Former Labour minister who faked his own death was Communist spy



The former Labour minister who faked his own death was a Communist spy, it was revealed yesterday.

MI5 held extensive files on John Stonehouse amid fears he was passing secret information to the Soviet Union.

The first official history of the Security Service, published yesterday, revealed that he was an agent for the Czech StB intelligence agency during the 1960s.

John Stonehouse, pictured with wife Sheila, was a minister under Harold Wilson and famously faked his own death in 1974

Stonehouse faked his own suicide in Miami, Florida, in 1974 by leaving his clothes on a beach and fled to Australia with his mistress and secretary Sheila Buckley.

He was named in 1969 by a Czech defector as a likely spy but he managed to convince his MI5 interrogators that he was innocent.



They found him 'as calm and assured as anyone in his position could expect to be in the circumstances'.

But Stonehouse's treachery was finally exposed ten years later when another Czech defector provided convincing evidence that he was a spy.

John Stonehouse pictured outside the House of Commons

His attempt to fake his own death has always been attributed to the fact he was being investigated for financial irregularities in companies he had set up.

But his involvement with the Czech intelligence agency could provide an additional explanation.

After his discovery in Australia, Stonehouse returned to Britain in 1975 and was later jailed for seven years for fraud.



He died in 1988. Stonehouse was Postmaster General in Harold Wilson's government during the 1960s and held several other ministerial posts.

He is one of three Labour MPs named as spies in The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History Of MI5.



It has been written by Cambridge historian Professor Christopher Andrew, who was given access to secret files.

Left-wing MP Bob Edwards is also named as a long-term KGB agent while Will Owen was also an agent for the Czech StB.



Both are dead. Stonehouse, Edwards and Owen were all recruited as spies by Soviet bloc agents, but there is no evidence that any of them handed over sensitive information.

The book confirms that MI5 held a file on Harold Wilson under the name Norman John Worthington.



Officials became suspicious of his East European friends and his role in trade discussions with the Soviet Union.

But Professor Andrew dismisses claims of a 'Wilson plot' in which MI5 supposedly tried to smear the Labour leader and destabilise his administration.



Hitler 'brolly' jibe to mock Chamberlain

Hitler loved to mock Neville Chamberlain's umbrella by claiming it was a 'symbol of his feebleness'

Adolf Hitler loved to mock Neville Chamberlain's umbrella by claiming it was a symbol of his feebleness.

The Nazi leader used the British premier's favourite accessory as a means of poking fun at the 'umbrella-pacifism' of the once imposing British Empire.

Details of Hitler's private thoughts about his British counterpart are contained in The Defence Of The Realm - the first official history of the MI5.

Cambridge historian Professor Christopher Andrew reveals how the Security Service was urging Chamberlain to stand up to the Nazis.

In order to ensure its reports attracted his attention, Captain Vernon Kell, MI5's first directorgeneral even included Hitler's insulting references.

In one report he said the Nazi leader used the derogatory German term 'arschloch' to refer to Chamberlain.

Captain Kell underlined the word three times in red ink so he could not miss it.

The report was said to have had 'a considerable impression on the Prime Minister', who was known to be infuriated by mockery and disrespect.



Wilson in £14m IRA offer to Gaddafi

Britain made a secret offer to pay Libya £14million if it stopped supplying arms to the IRA, official files have revealed.

The deal put forward by Harold Wilson's Labour government in the 1970s was also aimed at helping trade with the oil-rich state.

Wilson even sent a personal message to Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi suggesting Britain would make the payment - worth £500million in today's money.

The deal is revealed in Foreign Office minutes and telegrams, transferred to the National Archives in Kew.

A minute from January 1977 states: 'Over the last 18 months we have negotiated on the basis of an offer by Her Majesty's Government of an ex gratia payment of £14million to the Libyans if they will drop their £52million claims against HMG, end their residual discrimination against British goods, settle private UK and MoD claims on them, and cease any kind of support for the IRA.'

The £52million relates in part to cancelled contracts for tanks and missile systems that Libya had ordered from Britain. The secret files give no indication that the UK actually paid any money to Libya.

Relations with Gaddafi been in the spotlight following the anger caused by the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Al Megrahi - a Libyan - from a Scottish jail in August.



