Writer of Whisky Galore 'to blame for spy memoirs'

FORMER MI6 director Sir John Scarlett has criticised the late Compton Mackenzie, the author of Whisky Galore, for starting the trend of literary whistleblowers who give away state secrets.

A new history of MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, has revealed that Mackenzie, who was a co-founder of the Scottish National Party, was the first secret agent to be charged under the Official Secrets Act and so triggered an ignominious tradition that was carried on by operatives such as Peter Wright of MI5, who was at the heart of the Spycatcher saga. Other MI5 agents and members of army units such as the Special Air Service (SAS) have followed suit.

Scarlett, best known for being in charge of MI6 in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq and who retired last year, said the case of Mackenzie was an "excellent example of why writing memoirs is a bad idea for an operational officer", as his revelations risked compromising national security.

"It is completely recognisable to a modern chief the frustration that the authorities had at the time, particularly in the Thirties when there were several people who wanted to tell their stories, and in one case that was seriously damaging and could have been even more damaging to our capabilities when the war came a few years later," Scarlett said. "It is an excellent example of why writing memoirs is a bad idea for operational officers."

However, he did praise Mackenzie for his earlier successful work in Greece. "Compton Mackenzie was effective in Greece in the First World War and did a lot of good work. At the same time he was flamboyant and extremely expensive so not really sustainable with the funds... at his disposal. He was a show man and he wanted to tell his story, and that is very difficult."

After serving as a secret agent in Greece, foiling the escape of "dangerous Germans", MI5 feared he might be the target of an assassination attempt. He survived unscathed, however, and in 1932 published an autobiography called Greek Memories. The book not only alluded to the true identity of C, as the secret head of MI6 was known, and who was in fact Sir Mansfield Cumming, but also identified a number of other former agents.

Shortly after publication, Mackenzie was charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act and, eventually pleading guilty, was fined 100. However, the judge said he had considered a jail sentence.

Mackenzie later wrote that he was told that "a Cabinet meeting had taken place at which the Attorney-General had announced I had destroyed the whole Secret Service… and that it was going to cost the country at least two million pounds to undo the harm I had done."

He did, however, get his revenge later by writing a novel, Water On The Brain, which was a deliberate caricature of the intelligence services.

Authors who followed in Mackenzie's footsteps were David Shayler, a former MI5 officer who was sentenced to six months in prison for breaching the Official Secrets Act when he alleged that MI6 funded Islamist fighters to assassinate Libya's Colonel Gaddafi. SAS and SBS soldiers are now required to sign a personal contract undertaking never to publish details about their units, in the wake of a spate of personal memoirs such as Bravo Two Zero by Andy McNab.