The Big Breach : From Top Secret To Maximum Security

243 Pages·2001·1.12 MB·English

by  Richard Tomlinson

The Big Breach; From Top Secret to Maximum Security Compliments of http://www.192.com
THE BIG BREACH:
From Top Secret to Maximum Security

Copyright Richard Tomlinson, 2001
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author has been asserted

Published by Narodny Variant Publishers, Moscow, Russia

CONTENTS

Foreword 1
Prologue 3
1. Targeting 3
2. Cultivation 7
3. Recruitment 25
4. Indoctrination 32
5. First Solo 52
6. Top Secret 64
7. Noted Friend 80
8. Well Trained 91
9. Deep Water 106
10. Chemical Therapy 122
11. The Agreement 148
12. The Breach 159
13. Maximum Security 172
14. On the Run 196
15. Sinister Circles 216
Epilogue 232
The Final Chapter 235 - NEW!!
Postscript by the Author 241 – NEW!!

FOREWORD

T
he fall of the Berlin wall and the end of the Cold War marked the
beginning of a period which has seen an unprecedented crisis
systematically unfold within the intelligence services of Britain and
many other countries. These events - which MI6 and the CIA
comprehensively failed to predict - destroyed much of the raison d'ˆtre
of both MI6 and MI5, its domestic counterpart. Organisations which had
been created and formed primarily in response to the perceived and
actual threats from the Soviet bloc could not easily adapt to the new
circumstances. What use now for hundreds of Soviet specialists, of
people who had built up a comprehensive expertise on every twist and
turn in the Kremlin? Or for those who had spent years building files on
subversives and fellow travellers? New conditions require new
solutions. But as the world changes and enters a much less certain
future, no longer dominated by the two great power blocs, Britain's
security services have notably failed to discover a new role for
themselves.

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Despite moving into new territories, such as anti-proliferation and
combating crime, whether it be money laundering or drug smuggling, the
evidence is that these activities are seen within the security services
as being rather distasteful, like a once well-to-do lady taking in
washing. But the world has impinged. The old order no longer exists.
Secrecy can no longer be regarded as an absolute in an era of human
rights and freedom of information. It is hardly, therefore, surprising
that MI5, MI6 and their less well-known sister agencies have all come
under increasing scrutiny in the last three or four years. As a
journalist, it is hard to think of a time when so much has appeared in
print about the security services.

Those seeking reform in Whitehall have, until recently, trodden a
lonely path. The security community has amply demonstrated its
continuing grip on the levers of power. The British government, no
matter of which political hue, has single-mindedly pursued former
intelligence officials, journalists and their publications in what has
become a vain attempt to stop information reaching the public domain.
Richard Tomlinson is not the only person to have been hounded and
harassed by the security services and Special Branch. David Shayler and
Annie Machon, 'Martin Ingrams', Liam Clarke, Nigel Wylde, Martin
Bright, Tony Geraghty, Ed Moloney, Julie-Ann Davies and James Steen
have all been subject to injunctions, police raids and threats of
imprisonment. This is not a comprehensive list. In court hearings which
led to the Sunday Times winning the right to publish extracts from this
book once it was in the public domain, I found myself in the
uncomfortable position of being accused in a witness statement written
by an anonymous senior member of MI6. This person produced no evidence
other than to say his information came from 'secret sources'. The
Master of the Rolls, Lord Phillips, rejected these allegations,
referring to them disparagingly as 'speculative possibilities'.

It is clear that Britain's laws are out-of-date. Most democracies
around the world have adopted internationally accepted standards of
freedom of expression and freedom of access to information. In Britain
the level of public accountability of the security services is zero. As
Richard Tomlinson spells out in this book, referring to the head of
MI6, 'No one can tell the Boss what to do.' The Parliamentary
Intelligence and Security Committee, accountable only to the Prime
Minister, offers the barest of fig leaves to cover this lack of
scrutiny. Compare this to the United States, where several years ago I
sat and listened to a potential director of the CIA be examined in
public by senators. The use of such procedures has not, as far as I
know, weakened democracy.

