Roger Hollis
Encyclopedia
Sir Roger Henry Hollis, KBE
, CB
(2 December 1905 - 26 October 1973) was a British journalist
and secret-service agent, who was Director General of MI5
from 1956 to 1965.
in Somerset
, on 2 December 1905, the third of the four sons of the Revd George Arthur Hollis (1868–1944), vice-principal of Wells Theological College and later bishop
-suffragan of Taunton
, and his wife, Mary Margaret, the daughter of Charles Marcus Church, canon of Wells, a great-niece of R. W. Church, dean of St Paul's Cathedral
. He was a younger brother of Christopher Hollis
, later a writer and Conservative politician.
Hollis was educated at Clifton College
, and Worcester College, Oxford
. At school he was a promising scholar who went to Oxford with a classical exhibition. But at Oxford he read English, and in the view of his contemporaries seemed to prefer a happy social life to an academic one. He was also an enthusiastic and frequent golf
er. In the memoirs of Evelyn Waugh
he appears as ‘a good bottle man’, and in Sir Harold Acton's
as an agreeable friend. Because of this easy-going approach, and for no more dramatic reason, he went down four terms before he was due to take his finals, wishing to travel.
, and with British American Tobacco
in China
, where he remained for eight years. While in China, Hollis apparently associated frequently with the noted left-wing activist Agnes Smedley
. Hollis developed tuberculosis
, and returned to England in 1936 for a brief spell with the Ardath Tobacco Company, an associate of BAT.
On 10 July 1937 he married Evelyn Esmé (at Wells Cathedral
) who was the daughter of George Champeny Swayne, of Burnham-on-Sea
, Somerset
, solicitor in Glastonbury
. Their one child, Adrian Swayne Hollis
, became a fellow and tutor in classics
at Keble College, Oxford
, and a chess
player of international reputation, eventually earning the title of correspondence chess
Grandmaster.
(the Security Service
) shortly before World War II
, and became an acknowledged expert on communism
within the service, even during World War II with the concentration of resources on the Nazi enemy. When the war ended and the Cold War
began, Hollis stayed on with MI5, and with many key personnel returning to civilian life, he was in a favourable position to become one of the key individuals in the service. In 1953 he was appointed deputy director-general, and replaced Sir Dick White
in 1956 as head of MI5, after the latter's departure to head MI6.
Hollis held the DG role over the next nine years, during which time a string of high-profile spy cases went through the Old Bailey
, including those of Anthony Wright
, John Vassall
, George Blake
, Harry Houghton
, Ethel Gee
, Gordon Lonsdale, and the Krogers
(the latter all part of the Portland Spy Ring
).
's flight to Moscow
in 1963, rumours began to circulate that Hollis had alerted him to his impending arrest. He was also criticised for not alerting John Profumo
, the War Secretary
in Prime Minister
Harold Macmillan
's government, to the fact that he might have become entangled with a Soviet spy ring through his friendship with Stephen Ward
, and his affair with Christine Keeler
.
During the 1950s and 1960s, a large number of MI5 operations failed in circumstances that suggested the Soviets had been tipped off. Although many such failures were subsequently blamed on the actions of the self-confessed or defected agents Guy Burgess
, Kim Philby
and Anthony Blunt
, a number of failures occurred after all three had lost their access to secret information. Thus, some in MI5 concluded that the Soviets must have an agent in a very senior position within the organisation. Peter Wright
, Arthur S. Martin
and others became convinced that either Hollis or his deputy, Graham Mitchell, could be the only ones responsible, eventually confiding their suspicions to their former DG, Dick White
, by now DG of MI6.
According to Nigel West (Mole Hunt, chapter 2, "Operation PETERS"), White instructed Martin to inform Hollis that Mitchell was a suspect, and Hollis instructed Martin (after due consideration) to keep Mitchell under surveillance. Nigel West implies that this was a deliberate ploy to keep tabs on both Mitchell and Hollis.
Martin eventually became so disgruntled and outspoken about Hollis's attitude toward the investigation (Hollis had, for example, reduced the size of the department and had sent one of Martin's best men on an overseas assignment), that Hollis suspended Martin for a fortnight, and the case was turned over to Peter Wright. Much of the investigation was centred around the interviews with Anthony Blunt
at that time, and Peter Wright had amassed a sizable amount of taped evidence from Blunt when Martin returned from suspension. After 1964, Blunt gradually confessed his double-agent role in exchange for immunity from prosecution.
