No More For The Road

[lordroel]

Mar 5, 2018 12:29:26 GMT Dan said:

No Delta Force.
SEALs and Marine Force Recon, Green Berets, Rangers etc will be around though.

Probably the biggest changes I can foresee, and this may or may not be a spoiler, but the GSG-9 model, where the counter terrorist "Siege Busters" type forces are more likely to be Police rather than Army. GSG-9 for example are drawn from the Federal Police. So the FBI HRT won't have any competition for that role in the US, once a need is identified.

The Metropolitan Police are likely to try their hand at this using members of SO19.

A dam no Chuck Norris Delta Force movies then.

[James G]

Mar 9, 2018 12:44:50 GMT lordroel said:

Mar 5, 2018 12:29:26 GMT Dan said:

No Delta Force.
SEALs and Marine Force Recon, Green Berets, Rangers etc will be around though.

Probably the biggest changes I can foresee, and this may or may not be a spoiler, but the GSG-9 model, where the counter terrorist "Siege Busters" type forces are more likely to be Police rather than Army. GSG-9 for example are drawn from the Federal Police. So the FBI HRT won't have any competition for that role in the US, once a need is identified.

The Metropolitan Police are likely to try their hand at this using members of SO19.

A dam no Chuck Norris Delta Force movies then.

I'm sure there would still be action films in the style of Arnie in Commando etc. Delta Force had a good ring to it but Hollywood is always creative. Alpha Force as in Green Beret A-Teams?

[James G]

Any progress on the story, Dan ?

[Dan]

Sorry, been on a project at work the last few weeks. This story is not dead and will continue, hopefully once life calms down a bit.

Especially once the Hockey season is over.

[James G]

Good to hear. Looking forward to more.

[lordroel]

Mar 22, 2018 21:23:03 GMT James G said:

Good to hear. Looking forward to more.

Second that.

[Dan]

At present, I'm working on introducing another new face into the piece. OTL, it was rumoured, ITTL - he is.

[James G]

Will it be Roger Hollis?

[Dan]

Mar 23, 2018 14:02:11 GMT James G said:

Will it be Roger Hollis?

FFS did I leave my notes laying around again?


There are some options for him, and his OTL history actually gives a couple of ready PODs to change this up.

But yes, Hollis is next up.

[Dan]

(Still not sure how this sits, do not consider it cannon, even though it may later be fired)


It came as a surprise to some, but not to others, that in 1956, Sir Guy Liddell, the head of MI-5 announced his retirement with effect from the end of the year. As head of counter intelligence, it was down to Guy Burgess and his team to do the background checks on the proposed successor. As such, the name of Roger Hollis came across Burgess' desk.

Hollis had been head of the investigative branch of MI-5 having come through the ranks as a case officer after joining in 1938 and immediately became involved in operations in Ireland. No one had bothered to check his background beyond a lack of objectionable Irish ancestry and so hadn't checked his associations prior to joining. While he wasn't associated with the Cambridge Ring directly, Hollis had been compromised by the MGB while still at University over an affair with the young wife of a college professor. In practice, it was a basic honey trap for Hollis, who had already been approached by another party with regards to joining government service. Hollis, his reputation damaged, left the country before finishing his degree and found work in the Hong Kong as a reporter for a short while, before gaining employment with British American Tobacco in 1928.

It was during this time that Hollis once again found himself assisting the interests of the British Government once again, passing on local information to a freind working in Hong Kong Special Branch, a front for MI-5. The vast majority of this was innocuous, but occasionally, information about Chinese Communist Party operations in the British Enclave would fall in his lap, and such it would make it's way to the Special Branch. At some time in the mid 1930's, Hollis made a partial return to journalism, and by 1935 had returned to it full time.
The far east as it was at the time was most removed from the atmosphere at home, however, the drums of war beat loudly with the Japanese going to war with the Chinese, there was an upturn in information passing through his hands and onto Special Branch, so much so that his work as a journalist suffered, and in 1937 it was suggested that Hollis return to Britain and take a post in MI-5.

In early 1938, after completing his induction into the domestic intelligence services, he was, unusually for someone with such extensive far east contacts, placed onto operations against the IRA and treaty rejectionists in Ulster. In August 1939, just prior to the outbreak of the war, Hollis was returned to London, and it was there that Hollis was again approached by the professor from his college days. The professor agreed to keep the affair quiet in return for some seemimngly innocuous information, hinting that it would end up with "freinds".

Such blackmail would become a fairly regular feature of Hollis' life, however never once did he act to stop it. Being within MI5, in wartime, he held significant power and could have nipped the issue in the bud. Indeed, it is this failing which led almost directly to the circumstances which gave rise to the tumultuous events of the 1980's, as early action would have prevented some of the figures we know now to have been involved, getting closer to the heart of government than they already were. It has been proven repeatedly that Hollis was not a member of the Cambridge ring, but a dupe used by the NKVD, later the KGB at arms length to obsfucate matters well enough for for the Cambridge ring and their associates to set events in motion that we will examine later.

Once this had been established with Burgess' controllers, all such concernes about Hollis and his reliability were quietly deleted from his file by Burgess and his investigation allowing his appointment to the role vacated by Liddell from the beginning of January 1957.
Soured by his time fighting Irish Republicans and dealing with Chinese Communists in Hong Kong, it took little effort for investigations to be directed primarily against these two and away from Soviet activities. As such, thanks to a mix of mis-direction by the Cambridge Ring and Hollis' own bigoted obsessions, the last serious opportunity to avert disaster was missed.

