Rome confidential: deception and espionage in the British Embassy

ABSTRACT

From 1924 until 1940, two chancery servants at the British Embassy in Rome, passed confidential documents to Italian and Soviet intelligence, and gave Rome and Moscow the ability to read British coded material for a long time. Based on a critical analysis of unpublished archival sources, this article seeks to reconstruct their spying activities and understand their place in the history of intelligence, and to provide an assessment of the prevailing Foreign Office security arrangements. It concludes that poor employment practices and security arrangements at the British Embassy in Rome allowed them to pull off a major espionage coup.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. AUSME, Fondo SIM, “Costantini Secondo informatore già del SIM,” 12 August 1944; “Appunto per il Sig. Capo Servizio,” 15 July 1949; “Costantini Secondo,” 23 August 1949; “The Tactful Servant,” Time magazine, 9 December 1957; Ciano, Diario, 1937–1943, 25 December 1937; Dilks, and “Flashes of Intelligence,” 106.

2. Andrew and Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive, 46–7.

3. Andrew and Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive, 46–8; and West and Tsarev, The Crown Jewels, 96–8.

4. Whaley, Soviet Clandestine Communication Nets, 16.

5. Dilks, “Flashes of Intelligence,” 107–108; Andrew and Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive, 46; and Baxter, “Forgeries and Spies” 807–8.

6. Pasquinelli, Le carte segrete, 215.

7. Baxter, “Forgeries and Spies,” 807–9.

8. Historian Nigel West and former KGB agent Oleg Tsarev gained privileged access to the records of the Costantini brothers at the end of the 1990s. Those with a knowledge of Russian can also consult the official history of Soviet intelligence operations, Primakov et al, Ocherki istorii rossiiskoi vneshnei razvedki, 5 vols (Moscow: 1996).

9. Sullivan, “Soviet Penetration of the Italian Intelligence Services,” 84–5.

10. West and Tsarev, The Crown Jewels, 97.

11. Andrew and Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive, 67; and West and Tsarev, The Crown Jewels, 98.

12. “The Tactful Servant,” Time magazine, 9 December 1957; and Sullivan, “Soviet Penetration,” 83–4.

13. Costantini, “Gli occhi del SIM,” Candido (1957), 10 November 1957, 11–2.

14. Ibid.

15. Ibid.

16. Ibid.

17. AUSME, Fondo SIM, “Appunto per il Sig. Capo Servizio,” 16 July 1949. The members of the P Squad were specialists in their field and, for this reason, they were seldom alternated or deployed differently. The penetration of embassy offices took place slowly, but was constant and systematic. It took a long time to find the right contact, approach him, gain his trust and then to recruit him. An American document dated August 1945 reconstructed the composition of the P Squad. While Alberto Perini and Francesco Pacifici were in charge of penetrating the British Embassy, Arturo Corazza was responsible for the French Embassy. Corazza was later also entrusted with the task of technically preventing all telegraphic and telephonic communications each time the premises were visited to ensure that they were not disturbed. Francesco Perozzi was in charge of the German and Japanese embassies. Angelo Farsati was in charge of the Romanian delegation. Angelo Roldo of Spain and Sweden. Nicola Russo of Finland. Quoted in Pasquinelli, Le carte segrete, 214–18. See also Giambartolomei, “I servizi segreti militari italiani,” 61–62.

18. See note 13 above.

19. Ibid.

20. Ibid.

21. “The Tactful Servant,” Time magazine, 9 December 1957.

22. See note 13 above.

23. National Archives (NA), Public Record Office (PRO), KV 2/2681, Report written by W. Gallienne, “Record of a Conversation with Mr H,” 14 April 1941; Andrew and Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive, 47; Sullivan, “Soviet Penetration,” 83–5; and K. Riehle, Soviet Defectors, 56.

24. However, since it took about a week for the films to arrive in Moscow, the Soviet Embassy would telegraph summaries in cases of urgency. NA, PRO KV 2/2681, Report written by W. Gallienne, “Record of a Conversation with Mr H,” 14 April 1941; and Sullivan, “Soviet Penetration,” 85.

25. Andrew and Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive, 66.

26. Krivitsky arrived in the United Kingdom on 19 January 1940. He stayed in London for a month, during which time he was thoroughly interrogated by MI5, providing an ‘enormous body of very valuable information’ on Soviet intelligence activities in the United Kingdom. He returned to Canada on 15 February 1940, travelling with a British passport in the name of Walter Thomas. By November 1940, he was living in hiding in New York. However, on 10 February 1941, he was found shot dead in an hotel in Washington, DC. NA, PRO KV 2/805, “Top Secret: Walter Krivitsky”; Liddell, Guy Liddell Diaries, Vol. I, 4 September 1939, 14–15. See also Thurlow, “Soviet Spies and British Counter-Intelligence,” 620–2.

27. John Herbert King was a Foreign Office cypher clerk who, between 1935 and 1937, provided carbon copies of deciphered telegrams to the Soviet Union. Arrested on 25 September 1939, he confessed his guilt and subsequently sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment. On this, Watt, “Francis Herbert King,” 64–82.

28. NA, PRO KV 2/805, “Information Obtained from General Krivitsky During His Visit to This Country. Appendix to Chapter 2: OGPU Agents in the British Foreign Office and Diplomatic Service.”

29. Costantini, “Gli occhi del SIM,” Candido (1957), 24 November 1957, 14–6; “The Tactful Servant,” Time magazine, 9 December 1957.

30. From that point until the outbreak of the Second World War, Francesco disappears from SIM records, to reappear only in November 1939 when it was reported that he had travelled to Milan to sell a range of British diplomatic documents and ciphers to the Germans. Sullivan, “Soviet Penetration,” 100–1.