Richard Tomlinson has been criticised for the suggestion that he may
reveal state secrets. There are several points to make in response.
First, MI6 has had six years to conduct the most thorough security
audit on everything once connected with his work. It is unlikely that
they will have left any loose ends. Second, the real objection by MI6
to this book is not what secrets he may have accidentally leaked. His
account of his time since leaving MI6 is infinitely more damaging to
the service than any possible secrets the book may reveal to a hostile
intelligence service. While it may be interesting to read about the
latest gizmo developed by Q's real-life equivalent, or derring-do in
distant lands, far more can be gleaned about the internal state of
affairs within MI6 by the fact that for five years it has been unable
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to settle what was effectively a personnel issue. Its vindictive
pursuit of a former high-flyer throughout the courts of the world - at
a cost of millions of pounds to the taxpayer - reveals an organisation
which has not got its priorities right.

Despite his experiences, Richard Tomlinson has remained remarkably
human. He has shown great resilience, despite numerous arrests, removal
of his personal property and off-the-record briefings by his former
employers to gullible journalists who have printed extravagant stories
about him without bothering to check the facts.

Significantly, this book reveals that MI6 regularly sends its officers
into the field under journalistic cover, a practice which is banned in
many countries, including the United States. The unhealthy relationship
between MI6 and journalists is only one of many issues raised by The
Big Breach.

Now that the book is out, it cannot be right for MI6 to continue its
campaign against Richard Tomlinson. Far better it should put in place
the reforms which will ensure such a debacle never takes place again. No
modern democracy can allow a secret organisation spending hundreds of
millions of pounds every year to exist free from oversight and
oblivious to its public responsibilities.

Nick Fielding
Sunday Times
February 2001

PROLOGUE

I
n order to protect their identities, the names of all serving MI6
officers have been changed except those of the Chiefs, who have been
publicly declared by MI6 themselves. The names of other private
individuals have been changed, except where they have been widely
reported in the press or have specifically given permission for their
real names to be used. Details of the MI6 operations described have
also been altered.

1. TARGETING
AUGUST 1976
NORTHERN ENGLAND

T
here was just enough natural light filtering through the skylight to
work. It was quiet, except for the gentle cooing of pigeons and the
occasional flit of swallows leaving their nests in the rafters to hunt
insects in the evening air. Leaning over the heavily scarred oak
workbench, I carefully ground the granulated weed-killer into a fine
white powder with a mortar and pestle improvised from an old glass
ashtray and a six-inch bolt. A brief visit to the town library had
provided the correct stochastic ratio for the explosive reaction
between sodium hyper-chlorate and sucrose. With a rusty set of kitchen
scales I weighed out the correct amount of sugar and ground that down
too. The old one-inch copper pipe was already prepared, one end crimped
up using a vice, and a pencil-sized hole drilled into its midpoint and
covered with a strip of masking tape. All that remained was to mix the
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two white powders, tip a few grammes into the pipe and tamp it down
with a wooden dowel. When the tube was full, I gingerly crimped down
the other end - too much violence could cause the mixture to detonate
prematurely. Laying out a couple of feet of two-inch masking tape,
sticky side uppermost, I carefully sprinkled out a line of the
remaining white powder along its length, then rolled it up like a long
cigarette. If thin and loosely packed, the fuse would burn slowly
enough to let me reach cover. Rolling up the leg of my jeans, I taped
the device to my shin with a couple of strips of masking tape,
concealed the fuse in my sock and slipped out of the barn.

Dusk was falling on the village. Most of the population were indoors
eating their evening meal and the road through the settlement was empty
except for a few old cars parked at the side. There had been no rain
for many months and the grass verges were parched white. I hurried past
the small post office, carefully scanning the second-floor windows. The
net curtains didn't twitch, suggesting that the grumpy postmaster
hadn't spotted me.

