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Intelligence and the Media: The Press, Government Secrecy and the ‘Buster’ Crabb Affair

2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 26; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/02684527.2011.604204

1743-9019

Christopher Moran,

Intelligence, Security, War Strategy

Abstract This article explores the official cover up of the mysterious disappearance of naval frogman Lionel Buster Crabb in 1956. Existing histories of the affair have tended to focus on the manner of Crabb's death, advancing a series of plausible and suitably implausible explanations. Using recently declassified sources, this article, in contrast, seeks to use the Crabb affair as a window onto government secrecy and relations between the press and the intelligence services. It is argued that the affair was a climacteric for the intelligence community and its relationship with Fleet Street, rupturing long-standing taboos about secret service work and bringing to the fore a brand of investigative journalist determined to make front-page news of intelligence shortcomings and failure. Notes 1R. Gleadowe to L. Crabb, 31 January 1944, The National Archives (hereafter TNA) ADM 1/14531. 2‘Frogman Did Secret Work’, Daily Telegraph, 4 May 1956; ‘Red Sailor: I Saw Frogman’, Daily Mail, 5 May 1956. 3‘Top Frogman Dies in Secret Test’, News Chronicle, 30 April 1956. 4 Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, 5th Series, 150, 9 May 1956, cols 1225–30. 5H. Hohler, 9 May 1956, TNA FO 371/122885. 6S. Knowles, ‘Preface’ in J. Hutton, Commander Crabb is Alive (London: Award Books 1968) p.11. 7R. Devreux to Head of OS (AR), 24 January 1978, TNA ADM 1/29240. 8C. Andrew, The Secret Service: The Making of the British Intelligence Community (London: Heinemann 1985) pp.495–6; R.J. Aldrich, The Hidden Hand: Britain, America and Cold War Secret Intelligence (London: John Murray 2001) pp. 521, 523–4. 9See D. Hale, The Final Dive: The Life and Death of ‘Buster’ Crabb (Stroud: The History Press Ltd 2009). 10M. Goodman, ‘Covering Up Spying in the “Buster” Crabb Affair’, International History Review 30/4 (2008) pp.768–84; M. Goodman, ‘A Cold War Cover-Up: The Buster Crabb Affair’, BBC History Magazine, February 2008, pp.40–3. 11Foremost among the declassifications include: E. Bridges, ‘The Report of an Enquiry on an Intelligence Operation against Russian Warships’, 18 May 1956, . 12R. Dover and M. Goodman (eds.), Spinning Intelligence: Why Intelligence Needs the Media, Why the Media Needs Intelligence (London: Columbia University Press 2009). 13J. Jenks, British Propaganda and News Media in the Cold War (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 2006). 14Aldrich, Hidden Hand, pp.607–8. 15‘JIC: General Directive to Chief Historians for Safeguarding Special Intelligence Sources in Compiling Official Histories’, 20 July 1945, TNA CAB 103/288. 16Ibid. 17‘Publicity of SOE Matters’, C. Gubbins, August 1945, TNA HS 8/863. 18See N. Wilkinson, Secrecy and the Media: The Official History of the United Kingdom's D-Notice System (London: Routledge 2009). 19‘Draft: D-Notice No. 1’, 28 November 1945, TNA DEFE 28/28. 20See J. Deutsch, ‘“I was a Hollywood Agent”: Cinematic Representations of the Office of Strategic Services’, Intelligence and National Security 13/2 (1998) pp.85–99. 21D. Campbell, ‘The Man in the Mac: A Life in Crime Reporting’, Guardian, 5 September 2009. 