INJUSTICE! The Week. Communist Party of Great Britain. 16 July 1941.
Comrades! Defenders of Liberty! Champions of Freedom! Peoples and Workers of Great Britain and of the world!
A grave INJUSTICE has been perpetrated by Britain's Prime Minister!
The Soviet people cried out in desperate need and the Prime Minister has ignored them!
He has sided with the Fascists and has shown his war mongering cold capitalist indifference to the sufferings of our brave Russian comrades!
This INJUSTICE must not be allowed to stand!
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The World At War. Episode 5: Barbarossa Thames Television. 21 November 1973. Transcript.
Narrator Sir Laurence Olivier: The Soviets had expected Britain to join in the fight against their common enemy and had sent Molotov to discuss the terms of this alliance with Churchill. Foreign Minister Molotov was utterly unprepared for the answer he received once in London.
Sir Richard Abercrombe, Executive Assistant to Claude Dansey: In so many words, yes, he did tell Molotov no. But, as Winston was.. well.. Winston, he managed to tell Molotov "no" in a rather more colorful manner. Yes, colorful indeed. I was not in attendance of that meeting but Dansey later told me that those who were, and who had some familiarity with comrade Molotov, had never seen the man quite so distraught and angered in public, as he quickly left the Prime Minister's office. It must have been quite the exchange.
Abercrombe: It was a nasty surprise for them that not only did Churchill refuse to ally England with Russia, but refused to do in so vehement a fashion. This vehemence being due to the Sill Memo from our American friends in their FBI. We'd received that back in mid-1940 and it had caused quite the stir among MI6. Marcus Sill was one of the American businessmen who Dansey had developed as part of his "Z" network. Well, it turns out Mr. Sill had also developed some contacts with America's intelligence efforts and they used him to deliver this information to Dansey directly - completely sidestepping the normal channels of intelligence information sharing we'd developed with them up until that point. But, given the nature of that information, this was somewhat understandable.
Olivier: The Sill Memo, while it didn't list specific names, was specific enough in its listing of the positions held by the Soviet agents working in the British government and MI6 that they were soon identified, put under constant watch, and their actions recorded. The results were damning indeed.
Abercrombe: You have to remember that this was at the height of the Blitz. In the course of our counter-espionage investigation we learned that several of these agents were reporting back to Moscow the results of the daily and then nightly Luftwaffe raids upon England. The Soviets then dutifully shared that information with Berlin and the Jerrys used that to improve their bombing methods. Churchill was absolutely livid when he found that the Soviets, who were officially neutral in the war between the Nazis and England, were so actively aiding the Germans against us. He had Dowding work up a study of how many more Britons died as a result of the increased accuracy of those Luftwaffe raids. The details of that study only further enraged Winston. Those of us in MI6 who were privy to this were somewhat surprised that Winston didn't have Molotov shot the moment he set foot in his office.
Olivier: Far from joining forces with the Soviets, Churchill instead ordered the expulsion of all Soviet citizens from the United Kingdom and further ordered MI6 to arrest and terminate all Soviet espionage efforts in England.
Abercrombe: By that time we'd gotten about all we could from the surveillance of these Soviet agents. So when the Prime Minister gave us the order it was enacted rather sprightly. We later learned that the Soviets were rather astonished at the grasp we had of their spy operations within the United Kingdom. The trials all commenced within a matter of weeks and by late September, I believe it was, they'd come to their conclusion. Winston actually made it a point to personally attend the hangings of those Soviet agents who'd transmitted that bombing information back to Moscow. The man's rage and sense of betrayal at their treason was that deep. I wouldn't have been surprised had he pulled the hangman's lever himself.
Olivier: As Molotov returned to Moscow, the Soviet Union found itself increasingly alone in facing Germany's advance...
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The Secret War: Episode 12 Allies As Close As Brothers. The History Channel. Los Angeles. 16 May 1996. Transcript.
The Secret War Interviewer William Parsons: And this was their "returning the favor?"
William George - Executive Assistant to Overseas Secret Service Director William Donovan: Well, sort of.
Parsons: Sort of?
George: Yes, when we had Marcus Sill deliver that intelligence information to MI6's Assistant Chief, Claude Dansey, it caused quite a row over there. On the one hand, they recognized that the information was too sensitive to have gone through normal channels as the Soviet agents within MI6 would've caught wind of it. On the other hand however, the way it was delivered seemed to be somewhat insulting to the Brits. There was indeed some ego games going on between the two intelligence operations. The Brits were initially quite haughty and disdainful of our efforts. And they had some reason to be. The US hadn't had the need to be so professional about the intelligence business. The Brits, with their empire to maintain, had. And they weren't hesitant about showing that off. So, when we had the opportunity to rub their noses in how we'd achieved this intelligence coup - and specifically how it revealed all the rats in their own house which they hadn't found themselves - we took it. And they didn't like that aspect of it.
Parsons: And how was the "November Report" a part of that?
George: Well, in the course of their catching all those Soviet rats, the Brits unearthed quite a bit of information about the rats we still had in our house. Specifically, those that riddled the Roosevelt White House and also among the Democrats in Congress. You see, out of necessity, the Brits had developed a very intense understanding of US politics. They learned this in order to not make any misstep in their efforts to get us into the war on their side. So, when they learned how many Soviet spies, Soviet sympathizers, and Soviet dupes were operating amongst the Democrats they realized that if they shared that information with the Roosevelt administration it might get denied and covered up. So, they choose to spread that info around.
Parsons: And that's how Joseph Martin got a hold of it?
George: That caused a real explosion when FDR learned of it. Things got more than a bit hot between Roosevelt and Churchill after that. And it was only after Pearl that the two started talking to each other once again. The Brits got what they wanted though. Martin was smart enough to realize he had a powerful political weapon in his hands. Had the Japanese not attacked Pearl when they did, Martin probably would've used that info to shatter Roosevelt and the Democrats in the 1942 Mid-Term elections. As it was, he used it to wring some huge concessions from FDR and McCormack. It also led to some major house cleaning at the White House. The Soviets lost all their contacts, their spies, and their friends they'd worked so hard to insert in the Roosevelt Administration. The purge within the Democratic Party continued well into mid-42 and even enabled Dies to nail the "fellow travelers" the Soviets had on his committee. Hoover had a field-day with that information and began rolling up one Soviet spy network after another. The FBI was already in the process of that - it's how we got that original information about the Soviet spies in Britain's MI6 after all - but this really helped hone the FBI's efforts.
George: The political fallout of all this was that the Soviet Union became completely untouchable in terms of US assistance. The Democrats weren't going to risk being seen as "Communist dupes" knowing the Republicans had all that intelligence information on hand. And for their part, the Republicans were quite content to stick it to the Democrats for their years of pro-Soviet pandering during the 1930s. The Soviets had painted themselves into a corner with this one and had no one to blame but themselves as all their spying and manipulation efforts were revealed.
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Churchill, W. Preventing the Nazis from seizing Russia's oil. 5 June, 1942. Speech presented at the British Parliament. London, England:
And so it is with a heavy heart and with no malice toward the suffering people of Russia that I have ordered the armed forces of the United Kingdom to preventatively take control of the oil fields located in the area north of Persia.
Doing so will prevent the Nazis from gaining access to the oil they so desperately need to continue their war against the rest of the world.
We make no permanent claim to this land and will gladly return it to the Russians once we have defeated the Nazi menace and the war is won.
But for the sake of England, we can not allow those oilfields to fall the Hitler's ravenous thugs.