Eventually the PETERS operation wound down. By then, some time after Hollis had retired, suspicion had lifted from Mitchell and focused solely on Hollis. However, the then Director-General, Martin Furnival Jones
, refused to sanction an investigation into Hollis. Mole Hunt, Chapter 3, page 45, noted that the investigative team known as FLUENCY had been disbanded before any conclusions had been reached.
Under his successor Sir Martin Furnival Jones
, the higher management of MI5 expressed indignation and loss of morale about the Hollis affair. Hollis was asked to come in and clear up the allegations. Having been the director, Hollis was aware of the procedures of the interrogation and investigation. He remained calm and composed throughout, denying all allegations. He was a very secretive man and MI5 had very little information about many aspects of his past, particularly his years in China. Later, in the 1970s, the Trend Committee under Lord Trend was entrusted with the matter of investigating Hollis and Soviet penetration of MI5 in general. After a long enquiry, it reported the allegations inconclusive, neither denying nor confirming them.
Martin and Wright and the team were unable to convince anyone else in MI5 or MI6 that they were right about Hollis. Wright retired in January 1976, upon reaching age 60, by his own account (in Spycatcher
) enraged at being denied a pension for his 30 years of service, on highly legalistic and technical grounds. He emigrated to Tasmania
, Australia
, and there wrote an account of his work at MI5. Despite attempts by Margaret Thatcher
and her government to suppress the publication and distribution of the book, Spycatcher
, it was finally published in 1987, and eventually sold over two million copies around the world.
In the book Wright claimed that Hollis had been a Soviet agent. Amongst the evidence for this claim is the Igor Gouzenko
defection. Hollis was sent to Canada
to interview Gouzenko, a cipher clerk in the Soviet embassy in Ottawa
. Wright wrote that Hollis justified his involvement in the case because it involved a communist defection in a Commonwealth
nation, so it came under MI5's jurisdiction, and he (Hollis) was MI5's expert on communist matters. Gouzenko had provided Hollis with clear information about Alan Nunn May
's meetings with his handlers; all these meetings were immediately cancelled. Alan Nunn May was a scientist and part of the Soviet spy ring which obtained the secrets of the Manhattan Project
, which built the first atomic bomb for the United States. Gouzenko also noted that the man who met him seemed to be in disguise, not interested in his revelations, and discouraged him from further disclosures. In face of this circumstantial evidence, Wright became convinced that Hollis was a traitor. Wright alleges in Spycatcher
that Gouzenko, who had worked for the GRU
, himself deduced later that his interviewer might have been a Soviet double agent, and was probably afraid that he might recognize him from case photos that Gouzenko might have seen in KGB
or GRU
files, hence the disguise. Gouzenko also admitted that he, being a lower level clerk, had no access to such files. Peter Wright had given a televised interview during the dispute with Thatcher's government. Following Peter Wright's TV interview in 1984, Arthur Martin wrote a letter to the Times, and it was published July 19, 1984. Martin stated that while Wright exaggerated the certainty with which they regarded Hollis's guilt, Peter Wright was justified in saying that Hollis was the most likely candidate, for the reasons Wright had given.
In her 2001 autobiography, Christine Keeler
(Profumo
's mistress), alleged, without supporting evidence, that Hollis and Ward were part of a spy ring with Sir Anthony Blunt
. Ward committed suicide as the Profumo scandal progressed. Hollis has also been accused by Arthur S. Martin
(head of MI5's Soviet counter-intelligence
section at the time), and Chapman Pincher
(investigative journalist who produced several exposés of failures in British counter-intelligence) of being a Soviet agent, though entirely separate from the famous Cambridge Five
spy ring. Pincher claims Hollis was recruited by Richard Sorge
in China
in the early 1930s to spy for the GRU
. Little evidence has been advanced to support these assertions.
A further case for Hollis being a Soviet agent was made in 1989 by W. J. West in The Truth about Hollis. However, the testimony of ex-Soviet KGB agents (Oleg Gordievsky
and Yuri Modin
) has cast doubt on this, as they deny he was the so-called ‘fifth man’.
