Joseph Kagan

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Joseph Kagan was the head of Gannex Textiles and a prominent supporter of the Labour Party under Harold Wilson.[1]

Background

Kagan came from a family of Jewish woollen manufacturers in Kaunas, Lithuania, and studied textiles at Leeds in the 1930s. After the Russians occupied Lithuania in 1939, the kept him on as a manager at the expropriated family mill. During the German occupation from 1941, he carried out forced labour while hiding his family.[2]

At the end of the war, the family walked to Romania, where they made contact with Douglas Morrell, a Jewish SOE officer. According to Morrell, he and Kagan engaged in black-market trading and smuggling refugees to Israel. Eventually, the family obtained a visa for Britain, where they arrived in 1946.[3]

Gannex

Once in Britain, Kagan opened a factory in Huddersfield where developed a waterproof nylon fabric, 'Gannex', which he marketed by ingratiating himself with prominent celebrities. He eventually obtained a royal warrant for selling shooting coats to the Duke of Edinburgh.[4]

Wilson

Kagan first met Wilson, his local MP in Huddersfield, in 1954. His Gannex coats would eventually become a Wilson trademark.[5]

MI5 had already launched an inconclusive investigation into Kagan before Wilson became Prime Minister in 1964.[6]

In 1967, Wilson presented the Soviet premier Alexei Kosygin with a list of humanitarian cases which included members of Kagan's wife's family.[7]

Vaygauskas

In 1969, a Lithuanian from Kagan's wife's hometown, Richardas Vaygauskas turned up as a Soviet diplomat in London. he soon struck up a friendship with Kagan, who was still trying to get his family out of the Soviet Union.[8]

MI5 officer Peter Wright claimed that British intelligence received damaging information about Kagan in the late 1960s from Russian agent Oleg Lyalin:

While Lyalin was still in place, he told MI5 about a friend of his called Vaygaukas. Vaykaugas was a KGB offcer working under cover in the Soviet Trade Delegation in London. Lyalin told us that Vaygaukas had claimed to be in contact with a man called Joseph Kagan, a Lithuanian emigre who was a close friend of Harold Wilson's.[9]

According to journalist David Leigh, Wright places these events a year too early. Lyalin was not under MI5 control until February 1971 after Wilson left office.[10]

Leigh notes a story given by Peter Wright to Chapman Pincher, according to which Vaygauskas had asked Kagan to get some information from Wilson at No.10, which Kagan had done the same evening, with Lyalin informing his handler the next day.[11]

Leigh describes this as "Wright's account of Lyalin's version of what Vaygauskas boasted that Joe Kagan had asserted to him about Harold Wilson", and suggests it could not have happened as described because Lyalin had not been turned until after Wilson left office.[12]

Wright states that, as a result of this, MI5 placed Kagan under intensive surveillance.[13]

Under the pseudonym 'Colonel Brewster', MI5 officer Tony Brooks recruited a network of agents close to Kagan, led by his London representative Arthur Parker. Kagan's links to the royal family were a particular concern.[14]

Later in 1971, Lyalin was exposed and the British Government chose the moment to expel 105 Soviet diplomats, Vaygauskas among them. This troubled both Wilson and Kagan, who each sought the offices of the head of the City of London Police, Sir Arthur Young. As a result Kagan was interviewed by MI5 in Rooom 55 of the War Office.[15]

According to Wright, Wilson approached Young seeking to discuss Kagan with MI5. The agency's head, Martin Furnival Jones was bemused by this, but allowed Lyalin's handler, Harry Wharton to brief Wilson. Wilson said he knew nothing about the matter, and never discussed confidential matters with Kagan.[16]

Wilson regarded the episode as a smear, but by this time the Conservatives were back in government and according to Wright 'took a great interest in the material'.[17]

According to Leigh, Wharton confirmed Wright's account and a note of the interview ended up in the 'Worthington' file on Wilson.[18]

