The spy within

Graham Greene was a wartime spy and there are many clues he continued to work for MI6 throughout his life writes Norman Sherry
 

Graham Greene, in all the time I knew him, never lost his temper at my hundreds of questions. Never, except once. It was when I challenged him about Kim Philby, the double agent who remained his friend despite betraying his country and causing the deaths of many of their fellow spies.

I had already felt the pale compelling hardness of Greene’s blue eyes for describing Philby, whom he worked with in MI6 during the second world war, as “a traitor, probably England’s greatest”. But this time his anger exploded.

I got around to Philby again surreptitiously by first discussing Greene’s unhappy schooldays, when a friend called Wheeler became his greatest betrayer by stealing his private diary and passing it to Greene’s enemy, a boy called Carter.

When Carter read passages out in class — “Beastly unhappy tonight. Everyone teasing as usual” — 13-year-old Greene was devastated.

“I found the desire for revenge alive like a creature under a stone,” he wrote in his autobiography.

“You remember Wheeler,” I now said, “how he betrayed and humiliated you to the extent that you couldn’t forgive him.”

Greene’s eyes were all attention. His hatred for his betrayer was, I felt, still intense so many decades later.

I then reminded him of the controversial introduction he wrote to Philby’s memoirs, My Silent War. “He betrayed his country — yes, perhaps he did,” I recited Greene’s words back at him, “but who among us has not committed treason to something or someone more important than a country?”

Graham nodded, and I turned to the hundreds of young secret agents Philby had trained for missions in Albania when he was a senior official in MI6, and whom he betrayed to his Soviet spymasters.

“Being Philby, he must have got to know the freshly employed agents well,” I said. “They’d have become friends; only he knew they were to be sent off to Albania. He also knew that he had imparted the information to Moscow, so when his agents arrived they’d be caught and shot.”

I asked Greene: “Don’t you think this is not a betrayal of a country but the betrayal of friends, a betrayal that led to their deaths? Philby surely would have been much more worthy a candidate for revenge, perhaps like a creature under a stone you speak of, rather than Wheeler.”

Greene was very angry. His fascination with betrayal in his novels did not reach the point of rejecting Philby. I went on: “You’d think that, despite the loyalties we bear to friends and lovers, there would come a time when the act committed is too great to be forgiven, or forgotten . . .”

I stopped there, for Greene was furious. He told me firmly that I didn’t know Philby. That was strictly true, I said, but I’d corresponded with him.

Greene’s face was beet-red: “YOU DON’T KNOW HIM. AND CANNOT JUDGE.”

Greene remained true to his friend from his defection to the Soviet Union in January 1963 until Philby’s death in 1988. Why did he do this? Despite his anger at my questions, I believe it was not simple loyalty.

Absolutely not a communist, Greene endured public scorn perhaps not just for friendship’s sake but most likely for the sake of whatever information their exchange of letters and meetings in Moscow brought Greene for his old employers — MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, SIS, call it what you will.

In books, letters, articles and speeches for the rest of his life, he kept stressing in a variety of ways that, as the novelist E M Forster had put it: “If I had to choose between my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.”

Notoriously, Greene wrote to The Times in 1967: “If I had to choose between life in the Soviet Union and life in the United States of America, I would certainly choose the Soviet Union . . .”

But Greene is sending smoke signals that he is anti-American, a suitable man for Philby to contact in the West with the notion of Philby’s becoming a triple agent.

Remember that after Philby defected to the Soviet Union he was asked what he would like if he had a magic wand. He replied: “Graham Greene on the other side of the table, and a bottle of wine between us.”  

GREENE joined SIS during the second world war with the help of his sister, Elisabeth, already a member. After serving undercover in Sierra Leone, worked long hours at SIS headquarters in St Albans under Philby, who was even then (though of course no one in SIS knew this) a Soviet agent.

His time at St Albans and later at SIS’s London offices in Ryder Street, St James’s, provided material for his late novel, The Human Factor, which throws a light on Greene’s relationship with Philby, his own attitude to betrayal and his character.

I doubt that Greene would have come to write The Human Factor if he hadn’t worked with Philby in Ryder Street, and been directly under his command during their wartime service in MI6. He wouldn’t have had the urge: he wouldn’t have had sufficient knowledge, the exactitude he demanded of himself when writing, that urgent claim to do the job unerringly. After all, Greene and Philby often worked closely, if not in the same office, then in the same building and on the same floor, both as spies.

