The Greatest Traitor (36 page)

My Lord, whatever else this is, this is not a political trial, and it is not a propaganda trial, and it is not a move in a Cold War. The offences of course, in this matter, are inextricably bound up with politics, but that does not make it a political trial.

We here in modern days have never had trials in order to bring comfort to our allies or fear to our enemies, but here in this court your Lordship is trying an individual for the crime which he has committed. I know your Lordship will bear in mind, as well as the offence, the offender.

Hutchinson then began to lead Parker through the story of Blake’s life, from his childhood in Rotterdam, through his time in Egypt, his family’s escape to England, and his internment in a German camp. He paused to reflect on Blake’s role as a courier in the Dutch resistance: ‘It needs no words of mine to say what he saw as a boy of that age, running messages, running the gauntlet, seeing men die in front of him during that time in Holland.’ He moved on, through Blake’s spirited flight through occupied Europe, then his voyage to England, his adopted country that he saw properly for the first time at the age of 20.

The first reference to the real nature of Blake’s job came soon afterwards. After recounting how he had left the Navy following the unfortunate experience on midget submarines, he told the court that Blake was ‘put into the Intelligence Service as Dutch speaking, and then went back to Holland in that job. In 1946/47 he was transferred permanently to the Intelligence, and was then sent after the end of hostilities to Germany.’

In recounting Blake’s seven months at Cambridge, Hutchinson emphasised that the switch to the other side had not yet taken place: ‘However anti-Fascist he was, and however much pro-Russian propaganda he had been subjected to in the war, his view was firmly and strongly anti-Communist. He had had a conservative, moral, religious upbringing. He belonged to the Calvinist faith and from 13 to 16 he formed a firm intention of joining the Church, which your Lordship may think is relevant when we move on a bit in his life.’ But at Cambridge his views about Russia did begin to alter: ‘He learnt for the first time about the better side – and it was a revelation – of Russian culture and literature. He learnt the Russian language and this was the first time in his life when he had had a period of contemplation and thought at all.’

Hutchinson urged Parker to consider that on the eve of his posting to Korea, Blake’s life had been almost wholly forged in the furnace of war and upheaval: ‘I know your Lordship will realise that this young
man, with no attachment to this country by birth, [or] by growing up, by tradition, by education, when others more fortunate than him had all these things in peace and quiet, was either in Egypt, or running messages for the underground, involving himself in war, deprivation, murder and suchlike, from the age of 16 onwards.’

Then he described the occasion in Korea when Blake, Holt and their fellow captives were driven out of Seoul and taken up into the mountains in a jeep, and made clear that this was a life-changing moment for his client.

They were told to get out. This man, being 28, and having been through all that he had been through, knew – or thought he knew – this was when he was going to be shot, as other people had been.

Most people, I suppose, have faced a moment when they think they’re going to die, and they have no doubt done what he did, which was to review his life.

He came to the conclusion then – he asked himself – ‘Why am I going to die? What am I dying for?’ He had seen the brutality of one side, but he had also seen for the past year in the regime of Syngman Rhee, notorious for its utter corruption and cruelty, exactly the same methods being used on the other side . . .

My Lord, in addition to that, he had also seen for the first time in his life poverty of a kind which we in this country know nothing of, which made a profound impression on his mind.

At that moment, when he stood outside the jeep, he realised he had done nothing with his life. There was no reason for him to continue to live. If he was going to die, he had nothing to show for it at all. From then on, he was determined, should he escape, if this matter ever arose again he would give a different answer.

Hutchinson said that the conversion, when it came, followed
Blake’s reading of Marx to Vyvyan Holt in the camp at Moo Yong Nee: ‘Gradually he came to the conclusion that here was a theory, a way of life, which seemed to him to bring hope for the future . . . Your Lordship will appreciate his Calvinist background; there may have been some echo here, in this strict morality, which is to be found in Marx. That is what the effect of this reading was on him.’

