I said I would take the matter home and discuss it with my management. Once again I wrote an account of what Ladell had said and confirmed its accuracy with him personally. Back in M15 we discussed the problem at length in the office and it was agreed that nothing could be done unless we had further evidence of the Russians' using such a drug to assassinate people. Over the next few years I watched out for any evidence and asked Ladell also to watch out for it. Needless to say we had no further example of anybody who was in a vulnerable position dying of lupus. However, if there was a high-level leak in MI5 to the Russians, they would have been informed of our suspicions and I am sure they would have ensured that no other case came our way.
Harold Wilson meanwhile had become Prime Minister. It was inevitable that Wilson would come to the attention of MI5. Before he became Prime Minister he worked for an East-West trading organization and paid many visits to Russia. MI5, well aware that the KGB will stop at nothing to entrap or frame visitors, were concerned that he should be well aware of the risk of being compromised by the Russians. When Wilson succeeded Gaitskell as Leader of the Labor Party, there was a further source of friction between himself and MI5. He began to surround himself with other East European emigre businessmen, some of whom had themselves been the subject of MI5's inquiries.
After Harold Wilson became Prime Minister in 1964, Angleton made a special trip to England to see F.J., who was then director of counterespionage. Angleton came to offer us some very secret information from a source he would not name. This source alleged, according to Angleton, that Wilson was a Soviet agent. He said he would give us more detailed evidence and information if we could guarantee to keep the information inside MI5 and out of political circles. The accusation was totally incredible, but given the fact that Angleton was head of the CIA's Counterintelligence Division, we had no choice but to take it seriously. Not surprisingly the management of MI5 were deeply disturbed by the manner in which Angleton passed this information over. After consideration, they refused to accept Angleton's restrictions on the use to which we could put the information, and as a result we were not told anything more. However, Angleton's approach was recorded in the files under the code name Oatsheaf.
After Hollis retired and Furnival Jones became Director-General, I went to F.J. and said I was paying a visit to the USA and asked whether I should tackle Angleton on the Oatsheaf information, with a view to getting more details. He said that I could, but again insisted that we could not give Angleton any guarantee about any information which he gave us. I tackled Angleton in Washington. He put up a vintage performance. There were dark mutterings about "clandestine meetings" with the Russians. But when he was pushed for details, there were none, and I knew from bitter experience that Angleton was more than capable of manufacturing evidence when none existed.
But if the Oatsheaf affair was nothing more than a diversion, by the end of the 1960s information was coming to MI5's attention which suggested that there almost certainly was Soviet penetration of the Labor Party. First the Czechoslovakian defectors, Frolik and August, arrived in the West and named a series of Labor MPs and trade unionists as successful recruits. Then we received the most damaging information of all from Oleg Lyalin. While Lyalin was still in place, he told MI5 about a friend of his called Vaygaukas. Vaygaukas was a KGB officer working under cover in the Soviet Trade Delegation in London. Lyalin told us that Vaygaukas had claimed to him to be in contact with a man called Joseph Kagan, a Lithuanian emigre who was a close friend of Harold Wilson's. Kagan had helped finance Wilson's private office, and had even lent him an aircraft during elections, and Wilson had been much photographed wearing Kagan's raincoats, which he manufactured in a factory near Leeds.
Inevitably MI5 were extremely anxious to discover whether or not Kagan had any relationship with Vaygaukas. We placed him under intensive surveillance and attempted to recruit agents inside his factory. Then, following the expulsion of the 105 Soviet diplomats in 1971, we finally got the opportunity to discuss the matter with both men. Harold Wilson, by then out of office, approached Sir Arthur Young, head of the City of London police and a consultant to one of Kagan's companies. Wilson asked to be put in touch with MI5 because he wished to discuss Kagan. Furnival Jones thought this approach bizarre, but agreed to send Harry Wharton, who was then handling Lyalin. Wharton briefed Wilson on Lyalin's information about Kagan's alleged dealings with Vaygaukas. Wilson told him bluntly that he knew nothing about it and had never discussed confidential matters with Kagan at any time. Kagan himself later admitted meeting Vaygaukas for chess games, but strenuously denied that any espionage was involved.
Wilson interpreted MI5's interest as a crude attempt to smear the Labor Party and him. But once the Conservative Government came into power they began to take a great interest in the material as well. Victor often used to complain to me about the quality of the intelligence reports No. 10 received from F Branch.
"They pull their punches all the time," he would say, "can't you give us something better?"
In 1972 he told me that Heath had been appalled at a recent Cabinet meeting, which was addressed by Jack Jones and Hugh Scanlon, the two powerful trade union bosses of the early 1970s.
"Ted thought they talked like Communists," he said. "I asked F Branch if they had anything, but of course they've got nothing substantial."
He knew from gossip that the recent Czech defectors were providing material about trade union and Labor Party subversion, and began pumping me for the details. I told him to minute me formally with a request and I would see what I could do. Later that day I got Victor's minute.
"The Prime Minister is anxious to see..." he began, in typical Victor style.
I sent Victor's note to F.J. for guidance. He returned it to me with a handwritten message in the margin: "Tell him what he wants to know!"
I drew the files, and began patiently to compose a lengthy brief on the intelligence provided by Frolik and August. I drew no conclusions, but neither did I leave anything out.
The whole of Whitehall came thundering down on my head. I was summoned by Sir John Hunt, the Cabinet Secretary, who asked what on earth I thought I was doing passing material about an opposition party into the government party's hands at such a delicate time.