I told F.J. in 1968 that feelings were running high, but he responded in a low-key manner.
"You can tell anyone who has ideas about leaking classified material that there will be nothing I can do to save them!"
He knew the message would get back.
But the approach in 1974 was altogether more serious. The plan was simple. In the run-up to the election which, given the level of instability in Parliament, must be due within a matter of months, MI5 would arrange for selective details of the intelligence about leading Labor Party figures, but especially Wilson, to be leaked to sympathetic pressmen. Using our contacts in the press and among union officials, word of the material contained in MI5 files and the fact that Wilson was considered a security risk would be passed around.
Soundings in the office had already been taken, and up to thirty officers had given their approval to the scheme. Facsimile copies of some files were to be made and distributed to overseas newspapers, and the matter was to be raised in Parliament for maximum effect. It was a carbon copy of the Zinoviev letter, which had done so much to destroy the first Ramsay MacDonald Government in 1924.
"We'll have him out," said one of them, "this time we'll have him out."
"But why do you need me?" I asked.
"Well, you don't like Wilson any more than we do... besides, you've got access to the latest files - the Gaitskell business, and all the rest of it."
"But they're kept in the DG's safe!"
"Yes, but you could copy them."
"I need some time to think," I pleaded. "I've got a lot to think about before I take a step like this. You'll have to give me a couple of days."
At first I was tempted. The devil makes work for idle hands, and I was playing out my time before retirement. A mad scheme like this was bound to tempt me. I felt an irresistible urge to lash out. The country seemed on the brink of catastrophe. Why not give it a little push? In any case, I carried the burden of so many secrets that lightening the load a little could only make things easier for me. It was Victor who talked me out of it.
"I don't like Wilson any more than you do," he told me, "but you'll end up getting chopped if you go in for this."
He was right. I had little more than a year to go. Why destroy everything in a moment of madness?
A few days later I told the leader of the group that I would not get the files.
"I'd like to help you," I told him, "but I can't risk it. I've only got half a pension as it is, I can't afford to lose it all."
Some of the operational people became quite aggressive. They kept saying it was the last chance to fix Wilson.
"Once you've retired," they said, "we'll never get the files!"
But my mind was made up, and even their taunts of cowardice could not shake me.
Throughout the rest of 1974 and early 1975 I kept out of the country as much as possible, chasing VENONA traffic throughout the world. Although the full Wilson story never emerged, it was obvious to me that the boys had been actively pushing their plan as much as they could. No wonder Wilson was later to claim that he was the victim of a plot!
In the summer of 1975 I dined with Maurice Oldfield at Locketts. We regularly met for dinner. He was a lonely man, and liked nothing better than a good gossip at the end of the day. He finally made it to the top of MI6 after two abortive attempts, and I was happy for him. Maurice was a good man, but inclined to meddle. That night I could tell something was on his mind.
He turned the conversation to Wilson. How high had feelings been running in there? he asked. He kept hearing all sorts of rumors.
I was noncommittal.
"Most of us don't like him. They think he's wrecking the country."
Maurice was clearly preoccupied with the subject, because he returned to it again and again.
"You're not telling me the truth," he said finally.
"I'm not with you, Maurice..."
"I was called in by the Prime Minister yesterday," he said, his tone suddenly changing. "He was talking about a plot. Apparently he's heard that your boys have been going around town stirring things up about him and Marcia Falkender, and Communists at No. 10."
He trailed away as if it were all too distasteful for him.
"It's serious, Peter," he began again, "I need to know everything. Look what's happening in Washington with Watergate. The same thing will happen here unless we're very careful."
I ordered another brandy and decided to tell him everything I knew. When I had finished describing the plans of the previous summer he asked me if Hanley knew.
"No," I replied, "I thought it best just to forget the whole thing."
"I want you to go back to the office tomorrow and tell him everything."
Maurice tottered up to bed.
"Don't worry," he called back over his shoulder.
"I won't," I said, "I've only got a few months to go!"
When I saw Hanley the next morning, he went white as a sheet. He might have suspected that feelings against Wilson ran high in the office, but now he was learning that half of his staff were up to their necks in a plot to get rid of the Prime Minister. It was at times like that I was glad I never climbed the executive ladder.
Ironically, his first reaction was anger with Maurice.
"Bloody Maurice!" he raged. "Poking his nose into our business!"
When he had calmed down he asked me for the names.
I gave them. Having come so far, I could not very well refuse. As I reeled them off, I knew suddenly what Blunt had felt like. It was never easy to put on the mask and point the finger.
"Look after them, won't you?" I asked Hanley.
"There will have to be an inquiry, of course," he replied.
I left before the Wilson story ended, and Hanley and I never discussed it again. I heard that a member of the Security Commission was called in to make a private inquiry for the Cabinet Office, and it has since been reported that Hanley made a number of changes, mainly in the field of recruitment, with a view to introducing new blood into MI5. This presumably explains the cryptic letter I received from Michael Hanley shortly after I retired to Australia.
"You'll be pleased to note," he wrote, "that the firm has passed its recent examinations, and is doing rather well!"
Shortly afterward Wilson resigned. As we always used to say in the office: "Politicians may come and go, but the Security Service goes on forever."
The shambles surrounding Harold Wilson blew up just as the Hollis affair flickered briefly back into life in 1974. The case had remained buried since his interrogation in 1969. Originally I was hopeful that Hanley might revive things when he took over, but I could soon see that he took the view that sleeping dogs should lie. He had a deep desire to put the traumas of the past behind him, and was anxious to separate me as far as possible from current investigations and K Branch cases.
"I've got an open mind," he used to tell me whenever I raised the question.