understandably lose interest, and a valuable conduit would be lost to the Allies. But spicing the harmless information with more attractive tidbits required considerable skill and judgment, and a precise knowledge of future plans. It would be entirely counterproductive to guess at proposed operations and hope that coincidence did not bring the notional idea into conflict with reality. In such circumstances a well-meaning case officer might invent what he believed to be a non-existent military operation, perhaps a raid on a particular target in France, and then discover later that his chosen target had indeed been selected for attack. It would be equally embarrassing to suggest the location of a heavily camouflaged ammunition dump, and then learn that there was indeed some sensitive site located in the neighbourhood. If such an incident ever occurred, the military authorities wouldjustifiably cease cooperating and the informal flow exchange of information, upon which B1(a) relied, would be jeopardised.
During the months of late 1940 B1(a)’s eight double agents were being serviced with a satisfactory amount of intelligence, but the routing required much more refinement. The Wireless Board itself met infrequently, owing to the elevated status of its members, who had many other demands on their time. The business of acquiring and collating information for the enemy was a trifle haphazard and was left largely to the initiative of the individual case officers. They would travel the country, acting out the role of their charges, and would note various items of interest. Before inserting such material into the texts of messages for delivery to the Abwehr, the case officers would secure an unofficial consent from the intelligence division of the interested authority. If, for example, TATE had been asked to confirm the location of a particular aerodrome in East Anglia, his case officer, Bill Luke, would ask Major Robertson to clear the information with the director of intelligence at the Air Ministry, Air Commodore Archie Boyle. As it happened, Boyle was one of Robertson’s most enthusiastic supporters and probably would have given every assistance, but his views were not always shared by other senior intelligence bureaucrats who were doubtful about the advantages of giving the enemy our secrets. Less constructive colleagues opted for the altogether safer choice of substituting entirely innocuous or erroneous information. Such manoeuvres were less controversial and therefore easier to defend at a later date, but they also weakened the credibility of the agent in whose name it would be transmitted . In the interests of watertight security, only a few officers in the service intelligence departments could be advised about B1(a)’s work, and those who had not been indoctrinated were reluctant to disclose operational details without formal sanction . The ideal solution to the continuing dilemma was the introduction of a new coordinating body, staffed at a lower level than the Wireless Board and chaired by a non-partisanfigure who could command everyone’s respect. That man was J. C. Masterman, then a don at Christ Church, Oxford.
The son of a naval officer, Masterman had been educated at Osborne and Dartmouth before going on to graduate from Worcester College, Oxford, and Freiburg University. He was an accomplished athlete and played cricket, hockey and tennis for England. During the Great War he had been interned at Ruhleben, the notorious civilian prison camp constructed on a racecourse near Berlin, where he gave memorable history lectures and captained the camp’s cricket team. His well attended courses were only interrupted by his brief absence early in August 1918, when he escaped. His four years in captivity made a lasting impression on Masterman who, along with many of his Oxford contemporaries, joined the intelligence corps in 1940. On 2 January 1941 Masterman took the chair of the Twenty Committee, so-called because of the
During the months of late 1940 B1(a)’s eight double agents were being serviced with a satisfactory amount of intelligence, but the routing required much more refinement. The Wireless Board itself met infrequently, owing to the elevated status of its members, who had many other demands on their time. The business of acquiring and collating information for the enemy was a trifle haphazard and was left largely to the initiative of the individual case officers. They would travel the country, acting out the role of their charges, and would note various items of interest. Before inserting such material into the texts of messages for delivery to the Abwehr, the case officers would secure an unofficial consent from the intelligence division of the interested authority. If, for example, TATE had been asked to confirm the location of a particular aerodrome in East Anglia, his case officer, Bill Luke, would ask Major Robertson to clear the information with the director of intelligence at the Air Ministry, Air Commodore Archie Boyle. As it happened, Boyle was one of Robertson’s most enthusiastic supporters and probably would have given every assistance, but his views were not always shared by other senior intelligence bureaucrats who were doubtful about the advantages of giving the enemy our secrets. Less constructive colleagues opted for the altogether safer choice of substituting entirely innocuous or erroneous information. Such manoeuvres were less controversial and therefore easier to defend at a later date, but they also weakened the credibility of the agent in whose name it would be transmitted . In the interests of watertight security, only a few officers in the service intelligence departments could be advised about B1(a)’s work, and those who had not been indoctrinated were reluctant to disclose operational details without formal sanction . The ideal solution to the continuing dilemma was the introduction of a new coordinating body, staffed at a lower level than the Wireless Board and chaired by a non-partisanfigure who could command everyone’s respect. That man was J. C. Masterman, then a don at Christ Church, Oxford.
The son of a naval officer, Masterman had been educated at Osborne and Dartmouth before going on to graduate from Worcester College, Oxford, and Freiburg University. He was an accomplished athlete and played cricket, hockey and tennis for England. During the Great War he had been interned at Ruhleben, the notorious civilian prison camp constructed on a racecourse near Berlin, where he gave memorable history lectures and captained the camp’s cricket team. His well attended courses were only interrupted by his brief absence early in August 1918, when he escaped. His four years in captivity made a lasting impression on Masterman who, along with many of his Oxford contemporaries, joined the intelligence corps in 1940. On 2 January 1941 Masterman took the chair of the Twenty Committee, so-called because of the
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