Difference between revisions of "Harold Doyne-Ditmas"
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Harold Doyne-Ditmas was an MI5 officer.
Contents
D branch counterintelligence
In the early 1960s. He worked in MI5 D Branch as one of ten cases officers under D1 section head Arthur Martin.[1] He worked with Martin and Peter Wright on a Movements Analysis programme which, according to Wright, identified a number of KGB officers operating under diplomatic cover.[2]
According to Stephen Dorril, "Doyne Ditmass had extensive experience of counter-espionage as a case officer in the old D Branch and was a veteran of A Branch's Movements Analysis which involved computerising the Watchers' records of the movements of KGB officers stationed in London.[3]
In May 1964, Peter Wright visited Washington to seek support for the Movements Analysis program. Wright was supported by James Angleton and CIA chief Richard Helms agreed to send over a team.[2]
On his return, with the CIA team due to arrive the following week, Wright learned from Martin that Doyne-Ditmas was being transferred to Washington. This led Wright and Martin into an angry confrontation with D Branch head Malcolm Cumming.[1]
Washington
According to Stephen Dorril, Doyne-Ditmas "served in Washington in the early sixties, liasing with the CIA and FBI.[3] It can perhaps be inferred that this was the position to which he was transferred in mid-1964.
K Branch
David Leigh implies that Doyne-Ditmas served in K Branch MI5, presumably a reflection of that branch's origins in a re-organised D Branch.[4]
A Branch
Discussing the dispersal of K Branch officers in the 1970s, Leigh says Doyne Ditmas moved "to computerise the watchers' charts in A Branch.[4]
Kagan case and the Wilson Plot
David Leigh reports that in 1975: "One of Doyne-Ditmass's 'watchers' from 'A4' reported excitedly that he had been following the Soviet Embassy's main KGB agent-runner. He had left the Embassy, crossed the Bayswater Road and gone into a nearby flat. To whom did it belong? Joe Kagan.[5]
As a result of this discovery the flat was bugged, and MI5 discovered that on one occasion, Kagan was on the phone to Prime Minister Harold Wilson's secretary Marcia Williams, while the KGB officer, Boris Titov, was in another room of the flat.[5]
In the wake of the Kagan case, Peter Wright tried to persuade his colleagues in K Branch that Wilson should be confronted with MI5's material on him, in the belief that it would force the Prime Minister's resignation. According to Leigh: "Doyne-Ditmass said that the right way to proceed in such circumstances was surely to approach the Cabinet Secretary, Sir John Hunt.[6]
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 David Leigh, The Wilson Plot, Mandarin, 1989, p.101.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Peter Wright, Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of Senior Intelligence Officer, Viking, 1987, p.344. Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; name "Wright217" defined multiple times with different content - ↑ 3.0 3.1 Stephen Dorril, The Silent Conspiracy: Inside the Intelligence Services in the 1990s, Mandarin, 1994, p.113.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 David Leigh, The Wilson Plot, Mandarin, 1989, p.242.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 David Leigh, The Wilson Plot, Mandarin, 1989, p.243.
- ↑ David Leigh, The Wilson Plot, Mandarin, 1989, p.245.
