John Cecil Masterman
Encyclopedia
Sir John Cecil Masterman (12 January 1891 – 6 June 1977) was a noted academic, sportsman and author. However, he was best known as chairman of the Twenty Committee, which during World War II
ran the Double Cross System
, the scheme that controlled double agents in Britain
.
and Dartmouth
, at Worcester College, Oxford, where he read Modern History
. He studied at the University of Freiburg
where he also was an exchange lecturer in 1914, and that was where he was when World War I
broke out. As a result he was interned as an enemy alien for four years in a prisoner-of-war camp
in Ruhleben
. Although this would have been galling to as naturally competitive a young man as Masterman, he took the opportunity to further polish his German
.
After his return from captivity, Masterman became tutor of Modern History in Christ Church, Oxford
, where he was also censor (1920–26). In the 1920s he became a noted player of cricket
, tennis
and field hockey
, participating in international competitions, and in 1931 he toured Canada
with the Marylebone Cricket Club
; he was acknowledged as a master gamesman in Stephen Potter's book Gamesmanship.
After the war he returned to Oxford, becoming Provost
of Worcester College (1946–61) and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University from 1957 to 1958. He was also knighted for his services in 1959.
, an amateur sleuth named Ernst Brendel, a Viennese
lawyer "of European reputation".
He was giving a series of lectures to the Law Faculty, as he had a good reputation as a detective with the quality of "a man to whom secrets will be confided". When an unpopular tutor was found shot in the Dean's rooms, he took it upon himself to solve the crime. He of course solved the case, and the murderer thus exposed committed suicide
.
The novel itself was quite unusual for its time in providing an account of how murder affects the tranquil existence of Oxford dons. While it was a variation of the old theme of evil deeds done in a tranquil setting, it did establish the tradition of Oxford-based crime fiction, notably in the works of Michael Innes and Edmund Crispin
.
In the novel, Brendel is persuaded by a group of friends to relate a story of how he "pre-constructed" a crime, rather than reconstructing it as in the conventional manner. As he says, "To work out the crime before it is committed, to foresee how it will be arranged, and then to prevent it! That's a triumph indeed, and is worth more than all the convictions in the world".
His tale then was about four men, each of them either a potential victim or potential murderer. The pacing of the story is quite slow and the narrative is interrupted from time to time by discussion between Brendel and his listeners. Even so, the novel maintains its interest on the reader throughout, partly because of the originality of its approach.
Regrettably, this novel was the last of his crime stories and he would write no more works of fiction. However, his best known work was still to come, and it would involve his wartime experiences as part of the Twenty Committee.
intelligence
officials, including wartime amateurs, who held the key to the Double Cross System, which turned German
spies into double agents working for the British. Its name was a pun based on the Roman numeral XX and its double-cross purpose.
Strictly speaking, the Committee was responsible for providing information for the agents to be transmitted to the Abwehr
and other German intelligence agencies, deceiving them of Allied intentions and war plans. It was Section B1(a) of MI5
, established by Lt. Col. T.A. Robertson, who had the task of finding, turning and handling the agents themselves.
Although Masterman ran the system, he credited MI5 with originating the idea.
, the head of MI5 at that time, refused to authorize publication, as did Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home
.
However, Masterman was not to be deterred. Revelations on the Cambridge Spy Ring in the 1960s resulted in low morale throughout the intelligence community, and Masterman felt that the publication of a book about the double-cross system would restore public confidence. He pressed his suit once again on the matter.
In April 1970, when the government again refused, he decided to have it published in the United States
, where he felt he would be out of reach of the Official Secrets Act
. He was aided by Norman Holmes Pearson
, a member of the Yale University
faculty, who nominated Yale University Press
as publisher. Pearson was more than happy to help Masterman because he also served in the Twenty Committee (though not a member) as the wartime head of the counterintelligence division of the Office of Strategic Services
. Yale had contributed many scholars and students to the OSS, and Chester B. Kerr, director of the press, saw the importance of the book historically and commercially.
For a time British authorities threatened Masterman with legal action, but in the end bowed to the inevitable and allowed publication, with the proviso that sixty passages in the manuscript be deleted. Kerr would only acquiesce to a dozen. The book, The Double-Cross System in the War of 1939–45, was finally published in February 1972, with a foreword by Pearson, who guardingly did not refer to his work in the Committee. Masterman himself wrote the book without revealing anything about Ultra, still highly secret, that greatly aided the double-cross system. The ban on ULTRA would be lifted in 1974.
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
ran the Double Cross System
Double Cross System
The Double Cross System, or XX System, was a World War II anti-espionage and deception operation of the British military intelligence arm, MI5. Nazi agents in Britain - real and false - were captured, turned themselves in or simply announced themselves and were then used by the British to broadcast...
