Jump to content

Rupert Allason

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rupert Allason
Member of Parliament
forTorbay
In office
11 June 1987 – 1 May 1997
Preceded byFrederic Bennett
Succeeded byAdrian Sanders
Personal details
Born
Rupert William Simon Allason

(1951-11-08)8 November 1951(age 72)
London,England, U.K.
Political partyConservative
EducationDownside School
OccupationAuthor and MP

Rupert William Simon Allason(born 8 November 1951) is a British formerConservative Partypolitician and author. He was theMember of Parliament(MP) forTorbayinDevon,from1987to1997.He writes books and articles on the subject ofespionageunder the pen nameNigel West.

Background

[edit]

Born inLondon,Allason and his brother, Julian, were brought up asRoman Catholics,[citation needed]the faith of theirIrishmother, Nuala (who acted under the names Nuala McElveen and Nuala Barrie), daughter of John A. McArevey, ofFoxrock,Dublin.[1]The boys attendedDownside School.Their father,James Allason,was also a Conservative Party MP, descended from the architectThomas Allason.[1]

Political career

[edit]

Allason contestedKetteringin1979andBatterseain1983before being elected as Conservative MP for Torbay in 1987.

He was opposed to integration with theEuropean Union;in 1993 he was the only Conservative to refuse to vote for theMaastricht Treatywhen it was made into amotion of confidence.The vote was narrowly won, but Allason's abstention caused him to have theparty whipwithdrawn for a year.[2]

He left parliament after the landslide1997 general electionin which he lost his seat toLiberal DemocratAdrian Sanders.[3]His margin of defeat was just twelve votes, one of the narrowest election margins since 1945. It was reported that Allason had failed to tip a pub waitress a week before polling day, and that as a consequence, fourteen waiters who were going to vote for him switched to the Liberal Democrats.[4]

In 2000, Allason was reported to have considered joining theUK Independence Party(UKIP).[5]AuthorJon Ronson,in the first chapter of his bookThem: Adventures with Extremists,briefly analysed Allason's career and character, with particular emphasis on his 1997 electoral loss.

Literary career

[edit]

As an author, Allason has concentrated on security and intelligence issues. He was voted 'The Experts' Expert' by a panel of other spy writers inThe Observerin November 1989. In 1984The Sunday Timescommented: "His information is so precise that many people believe he is the unofficial historian of the secret services. West's sources are undoubtedly excellent. His books are peppered with deliberate clues to potential front-page stories."

Allason has been a frequent speaker at intelligence seminars and has lectured at both theKGBheadquarters in Dzerzhinsky Square,Moscowand at theCIAheadquarters inLangley,Virginia, where he once addressed an audience that included theSovietspyAldrich Ames.He continues to lecture to members of the intelligence community at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies inWashington, D.C.

His special contribution to the study of modern historical espionage has been in tracking down former agents and persuading them to tell their stories. He traced the wartime double agentGARBO,who was reported to have died inAfricain 1949. However, Allason found him inVenezuela,and they collaborated on the bookOperation Garbo,published in 1985.

He was also the first person to identify and interview the mistress ofAdmiral Canaris,the German intelligence chief who headed theAbwehr,and he was responsible for the exposure of Leo Long and Edward Scott as Soviet spies.[citation needed]

His titles includeThe Crown Jewels,based on files made available to him by theKGBarchives in Moscow;VENONA,which disclosed the existence of aGRUspy-ring operating in London throughout the war, allegedly headed byJ. B. S. HaldaneandIvor Montagu;andThe Third Secret,an account of the CIA's intervention inAfghanistan.Mortal Crimes,published in September 2004, investigates the scale of Soviet espionage in theManhattan Project,the Anglo-American development of anatomic bomb.

In 2005 he editedThe Guy Liddell Diaries,a daily journal of the wartime work ofMI5's Director of Counter-Espionage. He also published a study of theComintern's secret wireless traffic,MASK: MI5's Penetration of the Communist Party of Great Britain,and the first of a series of counter-intelligence textbooks,The Historical Dictionary of British Intelligence,The Historical Dictionary of International IntelligenceandThe Historical Dictionary of Cold War Counter-Intelligence.