The QC’s most difficult task was explaining why Blake, having found a new belief system which was at odds with his work, had not resigned from SIS. Being a Communist was not illegal, after all. Hutchinson conceded that Blake’s aim had been ‘the total disruption of the Intelligence Service’ but stressed that the secrets his client gave away did not cause the country any ‘military damage’. He argued that Blake’s actions had been essentially defensive – to protect the interests of the Soviet Union.

Hutchinson again repeated Blake’s claim that he had been given a guarantee from the Russians that none of the agents whose names he had passed to them would be put in mortal danger: ‘They would be neutralised in their usefulness, but they would not be physically harmed. That is what he was told, that is what he believed, and it appears on the depositions that only two persons were arrested. It is agreed that never has this man received one penny piece for what he did. When he was in prison in Korea he received no advantages. He was released no earlier than anyone else, and was treated the same as everyone else. He has received no benefit from what he has done.’

In 1958, Hutchinson told the court, Blake had wanted to put an end to his treachery: ‘He assures me when the time came and he had finished his course in Arabic, he was going to resign his job and get himself a job in an oil company, and finally rid himself of the course he had taken.’

As Hutchinson neared the end of his speech, he reminded Parker that his predecessor, Lord Goddard, had only imposed a fourteen-year sentence on Klaus Fuchs, the atom bomb spy. Fuchs’ information, he argued, was the opposite of that passed by Blake: ‘It was information
of the most vital kind directly affecting the safety and security of this country.’

As his final gambit, Hutchinson appealed to Parker’s more merciful instincts by urging him to uphold the values and practices of democracy – in sharp contrast to those of Communism: ‘I suppose however logical, however clever, however moral, however watertight the theory may be on which another country’s form of government is based, here in this country there are qualities which will never, and could never, be found if this man was now facing a judge in the country which he has seen fit to support. Among those I hope I can mention those of humanity and understanding.’

It was an eloquent, persuasive address. Hutchinson had clearly identified many of the contributory factors that led Blake, right from his teenage years, on the path to treachery. His central thesis – that it was only in the desolation and despair of captivity that Blake had turned to Communism as an alternative ‘theory of life’ – was altogether too simplistic, but Hutchinson was sure of it, and a high-minded conversion was always a better defence, and had more chance of convincing a judge, than any other concoction of motives.

There was then a final interchange between Hutchinson and Parker, which seemed to indicate the course the judge might take in his sentencing. ‘This court will not sentence a man for becoming converted to a genuine belief in a system which he thought better,’ Parker brusquely told the QC. ‘The real trouble, and I would like you to deal with it further, if you will, the real trouble is that you should stay on and retain your service in the Government in order to betray your country.’

Hutchinson did his best, but he was clearly fighting a losing battle: ‘My client was convinced he had to swallow the disagreeable and unpleasant and appalling deceit, which in a sense was part of his training, in order that he should be able to make a contribution which he thought was vital to this cause. As I say again, he was convinced throughout [that] the contribution he was making was to completely
upset the Intelligence Service in this way. He was therefore preventing harm being done to this country rather than – this is how he convinced himself – than bringing harm to this country.’

At this point Manningham-Buller fired a firm riposte: ‘I don’t accept the position that the defendant has not given positive information to the other side. I think it appears from the depositions that he clearly has.’

It was now 11.30 a.m. Parker adjourned the court while the shutters were removed and the public was allowed back in to hear the sentence.

Blake was optimistic: ‘Hutchinson spoke very well and movingly. I felt sure that his words would make an impact on the judge and all those who heard him.’

The Clerk, Leslie Boyd, addressed the defendant in the customary way: ‘Prisoner at the Bar, you stand accused of felony. Have you anything to say why the Court should not give you judgement according to law?’ Blake replied: ‘No, Sir.’

