A book by a retired British counter-intelligence agent on how he helped unmask a Soviet mole in MI5 sounds like an instant best-seller.
Well, it was in the US at least. Spycatcher, published in 1987, had been banned from being sold in the UK after legal action by the British government.
Courts even blocked newspapers from covering the memoirs, contending that its author, Peter Wright, violated the Official Secrets Act.
Magaret Thatcher, the then-prime minster, had been especially desperate to stop people from reading Spycatcher.
‘I am utterly shattered by the revelations in the book. The consequences of publication would be enormous,’ Thatcher scrawled on a briefing note, as unclassified files would later reveal.
But 36 years ago, the UK government lost a major legal battle that paved the way for Wright’s book to finally be read by millions of Britons.
Spycatcher was, it’s safe to say, controversial.
Wright had served in MI5, the UK spy agency, for more than two decades before he retired in 1978 and moved to Australia.
His memoirs accused MI5 officials of all kinds of skulduggery; plotting against fellow spies, defaming the former prime minister Harold Wilson and top agents being communists.
All claims were largely discredited by the government but, at the time, fuelled speculation and criticism about MI5’s activity. After all, the government had long denied M15 even existed, despite the agency being founded in 1909.
The government did not want the book as anyone’s summer holiday read. Ministers succeded in blocking Spycatcher’s publication in the UK (though technically not in Scotland, as it has a separate legal system) in 1985.
Newspapers were handed gag orders – violating them would see journalists tired for contempt of court. Libraries were told stocking Spycatcher would similarly land them in legal hot water.
Wartime powers were employed to stop people from effectively smuggling the book into the UK. Trade and industry secretary Lord Young of Graffham warned the government that: ‘The use of these powers in the Spycatcher case could well be challenged.
‘I am also advised that, even if the book were banned, it would not in practice be possible to catch all copies of the book brought in from the United States either by mail or by individual travellers.’
Indeed, there was no trouble flogging the book across the pond given the First Amendment right to free speech; Spycatcher had sold 400,000 copies by late 1987.
And the government’s woes weren’t over yet. Officials took Wright to court in a bid to prevent his book from being sold in Australia only to be struck down – Downing Street then took its appeal to Australia’s highest court.
As Spycatcher was sold in Scotland, and Scottish papers were able to ‘substantially’ cover the UK’s legal proceedings in Australia, Thatcher’s private secretary Nigel Wicks worried how this situation looked to outsiders.
‘There is therefore much talk in the press about one law for the English, another for the Scots etc,’ Wicks said in a released document.
House of Commons Speaker Bernard Weatherill faced pressure from Solicitor General Sir Nicholas Lyell to ban MPs from discussing the contents of the Spycatcher.
‘The speaker expressed concern about the “credibility” of his position given that “practically everyone he met” had already read the book,’ Sir Nicholas said.
‘I replied that most people in the country had not read the book and that every newspaper, bookshop and library was at risk of contempt proceedings if they published extracts, quoted from, or sold or stocked the book.’
In the end, however, in 1987, the government lost its desperate fight to prevent Spycatcher from being sold in Australia.
On October 13, 1988, Law Lords, who carried out the judicial functions of the House of Lords, at first seemingly handed the government a win when ruling over whether or not ministers could bar the press from reporting on Spycatcher.
Judges ruled that Wright’s text constituted a serious breach of confidentiality, given he wrote about the comings and goings of the nation’s secret service.
They condemned the author as a traitor but found the government violated freedom of speech because of gagging orders against the Observer and the Guardian.
They said that the press could publish extracts from Spycatcher – the damage to MI5’s reputation was already done as Spycatcher was freely available abroad.
‘At long last our democratic system has reached the obvious conclusion that these were genuine matters of public importance that the public should be allowed to know about,’ said Donald Trelford, the editor of The Observer, outside court.
A secret note slipped to Tory MPs only a month after the ruling said that the Security Service Act, which for the first time saw the government MI15 existed, was introduced to ‘bolster public confidence and support’ in the secret intelligence agency.
Part of the ruling, however, barred Wright from cashing in royalties from sales of the book in the UK.
Yet the writer died a millionaire aged 78 on April 26, 1995, thanks to international sales of Spycatcher.
‘No British intelligence officer other than Kim Philby caused more mayhem within Britain’s secret services and more trouble for British politicians,’ an obituary in The Independent newspaper wrote, ‘than Peter Wright.’
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