One of Us
Annie: Hello, darling!
PM: Ah, the news! Got to me yet?
A: No. What have you done now?
PM: A sensational Question Time. People attacking me about my controlling defence expenditure. I really made mincemeat of them.
A: They haven't mentioned it yet.
PM: Typical BBC.
A: It's not BBC.
PM: Typical ITV.
A: It's Channel 4.
PM: Well, what can you expect? Turn it up, then.
Newscaster: There's growing anxiety for the fate of Benji, an 0ld English sheepdog, who last night got under the wire and into the Ministry of Defence artillery range on Salisbury Plain.
Benji belongs to 8-year-old Linda Fletcher. Linda lost both her parents in a car crash last year. Both she and Benji survived.
Unfortunately, the area is full of unexploded shells and is highly dangerous except for one fixed road through the range. Benji is a long way from the road and seems to be lost.
The Army expressed their regrets, but say that unless he comes to the road there's nothing they can do. If nothing happens soon, he will either starve or be blown up.
Linda is preparing to spend another night's vigil on Salisbury Plain, hoping that Benji will come back.
And that's the news this evening.
PM: Are you sure you watched all of the news?
A: Yes.
PM: Was it on, not a bit about me?
A: No, unless I missed it, of course.
PM: You said you watched it all.
A: But you know how it is when one watches TV, one sort of mentally tunes out the boring bits. Not you, dear. You're not boring. At least not to me, even if you are to the rest of the country.
PM: The future defence of Britain was being fought out in the great forum of the nation and what do they give the viewers? A rerun of “Lassie Come Home”!
A: I think the Army ought to rescue that dog.
PM: Kids lose dogs every day. Should the Army rescue every one of them?
A: You don't understand how ordinary people feel.
PM: I happen to be an ordinary person myself.
A: Oh, surely not!
PM: You want me to waste taxpayers' money on buying a bit of cheap popularity?
A: Sometimes you have to do things that aren't economic in a civilised humane society.
PM: Write a paper on that and submit it to the Treasury. We don't get many laughs in the cabinet economic committee!
Bernard: The Director General of MI5, Prime Minister.
PM: Ah, hello, Geoffrey. Come along in.
DG: Thank you, Prime Minister. Eh, I wonder if...
PM: Oh, that's all right. I always have Bernard present at my meeting.
DG: Not this time, Prime Minister.
PM: Ah. I don't always have Bernard present.
PM: Do sit down. I don't seem to have any papers for this meeting.
DG: No, it's too serious.
PM: Why?
DG: We've just received some information.
PM: Isn't that what you're supposed to do?
DG: Do you know John Halsted?
PM: Your predecessor. Head of MI5 in the sixties. Died last month.
DG: He left whole of his personal papers to us. We've started to go through them. It is very clear that he was passing government secrets to Moscow for several years in the '50s and '60s.
PM: The head of MI5?! A Russian agent?
DG: So it seems.
PM: Why did he leave his papers to you?
DG: His will said it was a final act of conscience. I think it's just posthumous gloating. Showing us he could get away with it.
PM: How much did he tell them?
DG: That hardly matters. I mean, what with Burgess, McLean, Philby, Blake and Fuchs and the Krogers, one more didn't make much more difference. The point is he was one of us.
PM: One of us?
DG: Joined MI5 straight from Cambridge, Civil Service all his life. If this ever gets out, all of us recruited in his time will be suspects for ever.
PM: Yes...You're not a spy, are you? Only joking. You're not, are you? No...
DG: This is not all. We held an internal security investigation into Sir John in the '70s. There was a media speculation. Remember?
PM: Vaguely.
DG: All totally irresponsible and ill-informed.
PM: When the press suggested he was a spy?
DG: Yes.
PM: Well, he was.
DG: But they didn't know that! They were being totally ignorant and irresponsible. They just happened to be accurate, that’s all. Anyway, the inquiry cleared him completely. Clean bill of health. But they missed some rather obvious questions and checks. So obvious that...well... One wonders.
PM: Yes. What does one wonder?
DG: One wonders about the chaps who cleared him. Whether they were...you know.
PM: I see. Whether they were stupid, you mean?
