How remote military sites stoked Soviets’ paranoia

SOVIET spy masters were desperate to uncover details of Scottish military infrastructure during the Cold War.

Russian agents attempted to uncover details of a vital radar station on Uist in the Outer Hebrides and a ‘series of cables’ on the sea bed.

Spies were also instructed to verify reports of a ‘chain of sonar buoys’ used for anti-submarine warfare that were said to stretch from Greenland or Iceland to Cape Wrath in Sutherland.

The Soviets were receiving information about the US Navy’s nuclear submarine base at Holy Loch in Argyll as well as the Royal Navy’s Polaris base at Faslane on the Clyde.

Declassified documents contain written testimony of Harry Houghton, a member of the Portland Spy Ring which operated for years under the nose of MI5. At the time of his arrest, Houghton was a clerk at HMS Osprey in Portland, Dorset, where the Royal Navy was testing equipment for undersea warfare.

Soviet intelligence showed particular interest in the development of HMS Dreadnought, Britain’s first nuclear submarine, before turning its attentions to Scottish infrastructure.

Houghton was jailed in 1961, and two years later he told a tribunal: ‘The main object was... I wanted the authorities to know so that they could put a watch on what [the Russians] wanted to know. As regards the Holy Loch, well... I had no idea how they could get information about the Holy Loch activities.’

Scotland was a key strategic target for the Soviet Union, with Russian spies mapping out cities and towns in meticulous detail for more than 40 years.

Christopher Fleet, map curator at the National Library of Scotland, said agents travelled around Scotland to mark out potential military routes.

He said: ‘It isn’t just remote gathering but real reconnaissance with people gathering information; Russian agents moving around the country.’