, the scheme that controlled double agents in Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
.
Academic background
Masterman was educated at the Royal Naval Colleges of OsborneOsborne House
Osborne House is a former royal residence in East Cowes, Isle of Wight, UK. The house was built between 1845 and 1851 for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert as a summer home and rural retreat....
and Dartmouth
Britannia Royal Naval College
Britannia Royal Naval College is the initial officer training establishment of the Royal Navy, located on a hill overlooking Dartmouth, Devon, England. While Royal Naval officer training has taken place in the town since 1863, the buildings which are seen today were only finished in 1905, and...
, at Worcester College, Oxford, where he read Modern History
Modern history
Modern history, or the modern era, describes the historical timeline after the Middle Ages. Modern history can be further broken down into the early modern period and the late modern period after the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution...
. He studied at the University of Freiburg
University of Freiburg
The University of Freiburg , sometimes referred to in English as the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, is a public research university located in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.The university was founded in 1457 by the Habsburg dynasty as the...
where he also was an exchange lecturer in 1914, and that was where he was when World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
broke out. As a result he was interned as an enemy alien for four years in a prisoner-of-war camp
Prisoner-of-war camp
A prisoner-of-war camp is a site for the containment of combatants captured by their enemy in time of war, and is similar to an internment camp which is used for civilian populations. A prisoner of war is generally a soldier, sailor, or airman who is imprisoned by an enemy power during or...
in Ruhleben
Ruhleben P.O.W. Camp
Ruhleben P.O.W. Camp was a civilian detention camp during World War I. It was located in Ruhleben, then a village to the west of Berlin, now split between the districts of Spandau and Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf...
. Although this would have been galling to as naturally competitive a young man as Masterman, he took the opportunity to further polish his German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
.
After his return from captivity, Masterman became tutor of Modern History in Christ Church, Oxford
Christ Church, Oxford
Christ Church or house of Christ, and thus sometimes known as The House), is one of the largest constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England...
, where he was also censor (1920–26). In the 1920s he became a noted player of cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
, tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
and field hockey
Field hockey
Field Hockey, or Hockey, is a team sport in which a team of players attempts to score goals by hitting, pushing or flicking a ball into an opposing team's goal using sticks...
, participating in international competitions, and in 1931 he toured Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
with the Marylebone Cricket Club
Marylebone Cricket Club
Marylebone Cricket Club is a cricket club in London founded in 1787. Its influence and longevity now witness it as a private members' club dedicated to the development of cricket. It owns, and is based at, Lord's Cricket Ground in St John's Wood, London NW8. MCC was formerly the governing body of...
; he was acknowledged as a master gamesman in Stephen Potter's book Gamesmanship.
After the war he returned to Oxford, becoming Provost
Provost (education)
A provost is the senior academic administrator at many institutions of higher education in the United States, Canada and Australia, the equivalent of a pro-vice-chancellor at some institutions in the United Kingdom and Ireland....
of Worcester College (1946–61) and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University from 1957 to 1958. He was also knighted for his services in 1959.
An Oxford Tragedy
In 1933, he wrote a murder mystery novel entitled An Oxford Tragedy, set in the fictional Oxford college of St. Thomas's. It was written in the point of view of Oxford don named Francis Wheatley Winn, who was Senior Tutor at St. Thomas'. He served as Watson to the novel's Sherlock HolmesSherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...
, an amateur sleuth named Ernst Brendel, a Viennese
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
lawyer "of European reputation".
He was giving a series of lectures to the Law Faculty, as he had a good reputation as a detective with the quality of "a man to whom secrets will be confided". When an unpopular tutor was found shot in the Dean's rooms, he took it upon himself to solve the crime. He of course solved the case, and the murderer thus exposed committed suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
.
The novel itself was quite unusual for its time in providing an account of how murder affects the tranquil existence of Oxford dons. While it was a variation of the old theme of evil deeds done in a tranquil setting, it did establish the tradition of Oxford-based crime fiction, notably in the works of Michael Innes and Edmund Crispin
Edmund Crispin
Edmund Crispin was the pseudonym of Robert Bruce Montgomery , an English crime writer and composer.-Life and work:Montgomery was born in Chesham Bois, Buckinghamshire...
.
The Case of the Four Friends
Considering the acclaim that An Oxford Tragedy had garnered, Masterman did not publish a follow-up until 1957. The novel, again starring Ernst Brendel, was called The Case of the Four Friends, which is "a diversion in pre-detection".In the novel, Brendel is persuaded by a group of friends to relate a story of how he "pre-constructed" a crime, rather than reconstructing it as in the conventional manner. As he says, "To work out the crime before it is committed, to foresee how it will be arranged, and then to prevent it! That's a triumph indeed, and is worth more than all the convictions in the world".
