Spymaster by Martin Pearce

Author:Martin Pearce
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Transworld
Published: 2017-05-17T16:00:00+00:00

13

Mesmerized by Moles

WHILE OLDFIELD’S TIME in Washington was supposedly being spent cultivating relations with the CIA, he also took the opportunity to extend his global network and find other ways to increase MI6’s influence. One outcome of the CIA’s and MI6’s aggressive regime change operations, successful or otherwise, was to make it more difficult for the agencies to operate in certain areas, notably in the Middle East. So while working out of his Washington base, Oldfield didn’t limit himself to CIA-centric activities; he travelled extensively, made wider friendships in the non-political world, and used imaginative means to get MI6 agents where they needed to be.

In terms of building friendships, as usual Maurice started in the church. He became involved with the Church of the Ascension and St Agnes on Massachusetts Avenue, not far from his home and office, and typically got to know all strands of the diverse congregation. He would host parties at his house on Waterside Drive, and, as he had in Singapore, allowed young people introduced by the church to lodge with him from time to time. Maurice had grown up in a tiny house, packed with young people, and was imbued with the Christian value of sharing as readily and naturally as he was taught walking, talking and manners. It was part of him, and he would have thought nothing of sharing a big house with people who needed it. Though no secret, and no surprise to those who visited Maurice and knew him well, his kindness was to cause trouble for him eventually.

Regarding his aims to improve the reach of MI6, Oldfield targeted the Canadian intelligence network, notably the intelligence arm of their Department of External Affairs. He built a range of influential links with the Canadians, who had better access in countries where the Americans and British were regarded with suspicion. His closest contact was John Kennet Starnes, who had a formidable track record in anti-Soviet counterintelligence, and who was at the time head of the Canadians’ military mission in that most prominent of Cold War postings, Berlin. Oldfield’s connection with Starnes and his colleagues gave MI6 a useful extra source of intelligence not just from the Berlin station, but from parts of the Middle East where, again, officials of Canada’s Department of External Affairs were more welcome than their British and American counterparts. Oldfield would visit Ottawa on a regular basis to be kept apprised of developments.

Oldfield tried – but failed – to use his Canadian contacts to install an appropriate economist in the government of British Guiana (later Guyana), where the Prime Minister, Cheddi Jagan, was felt to have Marxist views that needed tempering. That problem was resolved when Jagan failed to win a majority in the 1964 general election and the British and Americans helped ensure that a coalition under Forbes Burnham took office.

On 8 May 1963, as the film version of Dr No was having its North American premiere and viewers were watching Sean Connery’s James Bond have dinner with

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