Truth, but not the whole truth

Stella Rimington clearly believes that MI5 targeted people it shouldn't have, but does not name names. Richard Norton-Taylor tries to fill in some of the gaps

Special report: freedom of information
One of the most controversial activities of MI5, notably during the 1970s and 1980s, was its targeting of "subversives", including such civil liberties campaigners of the time as Patricia Hewitt, the trade and industry secretary, and Harriet Harman, the solicitor general.

The targeting of the two women, as well as union and CND leaders, was exposed by Cathy Massiter in 1985 when Stella Rimington was head of the agency's countersubversion branch. She describes Massiter's disclosures as a "massive shock" - MI5 was not used to being exposed in public. According to Massiter, whose disclosures have never been denied, Hewitt and Harman were described on MI5 files as "communist sympathisers". And she described how MI5 "infiltrated an experienced agent into CND's headquarters".

Rimington does not identify any individuals or reveal details of the operations. "I don't want to talk too much about this," she says, "because my former colleagues aren't going to be too happy if I raise into the headlines the issue of subversion, which for them now is a very minor issue." She feels obliged to follow MI5's party line, namely that these groups were exposed to Soviet influence or communist infiltration; MI5 was targeting individuals in these groups, not the groups themselves. Yet targeting an individual must involve monitoring the activities and conversations of that person's colleagues and associates.

Rimington clearly believes that MI5 targeted people it should not have. She admits it was "overenthusiastic" in targeting leftwing groups in the cold war. "Files were opened on people who were not actively threatening the state," she acknowledges. In a tantalising passage, Rimington says she knows of two occasions when ministers improperly asked MI5 to investigate individuals. She does not name names.

Certainly, MI5 exaggerated the influence of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) as well as Trotskyist groups such as Militant Tendency. Perhaps the most controversial episode in Rimington's career was the 1984-85 miners' strike. The strike, she writes, was directed by a "triumvirate who had declared that they were using the strike to try to bring down the elected government of Mrs Thatcher".

Arthur Scargill, the NUM president, Mick McGahey, the vice-president and a communist - whose telephones, according to Massiter, were tapped by MI5 - and Peter Heathfield, the general secretary, insisted they were merely trying to stop pit closures, though their rhetoric could indeed have been interpreted as "political" by anyone who wanted to do so.

Rimington adds that the strike was "actively supported by the Communist Party". But, with the sole exception of the 1974 Ulster Workers' Council strike, every major strike in Britain was supported by the CPGB.

Rimington also writes: "We in MI5 limited our investigations to the activities of those who were using the strike for subversive purposes." She carefully avoids the issue of whether MI5 had informants or agents among those it considered "subversive". Again, if MI5 was monitoring the activities of those it considered subversive, it was presumably monitoring the conversations of others they were talking to.

Files recently released at the public record office show that MI5 did have informers among union leaders during major strikes. It has been alleged that Roger Windsor, the NUM's general secretary, was an MI5 informer. Rimington denies this. "It would be correct to say," she says, "that he, Roger Windsor, was never an agent in any sense of the word that you can possibly imagine and that MI5 did not run agents" in the NUM. Pointing the finger elsewhere, she adds: "That's not to say that the police or special branch... might not have been doing some of those things."

It is true that Margaret Thatcher described the NUM leadership as "the enemy within", a green light, if ever there was one, for the security services to target it. A chief constable involved in the strike has described a meeting of senior police officers at which a senior Home Office civil servant reported that Thatcher was "convinced that a secret communist cell around Scargill was orchestrating the strike in order to bring down the country".

It is believed that a secret "public order intelligence unit" was set up. The maintenance of public order is not MI5's task - it is the job of the local police. Though the special branch works closely with MI5, the regular police do not. Tensions between local police forces, special branch and MI5 may help to explain the remark by a senior police officer directly involved at the time to the Labour MP, Tam Dalyell, that MI5 sent in an agent provocateur to try to break the strike at Polkemmet colliery in Scotland.

Rimington writes about another cause celebre of the Thatcher years - the government's failed attempt to stop the publication of Spycatcher, the memoirs of the former MI5 officer Peter Wright. He may have exaggerated the extent of the "Wilson plot", but there is no doubt that some MI5 officers were out to destabilise Labour ministers. In 1996, Lord Hunt, the then cabinet secretary, confirmed the existence of "malicious malcontents" in MI5. Significantly, given the claims made by the government at the time, Rimington admits that Spycatcher did not do any "great damage".

Rimington may well have wanted to say more about these episodes, and others. Even if she had done so, in early drafts handed to MI5 and Whitehall for vetting, they would almost certainly have been excised.

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