In defence of Walter Bell: a reply to Denis MacShane

I was puzzled by Denis MacShane’s review of A Faithful Spy, Jimmy Burns’ biography of Walter Bell. Then it occurred to me that perhaps MacShane hadn’t actually read the book, or at least very much of it. Instead, he had used the review as a platform for his hostile views of British intelligence, defence policy, diplomacy and Brexit. That is a time-honoured practice among book reviewers, but in this case, it lets down the readers, who might otherwise have learned something interesting, even profitable.

Walter Fancourt Bell CMG was a relatively senior British intelligence officer from 1934 to 1967. Unusually for that era, his career was divided between MI6 and MI5. He was no James Bond, and certainly no Kim Philby, rather he was a serious, thoughtful and religious man devoted to his country’s interests and to improving the human condition. Bell, who died aged 95 in 2004, left a voluminous archive (strictly against service rules) which Jimmy Burns has drawn on for A Faithful Spy.

The son of a High Church vicar, Bell studied law at the London School of Economics (not, as MacShane seems to think, at Oxford). There he was influenced by the Marxist thinker Harold Laski and other left-wing luminaries. He became a convinced socialist, impatient for the transformation of Britain’s sclerotic class system, but he was never tempted, as so many of his generation were, by Moscow and the lure of communism. Bell travelled extensively in Europe during university holidays, made many useful contacts and developed a strong interest in international relations. He had intended to become a barrister, but somehow was instead recruited into the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, which in 1935 posted him to New York.

Walter Bell spent most of the next ten years in America. Despite occasional bouts of                                    depression, he was a sociable and attractive man who was fascinated by the US. During his pre-war stint in New York, working under the classic SIS cover of deputy passport officer, he made many influential contacts in American government, media and society, as well as acquiring some well-connected girlfriends.

This stood him in good stead once World War Two started, and MI6 took a leading part in wooing American public opinion and countering German propaganda. He was a member of British Security Coordination, the MI6 front organisation, led by Canadian Bill Stephenson, which forged the basis of the intimate Anglo-American intelligence relationship that continues to this day. Bell helped dispel J Edgar Hoover’s suspicion of British intelligence activities and seems to have rendered valuable service neutering Nazi intelligence efforts in Mexico and Venezuela. He was one of the British intelligence officers who helped the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS), forerunner of the CIA, to find its feet.

When I got to know him in his old age, Walter told me a number of anecdotes which illustrated the traitor Kim Philby’s combination of personal charm and operational efficiency that raised him above suspicion in the wartime and post-war MI6. This was despite his occasional public loucheness. One morning in 1944, for instance, Walter was walking past the Athenaeum when he heard a raucous voice calling his name. Looking up, he saw an evidently drunk Philby sitting with his legs dangling over the club’s parapet, waving a bottle. “Walter, why not come up and join me in a glass of this excellent Australian burgundy?” Around this time Philby was promoted to lead a new section tasked, ironically, with countering Soviet espionage; by contrast, Bell was regarded as too much of a maverick to rise further in MI6.

Salvation came from Bell’s friend, the Catholic author and wartime SOE agent Christopher Sykes, who recommended him as private secretary to Lord Inverchapel, the new British ambassador in Washington. Inverchapel, aka Archibald Clark Kerr, had been a superb but unconventional ambassador to Moscow during the war. He had been ennobled by the new Labour government and despatched to Washington, but by 1946 he was a spent force. Bell had little to do for the two years they worked together. But he was spotted by the new head of the Security Service, Sir Percy Sillitoe, who asked him to join MI5 to help develop its post-colonial overseas networks.

Britain had maintained security in its sprawling empire in a variety of ways, from the military to local police forces and sharp-eyed colonial civil servants, but with the end of the Raj and a general retreat in sight, a new system was required. MI5, whose previous focus had been domestic UK security, was tasked by the Labour government with establishing security relationships with the newly independent nations. Walter Bell was to be one of the leading actors in this new system.

Walter had fallen in love with Katherine “Tattie” Spaatz during his last months in Washington. This intelligent and independent young woman was the daughter of General Carl “Tooey” Spaatz, the man who had commanded the American air war against Germany. They married just before leaving the US. Without Tattie, it is doubtful that Walter would have risen as far as he did, beset as he was by doubt and depression.

The first posting was to Kenya, Britain’s most valuable African colony. Walter swiftly identified the hidebound and racist reactionaries of the colonial administration who were refusing to engage with the Kenyans’ powerful desire for independence. They thought the independence leader Jomo Kenyatta was a communist and were determined to lock him up. Bell got to know and respect Kenyatta, who he saw was more sophisticated than the white men who were after him. There was little chance of influencing the British authorities in Kenya, but he had more luck informing his superiors in London.

This first stint in Kenya was frustrating, but there was an unexpected upside. Bell was impressed by the work and attitude of Christian missionaries, especially the Catholics who focused entirely on the native Kenyans and were without racial prejudice. He began to rediscover his faith and, some time before leaving Kenya, he was received into the Catholic Church.

In 1952 he was posted to India under diplomatic cover, but with the knowledge and approval of the new Indian government. MI5 was the designated conduit for intelligence sharing and cooperation between the two countries.  Although India under Nehru was non-aligned diplomatically and interested in closer relations with the USSR, the British and Indian security services enjoyed close relations, thanks in part to Walter’s friendship with his Indian opposite number. There followed postings to the Caribbean and Kenya (again). His careful approach was part of the generally constructive British withdrawal from empire.

Prior to his retirement in 1967, Bell was private secretary to Sir Roger Hollis, MI5’s director general, later suspected by some of being a Soviet spy. When in 1985 this theory was splashed in the Sunday Times, I happened to be at Sunday lunch with the Bells. Conversation danced unavailingly around the Hollis question, until I asked:

“So, Walter, was he?”

He gave me a solemn, melancholy look.

“Was who what?”

“Was Hollis a Russian spy?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“I worked closely with him and knew him pretty well. I don’t think it would have been possible for a man so stupid to have carried off such a deception for so many years.”

A brilliant reply: the lunch party was convulsed in fits of laughter, and of course it was impossible to press the question any further. That was typical of Walter in his later years. He remained discreet about intelligence matters, but he was prepared in some circumstances to let in a little light on the mystery because he knew that his old services needed to be understood by British society, and especially by the media. He did this through personal contacts, and through forums such as The Tablet Table, an influential talking shop convened by the liberal Catholic weekly.

Walter Bell was a much more typical British intelligence officer than the dramatic, often violent image promulgated by the media. His work was important but low key. He thought deeply – sometimes agonised – about that work, and its moral underpinning. In his later years, living with Tattie in their charming flat in Onslow Square, South Kensington, he remained politically leftish and was a daily communicant at the Brompton Oratory. He was as far from the seedy, compromised, right-wing Catholic spy of Mr MacShane’s imagination as it is possible to be.

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