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proved extremely tricky: it took almost three months of tough negotia-
tions and London’s intercession to accomplish. However, once installed
at South Gate in January 1943, nothing seems to have gone right for him.
Chapman was an elderly man, in his ways if not in years, and he had
become used to having total power over the Kurdish tribes and his per-
sonal network of agents on both sides of the Iraq–Persia border. He is said
to have been so passionately in love with Kurdistan that he had arranged
in his will to have his ashes scattered over the Zagros mountains.^40 He
came to Baghdad with the conservative attitudes and style of an older
colonial generation definitely not appreciated by a progressive young left-
ist like Aidan Philip, now field commander for Iraq, with whom a con-
frontation was set up from the start. Philip had doubtless heard from
Bishop of the ‘monumental quarrel’ the two men had had when Bishop
had visited Chapman in Kirkuk earlier in the previous year. Chapman was
a specialist in northern tribal affairs to the exclusion of all else; he had little
understanding of Baghdad and the Shia south, or of the complex para-
military and subversive activities developed by Bishop and Philip. His con-
ceptions of military and political strategy were described by Seton Lloyd
as ‘positively archaic.’ Not liking the arrangements at South Gate,
Chapman attempted to sweep everything with a new broom, reorganizing
the house and proposing to dismiss Lloyd, which prompted Philip to get
Lloyd out of harm’s way by bundling him off to Cairo with some paper-
work. Not long after, in June 1943, the concept of a regional SOE Persia
and Iraq command was abandoned, as the changing fortunes of war dic-
tated that SOE cease the paramilitary operations that it shared with
PAIFORCE and revert to its role as a secret, subversive organization.^41
John Chapman was sent back to Kurdistan; Aidan Philip was now in sole
charge at South Gate.^42
During the temporary leadership void until Chapman’s return to
Kirkuk in July 1943, Pat Domvile, who had meanwhile been put in charge
of Arab affairs by Cairo, seems to have taken it upon himself to advocate
strongly for SOE’s continued role in the Middle East, and seems to have
been appointed temporary ‘caretaker’ of the regional command. Because
Domvile was now based in Cairo yet needed to travel frequently to
Baghdad and Tehran, he was encouraged to liaise as closely as possible
with Chokra Wood at the Combined Intelligence Centre Iraq and Persia
(CICI).^43 The leaderless period at South Gate saw the continuation of a
vicious power struggle between SOE Cairo and the Political Warfare
Executive (PWE) over who was responsible for broadcasting white, grey,
SOUTH GATE