21 May 2004 releases: Miscellaneous personal and policy files

As part of its 21 May 2004 release of files to The National Archives, a number of miscellaneous personal and policy files were transferred by the Security Service.

Miscellaneous personal files: Rudolf Peierls

File ref KV 2/1658-1663

Peierls was the leading German atom scientist who came to Britain in 1935 (becoming a naturalised British citizen in 1940) and subsequently joined the Manhattan project to develop the atomic bomb. He attracted Security Service attention because of his contact with the atom spy Klaus Fuchs, his Russian wife and his many communist academic contacts. This combined to excite speculation that Peierls, like Fuchs, might be passing atom secrets to the Russians, hence an exhaustive Security Service investigation, which uncovered no evidence of any wrongdoing on Peierls' part.

File KV 2/1658 (1938-1949) starts with notification that a Soviet visa stamp has been spotted on Peierls' passport when he re-entered the UK at Harwich in 1938, and there follows occasional correspondence about him and his close colleagues (especially Frisch and Bohr) up to 1943, when the file includes the formal request for an exit permit for Peierls to go to America to join the Manhattan project.

Then, in 1947, as suspicion fell on atom-spy Fuchs (but before his arrest), a Home Office warrant of Peierls' communications was issued as the Security Service investigated to see if Peierls was implicated with Fuchs. The product of that warrant is on the file. By September 1948, CS Weldsmith was able to minute "I have read PEIERLS file and it seems to me to show that not only have we nothing against him but that he is a man of very good sense." Nevertheless, the investigation continued.

Files KV 2/1659 (1949) and KV 2/1660 (1949-1950) contain Peierls' intercepted correspondence, including with Fuchs and Kathleen Lonsdale, and American reports of Peierls' contacts, friends and relations in America. There is further intercepted correspondence in KV 2/1661 (1950-1951) which also includes Peierls' request for a meeting with Fuchs, reports of meetings between Peierls and Security Service officers and a Metropolitan Police report of Peierls' meeting with Fuchs in Brixton Prison.

The file features a detailed Security Service report on Peierls, including a family tree. By now, the case was being wound up as no evidence of wrongdoing by Peierls had been found.

There is further intercepted correspondence and discussion of the case in file KV 2/1662, and a final case summary in KV 2/1663 of 1953, which concludes "In our view there is no substantial doubt about the loyalty of Professor PEIERLS."

Miscellaneous policy files: pigeon policy

File ref KV 4/229-231

These files relate to the Security Service's interest in Britain's post-war pigeon policy, which was led by the Joint Intelligence Committee.

Covering 1945-1947, file KV 4/229 deals with the establishment of a post-war sub-committee of the Joint Intelligence Committee to examine pigeon policy. The Security Service was initially not included in this committee, and when it was, there was a conflict with the Secret Intelligence Service about whether a military or civilian pigeon loft should be maintained (eventually the Security Service view won out, and a civilian loft run by Captain Caiser from his home in Worcester Park was established).

The Second World War had revealed that pigeons were now obsolete for signals purposes, but still had a role to play in intelligence work, and the JIC was anxious to ensure that Britain maintained its own pigeon capability and was adequately protected against enemy pigeons. The proposals are fully considered on the file, which includes the Security Service assessment of the post-war plans.

The file includes an appraisal of the wartime anti-pigeon Falconry Unit: "whilst they never brought down an enemy bird - probably because there never were any - they did demonstrate that they could bring down any pigeon that crossed the area they were patrolling". The file also includes the results of experiments on the impact of radio transmissions on the effectiveness of homing pigeons.

The story continues in file KV 2/230 (1947-1949). The armed services dropped out from the sub-committee in November 1948, having no further interest in the subject, leaving just the two intelligence agencies and Captain Caiser. There was some correspondence about the control of pigeons in a future war with the Home Office as it updated defence regulations. JIC asked the sub-committee to examine the impact of radiation on homing pigeons, and as a result a number of pigeons (and their handlers) were exposed to small doses of gamma radiation in the Arethusa experiment at Portland dockyard, to no recordable effect.

Finally in 1950, as recorded in file KV 4/231, Caiser asked the Security Service for some funding for his expenses in maintaining the government loft, which triggered an examination of the costs and benefits of the loft. As the loft had barely been used in five years, the Service recommended that the loft be disbanded and the Pigeon Committee wound up. This was agreed in May of that year.