Intelligence

Death-bed confession of the spy who got away

Times Online

By Michael Evans and Magnus Linklater
A SECRET death-bed confession from a publisher who served in military intelligence in the Second World War has exposed an extraordinary story of espionage and treachery.

James MacGibbon, who died four years ago, aged 88, admitted in a 12-page affidavit, kept secret until now, that he had spied for the Russians while in the War Office.
He will join a long list of spies who served two masters, notably Harold “Kim” Philby, Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt, the notorious Cambridge spy ring.
Based in Washington and London, where he was involved in planning Operation Overlord, the 1944 Allied invasion of Normandy, MacGibbon came under suspicion after the war.
He was questioned by William Skardon, the legendary MI5 interrogator who uncovered Klaus Fuchs, the atom spy in 1950. But MacGibbon survived the interrogation and was taken off the list of suspected Russian spies. Before he died, MacGibbon typed out a confession which The Times now makes public for the first time after his family received documents from MI5, which detailed its suspicions. He wrote how alarmed he had become when he realised who was questioning him.
“It was a relief when some weeks later, he called me into the War Office to tell me I had been ‘cleared’. I was impressed when Skardon’s name was disclosed to know I had been interrogated by the top man and had lied my way out.

MacGibbon , whose father was the Minister of Glasgow Cathedral was a Tory until 1934 when he joined the Communist Party. When war broke out, he was drafted into military intelligence because he spoke German. Afterwards, as head of MacGibbon & Kee, he published Cecil Day Lewis and Humphrey Lyttleton. Hamish MacGibbon defended his father’s decision to pass information to the Russians. He said: “The information that has been recently released adds little to what we, as the family, knew.
“It confirms our view that all he did was to report on German troop movements to our Russian allies. This was exactly the right thing to do. It has not altered our view of him as a man and a father of whom we are very proud.”

October 30, 2004 at 11:30 AM in KGB | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home