The handful of middle-aged drinkers in the corner bar, probably farmers
judging by their ruddy complexions and outdoor clothing, didn't look up
from their drinks as I passed the window. Slipping round the side I
hurried down the short hill to the red sandstone bridge across the
river. A man was walking his dog towards me, but they paid no
attention. Glancing over the parapet to check the river, I saw the
normally swift, deep waters were slowed to a trickle between a series
of pools, still except for the occasional trout rising for a fly.

Checking once more to ensure no one was watching, I slipped over the
parapet and dropped out of sight. There were three arches to the
bridge, supported on two small buttressed islands. Under the first arch
there was a broad ledge, heavily scoured by the floods which came every
winter. I clambered over the barbed wire fence built to prevent sheep
from the neighbouring field straying underneath and dropped to my hands
and knees to squeeze up to the stonework. I waited for a few minutes,
listening - it wasn't too late to abort. Distant wood pigeons cooed
gently and a nearby herd of sheep bleated sporadically. A car passed
overhead, but that was the only sound of human activity.

Pulling up my trouser leg, I unstrapped the improvised explosive device
and scraped at the river gravel under the arch with a piece of
driftwood, creating a hole large enough to bury the pipe-bomb against
the foundations. A quick tug removed the tape masking the hole in the
tube and I inserted the fuse. A last check around confirmed that no one
was watching.

With one flick, the Zippo's flame ignited the touchpaper. I watched for
a moment, ensuring it was fizzling soundly, and scampered. There was
just enough time to reach the cover of a fallen elm trunk before the
device blew with a resounding bang that was much louder than expected.
A family of ducks quacked away from the cover of some reeds on the
muddy bank and the cooing of the wood pigeons abruptly halted.

Gingerly, just as the echo rolled back from the fellsides of the
valley, I emerged from my cover to inspect the damage. The dust was
still settling, but the bridge was standing. I smiled with excitement.
It was easily my best bang of the summer - jolly good fun for a 13-
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year-old. I set off for home at the double, hoping the grumpy
postmaster wouldn't collar me as I passed his house.

Father was from a Lancashire farming family and met my mother while
studying agriculture at Newcastle University. In 1962 they emigrated to
New Zealand with their son, Matthew, who was then less than a year old.
Father got a job with the New Zealand Ministry of Agriculture as a farm
adviser in Hamilton, North Island. I was born in 1963 shortly after
their arrival; then in 1964 came Jonathan, my younger brother. New
Zealand was an idyllic place to bring up a young family - good climate,
peaceful, plenty of space - and Father wanted to stay, but my mother
wanted us to be educated in England.

On our return in 1968 my father found work as an agricultural adviser
in what was then called the county of Cumberland. My parents started
house hunting in the area and discovered an old coachhouse that they
both liked in a village a few miles north of Penrith. The house was not
very large and was in a ramshackle condition, but it had a big garden
containing some spacious outbuildings. My mother liked the large garden
that would give her three young sons plenty of room to play. My father
was keen on DIY and building, and saw plenty of scope for improvement.
They scraped together the money they had and mortgaged themselves to
the hilt to buy it and we moved in shortly after my fifth birthday. My
mother started work as a biology teacher in a comprehensive school in
the market town of Penrith.

At first my brothers and I attended local primary schools, but my
parents wanted a better education for us than that provided by the
secondary schools in the area. Matthew, being the eldest, sat the
entrance exams for nearby private schools and won a scholarship to
Barnard Castle, an independent boarding school near Durham in north-
east England. He started there in 1972 and I followed the year after,
also with a scholarship, then Jonathan two years later. Despite free
tuition, it was still a considerable financial sacrifice for my parents
to pay the school fees every year. It must have been quite an emotional
sacrifice for them too, because we all hated the place.

