1986 Cabinet Office Files: Why Thatcher Government Tried to Block Former Spy’s Memoir

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher sits with her friend and political ally President Ronald Reagan during a visit to the White House in Washington on Feb. 20, 1985. J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo

Cabinet Office files, just released by the National Archives, show how concerned Baroness Margaret Thatcher’s government were when a maverick former MI5 agent decided to publish his memoirs in Australia.

In 1986, the British government asked Australia’s attorney general to put an injunction on the publication of Spycatcher by 71-year-old Peter Wright, who they claimed was still subject to the Official Secrets Act.

Spycatcher contained a number of allegations, including that Mr. Wright himself unmasked Sir Roger Hollis, MI5’s director general between 1956 and 1965, as a Soviet agent.

The allegations against Sir Roger had first been aired in Chapman Pincher’s book, “Their Trade is Treachery,” in 1981, eight years after Sir Roger’s death.

Baroness Thatcher—as she later became—made a statement in the House of Commons in which she spoke about an investigation into Sir Roger following his retirement. She said: “It did not conclusively prove his innocence, indeed it is very often impossible to prove innocence.”

Mr. Wright also claimed MI6 tried to assassinate Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser during the Suez crisis and that MI5 and the CIA jointly plotted to undermine Harold Wilson when he was prime minister.

In one document, released this week, officials in Whitehall were told the Australian government was prepared to do Britain a favour and submit an affidavit to a court in New South Wales that publication of the book was “counter to Australia’s national interest.”

A memo, referring to Cabinet Secretary Sir Robert Armstrong—who worked for Baroness Thatcher between 1979 and 1987—said, “Sir Robert’s Australian counterpart takes the view that the New South Wales court would be unlikely to go against a clear statement by the Australian government that publication would be contrary to the public interest.”

Another memo to Baroness Thatcher, written by civil servant Tim Flesher, says “the press claims that our case concedes, among other things, that Roger Hollis was a spy.”

He adds: “It does not do so. What it does do is to say that as far as the government’s case is concerned, the truth or falsity of this allegation is not something which forms a part of the argument.”

In Nov. 1985 it was suggested a parliamentary question could be tabled about Sir Roger and the reply could state that, “information supplied by recent Soviet defectors has convincingly confirmed the conclusion that Sir Roger Hollis was not an agent of either of the Soviet intelligence services.”

Baroness Thatcher Feared ‘Exposing Government’ to Awkward Questions

But an internal memo, written by Sir Robert, said Baroness Thatcher disapproved of this idea as she felt her statement in 1981 had cleared Sir Roger and “it would not be possible to go further without exposing the government” to difficult questions by those such as Tam Dalyell, a Labour MP who specialised in asking awkward questions about the intelligence services throughout the 1980s.

In another internal document, Sir Robert says he discussed the Spycatcher affair with Baroness Thatcher in September 1986.

Sir Robert said Mr. Wright’s Australian publishers had been trying to find out if the British government denied specific allegations made in the book about MI6’s activities.

“Our claim is not based on the truth or falsity of the allegations but on the principle of the duty of confidentiality, which we assert is owed by Mr. Wright and which should restrain him from publication whether the allegations are true or false,” wrote Sir Robert.

Another memo mentions that a top Australian barrister, Theo Simos, had been hired and was due in London in Sep. 1986 to meet with Attorney General Michael Havers.

The memo says, “The attorney general will thus be able to discuss with Mr. Simos the future conduct of the case, including the proposal for a settlement, which the Attorney General is being advised not to pursue.”

The document says Mr. Wright’s lawyer had put “feelers” out about a settlement because he claims it is, “obvious the British government will lose the case and the British government will be discredited.”

The memo goes on, “He has no desire to bring discredit on the British government and his client (Mr. Wright) is a patriotic man and could be persuaded to delete particular passages from the book if he was satisfied their publication was new and damaging to the national interest.”

The memo’s author summarises by saying Mr. Wright’s lawyer suggested the British government did a similar deal to the one they did with Nigel West, who wrote a history of MI5.

‘Crucial Difference’ Between Author and Former MI5 Agent

But he adds, “the crucial difference is that Mr. West was not, and Mr. Wright was a member of the Security Service.”

Ironically Nigel West was the pen name of Rupert Allason, who became a Conservative MP in 1987 and remained in Parliament until he lost his seat in Torbay to the Liberal Democrats in 1997.

Eventually, in 1987, the Australian Supreme Court ruled in Mr. Wright’s favour, and he was permitted to publish the book.

The following year the Law Lords in London ruled that because the details in the book were already in the public domain due to its publication in Australia, there was no longer any point banning its publication in the UK.

Mr. Wright died in 1995, aged 78, having made millions from book sales.

Paul Greengrass, a journalist who helped him write the book, later became a film director and directed blockbusters The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum as well as several films set in Northern Ireland, including Bloody Sunday and Omagh.

On its website, MI5 says: “In 1981, allegations were published claiming that Sir Roger had been a Soviet secret agent. These were investigated and found to be groundless.”