KEEPING SECRETS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 November 1938, Page 9

KEEPING SECRETS

INFORMATION AT WHITEHALL STRINGENT RULES. 1 MOMENTOUS INFORMATION ] LOCKED AWAY. g You know how difficult it is to keep _ a secret? You know how you burn to t tell somebody, to share your knowledge with a friend? Then try to imagine t what it must be like to be burdened with secrets that could wreck the Emt pire, or plunge the world into war, or e result in the losses of thousands of e millions of pounds. r If you can imagine that —which you e probably cannot —you will realise the e strain that rests on some important of- ‘ ficials in Whitehall, says a writer in ‘ “Pearson’s Weekly.” Take it from me, there are secrets in Whitehall that, in unscrupulous 4 hands, could do all the things I have ' mentioned —and more. d Who keeps them —and how? Secret-Keeper-in-Chief is the Secretary to the f Cabinet. [I Some of the greatest secrets he carq ries in his head. They are too secret to d be put on paper at all! Others, written in his own handwriting, are locked up s inside steel boxes and put in the •- strong-rooms under the offices of the Cabinet Secretariat. i- ’ You cannot imagine a less siniss ter-looking place than 2 Whitehall Gar- '- dens, where the Cabinet Secretariat il are housed. It is a handsome old-fash-'f ioned house, and used to be the residence of some rich Londoner. There is a broad, semi-circular drive up to the massive front door, and trees give n it an almost rural atmosphere. But once inside (incidentally, you will not 11 be allowed so far, for the Scotland s Yard Special Branch officer will keep 11 you at a safe distance), the country house atmosphere vanishes. There are locks and bolts and bars and steel doors, enough to satisfy even the most romantically-minded. You will not see men patrolling with revolvers ostentatiously in their hands. But there are men standing quietly about, and they have revolvers in their pockets to assure that the State’s 3 secrets are kept. IMPORTANT SECRETS. : Defence plans, naturally, as great :’ secrets as can be imagined, are locked safely in the strong-rooms there. When ■' the plans are to be discussed by the “ members of the Cabinet and the chiefs ’’ of the Defence Services, the secretary ‘ goes to the strong-rooms himself and ’ selects the necessary papers. He takes " them to the meetings, which are al- [’ ways held in the biulding, and after- ‘ wards personally returns them to their steel pigeonholes. Each paper is put in a thick envelope which is sealed with heavy wax seals. Everybody who handles it has to see that it is safe. If, by any chance, the document goes outside the building, it has to be put in a steel box, handed to a trusted messenger, signed for at every ’ turn and given back to the secretary—- " before the end of the day. CHECKING COPIES. 3 Not even the Prime Minister is j exempt from these stringent rules. , Ministers are, in fact, more careful ’ than anyone else to guard the secrets. 5 Sometimes, it is necessary to make j several copies of a confidential paper. 2 These copies are written or printed on s thick paper headed in big red letters: r “Secret, the property of his Britannic - Majesty's Government.” 3 There is also a number, and a list 3 of signatures. The number shows at a - glance which copy went to any given i office. The signatures are those of all - who handle the document. 1 Codes are rarely, almost never, used . in Whitehall. They are used for com- , munications between British represen- ■ tatives abroad and their headquarters t in London. The codes are deciphered by means of “code books,” kept under lock and key. If one of the books disappears, or it is suspected that some foreign agent has discovered the key to the code, every copy of the code is scrapped and an entirely new edition is worked out by the Government’s experts. A MISSING CODE. I know that a book was once missed, and that at considerable expense a new ; edition was worked out and sent all J over the world. Then an important official found' the missing book in his safe. He was extremely unpopular for some time. Secret-Keeper No 2 is the permanent head of the Foreign Office, until recently Sir Robert Vansittart, now Sir Alexander Cadogan. He is the only man who knows precisely who is in the British Secret Service. For all you know, mild Smith, who pushes a lawnmower next door, may be a leading light of the “S.S.” I may be its chief. But the head of the Foreign Office knows. By tradition, not even the Prime Minister asks about the list. It is the only public service which is kept secret from Parliament. Here are other ways in which secrets are kept. As soon as a Cabinet meeting ] is over, an official burns the blotting ] paper, in case there should be revealing notes on it. A “confidential waste man” collects all unwanted documents in Govern- 1 ment offices and burns them in a furnace. ■ Secret documents are printed in the Government’s press, in the basement of the Foreign Office. They are put into ( type in small pieces, and only one man k sees the finished document. All important papers are locked in still boxes, with specially-made locks, when they have to be carried from one place to another. • j Whitehall hates anything melodramatic. But there is one touch of the “thriller” that is true. A King’s Mes- j senger, who carries secret documents to and from our Embassies abroad, is expected to die in defence of the papers. I