History of Strife - United Kingdom from 1945 to 1995, Chapter 6 - Bit Parts and Supporting Actors. (Century House Publishing, 2011)

[lordroel]

Apr 6, 2018 8:26:33 GMT Dan said:

(Still not sure how this sits, do not consider it cannon, even though it may later be fired)

Regardless how this semi-update as i will call it will sit, nice to see it going.

[Dan]

This was a bit of a blocker. I think I have all the pieces in place now.

[James G]

Apr 6, 2018 8:31:34 GMT Dan said:

This was a bit of a blocker. I think I have all the pieces in place now.

Excellent news!

[lordroel]

Apr 6, 2018 8:34:48 GMT James G said:

Apr 6, 2018 8:31:34 GMT Dan said:

This was a bit of a blocker. I think I have all the pieces in place now.

Excellent news!

Second that.

[Dan]

For all the names that have been thrown around in the post war histories, none are held, unfairly, with more derision than that of Harold Wilson. Despite the smears thrown at him from certain quarters, he was not a Soviet mole or agent, there were many around him that, unknown to Wilson, and ironically, each other in the main, were indeed agents of the Soviet Union. Along side Wilson, it was a surprise that such dyed in the wool Socialists like Anthony Wedgewood Benn had not been turned, yet that did not stop him from being unofficially sent into exile during the "Years of Change", (or "The Purge Of Innocents" - depending on which side you fall).
It seems that the defection of a disgruntled Scientific Intelligence Officer from SIS to the CIA in 1970, was the nudge that set the dominos falling. In the early days, Sir Roger Hollis as head of MI5 and Sir Harold Philby as head of SIS, were able to minimise the damge done by the defection of Peter Wright, indeed, the two believed that they had not just dealt with the situation at home, but suitably blackened Wright's name with Philby's long time freind and CIA director James Angleton.
Angleton on the other hand, had begun to suspect that things were amiss as early as 1967 after their own sources in Moscow began to pick up chatter regarding double agents. Nothing regarding this came from the intelligence sources shared by the British which again raised suspicions. However, the CIA believed that the actions of British Intelligence in dealing with Chinese Communist intelligence rings, and their ruthless efficiency in dealing with Maoist insurgencies in South East Asia very successfully allayed a number of fears.
The CIA's sources in Moscow began to go quiet in early 1969 and seemed to be completely silenced by spring of 1970. American Intelligence were in the dark as to why until Wright's defection shed some light, and the 1972 defection of Major Anatoly Shaburidze shed a most unwelcome light on their fates.

Major Anatoly Shaburidze, originally a small village near Tiflis, Georgian SSR, had served in the NKVD during the Second World War as a Battlefield Commissar, following his regiment from Georgia, through the Caucases and Ukraine and finally into Austria for the end of the war. It was here, when advanced elements of his regiment met up with the American Army that the disenchantment with the Soviet system began. This was compounded shortly before his return to the Soviet Union. An "error in paperwork" saw him arrested and questioned at great length over blackmarket activities, while he was not "Extensively Interrogated", a common euphimism for torture, it was enough of a black mark on his record to stymie a so far, successful career within the NKVD, and later, the KGB. Instead, the Major was assigned to the records division, first in Vienna and later in Moscow. .

Ironically it was this posting which prevented Shaburidze from becoming involved in the Post Stalin power struggles, and also gave him access to some of the most valuable intelligence resources available.
As he languished in the records department, approaching retirement and having been passed over for promotion multiple times, he came to a decision that he would gain his revenge on the system that had oppressed him for so long, (the irony of his position would only strike him later on).
Shaburidze began to take copies of documents, and at the same time, began scheduling documents for destruction, claiming them damaged and that copies had already been made. Over the course of 18 months, until the end of 1971, the Major had ammassed over 3000 documents, a mixture of photographs of documents and originals detailing a range of topics from defenses in the Far East against Chinese attack, grain forecasts for the 1972/73 period and a series of documents regarding Soviet Intelligence activities abroad.

In the Spring of 1972, he recieved permission to visit Finland in order to watch Central Army Ice Hockey team play a freindly match against the Finnish National team in Helsinki. With the files hidden inside the chassis of his car, (one of the privilidges of his position), and travelling with 2 other KGB Officers, (who were unaware of his purpose), Anatoly Shaburidze set off on the 1000km drive to Helsinki. The story of the journey itself can be found in the book "Greatest Escapes Of All Time" By Edward Hamilton, (2015, Penguin), however, after arriving, and before the game itself, Shaburidze presented himself to the American Embassy and greated with increduality until the contents of the files were read. Within 24 hours, he found himself onboard a jet bound for Langley in Virginia and an extensive debreif.

There were many files of interest to Angleton and the CIA, however the main ones concerned "Johnson", "Hicks", "Homer", "Stanley", "Hobson" and "Williams".
The files indicated that they were Soviet agents planted into the highest levels of British foreign and domestic intelligence and also within the government itself. Within an hour, Angleton had drafted a note to President Nixon, advising of "unforseen, and disadvantageous intelligence situation", and that "immediate insulation of American interests" had begun.

What this entailed in the short term was the compartmentalising of all intelligence operations, and all material had to go through vetting before being shared with another nation. In particular, British intelligence noticed a change in the quantity of information, however the quality appeared to be good. At the other end, Moscow had given no indication that they were aware of the defection or the effects there of to their British Agents, expecting them to discover this on their behalf from the Americans.
The move to isolate the information left both London and Moscow in the dark for a differing period of time.
While the CIA began work on steps to clean up the mess that had occurred, no one quite foresaw what this plan would lead to.

From 'The Lion, The Bear and the Eagle - Intelligence Failures of The Cold War'. Clancy, Thomas, (Vauxhall Press, 2012)