Spookish paranoia
From Mr David Turner Sir: Alex Woodcock-Clarke (Letters, 17 July) indicates that the granting of a knight- hood to Rudolf Peierls in 1968 is no guar- antee that there was not 'serious evidence that he was [a] Soviet spy', as Lord Kagan and Sir Anthony Blunt received honours when they were under 'such suspicion'.
It is true that MI5 is reported to have long been suspicious of Joe Kagan (the Lithuanian raincoat-manufacturer and jail- bird who was an associate of Harold Wil- son) and that the spooks' mistrust of him was made more acute by information received from a defector in 1971. However, nothing was ever proved against Kagan and it seems fair to say that he received his knighthood in 1970 and his life peerage in 1976 in the face of MI5 paranoia rather than 'serious evidence' of treachery. As to Anthony Blunt, it is unclear when MI5 first suspected that he was a spy; but it is certain that MI5 had no 'serious evidence' against him until 1964, long after he was knighted (in 1956).
David Turner
Chestnut Street, Borden, Kent
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