The main character, Maurice Castle, defects to Moscow and, although this fictional character is vastly different from Philby, I have no doubt that Greene had in mind the treasonable activity of Philby when creating Castle.

But the book is not substantially about Philby or Philby’s character. It is much more about Greene, about hidden deposits in his own character.

Simple aspects of Greene show up in the first paragraph: “Castle, ever since he had joined the firm as a young recruit more than 30 years ago, had taken his lunch in a public house behind St James’s Street, not far from the office.

“If he had been asked why he lunched there, he would have referred to the excellent quality of the sausages; he might have preferred a different bitter from Watney’s, but the quality of the sausages outweighed that. He was always prepared to account for his actions, even the most innocent, and he was always strictly on time.”

Greene is describing two aspects of himself: his ability to account for his actions and his regulated life. He was always on time. He did visit a public house behind St James’s Street (where he used to drink with Philby), just a short walk from his flat. Castle is now living in Berkhamsted, Greene’s home town.  

But Greene is not just Castle. He is also Colonel Daintry, the SIS security man who is Castle’s foil. Greene fits Daintry firmly into his own one-time home in St James’s Street, complete with his well-known neighbours, one of them a famous wartime general.

When Daintry meets his daughter, Greene has his own daughter Caroline in mind — and his own estranged wife Vivien, whom he’d once loved (a fact he now found hard to understand).

Daintry asks his daughter about her “as if they were speaking of an acquaintance whom he hardly knew — it was odd to think there had ever been a time when he and his wife were close enough to share a sexual spasm which had produced the beautiful girl who sat so elegantly opposite him drinking her Tio Pepe”.

What Greene could see from his flat at 5 St James’s Street is what he gives to Daintry. He showed it to me once from the outside and took me round to the back, so that I’d know the tiny court area of one portion of The Human Factor: “Daintry was no cook and he usually economised for one meal by buying cold chipolatas at Fortnum’s. He had never liked clubs; if he felt hungry . . . there was Overton’s just below.

“His bedroom and his bathroom looked out on a tiny ancient court containing a sundial and a silversmith. Few people who walked down St James’s Street knew of the court’s existence. It was a very discreet flat and not unsuitable for a lonely man.”

Greene had made simple meals for himself, and sometimes, like Daintry’s, his lunch didn’t last beyond four minutes. And despite numerous lovers Greene was always a lonely man.

Daintry’s father and mother fit Greene’s father and mother to a tee. Their vast basement kitchen was based on the headmaster’s house at Berkhamsted school where Greene was brought up.

Greene’s mother also had another part to play in the novel as Castle’s mother: “Mrs Castle was invariably standing there on the porch waiting for them, a tall straight figure in an out-dated skirt which showed to advantage her fine ankles, wearing a high collar like Queen Alexandra’s which disguised the wrinkles of old age. To hide his despondency Castle . . . greeted his mother with an exaggerated hug which she barely returned. She believed that any emotions openly expressed must be false emotions.”

Greene’s sister, Elisabeth, told me that their mother kept a tight hold on her emotions. She would never throw her arms round her children or kiss them. And writing to Elisabeth about the death of her father she ended with her full signature, “Marion R Greene”.

Finally, Greene gave parts to his former mistress, the American-born beauty Catherine Walston, and to her husband, Harry Walston, whom he turns into Sir John Hargreaves, a murderer and newly appointed C — the head of SIS.

Greene has some envy for Harry, as does Daintry for Hargreaves. Can you imagine this internal rumination (the differences necessary for the story’s sake)?

“He envied him in the first place for his position. He was one of the very few men outside the services ever to have been appointed C. No one in the firm knew why he had been chosen — all kinds of recondite influences had been surmised, for his only experience of intelligence had been gained in Africa during the war. Daintry also envied him his wife; she was so rich, so decorative, so impeccably American. An American marriage, it seemed, could not be classified as a foreign marriage: to marry a foreigner special permission had to be obtained and it was often refused, but to marry an American was perhaps to confirm the special relationship  .”

GREENE continued working for SIS, if only part-time, long after he nominally left it in 1944. His letters repeatedly refer to “drinks with FO man” before and after visits to communist countries.

In Greene’s archives in his sister Elisabeth’s home is a file entitled “Various Points”, containing questions and details that refer to a visit he made to China in 1957 in a British-China “friendship” delegation.

