Morningside Mata Haris: How MI6 Deceived Scotland's Great and Good by Douglas MacLeod

by Douglas MacLeod

The Duchess of Atholl's supremely respectable fund raising coffee mornings and sales of work were part of Morningside life. A formidable group of matriarchs would meet once a week and swap recipes and gossip with their friends. At least that was what they said they were doing. In reality, the coffee mornings were a devilishly clever front for an intelligence network set up and funded by M16. Using new evidence, only recently released into the public domain, Douglas MacLeod traces the astonishing and untold story of a spy ring at the very centre of Scotland's high society. At the end of the Second World War, Kitty, Duchess of Atholl, and Mrs Elma Dangerfield set up the Scottish League for European Freedom, ostensibly as a response to the extensive refugee crisis in Eastern Europe. This society was merely a front for astonishing activities. Amongst the SLEF's members were right-wing activists like Dr John Stewart, Sir Thomas Moore and General John 'Boney' Fuller, men who used their eastern European connections for their own ends.For the first time we have the story of almost 1000 Ukrainian refugees, brought to Scotland and trained and briefed in Haddington to act as double agents, creating the SS Galizien Division. Many of these Ukrainians were then sent to face unspeakable dangers in Russia. Douglas MacLeod delves beneath the surface of the Scottish League for European Freedom to reveal its more hair-raising activities as a front for M16. The book brings to life a cast of remarkable characters and includes interviews with members of the SLEF, their relatives and even with one of the original founders, Elma Dangerfield.

Paperback

First published October 1, 2006

Reviews

[Tina Tamman · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you are interested in intelligence matters and have read similar books before, you know the format. Authors seldom have anything new to say, they pack in everything they know, often lifted from other, previously published books. In this sense this book does not disappoint. However, it has been given a title that allows the reader to expect more than the book can give. Mata Haris? Isn't that exciting? Having, however, read the book, I wonder whom the author meant. Wasn't Mata Hari executed?
In other words, I found little of interest in this book but if you have never read anything similar, you may be riveted.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Borrowed from Motherwell Library.

More like 2.5 stars. Not the most coherent book I’ve ever read and the matrons of Morningside were mostly conspicuous by their absence.

There were some interesting parts, the British and Nazi secret services both paying the same anti communist agents in the 1930’s, the alphabet soup of anti communist organisations that came into being as the war neared its end and thrived in the times of Cold War paranoia. Going hand in glove with this was a preparedness to look the other way while the UK played host to war criminals and vile anti-Semitic bigots on the basis that the enemy of my enemy could be, if not my friend, then an exploitable resource.

[Mark Speed · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a well-researched and fascinating history of MI6's involvement in trying to shape post-WWII politics, and to attempt to halt the march of Soviet communism across Eastern Europe. It also covers the uncomfortable issue of the British government overlooking war criminals' crimes, and the British socialist establishment overlooking Stalin's crimes. Some shocking stuff in here.