Barnard Castle school was very sport-oriented, particularly towards
rugby. I scraped into the school rugby and swimming teams a few times
as a junior, but lost interest in later years. The disciplined regime
of boarding school was unpleasant. Life was dictated by bells - bells
for lessons, meals, prep, bedtime, lights-out and chapel. There were a
few good times there, but my strongest memories are of being cold,
hungry and slightly bored. The daily chapel services - twice on Sundays
- were especially tedious.

The holidays made school bearable, particularly the long summer break.
The River Eden ran through the village and many hours were spent with
the local boys on the bridge, carving our initials into the parapet and
pulling wheelies on our bikes. In the summer we spent long afternoons
in the river, swimming and shooting the rapids on old inner tubes.
Everything mechanical interested me and many happy hours were spent
tinkering in my father's workshop in the big barn next to our house,
fiddling with his tools and getting filthy dirty. With my father, I
built a go-kart from bits of scrap-metal and an old Briggs & Stratton
bail-elevator engine rescued from a nearby farmyard, and used it to
tear up my mother's lawn. The go-kart was joined by an old Lambretta
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scooter, also immediately pulled to bits and rebuilt. There wasn't
enough room in the garden to get it beyond third gear, so when my
parents were out one day, I took it out on to the village road to see
how fast it would go. I nearly crashed it into the grumpy postmaster's
car and had to endure years of grudges from him.
Returning to boarding school at the end of the holidays was grim.
Unlike my brothers, who both left after O-levels to study at the local
comprehensive school, I stuck it out for A-levels. The school didn't
much cater for my interests and I was often in trouble for seeking
stimulation from unapproved activities. We had a cheerfully
irresponsible A-level chemistry teacher, Mr Chadwick, who one organic
chemistry lesson demonstrated the stupefying effect of ether by gassing
one of my classmates, Villiers, leaving him passed out on the floor of
the laboratories. Chadwick turned a blind eye while we stole bottles of
the chemical from the labs afterwards and got high sniffing it in the
school grounds. He also taught us how to make explosives, whose effects
he gleefully demonstrated by blowing up bombs behind the biology labs.
Villiers and I stole the ingredients to make our own bombs in the sixth
form kitchens. Once we made mercury fulminate, an unstable explosive
which involved reacting deadly poisonous mercury and cyanide. We boiled
them up in an old saucepan which, to our delight, the school jock used
afterwards to make himself scrambled eggs. I bumped into him many years
later in London, so it presumably didn't do him permanent harm.

Though school was not always fun, I worked hard and won a scholarship
to study engineering at Cambridge University. The gap year was spent
working in South Africa for De Beers in a job arranged by my father's
brother, a research scientist at the diamond mining and manufacturing
firm. The bright blue skies, open spaces of the high veldt, good food
and wine were a refreshing contrast to Barnard Castle. One of the
prerequisites to study engineering at Cambridge was to learn workshop
skills, so the first few months at De Beers were spent learning to
lathe, mill and weld. Then the firm gave me a fun project.

Diamonds are created in nature by the intense pressure and temperature
deep in the earth's crust metamorphosing raw carbon into diamonds. De
Beers theorised that diamonds could be created artificially by the
intense but instantaneous temperatures and pressures created in an
explosion, and they asked me to investigate. Several happy months were
spent designing and making increasingly large bombs of plastic
explosive, packed around a core of ground carbon. With the help of
demolition experts from the South African Defence Force, we detonated
them on ranges just outside Johannesburg, making some huge explosions.
It was possible that we managed to make a few diamonds, but we never
managed to find them in the huge craters left by the bombs.

It was a wrench to leave that job in the summer of 1981, but I was
looking forward to starting at Cambridge.

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2. CULTIVATION

FRIDAY, 8 JUNE 1984
GONVILLE & CAIUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

A
sweltering May week was drawing to a close and the rounds of drunken
garden parties that undergraduates organised to celebrate the end of
final exams were winding down. My engineering tutor had just told me at
the Caius College garden party that the faculty had awarded me first
class honours in my aeronautical engineering final exams. Too much
Pimms and the evening sun slanting into Gonville court were making me
drowsy as I returned to my rooms.

