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Spies in our midst: talks reached PM Clement Atlee (inset) about how to shut down spies at 13 Oakleigh Park North. Photo: JONATHAN GOLDBERG

Most of the secret files about the Soviet spy base in Whetstone have still not been released to the public for national security reasons. But the files do reveal how the Whetstone base became a thorn in the side of the Government, writes LEIGH COLLINS.

Even before they knew the Russians were spying from their Tass news agency base in Whetstone, the Foreign Office wanted it shut down according to documents unearthed in the Public Record Office in Kew.

In the late 1940s, it seems that the Russians were abusing the diplomatic immunity that the house, known as The Lodge, at 13 Oakleigh Park North, had been granted by Churchill in 1941.

The Tass base, a radio monitoring station, was producing newsletters for the London press that included many libellous comments. Legal action was taken by the individuals who had been libelled, but the prosecution never went ahead.

It was decided that because Tass had diplomatic immunity it was not subject to English law, meaning it could not be prosecuted.

This worried the British Government as it meant that Tass could, in effect, say anything it liked and get away with it. The influential peer Lord Vansittart, who was the Government's chief diplomatic adviser from 1938-41, brought the subject to the Government's attention by asking questions in Parliament.

On February 1, 1947, the GPO (General Post Office) granted permission for the Soviets to use radio-receiving equipment at the Whetstone base.

By July 1951, the British security agencies realised that the Russians were using it to spy on covert British activity, particularly those concerned with the air defence system.

Chief of Air Staff Sir John Slessor, wrote in a top-secret document: "It is absolutely fantastic that, at a time when we are carrying out a great rearmament programme because of the danger of war with Russia, we should continue to present the Russians on a plate with the opportunity of learning such vital defence secrets."

The news was immediately referred to the Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, and discussed in Cabinet Defence Committee, which included the PM, Foreign Secretary Herbert Morrison and Defence Secretary Emmanuel Shinwell. The committee took the decision that the radio monitoring aspect of the Tass station should be closed immediately.

The Foreign Office's secretive central body, the PUSD (Permanent Under-Secretary's Department in the Foreign Office), which took over supervision of intelligence matters in 1949, agreed, saying in August 1951: "So far as the PUSD is concerned, the important thing is to close the station."

The Foreign Office also called in their new propaganda unit, the Information Research Department, which worked closely with MI5 and MI6, to give the right spin on the efforts to close the station they did not want it known they were trying to shut it down for national security reasons.

Professor Richard Aldrich, a leading intelligence expert based at Nottingham University, believes it is likely that MI5 would have kept a watch on the Whetstone base from then on.

When the Foreign Office ordered the Tass station to close their radio monitoring operation by getting the GPO to withdraw its licence, the Russians failed to comply.

The Soviet ambassador, Yerofeev, pointed to an earlier assurance in June 1950 from Aneurin Bevan, the then Minister for Health, that the "premises can be used as a monitoring station for so long as the buildings are occupied by the Tass agency."

Bevan's assurance was solely based on the house's exemption from Friern Barnet Urban District Council's planning department.

One Foreign Office official, H Hohler, described this as 'a considerable piece of impertinence', adding: "the Soviet Embassy is clearly trying to gain time".

A long and complex argument between the GPO, the Foreign Office and the Soviet Embassy ensued over the legality of the proposed closure.

In the end, the British government asked for reciprocal arrangements to be provided in Moscow. Stalin refused and the monitoring station was officially closed in October 1951.

Tass finally left the building in 1968.

1:57pm Wednesday 25th July 2001

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