22Ibid. 23G. Thomson to E. Cussen, 29 April 1946, TNA KV 4/355. 24M. Goodman and C. Pincher, ‘Research Note: Clement Attlee, Percy Sillitoe and the Security Aspects of the Fuchs Case’, Contemporary British History 19/1 (2005) pp.67–77. 25Ibid., p.72. 26Interview with Chapman Pincher, 24 May 2007. 27‘Ethics of Journalism’, The Times, 21 July 1952, p.5. 28‘Frogman Dies in Secret Test’, News Chronicle, 30 April 1956. 29Ibid. 30‘Frogman Dies on Secret Test’, Daily Mail, 30 April 1956. 31‘CID Probes Last Days on Frogman Crabb’, Daily Herald, 3 May 1956; J. Gallagher, ‘Frogman Crabb's Last Hours’, Sunday Dispatch, 6 May 1956. 32‘Red Sailor: I Saw Frogman’, Daily Mail, 5 May 1956. 33Interview with Chapman Pincher, 24 May 2007. 34‘Frogman Did Secret Work’, Daily Telegraph, 4 May 1956; ‘Red Sailor: I Saw Frogman’, Daily Mail, 5 May 1956. 35‘Six Amazing Stories’, Daily Express, 4 May 1956. 36Ibid. 37 Hansard, 5thSeries, 150, 9 May 1956, cols 1225–30. 38Ibid. 39Ibid. 40J. Cameron, ‘The Cloak and Dagger Boys have Dropped a Clanger’, News Chronicle, 11 May 1956. 41A. Brittenden, ‘Cabinet Frogman Row’, Sunday Express, 6 May 1956. 42‘No Authority for Dive by Commander Crabb’, The Times, 10 May 1956; N. Monks, ‘Just How Secret is the Secret Service?’, Daily Mail, 11 May 1956. 43‘Secret Service Blunders: Inquiry Demanded’, Sunday Dispatch, 13 May 1956. 44J. Cameron, ‘Cloak and Dagger Boys’, News Chronicle, 11 May 1956. 45‘No Authority’, The Times, 10 May 1956. 46D. Thorpe, Eden: The Life and Times of Anthony Eden (London: Chatto & Windus 2003), p.444. 47D. McLachan, ‘The Firm Smack of Government’, Daily Telegraph, 3 January 1956. 48‘Russians Tell about the Frogman’, Daily Herald, 12 May 1956; C. Melville, ‘Frogman – Britain Tells’, Evening News, 12 May 1956. 49 Pravda, (trans.) 11 May 1956, TNA FO 371/122885; Moscow Embassy to the Foreign Office, 12 May 1956, TNA FO 371/122885. 50 Hansard, 5th Series, 153, 14 May 1956, col. 1764. 51Ibid., col. 1760. 52Ibid., col. 1772. 53Ibid., col. 1783 54Ibid., col. 1785. 55‘Headless Body in Harbour’, The Times, 10 June 1957, p.6. 56‘Mrs Crabb Unable to Identify Frogman’, Daily Telegraph, 12 June 1957; ‘Evidence to Inquest 1957’, TNA ADM 1/29240; ‘Statement of M. Crabb, 10 June 1957’, West Sussex Record Office (WSRO) POL W/C6/2. 57‘Body Believed Cdr. Crabb's’, The Times, 11 June 1957, p.8. 58‘Evidence to Inquest: Eric Blake’, TNA ADM 1/29240; ‘Frogman Suit “Not Admiralty Type”’, The Times, 13 June 1957, p.10. 59‘Statement of Sydney Knowles’, WSRO POL W/C6/2; T. Binding, Mail on Sunday, 26 March 2006. 60T. Duncan, 19 June 1957, WSRC POL W/C6/2. 61‘Evidence to Inquest, 1957’, TNA ADM 1/29240. 62‘Dead Frogman Cdr. Crabb’, The Times, 27 June 1957, p.7; ‘Summing Up by Bridgman’, WSRO POL W/C6/2. 63Hutton, Commander Crabb is Alive, p.92. 64N. Mews, ‘Crabb's Last Dive’, The Sunday Times Magazine, 23 November 1969. 65P. Naughton, ‘Russian Claims he Killed “Buster” Crabb’, The Times, 16 November 2007. 66‘German Report on Crabb Denied’, The Times, 20 January, 1967, p.8; C. Rundle, ‘Diver Lives, says Ex-Fiancée’, Western Daily Press, 14 September 1974. 67W. Pithers to T. Williams, 3 May 1967, WSRO POL W/C6/2. Photograph of Crabb reproduced in Hutton, Commander Crabb is Alive. 68B. Hutton, Frogman Spy: The Incredible Case of Commander Crabb (London: McDowell 1960). 69Cited in Hutton, Commander Crabb is Alive, p.109. 