In an account of his recruitment as a Communist spy that Philby left with a friend before his defection to Moscow, he describes Deutsch as a man “of considerable cultural background” who “hated London” but “adored Paris”.
Deutsch spent some time in Britain in the 1930s, enrolling for a doctorate at the University of London. He left in 1937, though he returned for a short visit in 1939. His espionage came to light through the testimony of a Soviet defector.
At one point, Arnold suggested that cousin Oscar employ him as an industrial psychologist in the cinema group — but the Home Office refused permission on the grounds that there were suitable British candidates for the job.
Professor Andrew says Oscar Deutsch was “probably unaware” of his cousin’s Soviet covert work.
But the files record the suspicions of one British intelligence officer, Major Kenneth Younger, that Oscar was deliberately obtaining work permits for people involved in espionage “with or without his knowledge”.
Another file documents British intelligence surveillance of Morris Cohen and his (Catholic-raised) wife Lona, alias Peter and Helen Kroger, American-born Soviet agents who were part of the Portland spy ring busted in the early 1960s. Jailed for 20 years in 1961, they were swapped for a Briton held in the USSR in 1969.
One of British Jewry’s most celebrated left-wing politicians, Manny, later Lord, Shinwell, a minister in the post-war Labour government — who died aged 101 in 1988 — was suspected of being a potential Communist sympathiser, though no evidence emerged to substantiate this. His 1955 memoir showed there was no love lost between him and the Communist Party, the MI5 file noted.
But probably the least known file subject in the latest batch is Cyril Wybrow, who was thrown out of the Joint Intelligence Board for passing on secret material to Israeli spies in 1950.
Born in Birmingham in 1894, Wybrow was stationed in Jaffa in the war as an intelligence officer with the British forces. But, according to MI5’s “top secret” summary of his case, he was removed in 1943 for “irregular conduct, in that he had used a network of Jewish informants to raise money for intelligence purposes”.
While Wybrow may have begun this “in all assistance” to aid his work, the report said, “it was more likely that his Jewish informants were in fact running him on behalf of Jewish interest, though whether Wybrow himself was aware of this is not known”.
Back in London, he managed to be employed by the Joint Intelligence Board. But when MI6 was tipped off that secret documents were being passed by an informant to Israeli intelligence and from them to “a satellite country”, Wybrow was put under surveillance back home.
His contacts with Israeli operatives were monitored and in spring 1950 he was fired from the JIB.
Although Wybrow “bore no obvious physical characteristics of a Jew,” the MI5 case report observed, his mother’s maiden name was Lazarus and one of his middle names was Abraham.
MI5 said the affair was “the first complete case of Israeli espionage in the UK”.
“The most important conclusion to be drawn from this case is that the Israeli intelligence service is hostile and attaches values to obtaining intelligence from this country”.
Another conclusion was that “doubt must now be thrown on the loyalty of those British Jews whose racial and ideological ties with Israel may be at variance with the allegiance they owe to the Crown.”
