomed – so, unlike its UK counterpart MI5, it was therefore firmly under the control of the military, and military operations were given more priority than general Middle East security.
The Head of SIME was Brigadier Raymond Maunsell, a former Defence Security Officer (DSO) based in Cairo since 1935, with much experience and a wealth of important contacts in the region, as well as controlling an existing database of casework within the DSO area of responsibility. SIME was instructed to get approval from MI5 and MI6 where new casework impinged on areas under their control. This did not prevent a degree of duplication of effort with MI6, who created a regional organization named the Inter-Services Liaison Department (ISLD), based in the same building as SIME. In November 1941 MI6(V) deployed Major Rodney Dennys to Cairo to take charge of all MI6 CE operations in the theatre, and to be the sole recipient and disseminator of ISOS material, also becoming the person to authorize any action based on ISOS. [2] Until the arrival of Dennys, ISOS had been sent only sporadically to Cairo, in an abbreviated and paraphrased form due to being passed via radio. Dennys was given ISLD cover and worked under Cuthbert Bowlby, the MI6/ISLD head in Cairo. A report on the MI6(V) use of ISOS claimed that
“Deception of the enemy for strategic purposes – i.e. the dissemination of misleading information about the strength, disposition and intended movements of Allied Forces – was carried out with considerable success in the Middle East. This success was largely due to ISOS. We received daily from ISOS several reports from German agents on Allied Armed Force activity often with comments on the agent’s supposed reliability by the controlling German station. These helped the strategic deception experts in the Middle East to discover what the Germans knew of Allied Order of Battle and strategic intentions and o prepare their deception material accordingly.” [3]
According to “Security and Counter-Intelligence in the Middle East in the Second World War (to September 1943)”, a report dated 14 Sep 1943, the first Middle-East DA arrived in Cairo in summer 1941. He had been recruited by the Germans while already in contact with an Allied intelligence organization, which was kept informed of these developments. The GIS’s intention was for the agent to set up a W/T link in Cairo operating to Athens and to provide them with military information. [4] The case was directed in Cairo by a SIME Case Officer.
This agent profile has similarities and contradictions to both CHEESE and STEPHAN (see below for details); CHEESE arrived in February 1941 and operated initially back to Bari in Italy rather than Athens, and STEPHAN was operational from 1940 rather than 1941. There are also similarities with QUICKSILVER (see below), except he operated from Beirut. As the handling of CHEESE traffic was later moved to Athens, and MI5’s CHEESE file stated that the case had been run from July 1941, it is most probably his case which is mentioned in the report.
"In the operation of all these DA cases SIME’s part is to carry out the initial detailed interrogations of agents, and provide for each case an officer who attends to all its preparation and administrative running, including the fabrication of a plausible ‘notional’ story for the double-cross agent to tell to the enemy and the physical control of the agent during and after the course of the operation.”
As at September 1943
“three of the five W/T double agent channels now running in the Middle East are wholly maintained by SIME, apart from the provision of deception material for communication to the enemy. This also applies to the sixth channel of this type, which was recently closed down after being successfully operated for four months.” [5]
(The latter channel was probably the DA codenamed SLAVE, see below). SIME was responsible for running DAs in areas under Allied control. In the Middle East the best such channel for deception purposes was the CHEESE/LAMBERT case.
The employment of Controlled Enemy Agents was an expensive exercise in time and manpower. One author described the process in the UK in the 1944 period, though doubtless those “in the field” would have had to make do with the resources available, which would usually not be so extensive:
“A ‘turned’ agent would be provided with two guards, a radio operator, a house and housekeeper. His wallet would be stuffed with an identity card (in some plausible name) and the essential ration book and clothing coupons. There were ‘businesses’ on obscure streets where visitors would be interviewed and their comments recorded. In addition to these groundling, housing, and paperwork, the system required a surprising number of MI5 officers: case officers, who dealt with reports and messages
