So the terrible twins of mass distraction, George Bush and Tony Blair, have set up inquiries into discrepancies in the intelligence dossiers used to justify the war in Iraq. With my limited experience of international espionage I can tell them now they are wasting their time, writes Wesley Boyd
For a start, intelligence is not a word that should be applied to intelligence services. Cunning would be more apt. With their innate fervour for survival, the agencies will splatter so much mud around the place that everyone will end up blaming poor old Mossad for it all.
My first face-to-face encounter with an intelligence agency took place in the unlikely location of the upstairs salon of Mooney's pub in Fleet Street, London, EC4.
I went there most days of the week for a lunch of beer and sandwiches, mainly because it was cheaper than the other establishments in the area and it afforded the opportunity to meet fellow impoverished journalists from Irish newspapers to exchange news and gossip. Our happy throng was joined occasionally by a freelance journalist of indeterminate Central European origin who contributed international stories on the twists and turns of the Cold War to the Dublin dailies. Let us call him Bruno.
Bruno was not only poor. He was mean. He had never been known to buy a drink for anyone and evinced pain when he had no option but to pay for his own libation. He was fluent in a number of mid-European languages; his written English was flawless but he could be a bit unsteady in the vernacular. Once, when we were wandering down Fleet Street to have an evening drink in the Falstaff after a hard day's toil at the typewriter, Bruno announced to our surprise and delight that he was coming in "to stand a round". Inside we waited. And waited. Bruno showed no sign of opening his mouth or his wallet. Gradually it emerged that his sole purpose in joining us in the pub was to literally stand around, out of the rain, for five or 10 minutes until it was time to go for his train at Blackfriars. This less than generous vignette of Bruno is necessary to put what follows in context.
One day to our humble lunch rendezvous in Mooneys there came a man in a raincoat and soft hat. He asked if he could join our company and was made welcome as he called for a round of drinks. Without preamble he informed us that he was from MI5, the secret agency responsible for internal security and domestic counter-intelligence activities within Britain. He was investigating our friend Bruno.
Bruno, it appeared, was living above his means. He had been observed frequently in expensive West End restaurants entertaining diplomats from Communist embassies - Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, even the ghastly Soviet Union.
The man from MI5 reckoned that Bruno could not afford to indulge in such high-cost entertaining from the fees he received from Irish newspapers. Too true, too true, we concurred ruefully. Where, then, was the money coming from? Was Bruno selling classified information to the Reds and, if so, from whom was he getting it? Had we ever seen him in the company of MPs or military-looking types? MI5 ordered another round to recharge our memories.
After a decent interval, so as not to insult his generosity, one of our number piped up. Did it ever strike you, he asked MI5, that far from hosting the lunches and dinners Bruno was being entertained by the diplomats, who were interested in getting any titbit of information from Whitehall or Westminster to pass on to their bosses in order to justify and sustain their comfortable postings in capitalist London? We never saw MI5 again.
During the same Cold War period I had occasion, in the course of my professional pursuits, to visit every Communist country in Europe except Albania.
Never once - in Sofia, Belgrade, Warsaw or even grimmest Moscow - was I approached by a slinky blonde with a husky voice inviting me to come to the aid of the Party. Obviously I was not regarded as spy material. Not so my old friend and colleague, Donal O'Donovan.
When he was assistant editor of this newspaper he was invited to tour East Germany to see the marvels of Communist achievement. After a few days behind the Wall he was invited to a meeting in East Berlin with three sober-suited gentlemen. It quickly transpired they were from the dreaded Stasi, the East German intelligence agency. They wanted Donal to be their eyes and ears in Ireland and in his role of journalist to travel to meetings abroad, such as the NATO Council, and report back.
As he recalls in his autobiography, Little Old Man Cut Short, Donal, intrigued by the prospects of entering the world of John Le Carré and being somewhat under the influence of alcohol, accepted the invitation. He was given the unlikely code name of Paddy O'Brien and told he would be paid in West German Deutschmarks. Back in Dublin he took a few diplomats out to lunch, gleaned nuggets from the Economist and other publications and relayed the information - all of which was in the public domain - to the Stasi.
He visited his mentors in East Berlin a few times and while there learnt how to make a drink called Nikolaschka. This must rank as the most potent weapon launched by the Stasi against the West. It consisted of a glass of brandy topped with a slice of lemon on which was placed a teaspoon of sugar and a similar portion of ground coffee beans, the lot to be scoffed at one go.
Donal introduced this drink to the long departed and much lamented Pearl Bar (just across the road from the paper) and it was responsible for not a few missed deadlines in The Irish Times.
I doubt if George and Tony will have as much fun in their encounters with the intelligence agencies.