British spy foiled in working for Soviets but passed information to the IRA
Michael Bettaney, who has died aged 68, was an MI5 officer who in 1983 attempted to spy for the Soviet Union. He was prevented and charged, but while on remand in prison he succeeded in passing sensitive information to the IRA. He was eventually sentenced to 23 years.
When Bettaney joined MI5 (the Security Service) in 1975 at the age of 25, the service was struggling to fulfil its operational commitments in Northern Ireland which, owing to the lack of trained case officers, it shared with MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service. Bettaney was sent on the five-month MI6 operational training course.
Despite a relatively poor performance on the course, he was posted by
MI5 to Northern
Ireland to run agents against Republican targets. Although a congenial member of the team, he was noted for his heavy drinking and for facetious references to spying for the Russians – ‘‘I must tell my KGB case officer about that’’. He referred increasingly to his own Irish antecedents, occasionally making remarks such as, on hearing that an Army officer had had his legs blown off: ‘‘The boyos did a good one last night.’’
On returning to London, he was posted first to MI5’s training department, then as a desk officer to K Branch, the directorate responsible for monitoring and countering Soviet Bloc intelligence activities in Britain. A Catholic convert from the age of 16, he appeared to abandon his faith and instead became increasingly and vocally Left-wing, joining the Labour Party at a time when, under Margaret Thatcher, most of the country seemed to be moving Rightwards.
Bettaney’s job gave him access to MI5 surveillance operations against Russian intelligence officers in London, and on Easter Sunday 1983 he pushed an envelope through the letterbox of Arkady Gouk, the KGB rezident (head of station), knowing that Gouk’s address was not under surveillance that night. The envelope contained delicate MI5 information, along with the offer of further information and details of how the KGB could safely contact Bettaney, who signed himself ‘‘Kuba’’.
Gouk, suspecting provocation by MI5, did not respond. Bettaney repeated the operation twice over the next few months, including further sensitive details.
Gouk still did not respond but by then he had shared the information with his deputy head of station, Oleg Gordievsky. Unknown to Bettaney, Gordievsky was spying for MI6. MI5, who knew at senior levels about the case, had wanted to indoctrinate Bettaney about this arrangement, but MI6 refused permission on the need-to-know principle: Bettaney did not need to know in order to do his job.
Gordievsky told MI6 about Kuba’s
b February 13, 1950 d August 16, 2018
approaches to the Russians, describing the documents in sufficient detail for MI5 to identify him as the source. Bettaney was by then preparing to holiday in Vienna, intending to approach the KGB station there. Before he could leave he was summoned for interview by a senior MI5 officer who knew him well. They talked through the night and Bettaney confessed.
After he was arrested and charged, he accompanied a search team to his house, identifying where he had hidden sensitive documents. Held on remand in Brixton prison, he exercised his right to attend mass with IRA prisoners who were also on remand. He used these occasions to pass on information about agents reporting on the IRA, as well as details of some MI5 and MI6 staff in Ireland.
As a result of this breach of trust, agents had to be expensively resettled and staff moved. Much of his subsequent trial was held in camera. He refused to defend himself, but issued a statement which concluded: ‘‘As my last political act, I call on comrades everywhere to renew their determination and redouble their efforts in pursuit of a victory which is historically inevitable.’’
An only child, Michael John Bettaney was born near Stoke-on-Trent to working-class parents on February 13 1950. He failed the 11-plus but did well enough at school to get to Pembroke College, Oxford, obtaining a scholarship in English. There he became a ‘‘young fogey’’ – portly, pipe-smoking, dressing and acting older than his years, and expressing (whether seriously or not was unclear) increasingly Right-wing views.
MI5 was keen to recruit younger officers at the time and his relatively humble origins probably counted in his favour. Within MI5 he was not known to have had any girlfriends; female staff tended to regard him with playful affection, nicknaming him Fluffy Bunny. When his house was searched a quantity of pornography was found.
His parents died while he was serving his sentence and he had few, if any, close friends. When a regular review of his positive vetting (PV) status revealed that he had been convicted of fare-dodging without declaring it to MI5, he was reprimanded, although failure to declare was often a sacking offence. He also failed to declare a conviction for being drunk and disorderly, and it is possible that knowledge that this would come out during his next PV review – leading to almost certain sacking – influenced the timing of his spying attempts.
Bettaney was released in 1998, having served 14 years in segregated units. He studied Russian and corresponded with Marion Johnstone, a member of the Communist Party who became his prison visitor and eventually his fiancee.
He moved in with her on release and avoided publicity, reportedly telling journalists: ‘‘We just want to be left alone . . . I broke the law – I broke a big law . . . my crime was the ultimate breach of faith.’’ – Telegraph Group
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