In his 2018 book,Cold War Spymaster: A Legacy of Guy Liddell, Deputy Director of MI5,the author did not suggest that Liddell had passed secrets to the Soviets, as had been claimed by some other authors, including John Costello in hisMask of Treachery.In fact, Allason under the 'West' pseudonym stated that Liddell "was betrayed by Burgess, Blunt and Philby", according to a 2019 summary of the book.[6]

[edit]

Allason has been involved in a number of legal cases, in each of which he represented himselfwithout lawyers.While in the House of Commons, he campaigned against the use ofpublic-interest immunitycertificates, and exposed the arms-dealing activities of the publisher and fraudsterRobert Maxwell.He was sued for libel by Maxwell but won the case, winning record damages for a litigant in person by counterclaim.[citation needed]

In 1996 Allason suedAlastair Campbellfor malicious falsehood with regard to an article printed in theDaily Mirrorin November 1992. The case was heard by Mr Justice Drake, without a jury. The judge ruled that Allason had failed to demonstrate that theDaily Mirrorarticle, although inaccurate, had caused him any financial loss.[7][8]In a retrial in 1998, he was awarded £1,050 in damages and 75% of his legal costs.[8]

In 1998, Allason lost a libel action – his 18th – against the authors and publishers of theHave I Got News for You1997 diary for referring to him as "a conniving little shit".[9]

In 2001, Allason suedRandom House,the publishers ofThe Enigma Spy,the autobiography of the former Soviet agentJohn Cairncross.Allason claimed he hadghostwrittenThe Enigma Spyin return for the copyright and 50 per cent of the proceeds. However, Allason lost the case and was ordered to pay costs of around £200,000. The trial judge, Mr Justice Laddie, described him as "one of the most dishonest witnesses I have ever seen".[10]

Honours and awards

[edit]

Allason is the recipient of the US Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO)'s Lifetime Literature Achievement Award, and in 2011 he was elected to the Honorary Board of that association. He is the European Editor of theWorld Intelligence Review,published inWashington, D.C.[11]

Personal life

[edit]

In 1979 Allason married Nikki van Moppes. They divorced in 1996. The couple have two children.[12][13]In 2012, he married violinistNicola Loud.[14][15]