31. Quoted in West and Tsarev, The Crown Jewels, 96.

32. NA, PRO KV 2/805, “Information Obtained from General Krivitsky During His Visit to This Country. Appendix to Chapter 2: OGPU Agents in the British Foreign Office and Diplomatic Service;” West and Tsarev, The Crown Jewels, 97–8; and Sullivan, “Soviet Penetration,” 92–3.

33. Axelrod-Rubin, “The Jewish Contributions,” 268; and Andrew and Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive, 65–7.

34. West and Tsarev, The Crown Jewels, 98–9.

35. NA, PRO FO 850/2/Y776/775/9/37, Report by Major Vivian, “Security of Documents in HM Embassy, Rome,” 20 February 1937; West and Tsarev, The Crown Jewels, 98–100; and Sullivan, “Soviet Penetration,” 92–3.

36. West and Tsarev, The Crown Jewels, 96; and Sullivan, “Soviet Penetration,” 92–3.

37. Ibid.

38. At the beginning of 1940, Soviet defector Walter Krivitsky revealed to MI5 that NKVD had had an agent inside the British Embassy in Rome from at least 1933. This information was subsequently confirmed by another Soviet defector, Leon Helfand, who was interviewed by the Foreign Office in 1941. NA, PRO KV 2/805, “Information Obtained from General Krivitsky During His Visit to This Country. Appendix to Chapter 2: OGPU Agents in the British Foreign Office and Diplomatic Service;” PRO KV 2/2681, Report written by W. Gallienne, “Record of a Conversation with Mr H,” 14 April 1941.

39. NA, PRO KV 2/805, “Information Obtained from General Krivitsky During His Visit to This Country. Appendix to Chapter 2: OGPU Agents in the British Foreign Office and Diplomatic Service;” PRO KV 2/2681, Reported written by W. Gallienne, “Record of a Conversation with Mr H,” 14 April 1941; Letter written by H. Beaumont, “Top-Secret,” 13 February 1951; West and Tsarev, The Crown Jewels, 99–100; Sullivan, and “Soviet Penetration,” 102.

40. Ibid., 88–89.

41. AUSME, Fondo SIM, “Costantini Secondo informatore già del SIM,” 12 August 1944; “Appunto per il Sig. Capo Servizio,” 15 July 1949; “Costantini Secondo,” 23 August 1949.

42. See note 13 above.

43. AUSME, Fondo SIM, “Costantini Secondo informatore già del SIM,” 12 August 1944; “Appunto per il Sig. Capo Servizio,” 15 July 1949; “Costantini Secondo,” 23 August 1949.

44. Dilks, “Flashes of Intelligence,”106.

45. Chatfield, It May Happen Again, 89; Marder, “The Royal Navy and the Ethiopian Crisis,” 1332–33; Quartararo, “Imperial Defence in the Mediterranean,” 191 and 201–2; and Gabriele, “Mediterraneo 1935–36,” 24–5.

46. Mallett, Mussolini and the Origins of the Second World War, 29 and 42.

47. Chatfield, It May Happen Again, 89.

48. Quoted in Mallett, Mussolini and the Origins, 44.

49. Costantini, “Gli occhi del SIM,” Candido (1957), 1 December 1957, 16–8; “The Tactful Servant,” Time magazine, 9 December 1957.

50. Dilks, “Flashes of Intelligence,” 107–108; and Sullivan, “Soviet Penetration,” 95–6.

51. AUSME, Fondo SIM, “Costantini Secondo informatore già del SIM,” 12 August 1944; Pasquinelli, Le carte segrete, 224–5.

52. AUSME, Fondo SIM, “Appunto per il Sig. Capo Servizio,” 15 July 1949; ‘Costantini Secondo,’ 23 August 1949; Pasquinelli, Le carte segrete, 224–5.

53. Quoted in West and Tsarev, The Crown Jewels, 101.

54. Dilks, “Flashes of Intelligence,” 107–8; Andrew and Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive, 46; and Baxter, “Forgeries and Spies,” 807–8.

55. See note 13 above.

56. Quartararo, “Imperial Defence,” 185–220.

57. Sullivan, “Soviet Penetration,” 93–5.

58. Macfayden, Davies, Carr and Burley, Eric Drummond and His Legacies, 54.

59. NA, PRO FO 850/2/Y776/775/9/37, Report by Major Vivian, “Security of Documents in HM Embassy, Rome,” 20 February 1937.

60. Costantini, “Gli occhi del SIM,” Candido (1957), 1 December 1957, 18; and Andrew and Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive, 68.

61. Ibid.

62. See note 59 above.

63. Ibid.

64. NA, PRO FO 850/2/Y414/414/650, Circular by Anthony Eden, “Security Measures in His Majesty’s Diplomatic Missions and Consulates,” 1 April 1937.

65. Andrew and Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive, 69.

66. Ciano, Diario, 25 December 1937.

67. Carter, Anthony Blunt; Liddell, Guy Liddell’s Cold War MI5 Diaries, Vol. I, 128.

68. NA, PRO KV 2/2681, Reported written by W. Gallienne, “Record of a Conversation with Mr H,” 14 April 1941; Letter written by H. Beaumont, “Top-Secret”, 13 February 1951.

69. Dilks, “Flashes of Intelligence,” 107.

70. NA, PRO FO 850/2/Y776/775/9/37, Report by Major Vivian, “Security of Documents in HM Embassy, Rome,” 20 February 1937; and Dilks, “Flashes of Intelligence,” 107–8 and 114–5.

71. “The Tactful Servant,” Time magazine, 9 December 1957.

72. Sullivan, “Soviet Penetration,” 92–3.

73. Ibid., 103.

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Massimiliano Fiore

Dr. Massimiliano Fiore is an Assistant Professor at Rabdan Academy, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.