DG: No, Prime Minister. Whether they were also...
PM: Spies?! My God! Who headed that inquiry?
DG: Old Lord MacIver, but he was ill most of the time. Well, ga-ga, actually. So, effectively, it was the secretary who conducted it.
PM: Who was the secretary?
DG: Humphrey Appleby.
PM: Humphrey?!
DG: Yes, Prime Minister.
PM: You think he may have been a spy, too?
DG: It's a remote possibility, but it is very unlikely. After all, he's one of us.
PM: So was John Halsted.
DG: Well, yes, but there's no other evidence against Humphrey.
PM: Might he have been covering up for one of us...one of them...one of you?
DG: I suppose so, but I have no doubts at all about his loyalty. It's much more likely to be just...
PM: Hideous incompetence.
DG: We haven't been through the rest of his papers. You could hold an inquiry into Sir Humphrey.
PM: Could I?
DG: Well, I wouldn't recommend it not at this stage. Things might get out. We don't want any more irresponsible and ill-informed press speculation.
PM: Even if it's accurate.
DG: Especially if it's accurate. There's nothing worse than accurate, irresponsible, ill-informed press speculation. You could send Humphrey off on gardening leave while we examine the rest of the Halsted papers.
PM: Gardening leave?
DG: Oh certainly, and you could confront him with it. The substantive evidence is all here.
PM: Look, if you don't really suspect him, shouldn't we just forget about it?
DG: Well, obviously, it's your decision, but on the other hand, if you did nothing and it emerged later that Sir Humphrey...that he was...one of them, well, it might not look too good. Not to mention the fact that as Cabinet Secretary he co-ordinates our security services. There are no secrets from him.
PM: You're right.
DG: But personally, I find it hard enough to believe that one of us was one of them. But if two of us were one of them...Two of them...all of us could be, um...
PM: All of them. Thank you, Geoffrey. I've heard enough.
PM: Awful! Another three points down in the opinion polls.
SH: Not the government. Only your personal rating.
PM: What have I done wrong?
SH: Well, a low popularity rating usually means you’ve been doing things right.
PM: It's not my failure to get defence cuts?
SH: To be honest, I don't think defence cuts have been the principal topic of conversation in supermarkets of Britain this morning.
PM: What is? It’s not my defence policy.
SH: To judge from the popular press, I’m afraid it's the lost dog on Salisbury Plain.
B: Perhaps the government needs a lost dog policy.
SH: Anything else, Prime Minister?
PM: Yes, there is something else. A security matter. Bernard, would you mind?
B: I'm sorry?
PM: What are you doing?
B: Well, I thought...There wasn't anyone...
PM: I was just hoping you'd leave us alone.
B: Oh! Oh. Yes.
SH: Prime Minister.
PM: Yes, Humphrey. There's something I want to talk to you about. Something...very secret.
SH: Would it be easier if I wasn't here?
PM: A few years ago, there was a security inquiry. Does the name Sir John Halsted ring a bell?
SH: Yes, of course. In fact, I had to conduct the inquiry myself, virtually.
PM: And you didn’t find anything incriminating?
SH: Of course not. In the first place, John Halsted was one of us. We'd been friends for years. In the second place, the whole story was got up by the press, and in the third place, the whole object of internal security inquiries is to find no evidence.
PM: Even if the security of the realm is at risk?
SH: Oh, Prime Minister, if you really believe the security of the realm is at risk, you call in the Special Branch. Government security inquiries are only used for killing press stories. They enable the Prime Minister to stand up in the House and say, “We’d held a full enquiry, and there is no evidence to substantiate these charges.”
PM: What if you had found something suspicious?
SH: Practically everything that happens in government is suspicious. The fact that you asked Bernard to leave us alone for a secrete conversation might be construed as suspicious.
PM: Indeed.
SH: But in any case, the whole story was clearly a nonsense. Typical Fleet Street sensationalism.
PM: So there's no possibility that Sir John Halsted was passing secrets to Moscow?
SH: Impossible. Out of the question.
PM: You'd stake your reputation on it?
SH: Without hesitation.
