The MacDonald Discussion Group: A Communist Conspiracy in Britain’s Cold War Film and Theatre Industry—Or MI5’s Honey-Pot?

Abstract

During the cold war, the British entertainment industry escaped the extent of the anti-communist sentiments that gripped America, but recently released files from MI5 (Britain’s domestic security-intelligence agency) indicate that British intelligence authorities were nonetheless concerned about possible covert communist activity at work in the industry in Britain. This article presents the case of the MacDonald Discussion Group, a private left-wing discussion group operating in London in the early 1950s, designed to appeal to professionals in the film, theatre and architecture industries, attended by actors such as Mai Zetterling, Herbert Lom and Ferdy Mayne. Penetrated from its earliest meetings by MI5, it was viewed with increasing concern as a site of communist indoctrination and potentially of Soviet espionage, and those who attended the group were investigated as potential communist sympathisers by MI5. Despite these investigations, the group's activity never resulted in the sort of influence or growth that MI5 feared, to the extent that it appears that it was actually MI5’s agent who propped-up the group beyond the point when it would have otherwise collapsed. This article therefore analyses MI5’s surveillance of the group, and asks what implications this sort of attention might have had for the careers of those industry figures linked to the group.

Acknowledgements

I would like to offer my thanks to Jason Jacobs and Veronica Kelly, with whom I discussed the early stages of this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The Hollywood Ten consisted of Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner, Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott and Dalton Trumbo.

2. For details of Brecht’s brush with HUAC, see James K. Lyon, Bertolt Brecht in America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980).

3. For example, many years before the official release of MI5’s files, Temple Willcox explored British censorship of Eisenstein and noted evidence of MI5’s involvement. See ‘Soviet Films, Censorship and the British Government: A Matter of the Public Interest', Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 10, no. 3 (1990): 275–92.

4. For an investigative account of security vetting at the BBC, see Mark Hollingsworth and Richard Norton-Taylor, Blacklist: The Inside Story of Political Vetting (London: Hogarth, 1988).

5. Ben Harker, ‘“The Trumpet of the Night”: Interwar Communists on BBC Radio', History Workshop Journal, 75, no. 1 (2013): 81–100, provides a recent account of this negotiation.

6. Rebecca Prime highlights how many Americans blacklisted from work in the USA could only obtain short-term renewals of visas in the UK, and were still subjected to pressure from the USA Embassy. See ‘“The Old Bogey”:The Hollywood Blacklist in Europe’, Film History, 20, no. 4 (2008): 474–86.

7. Giora Goodman, in a wide-ranging and important article investigating the impact of United States McCarthyism on British domestic policy, concluded that ‘Whitehall proudly compared British traditions with US practices and abhorred the likes of McCarran and McCarthy, who were often nearly as anti-British as they were anti-Communist’, but also noted that ‘the challenges of the cold war and the need to maintain good relations with the United States pressed the British government to tighten its domestic anti-Communist policies and vetting programs that often also infringed civil liberties'. See ‘The British Government and the Challenge of McCarthyism in the Early Cold War’, Journal of Cold War Studies, 12, no. 1 (2010): 62–97. Reference on 95.

8. The interpretation of this speech as a thinly veiled condemnation of McCarthyism was prominently voiced in the American media. See, for example, ‘McCarthyism: Myth & Menace’, Time, June 29, 1953.

9. Tony Shaw, British Cinema and the Cold War: The State, Propaganda and Consensus (London: I. B. Tauris, 2001), 177.

10. Larry Ceplair and Steven Englund, The Inquisition in Hollywood: Politics in the Film Community, 1930–60 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003), discuss the activity of American émigrés in London. See especially 398–407.

11. I briefly note the existence and potential significance of these files in my British Writers and MI5 Surveillance, 1930–1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).

12. It should be noted that a number of other British intelligence files relating to those blacklisted by American authorities are slowly being released to the National Archives, London (hereafter PRO) in the Security Service (hereafter KV) series, such as the personal files kept on Carl Foreman (PRO KV 2/3262), Joseph Losey (PRO KV 2/3263-4), Paul Robeson (PRO KV 2/1829-30) and Charlie Chaplin (PRO KV 2/3700-1), and it can be anticipated that further releases will provide a fuller range of material for study of this international interaction. Goodman, ‘The British Government and the Challenge of McCarthyism in the Early Cold War’, gives details from a number of these files.

13. Mayne's name is also variously given in the file as ‘Ferdie Mayer’ and ‘Freddy Mayne’.

14. PRO KV 5/80, serial 1a, B.1.K/WAY source report, report number 999, December 10, 1951.

15. An overview of Burke’s career can be found in her obituary published in The Telegraph, November 27, 2003, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1447823/Patricia-Burke.html.

