Old spy files fail to answer mystery of author’s loyalty

LONDON - Not even British spies could agree whether author Arthur Ransome, best known for his children's classic Swallows and Amazons, was a communist sympathiser, a Soviet operative or a trustworthy agent.

British intelligence files released yesterday shed new light on Ransome's activities and the suspicions they fuelled back home, but fail to clear up the mystery over the writer's true allegiance in the world of espionage.

Ransome, who worked as a reporter in Russia after the Bolshevik revolution, was first described by a British military attache in Petrograd in 1918 as "an ardent Bolshevik". The files show that Ransome was recruited to use his access to the Soviet leadership to spy for the British Government.

One report entitled Counter Bolshevism refers to his code number, S.76, and plays down talk that Ransome was in fact a traitor who was working for the Bolsheviks.

"S.76 is not a Bolshevik ... His association with the Bolsheviks was begun, and has been continued throughout at the direct request of responsible British Authorities."

But another, unnamed, agent did not agree:

"[Ransome] seems to have persuaded the Legation that he has changed his views to some extent but this is certainly not the case.

"I know that he has informed two Russians that I, personally, am an agent of the British Government. He seems therefore to be working pretty definitely against us."

But whether trusted spy or dangerous traitor, Ransome's information was deemed important enough for one of the entries in the files, dated 1919, to be circulated to the King and the War Cabinet.

King George V's cousin, Russian Tsar Nicholas II, was killed by the Bolsheviks in 1918.

After 1920, British interest in Ransome's activities began to fade, although it took another 17 years for his name to be removed from the official "black list".

- REUTERS