PM: I see. Well, I'm afraid I have to tell you that for a substantial part of his career he was a Russian spy.
SH: I don't believe it. Who says so?
PM: He does. He left all his papers to the government, including a detailed confession. MI5 says it’s absolutely true. It checks out all along the line.
SH: But... Good Lord, he... I mean, he was...
PM: One of us?
SH: Exactly! This certainly leaves a lot of questions to be asked.
PM: Yes, and I'm asking you the first of them--why didn't you ask him a lot of questions? Why did the inquiry exonerate him so quickly?
SH: I've already told you! Anyway, we were very busy. Besides... Good Lord! You don't think...? I mean, surely nobody suspects...? What else was I expected to do?
PM: You could have held a proper inquiry. After all, you had an evidence of his surprisingly long stay in Yugoslavia.
SH: Yes?
PM: Shortly afterwards, several MI5 agents behind the Iron Curtain were rounded up and never seen again.
SH: Yes...
PM: He spent a lot of time with one particular interpreter.
SH: And she turned out to be a Russian agent. We knew that. Most Yugoslav interpreters are Russian agents. Those who aren't with the CIA, that is.
PM: You never followed it up.
SH: I had better things to do with my time.
PM: Three months later, she moved to England and settled in Cambridge, 150 yards from Sir John Halsted's own house. They were neighbours for the next 11 years.
SH: Crikey! You can't check up on everything! You never know what you might find! If you have that sort of suspicious mind...you ought to..
PM: Hold security inquiries.
SH: Ye...no! John gave me his word. Halsted. The word of a gentleman.
PM: Anyway, Humphrey, I have a problem. You.
SH: Me? You don't think...? You couldn't think...I don't speak a word of Russian!
PM: But you must admit it was either incompetence or collusion.
SH: Collusion! I give you my word it wasn't collusion!
PM: The word of a gentleman?
SH: Exactly! An Oxford gentleman.
PM: How's the garden?
SH: Oh, well, it...I beseech you, not gardening leave.
PM: Why not?
SH: I have my reputation to think of!
PM: You already staked that on Halsted's innocence. Anyway, Humphrey, I have a lot of thinking to do. I think I'll talk to your predecessor.
SH: Arnold? Why?
PM: I've no experience of this sort of thing. I have to ask Arnold's advice on setting up a security inquiry on a Cabinet Secretary. Anyway, thank you, Humphrey. That will be all.
SH: Yes...
PM: For the time being. Don't discuss this with Arnold until I’ve spoken to him.
SH: Of course not, Prime Minister! I wouldn't dream of it.
SH: So what do you think I should do, Arnold?
Arnold: Difficult. Depends a bit on whether you actually were spying or not.
SH: Arnold!
Ar: One must keep an open mind.
SH: But I couldn't have been. I wasn't at Cambridge. I'm not one of them. I'm a married man. One of us. I've been in the Civil Service all my life.
Ar: So had John Halsted.
SH: But he was different.
Ar: Why?
SH: Well, John used to believe in things. Causes. I've never believed in anything in my life! He had ideas. Original ideas. You know I've never done anything like that.
Ar: Even if you were a spy, I agree we have to see that it doesn't get out.
SH: Do you, Arnold?
Ar: Of course. Giving information to Moscow is serious. Giving information to anyone is serious.
SH: The Cabinet.
Ar: A scandal like this could gravely weaken the authority of the Service. So you certainly mustn't confess.
SH: But I haven't done anything to confess to!
Ar: Be that as it may, there is still the other possibility. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that you are innocent.
SH: Oh, thank you, Arnold.
Ar: Just assuming, without prejudice. Then the question of incompetence will have to be gone into.
SH: But I wasn't incompetent. You made me secretary to the Halsted inquiry. You made it clear that we were expected to find no evidence against him.
Ar: I have no recollections of that.
SH: Oh! You know perfectly well.
Ar: You have written evidence of this?
SH: Of course not.
Ar: So we return to the question of your incompetence. You and I may know that you did the job you were required to do, but it's hard to explain that to politicians.
SH: Do they have to know?
Ar: Not if we can help it, obviously. The PM is the danger. He may want to tell people.
SH: He mustn't!