The new book Treachery by Chapman Pincher (Random House June 2009: revised edition, Mainstream May 2011), is devoted to the case against Hollis as being "Elli", the highly placed mole within MI5 identified by the defector Gouzenko, and thus operating as a Soviet agent from the 1940s until Hollis' retirement from MI5.
In his book, The Defence of the Realm: The Authorised History of MI5, Cambridge professor Christopher Andrew used access to 400,000 MI5 files to compile an official history of the service. He claims he has proved conclusively that Hollis was not a double agent and that Wright was misguided at best. However, this view is again challenged in the revised edition of Chapman Pincher's book Treachery published in the UK in 2011.
In the 2009 ITV
program "Inside MI5: The Real Spooks" Oleg Gordievsky
recounted how he saw the head of the British section of the KGB
, expressing surprise at the allegations that he read in a British newspaper about Roger Hollis being a KGB
agent saying "Why is it they are speaking about Roger Hollis, such nonsense, can't understand it, it must be some special English trick directed against us" But Chapman Pincher in "Treachery" (see above), states that Hollis was believed to be a GRU
agent, the GRU being a different organisation to the KGB.
His son, Adrian Hollis
(born August 2, 1940 in Bristol
), is a Grandmaster of correspondence chess
, and was British Correspondence Chess Champion in 1966, 1967, and 1971. Philosopher Martin Hollis
(1938–1998) was his nephew. His elder brother, (Maurice) Christopher Hollis
(1902–1977), was a Conservative MP for Devizes
from 1945 to 1955.
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
, CB
Order of the Bath
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
(2 December 1905 - 26 October 1973) was a British journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
and secret-service agent, who was Director General 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...
from 1956 to 1965.
Early years
Roger Henry Hollis was born at WellsWells
Wells is a cathedral city and civil parish in the Mendip district of Somerset, England, on the southern edge of the Mendip Hills. Although the population recorded in the 2001 census is 10,406, it has had city status since 1205...
in Somerset
Somerset
The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...
, on 2 December 1905, the third of the four sons of the Revd George Arthur Hollis (1868–1944), vice-principal of Wells Theological College and later bishop
Bishop
A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...
-suffragan of Taunton
Taunton
Taunton is the county town of Somerset, England. The town, including its suburbs, had an estimated population of 61,400 in 2001. It is the largest town in the shire county of Somerset....
, and his wife, Mary Margaret, the daughter of Charles Marcus Church, canon of Wells, a great-niece of R. W. Church, dean of St Paul's Cathedral
St Paul's Cathedral
St Paul's Cathedral, London, is a Church of England cathedral and seat of the Bishop of London. Its dedication to Paul the Apostle dates back to the original church on this site, founded in AD 604. St Paul's sits at the top of Ludgate Hill, the highest point in the City of London, and is the mother...
. He was a younger brother of Christopher Hollis
Christopher Hollis
Maurice Christopher Hollis, known as Christopher Hollis was a British schoolmaster, university teacher, author and Conservative politician.-Life:...
, later a writer and Conservative politician.
Hollis was educated at Clifton College
Clifton College
Clifton College is a co-educational independent school in Clifton, Bristol, England, founded in 1862. In its early years it was notable for emphasising science in the curriculum, and for being less concerned with social elitism, e.g. by admitting day-boys on equal terms and providing a dedicated...
, and Worcester College, Oxford
Worcester College, Oxford
Worcester College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. The college was founded in the eighteenth century, but its predecessor on the same site had been an institution of learning since the late thirteenth century...
. At school he was a promising scholar who went to Oxford with a classical exhibition. But at Oxford he read English, and in the view of his contemporaries seemed to prefer a happy social life to an academic one. He was also an enthusiastic and frequent golf
Golf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
er. In the memoirs of Evelyn Waugh
Evelyn Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh , known as Evelyn Waugh, was an English writer of novels, travel books and biographies. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer...
he appears as ‘a good bottle man’, and in Sir Harold Acton's
Harold Acton
Sir Harold Mario Mitchell Acton CBE was a British writer, scholar and dilettante perhaps most famous for being wrongly believed to have inspired the character of "Anthony Blanche" in Evelyn Waugh's novel Brideshead Revisited...
as an agreeable friend. Because of this easy-going approach, and for no more dramatic reason, he went down four terms before he was due to take his finals, wishing to travel.