MI5 continued to view Kagan's social and financial links with the Soviet Union with suspicion. His wife's cousin Yasha Bum, was allowed to leave Russia for Israel in 1972, while her brother Alex Shtromas, arrived in Britain in 1973. Kagan also set up a Kagan Trust Fund, chaired by Israeli parliamentarian Menachem Savidor to help Jewish emigrés from the Soviet union. Brooks suspected that this activity was a front for planting 'illegals' (non-diplomatic cover spies).[19]

Lessiovsky allegations

In late 1974 Conservative MP Winston Churchill wrote to Wilson:

In case, he may be unaware of the fact, I think your friend Sir Joseph Kagan should be informed that his houseguest, a delightful Russian, Victor Lessiovsky, is a senior serving officer in the KGB.[20]

Kagan denied meeting Lessiovsky, whose cover as a KGB officer had already been 'blown' at the time. This latter fact leads Leigh to conclude the episode was a provocation, either by the KGB or by MI5.[21]

In 1974, Kagan set up a tax avoidance scheme with his old colleagueDouglas Morrell. Leigh notes that this apparently escaped the notice of Tony Brooks, and Morrell denied ever meeting Brooks, though they were both former SOE officers.[22]

In 1975, watchers from MI5 A4 section followed Soviet agent-runner Boris Titov to a flat owned by Kagan. Further surveillance showed that on one occasion, Ttiov, Kagan and Wilson's s ecretary Marcia Williams were all in the building at the same time.[23]

Kagan's office was still being bugged by officer from's MI5 K5 section at the time of Wilson's resignation, on the theory that Kagan could be passing material from Williams to the KGB.[24]

Wilson made Kagan a peer in 1976, but he was was later jailed as a result of his tax avoidance scheme.[25]

Private Eye

After May 1971, Wilson's links with Kagan became a regular target of Private Eye.[26]

Affiliations

Connections

Notes

  1. David Leigh, The Wilson Plot, Mandarin, 1989, p.92.
  2. David Leigh, The Wilson Plot, Mandarin, 1989, p.112.
  3. David Leigh, The Wilson Plot, Mandarin, 1989, p.112.
  4. David Leigh, The Wilson Plot, Mandarin, 1989, pp.112-113.
  5. David Leigh, The Wilson Plot, Mandarin, 1989, p.113.
  6. Stephen Dorril & Robin Ramsay, Smear! Wilson and the Secret State, Fourth Estate Ltd, 1991, p.114
  7. David Leigh, The Wilson Plot, Mandarin, 1989, p.181.
  8. David Leigh, The Wilson Plot, Mandarin, 1989, p.182.
  9. Peter Wright, Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of Senior Intelligence Officer, Viking, 1987, pp.364-365.
  10. David Leigh, The Wilson Plot, Mandarin, 1989, p.183.
  11. David Leigh, The Wilson Plot, Mandarin, 1989, p.183.
  12. David Leigh, The Wilson Plot, Mandarin, 1989, p.187.
  13. Peter Wright, Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of Senior Intelligence Officer, Viking, 1987, p.365.
  14. David Leigh, The Wilson Plot, Mandarin, 1989, p.188.
  15. David Leigh, The Wilson Plot, Mandarin, 1989, p.189.
  16. Peter Wright, Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of Senior Intelligence Officer, Viking, 1987, p.365.
  17. Peter Wright, Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of Senior Intelligence Officer, Viking, 1987, p.365.
  18. David Leigh, The Wilson Plot, Mandarin, 1989, p.183.
  19. David Leigh, The Wilson Plot, Mandarin, 1989, p.183.
  20. David Leigh, The Wilson Plot, Mandarin, 1989, p.237.
  21. David Leigh, The Wilson Plot, Mandarin, 1989, p.238.
  22. David Leigh, The Wilson Plot, Mandarin, 1989, p.183.
  23. David Leigh, The Wilson Plot, Mandarin, 1989, p.243.
  24. David Leigh, The Wilson Plot, Mandarin, 1989, p.234.
  25. David Leigh, The Wilson Plot, Mandarin, 1989, p.244.
  26. David Leigh, The Wilson Plot, Mandarin, 1989, p.204.
  27. David Leigh, The Wilson Plot, Mandarin, 1989, p.92.
  28. Peter Wright, Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of Senior Intelligence Officer, Viking, 1987, p.365.