Foreword

During my sixty-five years of investigative writing, thirty-four of them as a Fleet Street journalist, there were many occasions when I knew that I was being secretly subjected to the Leak Procedure – a systematic Whitehall inquiry to discover the source of my offending information. I also assumed that the inquiries had failed but had seen none of the evidence until 2007 when the author of this book, who was researching official documents, consulted me in connection with his Ph.D. thesis. He had managed to secure declassified Cabinet papers and other documents which described my Leak Procedure cases in detail, along with the consoling news that not one of them had ever been successful. Now, in this remarkably detailed and entertaining account of the machinations of the ‘Secret State’ to prevent intrusion into its activities, he has produced documentary evidence of its ruthless attempts to have me, and others, prosecuted as criminals for giving the public information which was being withheld to avoid political or official embarrassment rather than because of genuine national security concerns.

My respect for security classification was sullied on a pitch-black night of torrential rain in 1942 when an army dispatch rider, soaked to the skin, arrived at my unit, near Newark, where I was the officer on duty. I had to sign for an envelope marked ‘Secret’ and, on opening it, read ‘Tinned sausages are now available.’ As we were in the heartland of Bomber Command, we had been warned that German paratroopers might drop near us any time so I imagined that it might be a coded message requiring urgent action. I made immediate telephone inquiries only to find that the message meant what it said – our unit could now get access to this welcome addition to our rations.