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Rupert Allason | |
|---|---|
| Member of Parliament forTorbay | |
| In office 11 June 1987 – 8 April 1997 | |
| Preceded by | Frederic Bennett |
| Succeeded by | Adrian Sanders |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Rupert William Simon Allason (1951-11-08)8 November 1951 (age 74) London, England |
| Political party | Conservative |
| Education | Downside School |
| Occupation | Author and MP |
Rupert William Simon Allason (born 8 November 1951) is a British formerConservative Party politician and author. He was theMember of Parliament (MP) forTorbay inDevon, from1987 to1997. He writes books and articles on the subject ofespionage under the pen nameNigel West.
Born inLondon, Allason and his brother, Julian, were brought up asRoman Catholics,[citation needed] the faith of theirIrish mother, Nuala (who acted under the names Nuala McElveen and Nuala Barrie), daughter of John A. McArevey, ofFoxrock,Dublin.[1] The boys attendedDownside School. Their father,James Allason, was also a Conservative Party MP, descended from the architectThomas Allason.[1]
Allason contestedKettering in1979 andBattersea in1983 before being elected as Conservative MP for Torbay in 1987.
He was opposed to integration with theEuropean Union; in 1993 he was the only Conservative to refuse to vote for theMaastricht Treaty when it was made into amotion of confidence. The vote was narrowly won, but Allason's abstention caused him to have theparty whip withdrawn for a year.[2]
He left parliament after the landslide1997 general election in which he lost his seat toLiberal DemocratAdrian Sanders.[3] His margin of defeat was just twelve votes, one of the narrowest election margins since 1945. It was reported that Allason had failed to tip a pub waitress a week before polling day, and that as a consequence, fourteen waiters who were going to vote for him switched to the Liberal Democrats.[4]
In 2000, Allason was reported to have considered joining theUK Independence Party (UKIP).[5] AuthorJon Ronson, in the first chapter of his bookThem: Adventures with Extremists, briefly analysed Allason's career and character, with particular emphasis on his 1997 electoral loss.
As an author, Allason has concentrated on security and intelligence issues. He was voted 'The Experts' Expert' by a panel of other spy writers inThe Observer in November 1989. In 1984The Sunday Times commented: "His information is so precise that many people believe he is the unofficial historian of the secret services. West's sources are undoubtedly excellent. His books are peppered with deliberate clues to potential front-page stories."
Allason has been a frequent speaker at intelligence seminars and has lectured at both theKGB headquarters in Dzerzhinsky Square,Moscow; and at theCIA headquarters inLangley, Virginia, where he once addressed an audience that included theSoviet spyAldrich Ames. He continues to lecture to members of the intelligence community at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies inWashington, D.C.
His special contribution to the study of modern historical espionage has been in tracking down former agents and persuading them to tell their stories. He traced the wartime double agentGARBO, who was reported to have died inAfrica in 1949. However, Allason found him inVenezuela, and they collaborated on the bookOperation Garbo, published in 1985.
He was also the first person to identify and interview the mistress ofAdmiral Canaris, the German intelligence chief who headed theAbwehr, and he was responsible for the exposure of Leo Long and Edward Scott as Soviet spies.[citation needed]
His titles includeThe Crown Jewels, based on files made available to him by theKGB archives in Moscow;VENONA, which disclosed the existence of aGRU spy-ring operating in London throughout the war, allegedly headed byJ. B. S. Haldane andIvor Montagu; andThe Third Secret, an account of the CIA's intervention inAfghanistan.Mortal Crimes, published in September 2004, investigates the scale of Soviet espionage in theManhattan Project, the Anglo-American development of anatomic bomb.
In 2005 he editedThe Guy Liddell Diaries, a daily journal of the wartime work ofMI5's Director of Counter-Espionage. He also published a study of theComintern's secret wireless traffic,MASK: MI5's Penetration of the Communist Party of Great Britain, and the first of a series of counter-intelligence textbooks,The Historical Dictionary of British Intelligence,The Historical Dictionary of International Intelligence andThe Historical Dictionary of Cold War Counter-Intelligence.
In his 2018 book,Cold War Spymaster: A Legacy of Guy Liddell, Deputy Director of MI5, the author did not suggest that Liddell had passed secrets to the Soviets, as had been claimed by some other authors, including John Costello in hisMask of Treachery. In fact, Allason under the 'West' pseudonym stated that Liddell "was betrayed by Burgess, Blunt and Philby", according to a 2019 summary of the book.[6]
Allason has been involved in a number of legal cases, in each of which he represented himselfwithout lawyers. While in the House of Commons, he campaigned against the use ofpublic-interest immunity certificates, and exposed the arms-dealing activities of the publisher and fraudsterRobert Maxwell. He was sued for libel by Maxwell but won the case, winning record damages for a litigant in person by counterclaim.[citation needed]
In 1996 Allason suedAlastair Campbell for malicious falsehood with regard to an article printed in theDaily Mirror in November 1992. The case was heard by Mr Justice Drake, without a jury. The judge ruled that Allason had failed to demonstrate that theDaily Mirror article, although inaccurate, had caused him any financial loss.[7][8] In a retrial in 1998, he was awarded £1,050 in damages and 75% of his legal costs.[8]
In 1998, Allason lost a libel action – his 18th – against the authors and publishers of theHave I Got News for You 1997 diary for referring to him as "a conniving little shit".[9]
In 2001, Allason suedRandom House, the publishers ofThe Enigma Spy, the autobiography of the former Soviet agentJohn Cairncross. Allason claimed he hadghostwrittenThe Enigma Spy in return for the copyright and 50 per cent of the proceeds. However, Allason lost the case and was ordered to pay costs of around £200,000. The trial judge, Mr Justice Laddie, described him as "one of the most dishonest witnesses I have ever seen".[10]
Allason is the recipient of the US Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO)'s Lifetime Literature Achievement Award, and in 2011 he was elected to the Honorary Board of that association. He is the European Editor of theWorld Intelligence Review, published inWashington, D.C.[11]
In 1979 Allason married Nikki van Moppes. They divorced in 1996. The couple have two children.[12][13] In 2012, he married violinistNicola Loud.[14][15]
As John Major's prime ministership lurched from crisis to crisis, every MP's vote counting as the tiny Conservative parliamentary majority dwindled away after 1992, Mr Allason rebelled over Maastricht and then became the only Tory to refuse to back his government in a no confidence motion.
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
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| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forTorbay 1987–1997 | Succeeded by |
