The Spying Game
The latest Bond film has seen the world of cloak and dagger step back into the limelight, just when we thought the Cold War was consigned to history. But then again, for Oxbridge the spying game has never really gone away. Bond himself has had many Oxbridge links, as his liaisons with a college tutor at the start of Tomorrow Never Dies showed. The eponymous Cambridge spies have made their mark on our modern history. Oxbridge, as we all know, is a fertile recruiting ground for spies.
Of course it is one of the oldest urban myths that the intelligence services searches out fresh talent amongst the dreaming spires. It is the Old Boy network taken to the extreme; tutors passing on details of promising students. Anonymous letters arriving in the post. Mysterious interviews in closeted London offices. Sometimes it seems like something out of the 1930's. Today MI6 is more open than it has ever been (hell, the government even acknowledges it's existence). They're now advertising for agents in the newspapers. After all, wasn't that GCHQ I saw at the Careers Fair the other week?
Certainly MI5, which deals with domestic affairs, has set new records for openness in recent years. Two years ago it began placing advertisements in The Guardian breaking an 88-year tradition of recruiting through the armed forces, the police... and discretely trawling through Oxford and Cambridge.
Yet despite this there is still a great deal about the intelligence services that we do not know. In recent years both David Shayler and Richard Tomlinson have threatened to 'spill the beans' about MI6 skulduggery. They may have been courting publicity and feeding the worst fantasies of conspiracy theorists, but then again there is something deeply unsettling about the underworld they claim to have inhabited. An underworld which, if some people are to be believed, stretches right to Oxford.
The classic story would run like this: student is sounded out by don or is approached anonymously. Letters referring to "positions in the Foreign Office outside of the open competition to the diplomatic service" might appear in their pigeonholes and they might be invited to "discussions" in London. In the typical tale this might involve rooms with blacked-out windows and conspicuous cameras in every corner of the room; three-hour grillings with interviewers who have an uncanny amount of knowledge about your past. And then, perhaps, an offer to "join the club".
In his book The File St Anthony's don Timothy Garton Ash relates his experiences from 1976. "Then I have a picture in my memory of the front quad of Exeter College on a beautiful sunlit morning. I am approached, somewhere on the Chapel side, by the Rector of the College, a large, genial, tweedy man. What exactly he said, in his confidential rumble, I cannot remember, but the gist of it must have been that he had heard that I might be interested in this sort of thing and should he perhaps have a word with someone in London?" He then received a letter reading, "I understand that you would be interested to learn about the possibilities of a career in Departments for which [the section] has a recruiting responsibility." Enclosed was a form suggesting "an exploratory talk."
Is this far-fetched? Possibly, possibly not. It is believed that MI6 (or, to give it its proper name the Secret Intelligence Service or SIS) looks at applications made to the Open Foreign Office Competition for the Civil Service (although it should be stressed they they are completely separate organisations). One student from St. Anne's claims that they received letters from the SIS inviting them to an interview, but gives this salutary advice after some uncomfortable experiences with the recruitment process.
"I would warn future students of the dangers of responding to letters from SIS. The best advice would be not to go to any "discussions" in the first place. Never sign anything."
Certainly this secretive world is not to everyone's tastes. Students can be seduced by the glamour of an undercover existence, but it can be a lonely life. Agents are unable to discuss work with anyone and, far from embarking on a life of adventure, can find themselves being used as pawns in the international power game. And as David Shayler has pointed out, the SIS is a law unto itself. It is highly secretive and unaccountable.
The student mentioned above found themselves uncomfortable working for such an employer, and say that they only managed to withdraw from the recruitment process "after a very disturbing experience." They recommend that, "If you receive a letter from the SIS, you should immediately consult the Careers Service" to find out about the Intelligence Services Tribunal which seems to be the only body regulating the behaviour security services.
But then again maybe this is all scare-mongering and paranoia. Maybe we do not have anything to worry about. Maybe there is no Oxbridge conspiracy and secret spy networks. But then again, in the spying game, nothing is what it seems...
18th Nov 1999