Early professional career
Hollis worked in England for Barclays Bank, then as a reporter for the Shanghai Morning PostShanghai Morning Post
Shanghai Morning Post is a newspaper published by Jiefang Daily Newspaper Group since January 1, 1999.The daily circulation of this tabloid newspaper is around 500,000 copies per day....
, and with British American Tobacco
British American Tobacco
British American Tobacco p.l.c. is a global tobacco company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the world’s second largest quoted tobacco company by global market share , with a leading position in more than 50 countries and a presence in more than 180 countries...
in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, where he remained for eight years. While in China, Hollis apparently associated frequently with the noted left-wing activist Agnes Smedley
Agnes Smedley
Agnes Smedley was an American journalist and writer best known for her semi-autobiographical novelDaughter of Earth. She was also known for her sympathetic chronicling of the Chinese revolution...
. Hollis developed tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
, and returned to England in 1936 for a brief spell with the Ardath Tobacco Company, an associate of BAT.
On 10 July 1937 he married Evelyn Esmé (at Wells Cathedral
Wells Cathedral
Wells Cathedral is a Church of England cathedral in Wells, Somerset, England. It is the seat of the Bishop of Bath and Wells, who lives at the adjacent Bishop's Palace....
) who was the daughter of George Champeny Swayne, of Burnham-on-Sea
Burnham-on-Sea
Burnham-on-Sea is a town in Somerset, England, at the mouth of the River Parrett and Bridgwater Bay. Burnham was a small village until the late 18th century, when it began to grow because of its popularity as a seaside resort. It forms part of the parish of Burnham-on-Sea and Highbridge...
, Somerset
Somerset
The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...
, solicitor in Glastonbury
Glastonbury
Glastonbury is a small town in Somerset, England, situated at a dry point on the low lying Somerset Levels, south of Bristol. The town, which is in the Mendip district, had a population of 8,784 in the 2001 census...
. Their one child, Adrian Swayne Hollis
Adrian Hollis
Adrian Swayne Hollis , is an English correspondence chess grandmaster and was British Correspondence Chess Champion in 1966 , 1967, and 1971....
, became a fellow and tutor in classics
Classics
Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...
at Keble College, Oxford
Keble College, Oxford
Keble College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its main buildings are on Parks Road, opposite the University Museum and the University Parks. The college is bordered to the north by Keble Road, to the south by Museum Road, and to the west by Blackhall...
, and a chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
player of international reputation, eventually earning the title of correspondence chess
Correspondence chess
Correspondence chess is chess played by various forms of long-distance correspondence, usually through a correspondence chess server, through email or by the postal system; less common methods which have been employed include fax and homing pigeon...
Grandmaster.
MI5 career
Hollis joined MI5MI5
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...
(the Security Service
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...
) shortly before World War II
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...
, and became an acknowledged expert on communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
within the service, even during World War II with the concentration of resources on the Nazi enemy. When the war ended and the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
began, Hollis stayed on with MI5, and with many key personnel returning to civilian life, he was in a favourable position to become one of the key individuals in the service. In 1953 he was appointed deputy director-general, and replaced Sir Dick White
Dick White
Sir Dick Goldsmith White, KCMG, KBE , was a British intelligence officer. He was Director-General of MI5 from 1953 to 1956, and Head of the Secret Intelligence Service from 1956 to 1968.-Career:...
in 1956 as head of MI5, after the latter's departure to head MI6.
Hollis held the DG role over the next nine years, during which time a string of high-profile spy cases went through the Old Bailey
Old Bailey
The Central Criminal Court in England and Wales, commonly known as the Old Bailey from the street in which it stands, is a court building in central London, one of a number of buildings housing the Crown Court...
, including those of Anthony Wright
Anthony Wright
Anthony Wright or Tony Wright may refer to:* Tony Wright , former British Labour Party Member of Parliament for Cannock Chase...
, John Vassall
John Vassall
William John Christopher Vassall was a British civil servant who, under pressure of blackmail, spied for the Soviet Union....
