Spymaster: The Life of Britain's Most Decorated Cold War Spy and Head of MI6, Sir Maurice Oldfield

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It has been claimed (in Sunday News 20th Feb. and The Phoenix, 19th Feb.1983) that at the heart of the disclosures over the Kincora scandal is an internal row in the intelligence services. A dissident faction is thought to have formed in the Secret Service. The scuffles over revelations concerning Kincora started with the writing of a book by Rupert Allason, pen name Nigel West, son of a leading MI6 officer. A few minutes before midday on Bank Holiday Monday, August 27, 1979, the tranquil calm of the Co Sligo fishing village of Mullaghmore was suddenly shattered when an explosion ripped apart a small fishing boat, the Shadow V. The blast, caused by a 50lb bomb that had been planted on the boat by the Provisional IRA and detonated by remote control, claimed the life of perhaps the most high-profile victim of the Troubles — the Queen’s cousin, Lord Louis Mountbatten. Also killed in the explosion were the Dowager Lady Brabourne, Mountbatten’s grandson Nicholas Knatchbull and Paul Maxwell, a 15-year-old local boat boy. MI5 saw him as a threat to their activities in Northern Ireland," claimed Colin Wallace, who served in the Army's Intelligence Corps here in the 1970s.

Pastor Billy Mullan, a close friend of Ian Paisley, William McGrath and Joss Cardwell, was found dead with a legally held gun beside him during the probe into Kincora.Now, the astonishing life of Sir Maurice Oldfield who handled defectors in the Second World War and fought the KGB in the Cold War has been revealed in a book. Written Answers, Prime Minister". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). Vol.114. 23 April 1987. col.657 . Retrieved 12 April 2022. Without aid from our friends inside the German Abwehr, we shouldn't have won the war quite so soon. And if we had heeded some of them rather more than we did, it is possible that we could have won the war much earlier and not ended up with another potential enemy, if not on our doorstep, at least not very far away. [10]

Stephen Dorril and Robin Ramsay, Smear: Wilson & The Secret State, Fourth Estate Limited, 1991, p.297. Chris Ryder's Sunday Times story appeared a few days later, publishing for the first time details of the alleged incident at The Highwayman, and claiming it was the reason Oldfield's positive vetting had been withdrawn. [43] Connections Moment students yell 'You support genocide!' at Conservative politician who voted against Gaza ceasefire as she speaks to university's politics society The new building was the first village hall in Derbyshire to achieve Hallmark I and II accreditation, as being ‘effective and well-managed’.The newly discovered Cabinet Office files will be passed to the inquiry. They include documents and correspondence relating to senior Westminster figures including Peter Morrison, an MP who was Mrs Thatcher’s parliamentary private secretary, Leon Brittan, the former home secretary, and Sir William van Straubenzee, former conservative MP and junior minister. In early August 1975, Prime Minister Harold Wilson called in Oldfield and demanded to know if MI5 were plotting against him. Oldfield conceded that an element of MI5 was unreliable. Author David Leigh notes of this episode: Since leaving the Army he said he had been told that boys from Kincora were being taken to Brighton to be abused. Tony Cavendish, one of Maurice Oldfield’s oldest and most loyal friends, with his dogs at home in Hampshire in 1977. The picture was taken by Maurice. THE Martin Pearce / mediadrumworld.com