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The startling accusations against Rothschild is that he is the 'Fifth Man', not John Cairncross. According to Roland Perry's book 'The Fifth Man' published in 1994. That he is the dominant member of the Cambridge Spy Ring, not Philby, Blunt, Burgess of Maclean. That he is possibly the most important Soviet Spy of all. Soviet intelligence officer, Yuri Modin added. 'Just as the Three Musketeers were four, so the Cambridge five were six.'
Rothschild was the British head of the famous banking dynasty, which apart from prolific achievements in art, science, wine and charity. It had shaped recent history by such acts as the financing of the British army at the Battle of Waterloo and the purchasing of the Suez Canal for Great Britain and Prime Minister Disraeli. He was on intimate terms with many of the most senior members of the intelligence and security services Guy Liddell, Roger Hollis, Dick White, Stewart Menzies Maurice Oldfield, Robert Vansittart, the Permanent Under-secretary of State in the Foreign Office and many others.
It's largely accepted among MI5 officers that during the 1945 to 1963 period, the Soviets were receiving vital information which enabled them to thwart British operations run against the Soviet Embassy and the Intelligence service. MI5 had apparently been penetrated by someone. The inference was always that it had to be an insider. However, one of the leading Soviet double agents working for SIS (MI6), Oleg Gordievsky, who defected to Britain in 1985, denied that the Soviets had anyone of importance on the inside of M15 in the contentious years from around 1950 to 1963.
Rothschild had been in MI5 during World War Two and had been awarded a medal for outstanding bravery for disfusing a new type of German explosive munitions. The argument is that he was recruited for the Soviet cause in pre-war years by playing on his undoubted commitment to a future homeland for the Jews and his anti-Nazi beliefs. Later the fact that he had spied for the Soviets would have been used to blackmail him into continuing to do so, long after it became obvious that Jews were little better treated in the USSR as Nazi Germany. Fear of publicity was to be perhaps the driving force behind his supposed treachery and his later involvement in the Spycatcher affair.
In 1958, Rothschild's fostering of Peter Wright turned quickly to patronage on the basis that they were scientists who understood each other. Wright could have been an easy prey for the sophisticated peer. Although talented, Wright was not Oxbridge educated and therefore an outsider in a service which was run by the old-school ties. For the first time in his professional life, Wright felt wanted, understood and appreciated. In this atmosphere, Wright may have spilled everything of importance in his section of MI5. Rothschild offered help. He was in the oil group Shell overseeing scientific development. He seconded staff to MI5. Wright told him about every piece of espionage technology under development. Rothschild offered ideas of his own and actually devised some new technology himself. He made introductions to heads of major British organizations like the AWRE (Atomic Weapons Research Establishment), which led to further expansion of MI5's R & D.
Later when Wright was deeply involved in 'mole' hunting there were two Soviet code names, which in particular interested him: DAVID and ROSA. The messages decoded indicated that they had worked together, most likely as a married couple. The Soviet defector Golitsyn asked for the files of all MI5 officers who had been working for British Intelligence at the time of the Venona traffic. He studied the files and after a week asked Wright to come and see him in Brighton. Golitsyn pointed to two files on the desk in the study. 'I've discovered DAVID and ROSA,' he said 'My methodology has uncovered them.' Wright knew the names on the files well. They belonged to Victor and Tess Rothschild., both of whom had served in MI5. Wright told him not to be absurd, Rothschild, he informed the Russian, was one of the best friends this Service ever had. Golitsyn, however, was emphatic
Fortunately for Rothschild, his close companion and confidant, Wright had been the one informed and there was no further investigation.. Golitsyn had earlier informed Wright about a file marked 'Technics' in a safe at the Moscow Centre. It was basically a file on all the MI5 technical operations which Wright and his team had initiated. This proved to him that a mole had indeed been spying directly upon him and his activities. Wright never discussed with Golitsyn what he had told Rothschild. If he had, the Russian would have realized that his 'methodology' might have been accurate. According to an MI5 source, Rothschild was later fed information, which ended up 'in the wrong place' However, just as Philby had survived for so long, because his colleagues and the establishment simply couldn't accept his treachery, so the argument goes, Rothschilds charmed life continued.
Later, when Rothschild feared that journalists might link him to his close friend Anthony Blunt, he put a by now retired Wright and journalist Chapman Pincher in touch. The resulting series of collaborative books, 'Their Trade is Treachery;' and 'Too Secret Too Long' neatly deflected suspicion onto Roger Hollis and away from Rothschild. Wright's own book 'Spycatcher' would later reinforce the image that Hollis was the damaging 'mole'. Rothschild apparently quite alarmed about being implicated begged Wright to "write down every single point he could recall of the ways Rothschild had helped MI5" he added, "Things are starting to get rough" Rothschild also secretly channelled cash to Wright via a Swiss bank.
Rothschild was thought by many to be more loyal to his Jewish heritage than anything English. According to both CIA and Mossad sources, Rothschild was very useful to the Israelis in 'mending fences' with some neighbours in the Middle East after the disruption of the Six-Day conflict. For instance, he called on his old friend the Shah of Iran and suggested several 'crop breeding' ventures, which had been perfected in Israel and elsewhere. Some were adapted in Iran. To many observers Rothschild may have been an unwilling Soviet asset after the war until 1963, but their can be no doubt that he would have willingly spied for Israel. In fact Philby claims that on leaving MI5 in 1947, Rothschild had seized or copied all the six by four file cards listing known or supposed Soviet agents in Europe and elsewhere.
Rothschild must have certainly come under suspicion for it is believed that he was investigated and interviewed no less than eleven times by MI5, and when in 1986 he wrote a very public letter avowing his innocence, Mrs Thatcher's response was the famously terse "we have no evidence he was ever a Soviet agent". As a clearance it was less than fulsome. Though when Rothschild died in 1990, Thatcher attended the memorial. The publication of 'The Fifth Man' was greeted in dignified silence by Rothschilds family.
Rothschilds role in MI5 and within the scientific community is considerable, his role with Shell and later as Head of Prime Minister Edward Heath's 'Think Tank' in the early seventies makes him an important player in post war history. If eventually sufficient information became available to prove beyond doubt Roland Perry's belief in his treachery, then Rothschild will certainly have created history for himself, as the most important Soviet Spy in history.
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