The Greatest Traitor (39 page)

The authorities were not content with the success of their show of overwhelming strength and, after months of trouble from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and its offshoots, they were in the mood for retribution. They went after the ringleaders and the result was the conviction, in February 1962, of six leading members of the Committee of 100 – Michael Randle, Pat Pottle, Terry Chandler, Ian Dixon, Trevor Hatton and Helen Allegranza. They had faced one charge under the Official Secrets Act of conspiring to enter a prohibited place ‘for a purpose prejudicial to the safety and interest of the state’, and another for inciting others for the same purpose. The men all received eighteen-month sentences, to be served in Wormwood Scrubs, while Helen Allegranza was sent to Holloway Prison for a year.

Randle, aged twenty-eight, had been at the heart of the anti-nuclear movement for several years. He had been appointed secretary to the founder Bertrand Russell, the venerable philosopher and Nobel Prize winner, at the inaugural meeting of the Committee of 100 in October 1960, but his active opposition to war – let alone nuclear war – had begun as far back as 1951 when he registered as a Conscientious Objector (CO) to military service. In 1956, he began a march from Vienna to Budapest, handing out leaflets expressing support for Hungarian passive resistance to the Soviet occupation, until he was ultimately prevented from entering Hungary by Austrian frontier guards.

Pottle, five years younger, inherited his left-wing views from his Protestant cockney father, a socialist and a trade union official at Morris Motors. Pottle organised his first anti-war demonstration while doing national service at RAF Uxbridge, and later succeeded Randle as secretary of the Committee of 100.

Randle and Pottle first encountered Blake in the Scrubs at a Music
Appreciation class and both felt an instinctive rapport with him. All three men had been charged under the Official Secrets Act, defended by the same QC, Jeremy Hutchinson, and prosecuted by the same Attorney-General, Reginald Manningham-Buller. Moreover, like Blake, they considered themselves to be political prisoners. During the few months in which all three were together, Pottle came to know Blake a little and determined to help him escape.

It was not that I was in the least sympathetic to the whole business of espionage [but] as Jeremy Hutchinson had said at his trial, it was a sentence which no civilized state would pass on one of its subjects. Forty-two years struck me as a manipulation of the Official Secrets Act, where the maximum sentence was set by Parliament at fourteen years.

The more I thought about it, the more my gut response of wanting to help George was strengthened. I do not claim, however, that at this early stage I carefully weighed up all the political pros and cons. My motive was purely humanitarian. Out of common humanity I was willing, if I could, to help him.

At a music class in late May 1962, Pottle first broached the subject with Blake, in a hurried conversation out of earshot at the back of the classroom. ‘If you can think of any way I can help you get out, let me know,’ he told him in lowered tones. A few days later Pottle had his response. The two men were sewing mailbags, when Blake gestured to the supervising prison officer that he needed to go to the lavatory. As he left the room, he signalled with his eyes that Pottle should follow him. The two men stood side by side at the urinals. As Blake left, he slipped a small packet into Pottle’s hand. At lunchtime, when he had the first, safe opportunity to examine its contents, Pottle was startled by what he found. He pulled out half a bar of chocolate, and hidden inside the wrapper was a note:

If you feel you can help me on your release, go to the Russian Embassy, introduce yourself and say ‘I bring you greetings from Louise’. [Louise was Blake’s emergency KGB codename.]

Between 10 and 11 o’clock we exercise in the yard outside ‘D’ Hall. If a rope ladder is thrown over the wall at the spot I have marked X as near to 10.30 as possible, I will be ready.

Blake had drawn a rough sketch on which was marked the spot where the ladder should be thrown. The note continued:

If this is acceptable to them, put the following ad in the personal column of the
Sunday Times.
‘LOUISE LONGING TO SEE YOU’. If this ad appears, the break will be the following Sunday. If they cannot help, place this ad: ‘LOUISE SORRY CAN’T KEEP APPOINTMENT’. Thank you for your help. Memorise this note, then destroy it – G

This excursion into the clandestine world of secret messages, codes and daring plans took Pottle aback. Apart from the obvious dangers, he was understandably reluctant to become entangled with the feared KGB. He planned to discuss his reservations with Blake as soon as his appeal was finished, but then came the decision to move him from the Scrubs, so that conversation never took place. Before leaving for an open prison, however, Pottle did manage to tell Randle about Blake’s extraordinary plan. The latter seemed apprehensive: the escape was bold, if not reckless, and it could have disastrous consequences for the Peace Movement if Pottle was caught. Both agreed not to become involved. It would be another three years, long after Randle had left the Scrubs, before a new man took on the challenge of freeing George Blake.