16. See The Times, March 23, 1949, 3; The Times, September 19, 1961, 10.

17. See Mai Zetterling, All Those Tomorrows (London: Cape, 1985), 92.

18. PRO KV 2/2994, serial 13z, extract from Chief Constable Kent report, December 1, 1954.

19. Bronwen Wells, secretary of the St Julians Club and granddaughter of two of the founders of the household, issued clarifications in a letter to a newspaper, after media reporting on the household was promoted in the wake of the release of Zetterling’s MI5 file in 2009. The letter stated that: ‘The house was never run by the discussion group … St Julians was not started as a “Marxist study group”, but was rather an exercise in communal living by several professional couples. It is not, and has never been, affiliated with any political philosophy; and certainly was never communist’. Given the exaggerations evident in other aspects of the investigation into the discussion group, it is likely that fears about the ‘communist’ nature of this household were similarly overblown. See http://www.courier.co.uk/Sevenoaks-Chronicle-Letters-April-2-2009/story-11985090-detail/story.html.

20. Ibid.

21. These facts are discussed across several reports in KV 5/80. Further details regarding MacDonald, beyond those provided by MI5, have proved difficult to trace. MI5 regarded him as a ‘mystery man', and this appears to extend even to his name: one MI5 document refers to him as ‘Nick (Duncan) MacDonald', while the Dictionary of National Biography entry for Patricia Burke briefly states she was married to the pilot ‘Group Captain Duncan C. MacDonald'. The fact that they were married outside of the UK during the Second World War means details are difficult to confirm via standard identity documents such as marriage certificates. Several officers named MacDonald attained the rank of Group Captain in the RAF in the era, but the most likely match appears to be the ‘Duncan Charles Ruthven MacDonald' listed in various official Air Force Lists and London Gazettes over the period of 1935–1946, as this individual’s documented birth year of 1913 matches that listed in KV 5/80. Further credence to this identity is suggested by the fact that a ‘D.C.R. MacDonald' would, in the later 1950s and 1960s, be listed in industry guides as one of the directors of Guild Television Services (which specialised in television advertising), as well as (in the BFI database) the director of the television advert ‘Beautiful Morris Oxford' (1961), indicating that he possessed ongoing links to the film and television industry. Finally, a Duncan Charles Ruthven MacDonald was, until the year 2000, registered as secretary of the company ‘Henry Cornelius Productions Limited' (with the Companies House documents listing his birth and death as 23 September 1913–31 March 2000). As Henry Cornelius (1913–1958) was a South African-born film director whom MI5 linked to the MacDonald Discussion Group, the appearance of the individual in this capacity would appear to confirm a link to the earlier group.

22. PRO KV 5/80, serial 1a, B.1.K/WAY source report, report number 999, December 10, 1951.

23. The description is contained in PRO KV 5/80, serial 11a, B.1.F/GHL note on the MacDonald Discussion Group, December 1, 1952. In an interesting contrast to this ‘sinister' characterisation, Tom Morgan (son of one of the founders of the household and current managing director of the St Julians Club) stated in personal correspondence with me that although he could recall little concerning this issue, he could only ‘remember Duncan as a very nice person'.

24. Bor’s obituary can be found online at: http://www.theguardian.com/news/1999/oct/12/guardianobituaries.jonathanglancey.

25. Although some general biographical profiles and discussions of Mayne suggest that he was involved in secret wartime work, tracing evidence for such claims back to a firm source is a more difficult task. The main basis for the allegation that Mayne worked for MI5 appears to be the posthumously published memoir of Joan Miller, one of MI5’s wartime agents, which drops various hints about a German émigré (called ‘X') matching Mayne’s background who also worked in Maxwell Knight’s section of undercover MI5 agents and ‘remained a valued member of the office for many years after the war'. See Joan Miller, One Girl’s War: Personal Exploits in MI5’s Most Secret Station (Dingle: Brandon, 1986), 94. Although I would be hesitant to attach too much weight to Miller’s evidence alone, the fact that Mayne reappears after the war as the leader of another secretive group undoubtedly penetrated by MI5 certainly gives weight to these claims, and renders him the most likely candidate to be MI5’s source.

26. A handwritten query on this name suggests that the correct Thomson may have actually been the professor of Greek at Birmingham, not a physicist as the source report stated.

27. PRO KV 5/80, serial 1a, B.1.K/WAY source report, report number 999, December 10, 1951.

28. PRO KV 5/80, serial 2a, B.1.K/WAY source report, report number 1088, December 21, 1951.

29. Ibid.

30. Details of the December meeting are provided in PRO KV 5/80, serial 6a, B.1.K/WAY source report, report number 2184, January 22, 1952. Details of the January meeting are provided in PRO KV 5/80, serial 7a, B.1.K/WAY source report, report number 2218, January 25, 1952.

