Harry Houghton

Harry Houghton (1906 - 1985) was a spy for the People's Republic of Poland and the USSR during the Cold War. He was a member of the Portland Spy Ring.

Early life

Henry Frederick Houghton was born in Lincoln, England. He left school at 14 to become an errand boy and later joined the Royal Navy. By the end of World War II, he was a master-at-arms, one of the highest ranks for non-commissioned officers.

After the war, he joined the civil service and in 1951 was attached to the staff of the naval attaché of the British Embassy in Warsaw,Poland. Houghton dabbled in the black market, starting with coffee and moving on to medical drugs. This made him money and acquaintances but also led him to heavy drinking and the attention of the Polish Secret Police.

Houghton's wife complained of domestic abuse and there were concerns that he was mixing with the wrong people. In 1952 he was ordered home.

Although some considered him a security risk, Houghton was appointed to the Admiralty Underwater Weapons Establishmentat Portland where the Royal Navy would test equipment for undersea warfare. Houghton and his wife separated in 1956 and later divorced. He then began a relationship with Ethel Gee, a filing clerk who also worked at the base.

His former wife warned that he was a security risk and had brought secrets home, but the claims were initially taken as resentment for the way he had treated her.

Spying career

By 1956 it is believed that Houghton was passing secrets to Polish spies, who sent them to the Soviets. These included details on submarine warfare. Gee had access to secrets; she would pass them to Houghton and he would photograph them. On the first Saturday of each month Houghton would go to London, sometimes with Gee, and exchange packages with a contact.

Houghton's drinking did not stop, and he was living far beyond his salary. This brought him under suspicion, and MI5 placed him under surveillance. This led them to other members of what was to be called the Portland Spy Ring.

In his book Spycatcher, Peter Wright claims Houghton first came to MI5's attention when a Polish mole (codenamed Sniper) reported he had information about a Russian spy in the British Navy. According to Wright, Sniper did not know the name of the spy, but said it sounded like Huiton. Additionally, Sniper obtained documents that had been sent by the spy, helping MI5 to determine who had access to the documents.

Houghton and Gee were among five spies arrested in London by Special Branch detectives on 7 January 1961. The others were Konon Molody ("Gordon Lonsdale"), Morris and Lona Cohen, all professional spies.

Houghton claimed at his trial that he had been blackmailed by the Poles and the Russians into spying for them. While in Poland, he had had an affair with a woman black marketeer and was told that she would go to prison if he did not provide secrets. Threats were also made against Gee and his former wife, and he claimed he was twice attacked by thugs. Houghton claimed that the information he gave them were newspaper cuttings and matters already in the public domain.

Later life

On 22 March 1961 Houghton and Gee were both sentenced to fifteen years in prison. They were released early on 12 May 1970 and they married in 1971. Houghton died in obscurity at Poole, Dorset in 1985.

*************************************

The Portland Spy Ring was a Soviet operation which took place around Portland, England during the late 1950's until 1961. It was established to obtain information about the capabilities of the British nuclear submarine fleet.

The ring was comprised of five main players (although others may have been involved) and all were illegal resident spies, operating without the cover of the Soviet embassy and therefore without diplomatic immunity. Harry Houghton had served in the Royal Navy during World War II, reaching the rank of Master-at-Arms.

After leaving the Navy he joined the civil service and was assignedto the British Embassy in Warsaw, Poland where he served as a naval attache. He was later transferred to the Admiralty Underwater Weapons Establishment in Portland, England where the Royal Navy tested undersea warfare equipment.

After a divorce from his wife, he dated Ethel Gee, a filing clerk at the base. While in Warsaw, Houghton had contacts with the black market where he sold coffee and medicinals in return for money that he used to feed his growing alcoholism.

After his divorce, his wife had alleged that he had been bringing home secret documents and posed a security risk but her claims were dismissed as those of a disgruntled ex-wife.