, George Blake
George Blake
George Blake is a former British spy known for having been a double agent in the service of the Soviet Union. Discovered in 1961 and sentenced to 42 years in prison, he escaped from Wormwood Scrubs prison in 1966 and fled to the USSR...
, Harry Houghton
Harry Houghton
Harry Houghton was a spy for the People's Republic of Poland and the USSR during the Cold War. He was a member of the Portland Spy Ring.-Early life:...
, Ethel Gee
Ethel Gee
Ethel Elizabeth Gee , nicknamed "Bunty", was an Englishwoman who helped her lover spy on their country for the Soviet Union. She was a minor member of the Portland Spy Ring.-Early life:...
, Gordon Lonsdale, and the Krogers
Morris Cohen (Soviet spy)
Morris Cohen also known in London as Peter Kroger was an American convicted of espionage for the Soviet Union. His wife Lona was also an agent.-Birth and education:...
(the latter all part of the Portland Spy Ring
Portland Spy Ring
The Portland Spy Ring was a Soviet spy ring that operated in England from the late 1950s till 1961 when the core of the network was arrested by the British security services. It is one of the most famous examples of the use of illegal residents — spies who operate in a foreign country but...
).
Mole suspicions
After Kim PhilbyKim Philby
Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby was a high-ranking member of British intelligence who worked as a spy for and later defected to the Soviet Union...
's flight to Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
in 1963, rumours began to circulate that Hollis had alerted him to his impending arrest. He was also criticised for not alerting John Profumo
John Profumo
Brigadier John Dennis Profumo, 5th Baron Profumo CBE , informally known as Jack Profumo , was a British politician. His title, 5th Baron, which he did not use, was Italian. Although Profumo held an increasingly responsible series of political posts in the 1950s, he is best known today for his...
, the War Secretary
Secretary of State for War
The position of Secretary of State for War, commonly called War Secretary, was a British cabinet-level position, first held by Henry Dundas . In 1801 the post became that of Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. The position was re-instated in 1854...
in Prime Minister
Prime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
Harold Macmillan
Harold Macmillan
Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC was Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 January 1957 to 18 October 1963....
's government, to the fact that he might have become entangled with a Soviet spy ring through his friendship with Stephen Ward
Stephen Ward
Stephen Thomas Ward was an osteopath and artist who became notorious as one of the central figures in the 1963 Profumo affair, a British public scandal which profoundly affected the ruling Conservative Party government...
, and his affair with Christine Keeler
Christine Keeler
Christine Margaret Keeler is an English former model and showgirl. Her involvement with a British government minister discredited the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan in 1963, in what is known as the Profumo Affair....
.
During the 1950s and 1960s, a large number of MI5 operations failed in circumstances that suggested the Soviets had been tipped off. Although many such failures were subsequently blamed on the actions of the self-confessed or defected agents Guy Burgess
Guy Burgess
Guy Francis De Moncy Burgess was a British-born intelligence officer and double agent, who worked for the Soviet Union. He was part of the Cambridge Five spy ring that betrayed Western secrets to the Soviets before and during the Cold War...
, Kim Philby
Kim Philby
Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby was a high-ranking member of British intelligence who worked as a spy for and later defected to the Soviet Union...
and Anthony Blunt
Anthony Blunt
Anthony Frederick Blunt , was a British art historian who was exposed as a Soviet spy late in his life.Blunt was Professor of the History of Art at the University of London, director of the Courtauld Institute of Art, Surveyor of the King's Pictures and London...
, a number of failures occurred after all three had lost their access to secret information. Thus, some in MI5 concluded that the Soviets must have an agent in a very senior position within the organisation. Peter Wright
Peter Wright
Peter Maurice Wright was an English scientist and former MI5 counterintelligence officer, noted for writing the controversial book Spycatcher, which became an international bestseller with sales of over two million copies...
, Arthur S. Martin
Arthur S. Martin
Arthur S. Martin was a member of the British intelligence community and a primary investigator in the spy scandals in the post-war era.-Biography:...
and others became convinced that either Hollis or his deputy, Graham Mitchell, could be the only ones responsible, eventually confiding their suspicions to their former DG, Dick White
Dick White
Sir Dick Goldsmith White, KCMG, KBE , was a British intelligence officer. He was Director-General of MI5 from 1953 to 1956, and Head of the Secret Intelligence Service from 1956 to 1968.-Career:...