`Tomlinson?' an unfamiliar voice called from behind. `You're Tomlinson,
aren't you?' I turned round to see Dr Christopher Pilchard, a tutor in
law, leaning out of the open window of his ground-floor study. His face
was familiar, but having never met him it was surprising that he knew
my name. He was notorious in the college because of his ginger wig, the
result of a bicycle accident many years earlier which had caused all
his hair to fall out. Slightly tipsy, it was difficult to resist
casually examining his hairline for signs of it as he spoke.
`Tomlinson, have you thought about what you're going to do with
yourself after you leave?'

`Yes, sir,' I replied cautiously, wondering why he should be
interested.

`I'm joining the navy, the fleet air arm.'

Pilchard snorted dismissively, as if he didn't approve of the military.
`Listen, Tomlinson, if you ever change your mind, but would like to try
your hand at another form of government service, then let me know.'
With that he ducked back into his study, taking care not to catch his
wig on the lip of the window sash.

Continuing on to my rooms, it felt flattering to have been approached.
For it had been a discreet invitation to join the British Secret
Intelligence Service, more commonly referred to by its old wartime
name, MI6. Every Oxford and Cambridge college and leading British
university has a `talent spotter' like Pilchard, a don sympathetic to
MI6 who looks out for suitable recruits. The majority of MI6 recruits
come this way from the two most prestigious universities in Britain,
though it is not foolproof - Philby, Maclean and Burgess were all
recruited into MI6 the same way.

Pilchard's approach was flattering but, climbing the creaky wooden
stairs to my digs at the top of D staircase, I decided not to pursue
the offer - for the moment at least. Having read a few John Le Carr‚
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novels, I reckoned the job seemed stuffy and desk-bound. Nor did I
identify much with the other undergraduates whom Pilchard had
approached - conservative, establishment arts students who spent most
of their days lolling around drunk in the college bar. For them,
getting a tap on the shoulder from Pilchard was a rite of passage, a
sign that they had made their mark on college life. If that was the
sort of person MI6 wanted then it wasn't the right career for me.

Inspired by the books I had read in my spare time at Cambridge, I
wanted a career that offered travel and adventure: Wilfred Thesiger,
the desert explorer who crossed the Arabian `empty quarter' when only
in his early 20s; Sir Francis Chichester, who single-handedly
circumnavigated the world by sail and almost by light aircraft; Antoine
de St Exup‚ry, the French pioneer aviator whose semiautobiographical
novel Vol de Nuit, set in pre-war Argentina, I had so greatly enjoyed;
Captain Oates, a former member of the college, who selflessly
sacrificed himself on Scott's 1914 Antarctic expedition and whose flag
was displayed in the college dining-hall, reminding us of his exploits
every evening. It seemed to me that the best way to lead an adventurous
life like these role-models, and in a structured and secure career, was
to join the armed services, and the navy appealed to me the most.

Pilchard's suggestion, however, was intriguing. Lying back on my narrow
bed in the garret room, the evening light slanting in through the open
window, I wondered what had marked me out amongst the other
undergraduates. On matriculating in the university in 1981, I had been
determined to do more than just study. My uncle in South Africa had
been a member of the Cambridge University Air Squadron, a flying club
sponsored by the Royal Air Force, and he enthused me to join up. The
opportunity to learn to fly at the exacting standards of the RAF and
even get paid a small stipend was an opportunity too good to miss. The
Air Squadron became the focal point of my extracurricular and social
activities at the university. We learned to fly in the Bulldog, a
robust dual-seat training aircraft. My instructor, Flight Lieutenant
Stan Witchall, then one of the oldest still-active officers in the RAF,
had been a young Hurricane pilot in the Battle of Britain. Twice a week
I bunked out of engineering lectures and cycled up to Marshall's
airfield, seven kilometres from the centre of Cambridge, for flying
lessons.