Nevertheless, his access was limited in Portland and he could not obtain certain documents on his own. Gee, on the other hand, did have access to these documents, including those related to the HMS Dreadnought, the Royal Navy's first nuclear submarine. Gee has been described as a spinster, with little in the way of a social life, save for taking care of elderly relatives. Her relationship with Houghton, therefore, was all consuming and her recruitment by Houghton was simple. Ethel concealed classified information on her person and brought it to Houghton who photographed it.

Beginning in 1959, Houghton and Gee would often go to London on weekends where they would meet with a man they knew as Alex Johnson. Johnson claimed that he was a U.S. Naval Commander interested in knowing how the British handled information passed to them by the United States. Houghton would pass the classified information to Johnson. In actuality, Johnson was a man known to MI5 as Gordon Lonsdale, a Canadian businessman who sold and rented bubble gum and gambling machines and jukeboxes to London pubs and taverns. He had worked for a time in the United States with Rudolph Abel, the atomic spymaster, and came into contact with a husband and wife named Morris and Lona Cohen. The Cohen's had been a part of the atomic spy ring in the Unted States and Lona had acted as a courier to pass secrets to the Soviets which she received from Ted Hall, a physicist working in the Manhattan Project. In England, Lonsdale re-establised contact with the Cohens, who were now going by the names Peter and Helen Kroger. The Krogers ran an antiquarian book store in northwest London and it is there that they met with Lonsdale who passed them the secrets obtained from Houghton and Gee. The Krogers then passed the information along to the Soviets through an elaborate communications system hidden in their home.

In 1959, Michael Goleniewski, a Polish Military intelligence officer and Soviet spy contacted the Central Inteliigence Agency and alerted the agency to the fact that classified information was being passed to the Soviets from the Admiralty Underwater Weapons establishment in Portland. An investigation revealed that Houghton was spending far beyond his means, including the purchase of a house and a fourth automobile. Suspicion therfore fell on Hougton and he and Gee were surveilled as the met with Lonsdale in London. Gee had broght with her a large shopping bag full of copies and photographs of classified material and the couple gave them to Lonsdale on the Waterloo Bridge. They were arrested on January 7, 1961 and taken to Scotland Yard as were the Krogers. Special Branch detectives told the Krogers they were investigating a series of burglaries in the neighborhood and when they entered the Kroger residence, they identified themselves and went to take them into custody. Helen excused herself to stoke up the boiler but was caught trying to destroy microdot information contained in her purse.

Houghton sought to turns Queens Evidence (State's evidence against his accomplices in return for a lenient sentence) but was refused. He then said that he only engaged in the espionage because he was being threatened by mysterious assailants, lest he turn over the information. He claimed to know Lonsdale only as American Alex Johnson and attempted to lessen Gee's role. Gee claimed ignorance of any wrongdoing, stating that she participated solely out of love for Houghton. The Krogers maintained their innocence claiming to simply be a book dealer and a housewife. Lonsdale refused to answer any information about himself and authorities were unable to determine his true identity even through the trial (they were able to determine that he was Russian, had a naval background and had assumed the identity of a deceased Canadian). While neither the Krogers nor Lonsdale took the stand at the trial, Lonsdale had taken responsibility for the activities in out of court statements. He claimed that he had acted as a house sitter for the Krogers and had installed and hidden the radio equipment that was found in their home (the communications equipment was so well-concealed that it took almost nine days of search to find the transmitter). The Krogers were unable, however, to explain the fake Canadian passports with their photo that were found in the house.

The jury found all five guilty of espionage in March 1961. Houghton and Gee were sentenced to 15 years in prison but were released in 1970 and later married and changed their names. The Krogers (after it was revealed that they were the Cohens) were sentenced to 20 years but were later involved in a prisoner exchange for a British educator, Gerald Brooke on July 24, 1969.They were later awarded the Order of the Red Banner and Order of the Friendship of Nations honors as well as given the titles of Hero of the Russian Federation. Lonsdale, considered the ringleader of the group, was given a 25 year sentence but was exchanged on April 22, 1964 for British spy Greville Wynne at the Glienicke Bridge in Berlin, Germany. At this time, the Soviets acknowledged that he was a Soviet spy and his real name was Konon Molody.

http://www.spymuseum.com/pages/spyrings-portland.html