, by now DG of MI6.
According to Nigel West (Mole Hunt, chapter 2, "Operation PETERS"), White instructed Martin to inform Hollis that Mitchell was a suspect, and Hollis instructed Martin (after due consideration) to keep Mitchell under surveillance. Nigel West implies that this was a deliberate ploy to keep tabs on both Mitchell and Hollis.
Martin eventually became so disgruntled and outspoken about Hollis's attitude toward the investigation (Hollis had, for example, reduced the size of the department and had sent one of Martin's best men on an overseas assignment), that Hollis suspended Martin for a fortnight, and the case was turned over to Peter Wright. Much of the investigation was centred around the interviews with Anthony Blunt
Anthony Blunt
Anthony Frederick Blunt , was a British art historian who was exposed as a Soviet spy late in his life.Blunt was Professor of the History of Art at the University of London, director of the Courtauld Institute of Art, Surveyor of the King's Pictures and London...
at that time, and Peter Wright had amassed a sizable amount of taped evidence from Blunt when Martin returned from suspension. After 1964, Blunt gradually confessed his double-agent role in exchange for immunity from prosecution.
Eventually the PETERS operation wound down. By then, some time after Hollis had retired, suspicion had lifted from Mitchell and focused solely on Hollis. However, the then Director-General, Martin Furnival Jones
Martin Furnival Jones
Sir Martin Furnival Jones, KCB was Director General of MI5, the United Kingdom's internal security service, from 1965 until 1972.-Career:...
, refused to sanction an investigation into Hollis. Mole Hunt, Chapter 3, page 45, noted that the investigative team known as FLUENCY had been disbanded before any conclusions had been reached.
Under his successor Sir Martin Furnival Jones
Martin Furnival Jones
Sir Martin Furnival Jones, KCB was Director General of MI5, the United Kingdom's internal security service, from 1965 until 1972.-Career:...
, the higher management of MI5 expressed indignation and loss of morale about the Hollis affair. Hollis was asked to come in and clear up the allegations. Having been the director, Hollis was aware of the procedures of the interrogation and investigation. He remained calm and composed throughout, denying all allegations. He was a very secretive man and MI5 had very little information about many aspects of his past, particularly his years in China. Later, in the 1970s, the Trend Committee under Lord Trend was entrusted with the matter of investigating Hollis and Soviet penetration of MI5 in general. After a long enquiry, it reported the allegations inconclusive, neither denying nor confirming them.
Martin and Wright and the team were unable to convince anyone else in MI5 or MI6 that they were right about Hollis. Wright retired in January 1976, upon reaching age 60, by his own account (in Spycatcher
Spycatcher
Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer , is a book written by Peter Wright, former MI5 officer and Assistant Director, and co-author Paul Greengrass. It was published first in Australia...
) enraged at being denied a pension for his 30 years of service, on highly legalistic and technical grounds. He emigrated to Tasmania
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, and there wrote an account of his work at MI5. Despite attempts by Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
and her government to suppress the publication and distribution of the book, Spycatcher
Spycatcher
Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer , is a book written by Peter Wright, former MI5 officer and Assistant Director, and co-author Paul Greengrass. It was published first in Australia...
, it was finally published in 1987, and eventually sold over two million copies around the world.
In the book Wright claimed that Hollis had been a Soviet agent. Amongst the evidence for this claim is the Igor Gouzenko
Igor Gouzenko
Igor Sergeyevich Gouzenko was a cipher clerk for the Soviet Embassy to Canada in Ottawa, Ontario. He defected on September 5, 1945, with 109 documents on Soviet espionage activities in the West...
defection. Hollis was sent to 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...
to interview Gouzenko, a cipher clerk in the Soviet embassy in Ottawa
Ottawa
Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...
. Wright wrote that Hollis justified his involvement in the case because it involved a communist defection in a Commonwealth
Commonwealth
Commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. Historically, it has sometimes been synonymous with "republic."More recently it has been used for fraternal associations of some sovereign nations...
nation, so it came under MI5's jurisdiction, and he (Hollis) was MI5's expert on communist matters. Gouzenko had provided Hollis with clear information about Alan Nunn May
Alan Nunn May
Alan Nunn May was an English physicist, and a confessed and convicted Soviet spy, who supplied secrets of British and United States atomic research to the Soviet Union during World War II.-Early years, education:...
