John Cecil Masterman - Revelations

Revelations

Information about the double-cross system remained secret after the war. In 1961 Masterman began pressing the British intelligence establishment for permission to publish a book about it. Roger Hollis, the head of MI5 at that time, refused to authorize publication, as did Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home.

However, Masterman was not to be deterred. Revelations on the Cambridge Spy Ring in the 1960s resulted in low morale throughout the intelligence community, and Masterman felt that the publication of a book about the double-cross system would restore public confidence. He pressed his suit once again on the matter.

In April 1970, when the government again refused, he decided to have it published in the United States, where he felt he would be out of reach of the Official Secrets Act. He was aided by Norman Holmes Pearson, a member of the Yale University faculty, who nominated Yale University Press as publisher. Pearson was more than happy to help Masterman because he also served in the Twenty Committee (though not a member) as the wartime head of the counterintelligence division of the Office of Strategic Services. Yale had contributed many scholars and students to the OSS, and Chester B. Kerr, director of the press, saw the importance of the book historically and commercially.

For a time British authorities threatened Masterman with legal action, but in the end bowed to the inevitable and allowed publication, with the proviso that sixty passages in the manuscript be deleted. Kerr would only acquiesce to a dozen. The book, The Double-Cross System in the War of 1939–45, was finally published in February 1972, with a foreword by Pearson, who guardedly did not refer to his work in the Committee. Masterman himself wrote the book without revealing anything about Ultra, still highly secret, that greatly aided the double-cross system. The ban on ULTRA would be lifted in 1974.