There is other evidence that the Catholic authorities wanted him to report back on the persecution of the church, but the material in this file is of an entirely different kidney, suggesting that the questions and the details were derived from SIS. If this can be assumed, Greene went to China with at least one specific purpose: to spy.

A reference in a letter to Catherine Walson suggests that, just before leaving, Greene met a member of the intelligence community, an old friend. Perhaps the SIS felt that since the famous Greene had been given delegate status, the communist authorities would not place him under arrest or put him in harm’s way. I believe that what the SIS wanted entailed serious risks.

In the notes from Greene’s archives it is proposed that he should approach a well-known correspondent of the British communist newspaper the Daily Worker, Alan Winnington, then in Peking, claiming that “they” have information that Winnington “is rumoured to be having doubts”, presumably about China’s communism in particular or communism in general.

The notes recommend that Greene should approach “other foreign correspondents” as well, and asked him for “any comments obtainable from official or unofficial sources on Russian aid. Reports of considerable economic difficulties re raw materials etc. Since Russian assistance and planning is much advertised. How do they get round the fact that it is so unsuccessful?”

More difficult tasks included trying to see political trials in the more remote districts, to find out whether a proper defence was allowed: “Is it possible to get evidence from officials of any people who have successfully appealed, or defended themselves? If so how did they succeed? . . . Watch for signs of forced labour in the remoter districts. Groups of 20 or 30 may not always be accompanied by armed guards. They often have Chinese characters on their backs . . . If invited to visit co-operative farms try to avoid usual ones, eg Kaokang, but seek further afield! Same with state-owned factories or workshops, avoid An-Shan which is the show place.”

He was ultimately unsuccessful in these tasks, despite his spy-tuned nature. He was outwitted by the Chinese communists who’d been alerted to the dangers of having Greene in their country.

Greene distrusted the Chinese because of the persecution of the church. He took a different approach to the communists in Cuba, which he visited several times in the 1950s, forming a close relationship with Fidel Castro’s revolutionaries as they fought for power.

As a result of these visits, he made fun of his old employers at SIS in his new book, Our Man in Havana, a stunning entertainment about bungling British spies in Cuba, which was published three months before Castro’s victory. It must have made them laugh in Moscow. But as always with Greene we must look for untold layers of meaning.

Was Greene sending up a kite to both Russia and the newly communist Cuba that if it came right down to it he would speak out to the world on their behalf, even at the expense of his own country?

MI6 knew about his visits to Cuba: he met a representative of the Foreign Office prior to departure. He would report on what he observed, attitudes of mind: he would criticise the British government in the press; would rightly vilify Cuba’s corrupt pre-revolutionary government; he would praise, and overpraise, Castro’s new government; he would criticise American government policy, as it often seemed he did, but, even so, he would report to his one-time employer — MI6!

One imagines that MI6 might be angry that a colleague was ridiculing them. I believe that was part of Greene’s grand plan. It must have been suggested, perhaps in casual conversation, that if he made fun of British intelligence, Cuba wouldn’t take it, or him, seriously. If Greene were ever questioned by Castro, his novel would stand to minimise anything he might have told MI6. Those who thought the spying was significant would see that the lightness of the dialogue, along with the sheer fatuity of the head office in London, made it frivolous. As a camouflage, it would have its uses.  

THERE is another side to this, however: Greene’s personal gullibility.

He was given VIP treatment, almost like a head of state, whenever he visited Cuba. A letter to Catherine gives some notion of how well: “Real red carpet treatment. A Cadillac car with a French-speaking chauffeur, my friend Pablo as companion, and I went from one end of the island to the other. Raul Castro (Fidel’s brother) gave me a military plane to take me to the Isle of Pines and Fidel (whom I liked enormously, I spent three hours of my last night with him) gave me a lovely flower painting by Portocarrero which he inscribed on the back.”

Many left-wing leaders and left-wing dictators in Latin America also found it politically prudent to treat the famous Greene well. He was a useful and worthy friend. How could this brilliant mind be so easily taken in?

Raul Castro, for example, could have easily worked effectively at Auschwitz. In charge of the exterminating gang after the Cuban revolution, he carried out a great bloodletting. His firing squad worked in relays, hour after hour, killing prisoners two by two at a trench 40ft long, 10ft wide and 10ft deep. Yet Greene, staunch admirer of Fidel Castro, never seemed to see that it was time to change views.