His tale then was about four men, each of them either a potential victim or potential murderer. The pacing of the story is quite slow and the narrative is interrupted from time to time by discussion between Brendel and his listeners. Even so, the novel maintains its interest on the reader throughout, partly because of the originality of its approach.
Regrettably, this novel was the last of his crime stories and he would write no more works of fiction. However, his best known work was still to come, and it would involve his wartime experiences as part of the Twenty Committee.
The Twenty Committee
When World War II broke out, Masterman was drafted to become the chairman of the Twenty Committee, which was a group of BritishUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
intelligence
Intelligence (information gathering)
Intelligence assessment is the development of forecasts of behaviour or recommended courses of action to the leadership of an organization, based on a wide range of available information sources both overt and covert. Assessments are developed in response to requirements declared by the leadership...
officials, including wartime amateurs, who held the key to the Double Cross System, which turned German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
spies into double agents working for the British. Its name was a pun based on the Roman numeral XX and its double-cross purpose.
Strictly speaking, the Committee was responsible for providing information for the agents to be transmitted to the Abwehr
Abwehr
The Abwehr was a German military intelligence organisation from 1921 to 1944. The term Abwehr was used as a concession to Allied demands that Germany's post-World War I intelligence activities be for "defensive" purposes only...
and other German intelligence agencies, deceiving them of Allied intentions and war plans. It was Section B1(a) of MI5
MI5
The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...
, established by Lt. Col. T.A. Robertson, who had the task of finding, turning and handling the agents themselves.
Although Masterman ran the system, he credited MI5 with originating the idea.
Revelations
Information about the double-cross system remained secret after the war. In 1961 Masterman began pressing the British intelligence establishment for permission to publish a book about it. Roger HollisRoger Hollis
Sir Roger Henry Hollis, KBE, CB was a British journalist and secret-service agent, who was Director General of MI5 from 1956 to 1965.-Early years:...
, the head of MI5 at that time, refused to authorize publication, as did Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home
Alec Douglas-Home
Alexander Frederick Douglas-Home, Baron Home of the Hirsel, KT, PC , known as The Earl of Home from 1951 to 1963 and as Sir Alec Douglas-Home from 1963 to 1974, was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from October 1963 to October 1964.He is the last...
.
However, Masterman was not to be deterred. Revelations on the Cambridge Spy Ring in the 1960s resulted in low morale throughout the intelligence community, and Masterman felt that the publication of a book about the double-cross system would restore public confidence. He pressed his suit once again on the matter.
In April 1970, when the government again refused, he decided to have it published in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, where he felt he would be out of reach of the Official Secrets Act
Official Secrets Act
The Official Secrets Act is a stock short title used in the United Kingdom, Ireland, India and Malaysia and formerly in New Zealand for legislation that provides for the protection of state secrets and official information, mainly related to national security.-United Kingdom:*The Official Secrets...
. He was aided by Norman Holmes Pearson
Norman Holmes Pearson
Norman Holmes Pearson was an American academic, author, editor, critic, archivist and prominent figures in establishing American studies as an academic discipline after the end of the Second World War.-Career:...
, a member of the Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
faculty, who nominated Yale University Press
Yale University Press
Yale University Press is a book publisher founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day. It became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but remains financially and operationally autonomous....
as publisher. Pearson was more than happy to help Masterman because he also served in the Twenty Committee (though not a member) as the wartime head of the counterintelligence division of the Office of Strategic Services
Office of Strategic Services
The Office of Strategic Services was a United States intelligence agency formed during World War II. It was the wartime intelligence agency, and it was a predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency...
. Yale had contributed many scholars and students to the OSS, and Chester B. Kerr, director of the press, saw the importance of the book historically and commercially.
For a time British authorities threatened Masterman with legal action, but in the end bowed to the inevitable and allowed publication, with the proviso that sixty passages in the manuscript be deleted. Kerr would only acquiesce to a dozen. The book, The Double-Cross System in the War of 1939–45, was finally published in February 1972, with a foreword by Pearson, who guardingly did not refer to his work in the Committee. Masterman himself wrote the book without revealing anything about Ultra, still highly secret, that greatly aided the double-cross system. The ban on ULTRA would be lifted in 1974.
Published works by J.C. Masterman
- An Oxford Tragedy, 1933 (mystery)
- Fate Cannot Harm Me, 1935
- Marshal Ney: A Play in Five Acts, 1937
- To Teach the Senators Wisdom, or, An Oxford Guide-Book, 1952
- The Case of the Four Friends, 1957
- Bits and Pieces, 1961
- The Double Cross System in the War of 1939 to 1945, Yale, 1972 (printed privately in 1945)
- On the Chariot Wheel: An Autobiography, Oxford, 1975.