Sean Alphonsus Bourke arrived at Wormwood Scrubs in December 1961 to serve a seven-year sentence. His crime had been to send a
bomb in a biscuit tin through the post in an unsuccessful attempt to kill Detective Constable Michael Sheldon of Sussex police. The Irishman bore a venomous grudge against the police officer, who he believed had been spreading rumours that he was a homosexual, which he was sure had cost him his job at a youth centre in Crawley.

Bourke was born in Limerick in 1934, the sixth of seven boys whose extended family boasted a colourful collection of poets, drunks, misers, bare-knuckle fighters and general ‘wild rovers’. He himself turned out to be a reckless, feckless individual, who embarked on a career as a petty criminal from the age of twelve. He spent three years in a notorious reformatory in Daingean in County Offaly, Ireland, after which he travelled to England, only to land himself in Borstal after being convicted of receiving a stolen wireless set. Thereafter, he drifted from one job to another, on building sites and in factories, usually drinking far too much, until he was imprisoned.

For all his faults, Bourke could also be an immensely charming, witty and intellectually stimulating companion, and extremely loyal to those he liked and trusted.

Bourke was also a self-taught writer, fancying himself in the Irish literary tradition as a Brendan Behan type, and was actually a second cousin of the poet Desmond O’Grady. He undoubtedly had a way with words, editing the prison magazine,
New Horizon
, with some style, and later producing a gripping, painful memoir of his teenage experiences at the hands of the monks in the reformatory. It was the study of literature that drew him together with future fellow conspirators Blake and Randle.

In July 1962, all three had enrolled in the English Literature Diploma class run by the extramural department of London University. Soon, this unlikely trio, the irascible Irishman, the stubborn, idealistic Englishman and the imperturbable Dutchman, were the principal members of a unique political ‘salon’ that would meet on a Monday in the prison’s Education Block. The ‘host’ of this lively social gathering
was another of those remarkable characters who did time in the Scrubs in the 1960s.

Gerald Theodore Lamarque gave himself the pseudonym ‘Zeno’, after the Stoic philosopher. A petty criminal before the war, he was, from various accounts, a hero during it, becoming a member (under another alias of ‘Kenneth Sidney Allerton’) of the 21st Independent Parachute Company, who valiantly tried and failed to hold a bridgehead at Arnhem. Lamarque was in prison because he had stabbed and killed the lover of his former girlfriend. As this was deemed a ‘crime of passion’ he was spared the hangman’s rope and instead sentenced to life imprisonment. Even in disgrace he retained the look of a military man with a trim, curly moustache, neatly pressed clothes and erect bearing. He was a gifted writer who would go on to win the Arthur Koestler Award for outstanding artistic work in prison, for his book about his experiences at Arnhem,
The Cauldron.
Lamarque was a trusted ‘blue band’ (or Leader) in the prison hierarchy, allowed to move freely outside his own wing and to escort other prisoners. He supervised the literature class and would allow it to drift into long debates about politics, representing the right with unorthodox views close to those of Enoch Powell.

Randle enjoyed his intellectual jousting with Blake. He found him an engaging, fascinating conversationalist, and he admired his stoicism in the face of what he considered a vicious and vengeful sentence by the authorities. Throughout his time in the Scrubs he hesitated to broach the subject of Blake’s note to Pottle, or the possibility of an escape plan, and, by the time he left in January 1963, regretted not having done so.

With Randle gone, Bourke and Blake were thrown together even more during 1963 and 1964. Bourke continued to be astonished by his friend’s self-control and selflessness: ‘I always marvelled at the sight of this man without hope giving help and advice and comfort to young fellows in their twenties whose grandchildren would be in Borstal before Blake again saw the light of day as a free man.’