31. PRO KV 5/80, serial 7a, B.1.K/WAY source report, report number 2218, January 25, 1952.

32. PRO KV 5/80, serial 6a, B.1.K/WAY source report, report number 2184, January 22, 1952.

33. PRO KV 5/80, serial 7b, B.1.K/WAY source report, report number 2362, February 6, 1952.

34. The report on the 31 January 1952 meeting (Ibid.) stated that Gordon Sandison, Secretary of British Actors Equity Association, was booked to address the next meeting to be held on 14 February—but if this did go ahead, there is no record of it in the file.

35. PRO KV 5/80, serial 12a, extract from B.1.F. source report, January 23, 1953.

36. PRO KV 5/80, serial 20a, F.4/WAY source report, report number 6954, November 5, 1953.

37. PRO KV 5/80, serial 23a, F.4/WAY source report, report number 7142, November 18, 1953.

38. In this report, a source states that ‘Pat Burke has now finally left Nick MacDonald’, but that she was ‘still an ardent Communist however and has bought a house…which she hopes eventually to use for Marxist discussion groups for the benefit of those Communists connected with the theatre who for professional reasons are unable to be open members of the Communist Party’. MI5 officers noted that they hoped to cover these meetings and that they still intended to make a ‘detailed study' of the MacDonald group. PRO KV 5/80, serial 31b, extract from F.4/HDW source report, November 10, 1954.

39. Rebecca Prime stresses the importance of these small-scale social circles in developing London’s émigré communities, noting that the ‘blacklisted community [was] centered around two (mutually inclusive) social poles, one being Donald Ogden Stewart and the other being Hannah Weinstein.' See ‘“The Old Bogey”: The Hollywood Blacklist in Europe', 481.

40. PRO KV 5/80, serial 1a, B.1.K/WAY source report, report number 999, December 10, 1951.

41. Ibid.

42. Ibid.

43. The memoir of Stella Rimington, former head of MI5, paints an unflattering portrait of MI5 in the post-war decades, describing a ‘haphazard' agency that offered no training to officers about the ideological motivations of those it was actually supposed to be investigating. See Open Secret: The Autobiography of the Former Director-General of MI5 (London: Arrow, 2002), 98.

44. PRO KV 5/80, serial 11a, B.1.F/GHL note on the MacDonald Discussion Group, December 2, 1952.

45. Ibid.

46. PRO KV 5/80, serial 20a, comment on F.4/WAY source report, report number 6954, November 5, 1953.

47. PRO KV 5/80, serial 25a, note by W.A. Younger, December 16, 1953.

48. Ibid.

49. PRO KV 5/80, minute 28, minute by J.C. Robertson, January 18, 1954.

50. PRO KV 5/80, minute 29, [signature illegible], January 21, 1954.

51. Ibid.

52. Ibid.

53. PRO KV 5/80, serial 8a, note by Courtenay Young, February 13, 1952.

54. KV 5/80, minute 34, minute by A.R.T. Stuart, May 3, 1955.

55. PRO KV 2/2994 serial 1z, B.1.F/WAY source report, report number 1734, September 12, 1952. KV 2/2994, serial 10a, B.1.F/WAY source report, report number 4123, February 13, 1953.

56. PRO KV 2/2994, serial 1a, B.1.F/WAY source report, report number 2456, November 21, 1952.

57. PRO KV 2/2994, serial 3a, extract from Theatrical Who’s Who, January 8, 1953. Sections of this serial have been redacted from the released file.

58. Her involvement with Donald Ogden Stewart Jnr, for example, was monitored by MI5’s source. See PRO KV 2/2994, serial 13a, F.4/ARTS source report, report number 14821, March 28, 1955.

59. In 1956, MI5 recorded the information that Zetterling was ‘presently the mistress of Tyrone Power’. See PRO KV 2/2994, serial 20a, F.4/ARTS source report, report number 24,128, November 23, 1956. When, in April of 1958, she married David Hughes, various articles reporting the wedding from The Evening Standard, The Daily Express and The Times were clipped and inserted into Zetterling’s file. Ever diligent, MI5 ran Hughes’s name thought their card file to see if he too was on record as being a security concern, but no trace was uncovered.

60. PRO KV 2/2994, serial 20a, F.4/ARTS source report, report number 24,128, November 23, 1956.

61. PRO KV 2/3106, serial 22a, B.1.F/WAY source report, report number 4138, February 13, 1953.

62. PRO KV 2/3106, serial 18a, letter from W.M.T. Magan to American Embassy, London, September 4, 1952. While it no doubt factored into their ongoing general assessments, it does not appear that MI5 specifically relayed information about the membership of the MacDonald Discussion Group to the Americans—probably due to the sensitivity of the operation and their source in the group.

63. PRO KV 2/3106, serial 26a, note for file by E.1 (MI5), May 13, 1954.

64. PRO KV 2/2994, serial 16a, letter from E.1 to Peck (Aliens Department, Home Office), August 19, 1955.

65. PRO KV 2/3107, serial 53a, letter from MI5 to Chief Constable Liverpool, November 26, 1957.

66. A note on this recommendation is at PRO KV 2/3106, serial 32a.