Hollis and Cockburn
Sir: It was reassuring to have Alan Brien's evidence in his own words (Letters, 27 October) and to see that he cannot be shaken on his central statements that Claud Cockburn not only knew Roger Hollis after his University days, but re- garded him as an old contact whom he was at liberty to 're-activate' when he needed
some inside information to jazz up a story in Private Eye. I agree with him entirely and with Richard Ingrams (Letters, 20 October) that it is most unlikely they were engaged in espionage, let alone plotting subversion. It was, rather, a most foolish indiscretion on Hollis's part. Brien says, incidentally, that I reproduced what he told me 'with reasonable accuracy' allow- ing for the poor state of the telephone lines over the Berwyn mountains and down along to Devon, but goes on to query a few details. I don't believe in recording private telephone calls, which is why I spoke to him twice, as he will remember, the second time to verify his quotations. However our seeming differences do not alter the essen- tial facts in any way.
Ingrams says that Hollis may have gone on meeting Cockburn because he relished his company. Quite likely, but Cockburn's remark about `re-activating an old contact' and for so specific a purpose does not imply that he saw it that way. It has been suggested that any accuracy there might have been in MI5 stories appearing in the Eye did not come from Hollis or any other MI5 officer. But the evidence in the case in question is clear: the meeting took place and Cockburn wrote a piece based on what he had gleaned, no doubt with his own unique perspective. Again the central facts are not affected at all.
It is regrettable that these important events have to be written about entirely in terms of oral history, particularly when there is ample documentary evidence which MI5 insists must remain closed in perpetuity. The Home Office, in contrast, has already released papers on the suppre- sion of the Daily Worker in 1941 when its leaders, written by Cockburn, were calling for an immediate peace, a Soviet Britain and a Europe united under the aegis of the `What a coincidence! We're both having exactly the same nightmare.' Nazi-Soviet pact. They have actually re- leased Cockburn's MI5 file number (at the time 840.119). Hollis kept thins file and also dealt with the Daily Worker, blocking action whilst concealing the fact that he knew Cockburn. The papers released, which I quote in my book, even leave open the possibility that Cockburn was another Harry Newton (the MI5 mole in CND exposed in Channel 4's 20/20 Vision).
In general terms, facts relevant to the writing of modern political history should never be suppressed in a free society. Is it not time that the Government allowed such material to be released, if only under the terms of the Freedom of Information Acts in operation in America and Canada? We might then get to the bottom of this matter once and for all.
W. J. West
36 Fairpack Road, Exeter, Devon
Previous page