Scuba-diving was another activity which enthused me, inspired by the
films of Jacques Cousteau. After I had qualified with the university
club, Easter holidays were spent in Cornwall diving on the wrecks and
reefs of the murky, cold Channel waters, then getting drunk in the
evenings on the strong local brews of the old fishing and smuggling
villages. It was nothing like the paradises portrayed in Cousteau's
films, but was still exhilarating.

The summer holidays of 1982 were spent travelling around Europe on a
rail-pass that allowed unlimited travel for a flat fee. My budget was
tiny, so nights were spent sleeping on trains and the days sightseeing.
Thousands of miles of slumber got me as far afield as Morocco and
Turkey. The experience gave me the travel bug, enthusing me to go
further afield.

The next year a vacation job in a local bakery yielded enough savings
for a trip to the Far East. Two months were spent backpacking around
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Thailand and Malaysia on a shoestring budget. My return flight was with
Aeroflot, the cheapest ticket available, and a brief refuelling stop
was scheduled in Moscow. But it was the day after a Russian Air Force
Mig 17 had shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007 over the Sakhalin
peninsula, killing all 269 persons aboard the Boeing 747. In reprisal,
the Western powers had banned all Aeroflot flights from their airways
shortly after my plane arrived at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport. Along
with the other 200 passengers, I was stranded in Moscow for two days,
waiting for a British Airways jet to arrive from London to pick us up.
Aeroflot put us up in a cheap hotel near the airport, but refused to
unload our hold luggage, leaving us with just hand-luggage and the
clothes we'd been wearing on leaving sweltering Bangkok. But
inappropriate attire wasn't going to spoil my unexpected opportunity to
see Moscow. With an equally inappropriately dressed Australian whom I'd
met on the plane, I tramped around in the freezing autumnal rain and
fog in T-shirts and flip-flops, to the bemusement of the dour
Muscovites.

It had been a busy three years as an undergraduate, and perhaps my
industry and travel was one of the reasons for Pilchard's invitation.
Several years later I learned that MI6 was lacking in officers with
sufficient technical expertise to understand the increasingly
scientific nature of its work and Pilchard, like the other university
talent-spotters, had been briefed to look out for science graduates -
which was probably another reason he approached me. His invitation was
interesting, but I put it to the back of my mind as there were more
pressing projects. In a fortnight's time, with five friends, I would be
flying to the Philippines for a university-sponsored research
expedition to investigate the effects of pollution on the fragile coral
reefs of the Philippine archipelago. It was to be a real Cousteau
experience, diving in crystal-clear tropical waters.

Three months later, back from the Far East, I made the long trip from
Cumbria to the naval town of Portsmouth to take the AIB (Admiralty
Interview Board), the entry test for a naval career. After sailing
through the exams and practical tests, I assumed the medical exam, held
the next day, would be straightforward. I was wrong. Examination of my
medical records revealed that I had experienced a mild case of asthma
when aged seven, and that was enough to fail me. A Surgeon Lieutenant
Commander explained that the expense of training a naval pilot was too
great to risk him redeveloping later in life a childhood illness that
might jeopardise his operational effectiveness. My aspirations to join
the navy were dashed and it was shattering news.

Mooching around London a few days after the AIB, a poster in a
Kensington underground station showing a girl wading up to her waist in
a tropical swamp caught my eye. It was an advertisement for recruits to
join Operation Raleigh, a youth adventure expedition, and it looked
just the sort of challenge to get over the disappointment of my
rejection. I sent off an application form, was accepted and a few
months later was on my way to the Caribbean to join the expedition's
square-rigged sailing brig, the Zebu, to learn the intricacies of
crewing a square-rigger.

Back in the UK three months later, I still could not get enthusiastic
about any particular career and so decided to go back to university. I
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