The disclosures about Lohan’s bizarre activities, which included spying on Fleet Street journalists on behalf of MI5, occur at an awkward time for the D-Notice Committee, which most people in modern Britain had thought to have vanished without trace. It so happens that, far from being lost in archives of dusty state anachronisms, the D-Notice Committee is very much alive and embroiled in fresh controversy and that the Colonel’s current successor, Rear-Admiral David Pulvertaft, is the author of further friction. In both the Colonel’s regime and that of the Admiral, questionable treatment of two journalists of unusual assiduity is involved; both of them highly experienced in writing about defence matters. In the earlier case Chapman Pincher, the veteran Defence and Special Correspondent of the old Daily Express, was, to an unusual degree (according to the newly released files), greatly favoured by the D-Notice Secretary. In the most recent case, Tony Geraghty, author and former Sunday Times defence correspondent, has fallen foul of the D-Notice secretary, with disturbing results.

Geraghty’s clash was prompted by his latest book, The Irish War, a well-observed account of a largely visible British war machine coping with the horrors of the Northern Ireland Troubles, followed by intimate, and astonishing, disclosures of the covert war in the same theatre.

Having produced military histories of (among others) the SAS and the French Foreign Legion, Geraghty has given us something both readable and disturbing. We learn that "Box Five Hundred" is the Post Office box number for MI5. We learn also that "Box" (to give it its more usual, shorter name) had a habit of enticing suspects away from home with lavish "dodgy" holidays in the sun by faking breakfast food competitions. "While the target was away, the Security Service would plant a host of listening devices", which might include a miniaturised video camera inside a domestic light switch.

MI6 was known as "Box Eight Fifty". Its Ulster security co-ordinator, appointed by Margaret Thatcher, was Sir Maurice Oldfield, who also busied himself with rent-boys. Little details of this nature abound, doing nothing to detract from more ominous stuff. Geraghty discusses a group "hatched within the army’s Intelligence Centre at Ashford, Kent", where volunteers learned to handle a variety of weapons known to be in IRA hands "but not issued to the British Army". They were also taught to make terrorist devices and advanced guerrilla warfare techniques "including the conversion of a wine bottle into a shaped explosive charge capable of cutting through three inches of mild steel". Volunteers were voice-coached by "a charming retired Irish actor and his wife on Ulster’s different regional accents".

An MI5 operator is quoted as saying: "There are homes in this Blessed Isle where the occupant sits to watch his television, which we have rigged so that the television is watching him".

Surveillance

Now, enter Admiral Pulvertaft and others. In a conversation I had with Geraghty (a former colleague) shortly after his arrest last December, he said that Pulvertaft had suggested that he submit the manuscript for vetting. On previous occasions when approached by the D-Notice people about his books on military and security matters, Geraghty had declined such requests. His reason was partly to do with bad experiences of other writers who had subjected their work to the committee and partly because he was loth to do anything that might identify and jeopardise his sources. On this occasion, too, he declined. He said: "I was told that it was hoped I would not come to regret my noncooperation". The book, which I have read and thoroughly enjoyed, went on sale to the public in the normal way. No attempt was made to impound it or to take any action against its publisher. At the time of writing it remains freely available in the bookshops. The author, however, was not so lucky. Before dawn one morning, the Ministry of Defence police agency sent five officers, one of them a woman, to Geraghty’s Hereford home where they arrested him, impounded his computer files, notebooks, lists of contacts, and other items including material for a new book. They took him to a police station to be held and questioned for several hours. The author felt he was being left to "twist in the wind" for a while until the authorities made their minds up – which they finally did, in May, charging him and a military officer with offences against national security.

Learning what was happening to him for writing a book legally available and well reviewed, I turned to another volume, published 12 years ago. Military Ethics, Guidelines for Peace and War, the work of two American philosophers (Nicholas Fotion and Gerard Elfstrom), said:

"Not all threats to security are equally pressing or equally matters of life and death ... The range of sensitivity that a nation may establish to questions of security may be quite broad so that even trivial matters may come, under one rubric or another, to be classed as matters of security".

The rubricator for The Irish War is the D-Notice Committee. This oddly fuzzy entity is run from Room 2235 of the Ministry of Defence’s main building in Whitehall. Admiral Pulvertaft denies being the instrument of Geraghty’s arrest at any remove. Any investigation of a suspected breach of the Official Secrets Act is the responsibility of the MoD and he has no say in it. "The fact that I have an office in the Ministry of Defence is simply a convenience for security reasons", he told Geraghty at one stage. Geraghty does not believe him. Pulvertaft’s subsequent published assertions that his pre-publication approach to HarperCollins had no connection with Geraghty’s arrest after publication is also taken with a grain of salt by the author.

