36. OGPU agent Grigory Feduleev worked undercover on the ‘Trust’ operation and was in on the Reilly interrogation with Vladimir Syrne.
37. It would appear that what Reilly actually told Styrne about SIS was superficial, fabricated or already known to the OGPU, or a combination of all three. Following the breach of diplomatic relations between Britain and Russia in 1927, the OGPU arrested two of Ernest Boyce’s agents and put them on trial for terrorism. The Leningrad Sunday Worker reported on 2 October that, ‘evidence given by the notorious British spy, Capt. Sidney Reilly, in October 1925, was read out during the present trial of terrorists at Leningrad’. Reilly was quoted as declaring, ‘The British secret service – called the Secret Intelligence Service – is an institution standing quite apart from any ministerial department… it is absolutely secret: neither the names of the chief nor staff are known to anyone except the principal cabinet ministers and military chiefs of the highest rank… since 1923 SIS has been headed by Rear-Admiral Gaygout’ (this would appear to be a translation error for ‘Guy Gaunt’). In reality, the chief was Rear-Admiral Sinclair, as Reilly well knew. (A copy of the Sunday Worker article is among the Reilly Papers CX 2616.)
38. Reilly could volunteer nothing here as he was completely unaware of SIS activities since his ties with the organisation were severed in 1921.
39. Norwegian military attaché in Moscow at the time of Reilly’s interrogation.
40. SIS station chief in Prague, Czechoslovakia.
41. Reilly may sincerely have believed that SIS had placed no spies in Russia after Dukes. The OGPU, however, knew differently, thus their reluctance to take no for an answer.
42. Rear-Admiral Thomas Kemp had ordered Reilly’s confinement on HMS Glory following his arrest in Murmansk, due to a passport irregularity, in April 1918.
43. This no doubt refers to the meeting with Lockhart following Reilly’s visit to the Kremlin on 7 May 1918.
44. Artur Artuzov was head of the OGPU’s counter-intelligence section (KRO), and therefore Vladimir Styrne’s immediate superior.
45. The Zinoviev Letter was almost certainly a forgery and the Russians were keen to learn more about the anti-Bolshevik émigrés who were the prime suspects in the eyes of the OGPU.
46. Mikhail Frunze, Bolshevik Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs.
47. Wyndham Childs, Deputy Assistant Commissioner, New Scotland Yard.
48. John Carter, Deputy Assistant Commissioner, New Scotland Yard.
49. Sir Basil Thompson, superintendent, New Scotland Yard (Special Branch).
50. According to Winston Churchill, in a letter to Col. Stewart Menzies of SIS, dated 29 October 1920, ‘the other man whom I should be glad of any information which you can give me is one Boris Said [sic]. I am informed by certain persons that he was the principal Zionist agent in London before the revolution and having in his hands an exceedingly large sum of money he decided to appropriate it and throw in his lot with the Bolsheviks. I am told that he is now the principal Bolshevik agent and lives in style at the Ritz’ (CHAR 16/49/64–66, Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge).
51. Leonid Krasin was, from 1920, the head of Soviet Russia’s Economic Mission to Britain. Reilly assisted Krasin in securing a trade agreement with Marconi, although it was suspected, but never proved, that both Krasin and Reilly pocketed money from this and other deals.
52. Amtorg was a joint Soviet-US trading company.
53. Arcos (Anglo-Russian Co-operative Society) was established by Leonid Krasin in 1921 to encourage joint enterprises with British companies. It was raided by Special Branch in 1927 who found evidence that it was being used as a front for Soviet espionage.
54. Edward Wise was a member of the British government’s negotiating team that met with Krasin’s Trade Delegation (Secret Service, Christopher Andrew, p.262ff).
55. Leslie Urquhart was one of a small number of British businessmen who endeavoured to negotiate trade deals with Arcos.
56. Reilly’s approach to business.
57. During 1925, industrial unrest increased following Winston Churchill’s first budget in April, which heralded Britain’s return to the Gold Standard. This added greatly to the cost of exports and caused the mine-owners to announce wage cuts on 30 June. On 10 July the TUC General Council agreed to support the Miners Federation and declared a national embargo on the movement of coal. Prime Minister Baldwin judged that the time was not right for a national confrontation with the TUC and on 31 July – Red Friday – climbed down. The government offered the mining industry a subsidy of £23 million to stave off wage cuts.
58. Lieutenant Alexandr Alexeevich Abaza, a former Tsarist naval officer and White Russian.
59. Philip Faymonville had been in Russia during 1918/20 and was US Military Attaché in Tokyo in 1925.
60. See note 1.
61. Ibid.
62. This photograph appears on page 223 of this book. When the overcoat was later examined, a small Union Jack was found sewn into its lining. The Union Jack is now on display at the FSB Museum, Moscow, and was seen by the author on 26 August 2002, during a visit to FSB Headquarters.
63. This was more than likely necessary due to the fact that he had been officially dead since 28 September. Only the small circle of OGPU officers involved in the Trust operation knew otherwise.
64. Secret Assignment, Edward Gazur, p.519.
65. Ibid.
66. OGPU File no. 249856. See also, Deadly Illusions, J. Costello and O. Tsarer, p.22.
67. By 1921 Hill, like Reilly and many others, found that due to budget constraints he had no future with SIS. Now unemployed he was reduced to living in a caravan in Sussex with his wife. He eventually found work in theatre management (‘SOE’s man in Moscow’ by Martin Kitchen, Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 12, No. 3, July 1997, p.96.
68. Kim Philby was one of Hill’s pupils at Brickendonbury Hall in Hertfordshire, a sabotage training school in 1940 (‘SOE’s man in Moscow’ by Michael Kitchen, p.96).
69. Britain’s Master Spy – The Adventures of Sidney Reilly, pp.285–88.
70. In a letter to Capt. William Isaacs, dated 17 November 1931, Margaret Reilly states, ‘My firm belief is that Reilly is still alive in Russia working for England against Bolshevism’ (Reilly Papers CX 2616).
71. Reilly: The First Man, Robin Bruce Lockhart, p.28ff.
72. Master Spy, Edward Van Der Rhoer, p.231ff.
73. ‘Sidney Reilly’s Lubyanka Diary’ by Richard Spence.
74. Reilly: The First Man contains sixteen chapters. Chapters six–fifteen contain few references to Reilly, concentrating in the main on general East-West espionage issues.
75. Ace of Spies (1992 edition), p.188.
76. Letter to the author from Robin Bruce Lockhart, dated 9 January 2000.
77. CXM 159, 29 March 1918 (Reilly Papers CX 2616).
78. Report by Agent L.S. Perkins (US Bureau of Investigation), dated 3 April 1917 describes Reilly as of ‘oriental appearance’.
79. Report by Kenneth Linge, BA, MSc, FBBIPP of DABS Forensic Ltd, 27 December 2001.
80. Ace of Spies, preface.
81. The Messenger of the Sacred Heart, Caryll Houselander, p.59.
APPENDICES
APPENDIX ONE – THE GADFLY
1. Ace of Spies, Robin Bruce Lockhart, p.27.
2. The American edition of The Gadfly was published by Henry Holt and Company, New York, in April 1897. The British edition was published in September 1897 by William Heinemann. They were identical apart from their respective covers. The British edition also contained an additional appendix of fourteen press reviews.