Spot the spook

Spook spotting has been an entertaining pastime for decades in many Reuters postings. Political secretary was a transparent euphemism in many places and I am sure we all have stories about inept spooks blowing their cover. I remember spies of various stripes being particularly active in east and southern Africa during the wars against white rule, including at least one correspondent for a British newspaper. 

But I have my doubts about whether there was a strict barrier between SIS, MI5 and Reuters and believe there were ad hoc informal contacts when needed, at least during the Cold War, without implying any agreement to work for the security services or infringe our commitment to impartiality.

Not long after I first joined Reuters in the 1970s, I was invited to lunch by a Russian journalist who I had met at a reception at the Sudanese embassy. He took me to the Paradiso & Inferno restaurant in the Strand, obviously choosing the Inferno part which was downstairs. Not long afterwards I received a call from the staff department saying a man from the Inland Revenue wanted to speak to me urgently. At the time I was doing Italian lessons at a school in Oxford Street where the gent turned up carrying a bulky official leather briefcase and asked to speak to me in a private room. He produced a series of long shot photos, obviously taken covertly from cars, of the Russian in various parts of London. I was questioned about whether I knew the man, who he was, how I met him and so on. The official then told me the Russian was a KGB agent and to keep away from him. I heard no more and soon afterwards went off on a foreign posting. But several years later I was told by a senior executive that the encounter was in my personnel file and that I had been given a clean bill of health by the security services. I was also told the name of a senior Reuters executive, who had been an army officer in World War II and who was their contact at Reuters. What has baffled me ever since is why the Soviets would be interested in such a junior Reuters journalist. ■