In a letter to London’s Evening Standard on 13 March, after the Geraghty case had received an airing, Pulvertaft says: "I approached HarperCollins after reading that the book would be "emphasising the latterday role of the special forces". I was fearful that it might contain material which would be damaging or would put lives at risk. As the D-Notice system is a voluntary one, and as HarperCollins assured me that the book would not in any way damage national security, I accepted its decision not to submit it. My involvement ended there. Had the [manuscript] proof been submitted and had the police taken action as a result, I could understand Mr Geraghty’s allegations. In the circumstances, the connection which he makes is totally wrong, as is the accusation that the D-Notices have become coercive or that they have been abused".

Warnings

Veteran journalists (of whom I and Geraghty are two) may be vaguely familiar with the committee’s functions, implicit in its full title, the ‘Defence, Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee’: that is, to warn off editors about to publish things actually, or potentially, regarded as security-sensitive. During the Cold War, very few editors even fleetingly considered resisting such a warning. The Cold War over, those of us who dimly recall D-Notices assumed the system had retired deep into the woodwork where it had originated. Most younger journalists have never heard of the committee or its functions.

Who comprise the D-Notice Committee? In March, Tony Geraghty solicited the help of Austin Mitchell, Labour MP for Great Grimsby, to find out. Mitchell tabled a Commons question to George Robertson, the Defence Secretary and got the following written answer:-

Chairman, KR Tebbit, Permanent Under Secretary of State, MoD; Vice Chairman, R Hutchinson, Editorial Policy Adviser to Jane’s Information Group; Government Members – DB Omand, Permanent Under Secretary at the Home Office, RT Jackling, 2nd Permanent Under Secretary, MoD, DJ Manning, deputy Under Secretary, Foreign & Commonwealth Office; Press and Broadcasting Members - S Anderson, Controller News and Current Affairs, ITC, JD Bishop, editor-in-chief, Illustrated London News Group, G Brock, managing editor, The Times, J Cassidy, editor Sunday Mail in Scotland, THS Cole, managing editor Sky TV, R Esser, executive managing editor, Daily Mail, A Goode, chief executive, Bristol Evening Post & Press, P Harding, controller, Editorial Policy, BBC, ASM Hutchinson, associate editor Daily Telegraph, PJ Potts, editor PA News, RG Tait, editor-in-chief, ITN, W Wilson, editor, Wolverhampton Express & Star; Secretary, Rear Admiral DM Pulvertaft; Deputy Secretary, Commander FN Ponsonby.

Many years ago when Geraghty and I were journalists on the Sunday Times I had a chance to observe him and his talent closely. Two things that impressed me were his integrity and his eccentricity, the latter often manifested by impetuous wheezes for entering war zones at great risk to himself. But his honesty and diligence were never in question. On one occasion, while jogging in woodland, he spotted a terrified woman on a bolting horse and, throwing caution to the wind, hurled himself at the animal’s neck, bringing it down. One of its hooves, smashed his jaw into fragments, requiring delicate surgical restoration. But he was soon back at the office – far earlier than most others might have dared in similar circumstances – coping with work with a wired-up jaw and cheekbones. He has been an enthusiastic parachutist for much of his adult life, and enjoys running and climbing. He looks younger than his 67 years.

It is not for me to comment on his decision to withhold his manuscript from the D-Notice secretary, or for Geraghty to question the Admiral’s need to have it vetted within the MoD, or for Geraghty to remain silent when questioned – as a civilian – by MoD police. But, having read The Irish War, I can understand why this "military history of a domestic conflict" ascended the nose of British Intelligence in crampons and elbow-spikes.

Newspaper editors I have consulted on the subject (not members of the D-Notice Committee) betray some impatience with the D-Notice system, declaring it to be distinctly anachronistic at a time when we should be concentrating on freedom of information, not censoring it. As I write, the Kosovan conflict is (or appears to be) at its height, with journalists digging and raking to till acres of newsprint with the feculence of war. There is, no doubt, censorship on both sides, just as there is propaganda on both sides. Few would quarrel with the necessity for both, given the circumstances – least of all Tony Geraghty. Even the spy thriller writer Nigel West, who submits his manuscripts to the D-Notice people if asked, regards Geraghty as "honourable" and says he would trust Geraghty never knowingly to write something detrimental to British military forces or the country. Yet, despite editors’ ambivalence about the system, most agree that some kind of advisory pipeline is required, which would reduce the risk of crucial state security details reaching a potential enemy via a newspaper’s pages. With the Internet capable of circumventing most national impediments, it is difficult to see how this can be achieved satisfactorily. But, says a media executive, "someone at least should be taking a close look at radical overhaul".

