Prospect of
on an individual whose integrity we have no reason to question, we have to ask ourselves what would be the probable result, in terms of public policy in the widest sense, if it became known that the government were employing, as their chief economic adviser, a man who is the brother of a self-confessed Communist spy.
“This is a harsh and crude way of putting it; but that is how, I fear, it could, and probably would, be represented.”
The disclosure comes in the first cache of previously-secret files - touching on some of the most controversial episodes in British political life over the last 60 years - to be released to National Archives in Kew, west London.
Thecabinetsecretary’s“miscellaneous papers” contain the private records of Whitehall’s most senior mandarin on issues ranging from spy scandals and ministerial misdemeanour’s to civil list payments to the royal family.
The first batch includes Sir Norman Brook’s notes on the 1960s Profumo affair when the Conservative secretary of state for war John Profumo was forced to resign following the disclosure he had shared a mistress with a Russian naval attache.
As the rumours spread of Mr Profumo’s affair with showgirl Christine Keeler, the papers record Sir Norman’s alarm at the extent of the contacts within the Establishment of Stephen Ward, the “society osteopath” who brought them together.
They include a note conversation with MI5 director general Sir Roger Hollis, who reported details of a party at the Russian embassy where Mr Ward seemed to be “very much at home”.
“He knew, or believed, that his patients included at least 40 people who were ministers or Members of Parliament,” Sir Norman noted.
“I agreed with Hollis that this information should be followed up.”
0 Poll tax protests were a key
0 The chance of Myra Hindley Margaret Thatcher was horrified at the prospect that Moors murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley could ever be freed, newly released government papers reveal.
Files revealed by the National Archives show that in 1985 home secretary Leon Brittan suggested Hindley could go free after 30 years while Brady could be released after 40.