Wed 25 September 2019:
Fresh details of some of Britain’s biggest Cold War spy scandals, including the network of Soviet agents who stole naval intelligence secrets, emerged in newly released secret files Tuesday.
British classified files on an Israeli agent who was spying on the Kingdom will be released on Tuesday, uncovering a case that has been kept under wraps for decades.
This case will be among many files that Britain’s MI5 will reveal.
Wybrew worked for the British intelligence in the Middle East during the World War II. He handled Palestinian affairs at the Security Intelligence Middle East (SIME), an organization made up of a number of British intelligence agencies based in Cairo, Egypt.
The official files said that the SIME interrogated Wybrew in 1942 during his mission in Palestine after suspecting that he was involved in “financial improprieties” and had links with Jewish espionage agencies.
The man was about to be referred to the military court, however, the British government dropped all charges against him and released him from service in 1943.
A document, dated May 26, 1950, shows that the British security apparatuses asked that Wybrew stay under surveillance while working at the Ministry of War, despite knowing that he was in contact with three Israeli intelligence officers. They aimed to keep him under their watchful eye in order to discover his collaborators.
The case is an embarrassment to British intelligence that should have questioned Wybrew’s relationship with the Israelis when he worked for SIME during the British mandate in Palestine.
It is also a rare case of Israel being exposed of spying on the British through an agent who had infiltrated their intelligence agencies.
The National Archives also disclosed details on Arnold Deutsch — “the ablest of all the Soviet illegals,” according to Andrew.
Deutsch is credited with having recruited MI6 officer Kim Philby and the other members of the notorious “Cambridge Five” spy-ring in the mid-1930s.
His file contains Philby’s account of his recruitment in London’s Regent’s Park in 1934, told 30 years later to an MI6 colleague just before he dramatically defected to Moscow. “One of my earliest tasks was to give him details of all my Communist friends in Cambridge. This I did,” the memo said.
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