Publications

[edit]
  • Spy!(by Richard Deacon with Nigel West), London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1980
  • MI5: British Security Service Operations, 1909–1945,New York: Stein and Day, 1982, 1981
  • A Matter of Trust: MI5, 1945–72,London:Weidenfeld & Nicolson,1982; published in the U.S. asThe Circus: MI5, Operations 1945–1972,New York: Stein and Day, 1983
  • MI6: British Secret Intelligence Service Operations: 1909–45,London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1983
  • Unreliable Witness: Espionage Myths of the Second World War,London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1984
  • The Branch: A History of the Metropolitan Police Special Branch(By Rupert Allason)
  • Operation Garbo: The Personal Story of the Most Successful Double Agent of World War II,co-written byJuan Pujoland Nigel West, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1985
  • GCHQ: The Secret Wireless War, 1900–86,London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1986,ISBN0-297-78717-9
  • Molehunt: The Full Story of the Soviet Spy in MI5,London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1987
  • The Friends: Britain's Post-War Secret Intelligence operations,London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1988
  • Games of Intelligence: The Classified Conflict of International Espionage,London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1989
  • The Blue List(novel), London: Secker & Warburg, 1989,ISBN0-436-56602-8
  • Cuban Bluff(novel), London: Secker & Warburg, 1990
  • Seven Spies Who Changed the World,London: Secker & Warburg, 1991
  • Secret War: The Story of SOE, Britain's Wartime Sabotage Organisation,London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1992
  • Murder in the Commons(novel), London: 1992
  • The Faber Book of Espionage:Faber & Faber, December 1994
  • Murder in the Lords(novel), London: 1994
  • The Secret War for the Falklands: SAS, MI6 and the War Whitehall Nearly Lost:Little Brown, January 1997,ISBN0-7515-2071-3
  • Introduction toBritish Security Co-ordination: British Intelligence in the Americas, 1940-45:Little Brown, 1998
  • The Faber Book of Treachery:Faber & Faber, March 1998
  • The Crown Jewels: The British Secrets Exposed by the KGB Archives,London: HarperCollins, 1999, 1998
  • Counterfeit Spies:Time Warner Paperbacks, March 1999
  • VENONA: The Greatest Secret of the Cold War:HarperCollins, May 2000ISBN0-00-653071-0
  • The Third Secret: The CIA, Solidarity and the KGB's Plot to Kill the Pope:HarperCollins, October 2000
  • Mortal Crimes: The Greatest Theft in History: Soviet Penetration of the Manhattan Project,New York: Enigma Books, 2004
  • The Guy Liddell Diaries: 1939–1942 Volume 1:Frank Cass Publishers, February 2005
  • The Guy Liddell Diaries: 1942–1945 Volume 2:Routledge, London, June 2005
  • Historical Dictionary of British Intelligence:Scarecrow Press, London, June 2005
  • Mask: MI5's Penetration of the Communist Party of Great Britain:Frank Cass Publishers, July 2005
  • On Her Majesty's Secret Service: The Chiefs of Britain's Intelligence Agency, MI6:Greenhill Books, London October 2006
  • Double Cross in Cairo: The true story of the spy who turned the tide of war in the Middle East.London: Biteback Publishing. 2015.ISBN978-1-84954-796-3.
  • Classified! The Adventures of a Molehunter:Biteback Publishing, London, February 2024ISBN9781785908538

References

[edit]
  1. ^abBurke's Landed Gentry, eighteenth edition, vol. I, ed. Peter Townend, 1965, Burke's Peerage Ltd, p. 9
  2. ^"Rupert Allason: No stranger to the courtroom".BBC News.17 October 2001.Retrieved20 August2006.As John Major's prime ministership lurched from crisis to crisis, every MP's vote counting as the tiny Conservative parliamentary majority dwindled away after 1992, Mr Allason rebelled over Maastricht and then became the only Tory to refuse to back his government in a no confidence motion.
  3. ^"General election results in Torbay, 1997 and 2001".Political Science Resources.Richard Kimber.Retrieved11 October2007.
  4. ^"A guide to life in a marginal constituency".BBC News.9 January 2015.Retrieved9 January2015.
  5. ^"Tory Euro-sceptic considers defection".BBC News.9 January 2000.Retrieved11 October2007.
  6. ^"Behind a bittersweet industry".Coldspur. 31 March 2019.Retrieved31 December2020.
  7. ^"Campbell denies control freak claim".BBC News.23 July 1998.Retrieved11 October2007.
  8. ^ab"Rupert Allason wins case against Alastair Campbell, PM's aide".BBC News.30 July 1998.Retrieved11 October2007.
  9. ^"Ex-Tory MP loses libel action".BBC News.21 January 1998.Retrieved27 July2019.
  10. ^"Rupert Allason: A reputation in tatters".The Independent.20 October 2001.
  11. ^"Contact Us".World Intelligence Review. Archived fromthe originalon 20 January 2007.Retrieved11 October2007.
  12. ^"Rebel without a case" profoundly dishonest "".The Independent.[dead link]
  13. ^"Ex-Tory MP loses libel action".BBC News.21 January 1998.Retrieved23 May2010.
  14. ^Walker, Tim (26 July 2012)."Spy author Rupert Allason seduces Loud musician".London: The Daily Telegraph.Retrieved27 November2016.
  15. ^Oliver, Aidan (6 October 2012)."Tweet".Twitter.Retrieved18 April2022.
[edit]
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Member of ParliamentforTorbay
1987–1997 		Succeeded by
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rupert_Allason&oldid=1223778424"