Liaison with MI5 (ii): Conflict

Abstract

As we have seen, after a somewhat shaky start SOE developed a good working relationship with MI5. Relinquishing the position of Security Section head in autumn 1942, Lakin wrote to Petrie, thanking him for the ‘invariable kindness and sympathy which you and all at St James St have shown me during the past year’:

I am glad to think that a real and enduring atmosphere of mutual understanding has grown up between the Security Service and ourselves, which is so vital to our work and without which we could not hope to play an effective part in winning the war.¹

In response, Petrie noted that ‘All of us here reciprocate very heartily all you have to say about our present happy relations and the need of maintaining them. To that we shall spare no pains for it is something very much worth while.’² Such mutual expressions of goodwill were soon to be tested; it was shortly after Lakin’s departure that the issue of operational security emerged as a point of tension between the two organisations.