Out of the shadows
Top Secret is a truly eye-opening new exhibition at the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford. Phil Penfold takes a peek into the world of espionage. Pictures by Simon Hulme.
Amilitary theorist once wrote: “One who knows the enemy and knows himself will not be endangered in a hundred engagements.” The line can be found in a book (still in print today) called The Art of War. The incredible thing is that it was written in the 4th century BC, by a theorist called Sun Tzu. He was clearly a highly perceptive man. Ancient Egypt had advanced systems for the acquisition of intelligence. So did the Hebrews, the Greeks and the Romans. It was Lysander of Sparta (in 405BC) who devised what we would recognise today as a “machine” that could code, and decode messages – basically by wrapping a piece of parchment around a baton of a particular thickness, so that certain letters of figures fell into the right place for the recipient. A few centuries later, and Julius Caesar was swapping one letter for another in his ciphers, and codebreakers were beginning to realise that information could be gleaned from “secret” documents by observing how many times one particular character appeared in the text. In other words, they reckoned that an “a” or an “e” occurred far more than a “k” or a “z”.
One of the most formidable spy-catchers and trap-setters of all time was Queen Elizabeth I’s favourite Francis Walsingham, and this wily spymaster would have been perfectly at home in the GCHQ of today, our British intelligence agency that is based in Cheltenham. Indeed, he would
probably have been able to tell them a thing or two. Walsingham was a diplomat, a lawyer, secretary to his Queen, and a master strategist. And he knew who to have about him, and who he could trust – a prime asset in his field. One of his staff was an expert in cryptology – and in forgery – and another was Arthur Gregory, whose speciality was breaking the wax seals on the letters of the time, and then repairing them so that they looked as good as the moment they were applied.
We move even further into a world that we recognise by the end of the Civil War, when Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector. One of his first appointments was to create the role of Postmaster General, and it was filled by John Thurloe. His job wasn’t just to see that a letter from Leeds reached the addressee in Launceston, or that one from Bodmin got to Bradford, it was to intercept it en route, and to read and note the contents. Intelligence gathering in its purest form.
Top Secret: From Ciphers to Cyber Security is a wide-ranging new exhibition at the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford, and visitors are going to be a little surprised to learn that GCHQ are the people behind it. Gathering intelligence, and then passing it on, or using it for your own advantage, is as old as time itself. There are well over one hundred fascinating and intriguing objects on display – documents, files, machines, gadgets and recordings of first-person interviews. Visitors can marvel at everything from the Queen’s private computer and scrambler phone (she has the longest connection to GCHQ of all its “clients”, and she has her own encryption key) and the coded equipment that Margaret Thatcher used when she was PM, to the red phone that sat on Sir Harold Macmillan’s desk when he talked to President Kennedy (“speech is only secure when the red light GLOWS”, it warns on the base) and the battered receiver from the Cabinet War Rooms that Churchill used during the Second World War.
There is a story to explore around every corner of the exhibition – as well as a lot of tantalising questions which require an answer. Who were the people, for example, that owned the 13 miniature post-war spy cameras? Who was the owner of the huge insulated boot (with what looks like a thick felt exterior) found in the wreckage of one of the first Zeppelins shot down over London in 1916? It was a fusillade of shots from a plane flown by
Lt. William Leefe Robinson that pierced the
flimsy fabric of the Kaiser’s craft, and which ignited the interior gases that kept it afloat. It plunged to the ground, taking the 16-strong crew with it. None of those lads survived, but that boot did, as well as one of their uniform caps. Leefe Robinson was made a VC only days later. Little items like these bring the personal histories to life. Zeppelins were located by a primitive form of radar which warned of their approach.
The practical Londoners gathered up a lot of the wreckage when it was cooled, and either kept it as souvenirs or, more generously sold it so that it could aid the war effort, and the Red Cross.
Memories for many will be jogged by a section devoted to the Portland Spy Ring, who operated here in England for many years. At the centre of the web were Morris and Lana Cohen, who, at their Cranley Drive home in suburban Ruislip, were known as Peter and Helen Kroger. Peter’s cover was that he sold antiquarian books. An inside informer warned the CIA that information was reaching the KGB in Moscow that gave remarkable details of activities at the Admiralty Underwater Weapons Establishment in Portland, where equipment was being tested for underwater warfare. The CIA passed the letters on to MI5, who tracked the trail – backwards. They found a former matelot called Harry Houghton, who was now a civil servant at the base, and in a relationship with Ethel Gee, a filing clerk.
So far, all OK. Until Houghton, who was on a basic wage, slipped up. He had just purchased car number four, and a new house, and he was very popular at his local pubs because he was always up for buying a round. The authorities noted that “his expenses were far beyond his basic salary”. Something of an understatement. After a discreet stakeout, they were all arrested – after their trial and conviction, the Krogers were flown to Moscow first class as part of a spy swap. They were seen as heroes of the USSR, and even had their faces on stamps. They spent the rest of their lives teaching espionage skills to the Russians. And here are some of their belongings and transmitting equipment – on tape, so that it could be sent so quickly that detection was almost impossible, far quicker than laboriously keying in messages. There’s an
innocent-looking table cigarette lighter which housed all manner of secrets.
Geoff Belknap, head curator at the Bradford museum, observes: “What makes it so relevant to all of us, is the fact that people nearly always slip, they make mistakes. Houghton’s living beyond his means was a vital clue, just as, during the war, a German telegraphy officer made a couple of mistakes during one transmission, and then, in haste, compounded them in another. That was enough for the boffins – like Alan Turing at Bletchley Park – to crack the Enigma code. And if the Krogers got their images onto Russian stamps, we in the UK have gone far better – Turing is now depicted, quite rightly, on our own £50 notes.”
Many will be familiar with the Bletchley Park story – but why was it such a vital place for the Allies in the Second World War? Belknap smiles and says: “Simply a matter of location. It’s in Buckinghamshire, near to London, and, better yet, precisely between Oxford and Cambridge, where all the top ‘brains’ of the time were located, and then used to their maximum potential.”
Then there is the human touch again – many of the women (thousands of them) who worked there, and on other hush-hush projects, were members of the WRNS. They signed the Official Secrets Act, and they could never ever reveal what they did, and their vital part in winning the war.
Also featured is the British “secret” spy satellite scandal, which cost the nation billions and was hushed up by the government, and, bringing us up to date, the way that governments, corporations and all manner of interested folk are trying to get us to deliver our personal details – without us knowing how they manage it. Surveillance is, it seems, very common, and not so covert at all. Amazon, Google, Facebook and Microsoft are all at it.
And if you learn anything at all, it’s to go and change your password. This instant. It seems that the most common are Liverpool, qwerty and 123456. Sir Francis Walsingham must be laughing his ruff off in the great beyond…
■ Top Secret runs until June 5. Tickets are free, but must be booked in advance. More information from www. scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk. See also cyberexplorers.co.uk and ncsc.gov.uk/ cyberfirst/overview.
What makes it so relevant to all of us, is the fact that people nearly always slip, they make mistakes.