70‘The Man Who Was’, Izvestiya, 29 December 1960; ‘Commander Crabb “Not Alive in Russia”’, The Times, 30 December 1960, p.6. 71M. Pugh, ‘My Friend: Frogman Extraordinary’, Daily Mail, 7 May 1956. 72J. Moffit, ‘The Silent Enemy’, Reporter, 5 November 1958. 73N. Mews, ‘Crabb's Last Dive’, The Sunday Times Magazine, 23 November 1969. 74Ibid. 75Bridges, ‘Report’, 18 May 1956. 76See West Sussex Constabulary File of Commander Crabb, 15 July 1957, WSRO POL W/C6/2. 77Bridges, ‘Report’, 18 May 1956. 78Ibid. 79Ibid. 80Ibid. 81R.J. Aldrich, GCHQ: The Uncensored Story of Britain's Most Secret Intelligence Agency (London: HarperCollins 2010) p.141. 82Bridges, ‘Report’, 18 May 1956. 83Ibid. 84 85Bridges, ‘Report’, 18 May 1956. 86Ibid. 87A. Hoare, 14 May 1956, WSRO POL W/C6/2. 88F. Dean, ‘Alternative Answers to Parliamentary Questions about Commander Crabb’, 7 May 1956, . 89 Hansard, 5th Series, 150, 9 May 1956, cols 1225–30. 90Bridges, ‘Report’, 18 May 1956. 91Ibid. 92W. Clark, From Three Worlds (London 1986), pp.169–70. 93‘Transcript of Interview with Sir William Hayter Conducted by Anthony Gorst and W. Scott Lucas’, King's College London Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, Suez Oral History Project. 94J. Thomas, ‘The Crabb Case’, 25 June 1956, ; N. Brook, ‘Note of the Discussion Held about the Action to be Taken on the Report of Sir Edward Bridges into the Frogman Incident’, 26 June 1956, . 95For a fuller account of Dick White's appointment as Head of SIS see C. Andrew, The Defence of the Realm: The Authorised History of MI5 (London: Allen Lane 2009). Using Home Office files, Andrew argues that Sinclair's replacement had been decided some time earlier and thus was not governed by the Crabb Affair. 96Aldrich, Hidden Hand, p. 525. 97P. Cradock, Know Your Enemy: How the Joint Intelligence Committee Saw the World (London: John Murray 2002) p.266. 98‘Transcript of Evidence’, 19 June 1956, TNA ADM 1/29240. 99J. Inglis, 21 June 1957, TNA ADM 1/29240. 100Ibid. 101Ibid. 102‘The Crabb Case’, J. Inglis, 17 June 1957, TNA ADM 1/29240. 103Ibid. 104Ibid. 105 Hansard, 5thSeries, 617, 17 February 1960, cols 1260–1. 106D. Darlow to W. Jack, 9 February 1972, TNA CAB 163/207. 107B. Trend to E. Heath, 27 April 1972, TNA CAB 163/207. 108JIC (A) (72), 20 April 1972, TNA CAB 163/207. 109‘The Man Who Was’, Izvestiya, 29 December 1960; ‘Commander Crabb “Not Alive in Russia”’, The Times, 30 December 1960, p.6. 110R. Penney to DUS (B), 4 April 1972, TNA CAB 163/207. 111H. Houghton, Operation Portland (London: Granada Publishing 1972). 112C. Child to N. Denning, 27 June 1972, TNA CAB 163/207. 113W. Cribbs to C. Child, 13 April 1972, TNA CAB 163/207; R. Penney to DUS (B), 4 April 1972, TNA CAB 163/207. 114JIC (A) (72) (SEC) 112, D. Chamberlain, 3 July 1972, TNA CAB 163/207; B. Trend to E. Heath, 13 February 1973, TNA CAB 163/207. 115JIC (A) (72) (SEC) 101, D.E. Chamberlain, 30 May 1972, TNA CAB 163/207. 116D. Darlow to K. Farnhill, 31 January 1973, TNA CAB 163/207; K. Farnhill to M. Herman, 30 January 1973. 117B. Trend to E. Heath, 13 February 1973, TNA CAB 163/207; D. Darlow to K. Farnhill, 31 January 1973, TNA CAB 163/207. 118Ibid. 119K. Farnhill to D. Darlow, 19 February 1973, TNA CAB 163/207. 120D of Sec, TNA CAB 163/207. 121B. Trend to E. Heath, 20 March 1973, TNA CAB 163/207. 122A. Douglas-Home to E. Heath, 23 March 1973, TNA CAB 163/207. 123N. Elliot, With My Little Eye (London: Michael Russell 1993).