The Black Door: Spies, Secret Intelligence and British Prime Ministers. Richard Aldrich
alleging that Stalin had long been contemplating an understanding with Nazi Germany. When Stalin dismissed his foreign minister, Maxim Litvinov, in early May, Krivitsky knew what was coming next, perhaps because Litvinov’s Jewish heritage had served as a potential obstacle in negotiations with Hitler. Krivitsky then predicted the Nazi–Soviet pact. But London was sceptical, and indeed Daniel Lascelles, who superintended relations with Russia at the Foreign Office, dismissed Krivitksy’s prediction as ‘twaddle’.60
Oddly, the invasion of Czechoslovakia in the spring of 1939 triggered a surge of British intelligence optimism, even belligerence. Combined with the invasion of Albania, these various shocks resigned Whitehall to the increasing likelihood of war. The JIC perceived Britain’s military chances as improving, especially in terms of air power, and London suddenly offered military support to countries as far afield as Poland, Greece and Turkey. The strategy formed a belated attempt at Vansittart’s Eastern Front plan to encircle Germany, but now without the vital addition of Russia. It was this very effort, with its guarantee to Poland, that would bring Britain and France to declare war in September 1939. During the summer of that year, MI6 predicted, confidently and correctly, that if war broke out it was most likely to begin with a German strike on Poland. Although MI6 did not predict the Nazi–Soviet pact, it did observe that there was some evidence that many in Germany sought better relations with Stalin. By late August 1939, the JIC assessed that it was now a question of when war came, rather than if.61
Even at this late hour, Chamberlain still ignored the facts and remained preposterously hopeful. MI6 had reported that Herman Goering wanted to come to London for talks, and Sidney Cotton, an extraordinary airman and pioneer of advanced aerial photography, together with the deputy head of MI6 made intensely secret preparations for a meeting with Chamberlain at Chequers.62 Quex Sinclair then brought news of a possible revolt by the German high command. But both of these rumours were probably elaborate Nazi deceptions designed for Chamberlain’s consumption.63 A week later, on 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland.
At exactly eleven o’clock on 3 September, Britain declared war on Germany. One cabinet minister later reminisced about how Chamberlain said quietly, ‘Right, gentlemen, this means war.’ The rain was pouring down outside, and hardly had he said it than there was a most enormous clap of thunder and the whole Cabinet Room was lit up by a blinding flash of lightning. ‘It was the most deafening thunderclap I’ve ever heard in my life.’64
The outbreak of war had an equally startling effect on intelligence. The many secret service and analytical elements in Britain instinctively started to behave like a community. A diplomat began to chair JIC meetings, and the committee now considered political intentions rather than mere capabilities. The new chairman Victor Cavendish-Bentinck, heir to the Duke of Portland, had the advantage of having served in the military before becoming a diplomat in 1918. He was renowned for crossing St James’s Park accompanied by his pet dog Angus, who would spend all day with him in the office, and soon became known as ‘the Intelligence Dog’. Unfortunately, Angus did not last long. Crossing Hyde Park Corner one day he noticed another dog coming up Constitution Hill. Leaping forward and barking, he ran under a taxi, making him one of the few British casualties of the ‘Phoney War’. Dog accidents aside, Cavendish-Bentinck was an excellent chairman, and played a key role in the JIC’s wartime rise.65
The only person who appeared not to be shaken by the events of 1939 was Chamberlain. His mental concepts were so fixed that he seemed to see the ‘Phoney War’ as an extension of appeasement. Four weeks into the war, the prime minister told his sister that he thought Hitler would not push beyond Germany’s western borders, and would carry on with a peace offensive. Mysterious emissaries came and went between Britain and Germany throughout the entire year to discuss possible truces, and there is evidence that Chamberlain launched several further secret attempts at backstairs diplomacy shortly after Munich.66 Meanwhile, there was no real fighting. ‘I may be quite wrong’, Chamberlain predicted, but ‘however much the Nazis may brag and threaten I don’t believe they feel sufficient confidence to venture on the Great War unless they are forced into it by action on our part’. ‘It is my aim,’ he naïvely continued, ‘to see that that action is not taken.’ Alluding to the national government he had formed at the outbreak of war, containing both Churchill and Eden, Chamberlain believed he had ‘the unanimous consent of my colleagues, including Winston’.67
Chamberlain ‘gave his personal approval’ for MI6 to ‘continue discussions with the Germans’. Early in October 1939, two MI6 officers in The Hague, Richard Stevens and Sigmund Payne Best, informed London that they were reasonably confident of persuading two dissident senior German officers, one of whom was General von Rundstedt, to visit Holland. They wanted to talk about overthrowing Hitler and establishing a regime run by the army. Best was intoxicated with excitement, and ‘saw in this a possibility of literally winning the war off his own bat’. This affected his operational judgement, and also that of those around him. They rushed forward impetuously. The person who should have stopped the ill-fated mission was Sir Nevile Bland, the British minister at The Hague. Having previously served as the go-between for MI6 and the Foreign Office, Bland had considerable experience, and a few years later would serve as a strategic reviewer of all of British intelligence. On 7 November, the MI6 officers excitedly reported that ‘a coup would definitely be attempted’. But the German SD, or security service, had in fact used a double agent to lure Best and Stevens into a superbly executed trap. On 9 November, when they went to meet their contact again at Venlo, near the German border, the agent gave the prearranged signal by taking off his hat. A German snatch squad immediately ran forward firing machine guns into the air and took the two MI6 officers prisoner. What became known as the ‘Venlo incident’ compromised many British agents and damaged relations with the Dutch government.68 Even ten years later, the intellectually mediocre Stewart Menzies, chief of MI6, still believed that the overtures from the German army via The Hague had been genuine.69
The ‘Venlo incident’ is symbolic of a wider credulity at this time. Chamberlain failed to understand that a global war was imminent. It was typical of his overconfidence that the longer the Phoney War went on, the more he disregarded intelligence reports and believed that he was right. In fact the war was widening. The Soviet Union joined Hitler in his invasion of Poland, occupying the east of the country and liberating German soldiers captured by the Poles in the first days of fighting. Two months later, Stalin embarked on his disastrous ‘Winter War’ with Finland. British intelligence saw things more clearly, viewing the conflict as a struggle between the British Empire and a four-headed monster that consisted of Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, fascist Italy and militarist Japan. Its answer was to plan secret missions and covert actions against Russia as well as Germany.70
While MI6 busily planned special operations, including a team of ‘volunteer’ commandos that they intended to despatch to Finland, Hitler sprung his next surprise: the invasion of Norway. On 3 April 1940, German vessels secretly headed out in advance of the main force, and with shameful Swedish complicity, all of Scandinavia was soon under German control. In a further embarrassment for Chamberlain, a beautiful Russian ballerina turned Nazi spy, Marina Lie, managed to acquire British plans for Norway’s liberation, allowing the Germans to claim another victory.71
Again Britain had no warning of the invasion, and even Chamberlain recognised that this was a classic case of intelligence failure. He ordered an investigation. It turned out that the Air Ministry had suspected something was up as a result of reconnaissance flights, and that MI6 had passed on some general hints, but had no specific information about timing. The problem was explained to Chamberlain by Arthur Rucker, his principal private secretary: ‘The position is that we were