's meetings with his handlers; all these meetings were immediately cancelled. Alan Nunn May was a scientist and part of the Soviet spy ring which obtained the secrets of the Manhattan Project
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development program, led by the United States with participation from the United Kingdom and Canada, that produced the first atomic bomb during World War II. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the US Army...
, which built the first atomic bomb for the United States. Gouzenko also noted that the man who met him seemed to be in disguise, not interested in his revelations, and discouraged him from further disclosures. In face of this circumstantial evidence, Wright became convinced that Hollis was a traitor. Wright alleges in Spycatcher
Spycatcher
Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer , is a book written by Peter Wright, former MI5 officer and Assistant Director, and co-author Paul Greengrass. It was published first in Australia...
that Gouzenko, who had worked for the GRU
GRU
GRU or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye is the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation...
, himself deduced later that his interviewer might have been a Soviet double agent, and was probably afraid that he might recognize him from case photos that Gouzenko might have seen in KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
or GRU
GRU
GRU or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye is the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation...
files, hence the disguise. Gouzenko also admitted that he, being a lower level clerk, had no access to such files. Peter Wright had given a televised interview during the dispute with Thatcher's government. Following Peter Wright's TV interview in 1984, Arthur Martin wrote a letter to the Times, and it was published July 19, 1984. Martin stated that while Wright exaggerated the certainty with which they regarded Hollis's guilt, Peter Wright was justified in saying that Hollis was the most likely candidate, for the reasons Wright had given.
In her 2001 autobiography, Christine Keeler
Christine Keeler
Christine Margaret Keeler is an English former model and showgirl. Her involvement with a British government minister discredited the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan in 1963, in what is known as the Profumo Affair....
(Profumo
Profumo
Profumo may refer to* Alessandro Profumo , Italian banker, the CEO of the Gruppo Unicredito* Francesco Profumo , Dean of the Engineering Faculty of the Politecnico di Torino* Baron Profumo of the Kingdom of Sardinia...
's mistress), alleged, without supporting evidence, that Hollis and Ward were part of a spy ring with Sir Anthony Blunt
Anthony Blunt
Anthony Frederick Blunt , was a British art historian who was exposed as a Soviet spy late in his life.Blunt was Professor of the History of Art at the University of London, director of the Courtauld Institute of Art, Surveyor of the King's Pictures and London...
. Ward committed suicide as the Profumo scandal progressed. Hollis has also been accused by Arthur S. Martin
Arthur S. Martin
Arthur S. Martin was a member of the British intelligence community and a primary investigator in the spy scandals in the post-war era.-Biography:...
(head of MI5's Soviet counter-intelligence
Counter-intelligence
Counterintelligence or counter-intelligence refers to efforts made by intelligence organizations to prevent hostile or enemy intelligence organizations from successfully gathering and collecting intelligence against them. National intelligence programs, and, by extension, the overall defenses of...
section at the time), and Chapman Pincher
Chapman Pincher
Harry Chapman Pincher is an Indian born British journalist and novelist whose writing mainly focuses on espionage and related matters, after some early books on scientific subjects.-Family and education:...
(investigative journalist who produced several exposés of failures in British counter-intelligence) of being a Soviet agent, though entirely separate from the famous Cambridge Five
Cambridge Five
The Cambridge Five was a ring of spies, recruited in part by Russian talent spotter Arnold Deutsch in the United Kingdom, who passed information to the Soviet Union during World War II and at least into the early 1950s...
spy ring. Pincher claims Hollis was recruited by Richard Sorge
Richard Sorge
Richard Sorge was a German communist and spy who worked for the Soviet Union. He has gained great fame among espionage enthusiasts for his intelligence gathering during World War II. He worked as a journalist in both Germany and Japan, where he was imprisoned for spying and eventually hanged....
in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
in the early 1930s to spy for the GRU
GRU
GRU or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye is the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation...
. Little evidence has been advanced to support these assertions.