Blake had, in fact, drawn strength from his punishment. Not for a moment would he give up thoughts of freedom, though: ‘The sentence was such that it almost became a question of honour to challenge it . . . like a POW, I had a duty to escape.’ As time went by, however, hopes that the KGB might be able to help had faded away. He knew he had to rely on his own resources, so he watched and waited, searching for an associate on the inside – someone he could trust never to go to the authorities, someone with ‘initiative, courage and the single-mindedness to see the job through’. The more he thought about it, the more certain he was that Sean Bourke fitted the bill.

Blake began to feel that he had little to lose by an escape attempt: that summer, Gillian had met a man she liked while on holiday and was, for the first time, starting to consider divorce. In the summer of 1965 the perfect opportunity arose when Bourke, coming towards the end of his sentence, was due to go before the hostel board. In the autumn, if the interview was successful, Bourke would be released into the outside world by day, returning only at night to sleep in the hostel in the prison grounds – a ‘halfway house’ on the path to full release a few months down the line.

On Monday, 6 September, as the two men were taking one of their regular walks together in the prison hall, Blake told Bourke he had given up any hope of release through a prisoner exchange. ‘I have therefore decided that the time has come for me to leave here . . . er . . . under my own steam, as it were. I am asking you, Sean, to help me escape,’ was Bourke’s recollection of the request. The Irishman was surprised: ‘There had been no warning of this, not the slightest hint in that smiling face over the years.’ Blake urged him to take time to think it over, but Bourke said he did not need to.

‘Oh?’ His face clouded apprehensively. ‘What have you decided?’

‘I’m your man.’

The interview with the hostel board went well and, at the end of
November, Bourke was released. Over the next couple of weekends, he spent many hours walking every street in the neighbourhood around the prison, building up a detailed knowledge that would be crucial when planning and executing Blake’s getaway. Even at this early stage, he had decided that once Blake was over the twenty-foot wall, he would drop down into Artillery Road – now marked on maps as Artillery Lane, and really little more than an alleyway – which was the closest and most secluded place to position the getaway car. The only drawback was that, with Hammersmith Hospital just opposite, the area would be busy at certain times of the day. In particular, they would need to plan around hospital visiting hours.

In the spring of 1966, Bourke, with Blake’s encouragement, made a number of fruitless attempts to persuade the spy’s family to finance George’s escape. It came to a head when he met Blake’s mother Catherine and his sister Adele Boswinkle for a meal at the Cumberland Hotel near Marble Arch, during which he set out his stall. Adele, the dominant figure in the family, was singularly unimpressed by what he had to say. She recognised Bourke had her brother’s best interests at heart, but thought his plans vague and impractical, and considered him likely to be a shaky executioner of them. In particular, she was perturbed that he seemed to have no clear idea about where to hide George once he was over the wall, and no plan of any sort to spirit him safely out of the country. They decided not to get involved.

To whom could Bourke turn now? The more he thought about it, the more obvious the answer: his fellow alumni from the English Literature Diploma class, who were good friends of Blake, disgusted by his sentence, always prepared to defy authority, and well equipped for such an adventure by dint of their many ‘direct actions’. Surely Michael Randle and Pat Pottle would lend a hand?

In mid-May, Randle was studying hard for his final exams for a BA in English at University College, London. He hoped the qualification would provide the launchpad for a teaching career in academia. His first son, Sean, had been born in August 1962, when he was serving
his sentence in Wormwood Scrubs, and a second, Gavin, was born in January 1964.

Pat Pottle had seen a hectic few years in the anti-nuclear movement. After his release from jail in January 1963, he had taken up a post as Bertrand Russell’s secretary. As Russell’s ‘emissary’ to the Chinese government in 1964, along with Ralph Schoenman, the American left-wing activist and fellow member of the Committee of 100, he had so antagonised his hosts that he had been subjected to a quasi-trial and deported from the country. Chou En-Lai himself was irritated by the activists’ behaviour and described the two young men as the ‘running dog lickspittles of the American imperialists’.