Lord Justice Parker then began his summing-up: ‘Your full written confession reveals that for some nine years you have been working continually as an agent and spy for a foreign power. Moreover, the information communicated, although not of a scientific nature, was clearly of the utmost importance to that power and has rendered much of the country’s efforts completely useless.’ And while Parker accepted that Blake had not been motivated by greed, but because of his conversion to a genuine belief in the Communist system, the judge reiterated the point that Blake ought to have resigned rather than betray his country.

In conclusion, he told Blake: ‘You are not yet 39 years of age. You must know and appreciate the gravity of the offence to which you have pleaded guilty. As I have said, your case is one of the worst that can be envisaged in times of peace.’

Just for a moment, though, Parker’s next words suggested that Blake might escape with a relatively lenient sentence: ‘For a single
offence of this kind the highest penalty laid down is fourteen years’ imprisonment . . .’ But it was a flickering moment of hope, almost immediately snuffed out.

Not only did Parker hand down fourteen-year jail terms for all five of the charges, he went further, stipulating that three of those sentences were to be served consecutively. When the final judgement was pronounced – forty-two years behind bars – it was so unbelievable that several onlookers emitted audible surprise. Blake himself was left in something of a daze. In that moment, his punishment had no real meaning for him.

Two prison officers led him down to a cell below the court. It was small, dirty and damp, and the walls were covered in graffiti. Some of the messages were obscene, but most conveyed messages of hope, anger and despair from previous occupants. While Blake sat there, a doctor arrived from Brixton jail, ready to administer sedatives for shock.

On the journey to Wormwood Scrubs, he could read that evening’s lead story on the passing billboards and hear the cries of the newspaper vendors. His trial had wiped the London dock strike and the civil war in the Congo clean off the front pages.

The same afternoon, Bill Cox wrote to Gillian Blake: ‘I can only say how desperately sorry I am about it, and assure you that not only did Jeremy Hutchinson do all that could be done, but in my opinion he conducted the matter beautifully to the point where I anticipated a comparatively light sentence. In the event, everything we had to say was disregarded.’

Gillian reflected later: ‘The sentence seems quite senseless. If anyone ever served twenty-eight years he wouldn’t be much of a person when he came out. This is equivalent to death, worse than death.’

The newspapers reported that Blake had collapsed after the verdict. Cox wrote to Gillian to reassure her that those stories were untrue: ‘I saw him and he seemed to be very much as usual and certainly he did not seem to be suffering from shock.’

In Radlett, Blake’s mother refused to despair. Once the grim news had been absorbed, the practical side of her nature reasserted itself. She took out all her son’s clothes, folded them neatly and placed them in two large trunks. ‘I said to myself – it will be useful to George for the future,’ she told friends and family.

Had Lord Justice Parker really acted entirely at his own discretion, or was he directed on his way by outside forces? Jeremy Hutchinson, for one, is sure of the answer: ‘I was completely convinced that this was a “political” sentence. Parker was very much a Civil Service kind of judge, a “political” judge. He was an awfully nice man, but not a great representative of the judicial process; he was part of the Establishment and there to do its bidding.’

If that was the case, what was the Establishment’s bidding? One story, which emerged later, was that the forty-two years represented one for each agent’s life lost due to Blake’s treachery. That was certainly the implication of a front-page story in the
Daily Express
, by its well-connected security correspondent, Chapman Pincher, on 20 June. The day before, Pincher had been briefed about the case over lunch by the notoriously indiscreet Labour Deputy Leader, George Brown. Brown had been one of three selected Labour privy counsellors who had been fully informed about the details of Blake’s case several weeks earlier. In Pincher’s piece, over the headline ‘40 Agents Betrayed’, the silhouettes of that many men rammed home the point.

At the very least, it is curious that the D-Notice Secretary, Rear Admiral Sir George Thomson, who so far had gone to such great lengths to prevent any details of the trial emerging in the national media, should now allow Pincher’s article to slip through the net. Was this a Government ‘plant’, concocted to counter the general bewilderment over the severity of the sentence? Or was there some truth in the tally?