Power

They go on to say there is nothing wrong with publishing information not widely disseminated but available in military publications. But delicate issues arose "when the media releases censored information that has been obtained from some inside source ... It is true that encouraging this practice would encourage subversion of a certain type".

Presumably, Tony Geraghty’s sources – or some of them – fall within the above category. He has good friends within the SAS. During the Gulf War he interrupted his book-writing to liaise between the military and the media. But his argument is that his book examined controversial, not "delicate" issues; otherwise the book would have been muzzled by the authorities. So, he feels, action was taken against him personally because he refused to co-operate in what is officially a voluntary procedure – the D-Notice system. Geraghty’s arrest occurred in peacetime. The Cold War was over. Britain was, if not serene, not up in arms anywhere, Kosovo included. Should restrictions be relaxed in such periods? Geraghty says: "Should writers trust the Whitehall censor to do the decent thing in peacetime, when national survival is less at risk? Certainly that is what England expects of its scribes. Even outside times of major conflict, such as the Falklands War, we must know our duty. If we seem likely to forget, a Rear Admiral reminds us with a letter that is about as subtle as a Mafia funeral card".

In other words, he is not objecting to curtailment as such; he is raising considerable doubts as to the methodology, not to mention the official in charge of it. That is what makes The Guardian report on Pulvertaft’s predecessor so fascinating. A confidential official inquiry described Colonel Lohan (bowler-hatted and moustachioed) as fit for a James Bond film. Harold Wilson appears to have been obsessed with him, regarding him as a potential traitor for selectively leaking information to press cronies. The state papers recently released show that Wilson had been privately warned about Lohan’s offer to Tory MPs to help them launch a direct political attack on the Labour Prime Minister. The files confirm that Lohan was on MI5’s payroll and he spent his £500 a year retainer spying on journalists and feeding MI5 "titbits" about them. An internal inquiry revealed that Lohan had failed to get full security clearance despite being D-Notice secretary. Lohan, accused by Wilson of "irregularities in his associations with women", heavy drinking and "leading an extravagant way of life", resigned before the inquiry report was finalised.

No one would wish to accuse Admiral Pulvertaft of an extravagant or peccant lifestyle. But Geraghty still regards him as a danger to authors. He points to what he calls "the betrayal of authors who cooperate with the system", and cites the case of fellow-writer and veteran journalist John Parker. In September 1998, Parker delivered the manuscript of Death of a Hero, a biography of Robert Nairac, the British officer kidnapped and murdered in Northern Ireland. Eight days later, Admiral Pulvertaft phoned the publisher and said he understood Parker, an "informed author" may have included matters damaging to national interests. He offered advice based on "expert opinion" and sent off a list of the media representatives on his committee. Without making a commitment, the publisher submitted the manuscript to scrutiny. Parker says: "I very soon discovered that relevant sections of my book had been ... sent to Special Forces and, presumably, MI5, MI6 and Special Branch, which was never made clear at the outset. I had named some key sources in the text and referred to others by initials since they were still in sensitive roles. One of those named had, in the meantime, written to me to ask that his name be deleted from the text. Others were approached by the MoD and were asked to do the same, but refused. One wanted to retract completely but it was too late by then" – publication day being imminent.

In the light of his experiences with this and other books that attracted the D-Notice secretary’s attention, Parker regards the system as "far from voluntary". Geraghty has challenged Pulvertaft about the way the system works. He found the secretary to be an "aggressive talker" who "meets questions with questions of his own" and is "difficult to pin down". Pulvertaft claims he is not an MoD official, and, although he is paid by that ministry, he is "totally separate" from Whitehall. He confirms that he seeks expert advice from MI5 and other agencies, but insists that the process is "ring-fenced", in that "other action is not taken" as a result of such consultations.

"The reality", says Geraghty, "is that the system is a bureaucratic jungle into which a writer treads at his peril, and that of his informants. To acknowledge that the present system is not truly voluntary might at last end a malodorous hypocrisy".