When he did at last publicly tackle the consequences of communist totalitarianism, with a shot across the bows of the Soviet Union, he lost his nerve.

In a letter to The Times in 1967, complaining about the imprisonment of Yuri Daniel and Andrei Sinyavsky — the dissident writers — he said he would not revisit the Soviet Union “so long as these authors remain in prison, however happy my memories of past visits”.

Instead of sounding anti-American, he has become anti-anyone, any time, any way, any how, wherever he feels that justice is not being served. He has become a thorn in the flesh of any establishment. He is the odd man out, a filibusterer who will engage in unauthorised warfare against a one-time friend if, in his view, his sense of repugnance risen, the attack is deserved.

But then, as if in the middle of transports of anger he has second thoughts, he suddenly damns his own case: “There are many agencies, such as Radio Free Europe, which specialise in propaganda against the Soviet Union. I would say to these agencies that this letter must in no way be regarded as an attack upon the Union.”

That is a distinction worth making, but what follows is an obvious absurdity: “If I had to choose between life in the Soviet Union and life in the United States of America, I would certainly choose the Soviet Union, just as I would choose life in Cuba to life in those southern American republics, like Bolivia, dominated by their northern neighbour, or life in North Vietnam to life in South Vietnam. But the greater the affection one feels for any country the more one is driven to protest against any failure of justice there.”

Of course Greene is trying to stay in with Soviet officials so that they might treat him as a friend, and perhaps act on his suggestion, perhaps even look closer at the case of Daniel and Sinyavsky. These words of Greene are indeed a sop, a bribe.

For most of his life Greene was a defender of free, critical thought. And it wasn’t exclusively against the devil that he’d set his jaw — for him, disagreement was a rule of life, almost an orientation. He was a strange, compelling figure who became tougher as he grew older.

He was a loner, a provocateur, a rebel (and this aspect grows as he ages), an anarchist, for he had no genuine political agenda except in the fundamental sense that he was almost always against the government.

He was compelled to report his evidence, no matter who was guilty — friend or foe, president or pope, and he was no respecter of persons or positions. If attacked first, he responded with the sting of an adder.

It is as if Greene had from childhood hated the authority of adults. There is more than a trace of that resentment in his early life and first stories, and as a young man he bore a certain contempt for the authority of headmasters (somewhat odd, since his father was one). He chafed less under the authority of mothers, though in at least two works he shows a secret anger there, too.

The greater the authority, the stronger his desire to make it his whipping boy. He often has in mind the most powerful country in the world — for him that usually meant the United States of America. But in June 1969, Greene used an attack on yet another authority — the greatest authority in the English language, Shakespeare — to set out his credo.

Receiving the Shakespeare prize at Hamburg University, he gave an address that he called The Virtue of Disloyalty. It sums up his creed, and is deliberately provocative.

Identifying Shakespeare as the “supreme poet of conservatism”, Greene accused him of ignoring the political persecution of his own troubled times and of seeking security and honours.

He went on: “Isn’t it the story-teller’s task to act as the devil’s advocate, to elicit sympathy and a measure of understanding for those who lie outside the boundaries of state approval? The writer is driven by his own vocation to be a Protestant in a Catholic society, a Catholic in a Protestant one, to see the virtues of the Capitalist in a Communist society, of the Communist in a Capitalist state.”

And, said Greene, he “should always be ready to change sides at the drop of a hat . . . He stands for the victims, and the victims change”.

I think the truth behind his many contradictions was that for much of his life Greene was seeking powerful friends. He was not seeking a promised land. He was not a Marxist.

In conversation with him, I found he rarely deviated from the truth; but what was his truth? Having dealt with the divided mind throughout his whole life — wanting at school to be on the side of the boys, but being troubled that his gentle father, as headmaster, had a justified point of view, too — he was pulled apart by both sides. He tried to belong to both.

© Norman Sherry 2004

Extracted from The Life of Graham Greene Volume Three: 1955-1991 by Norman Sherry, published by Jonathan Cape at £25. Copies can be ordered for £20 plus £2.25 p&p from The Sunday Times Books First on 0870 165 8585 or at www.timesonline.co.uk/booksfirstbuy

The Graham Greene Birthplace Trust is at www.grahamgreenebt.org.