A further case for Hollis being a Soviet agent was made in 1989 by W. J. West in The Truth about Hollis. However, the testimony of ex-Soviet KGB agents (Oleg Gordievsky
Oleg Gordievsky
Oleg Antonovich Gordievsky , CMG , is a former Colonel of the KGB and KGB Resident-designate and bureau chief in London, who was a secret agent of the British Secret Intelligence Service from 1974 to 1985.-Early career:Oleg Gordievsky attended the Moscow State Institute of International...
and Yuri Modin
Yuri Modin
Yuri Modin was the KGB controller for the "Cambridge Five" from 1944 to 1955, during which period Donald MacLean was said to have passed atomic secrets to the Soviets. In 1951 Modin arranged the defections of Maclean and Guy Burgess...
) has cast doubt on this, as they deny he was the so-called ‘fifth man’.
The new book Treachery by Chapman Pincher (Random House June 2009: revised edition, Mainstream May 2011), is devoted to the case against Hollis as being "Elli", the highly placed mole within MI5 identified by the defector Gouzenko, and thus operating as a Soviet agent from the 1940s until Hollis' retirement from MI5.
In his book, The Defence of the Realm: The Authorised History of MI5, Cambridge professor Christopher Andrew used access to 400,000 MI5 files to compile an official history of the service. He claims he has proved conclusively that Hollis was not a double agent and that Wright was misguided at best. However, this view is again challenged in the revised edition of Chapman Pincher's book Treachery published in the UK in 2011.
In the 2009 ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
program "Inside MI5: The Real Spooks" Oleg Gordievsky
Oleg Gordievsky
Oleg Antonovich Gordievsky , CMG , is a former Colonel of the KGB and KGB Resident-designate and bureau chief in London, who was a secret agent of the British Secret Intelligence Service from 1974 to 1985.-Early career:Oleg Gordievsky attended the Moscow State Institute of International...
recounted how he saw the head of the British section of the KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
, expressing surprise at the allegations that he read in a British newspaper about Roger Hollis being a KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
agent saying "Why is it they are speaking about Roger Hollis, such nonsense, can't understand it, it must be some special English trick directed against us" But Chapman Pincher in "Treachery" (see above), states that Hollis was believed to be a GRU
GRU
GRU or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye is the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation...
agent, the GRU being a different organisation to the KGB.
Later life
On his retirement in late 1965, Hollis moved first to a house in Wells, which he occupied only until 1967. In 1968 his first marriage was dissolved, and he married Edith Valentine Hammond, his former secretary, the daughter of Ernest Gower Hammond, of Stratford upon Avon. They moved to a new home in the Somerset village of Catcott, where Hollis indulged his formidable skills as a golfer and undertook some modest jobs in local government. Peter Wright in Spycatcher asserts that Hollis and Hammond were carrying on a long-standing affair while both were at MI5. Hammond, according to Wright, was eligible for promotion at many points during her long service, including non-clerical positions related to intelligence analysis, but she consistently refused the opportunity to move to higher positions in MI5 in order to stay close to Hollis as his secretary.His son, Adrian Hollis
Adrian Hollis
Adrian Swayne Hollis , is an English correspondence chess grandmaster and was British Correspondence Chess Champion in 1966 , 1967, and 1971....
(born August 2, 1940 in Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
), is a Grandmaster of correspondence chess
Correspondence chess
Correspondence chess is chess played by various forms of long-distance correspondence, usually through a correspondence chess server, through email or by the postal system; less common methods which have been employed include fax and homing pigeon...
, and was British Correspondence Chess Champion in 1966, 1967, and 1971. Philosopher Martin Hollis
Martin Hollis (philosopher)
Martin Hollis was an English rationalist philosopher. O'Hagan argues that central to Hollis's rationalism was "the epistemological unity of mankind", the view that "some beliefs are universal . ....
(1938–1998) was his nephew. His elder brother, (Maurice) Christopher Hollis
Christopher Hollis
Maurice Christopher Hollis, known as Christopher Hollis was a British schoolmaster, university teacher, author and Conservative politician.-Life:...
(1902–1977), was a Conservative MP for Devizes
Devizes
Devizes is a market town and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. The town is about southeast of Chippenham and about east of Trowbridge.Devizes serves as a centre for banks, solicitors and shops, with a large open market place where a market is held once a week...
from 1945 to 1955.