Historical Dictionary of British Intelligence

CAVERSHAM PARK• 89

research for theTube Alloysproject during World War II and was

the target of Soviet espionage. According to documents disclosed by

theKGB archives, the convicted spy Dr.Allan Nunn Maywas re-

cruited by theNKVDwhile working at the Cavendish.

CAVENDISH-BENTINCK, VICTOR.A professional diplomat who
joined the Foreign Service in 1915 at the age of 18 to work at the
British Legation in Oslo and then fought with the Grenadiers, Bill
Bentinck attended the Lausanne Conference in 1922 and was des-
tined for a conventional career in the Foreign Office. He was posted
to Paris twice, The Hague, and Santiago, but when he returned to
London in 1937 he was appointed chairman of theJoint Intelligence
Committee(JIC), a recently created body that had been moribund
under the leadership of his predecessor, Ralph Stevenson. Through
sheer force of personality and the evident lack of coordination be-
tween the many branches of British Intelligence, Bentinck developed
the JIC from an insignificant subcommittee of the chiefs of staff into
a vital instrument of victory. Under his deft touch, the JIC became
the fulcrum of intelligence decision-making, and at the end of hostili-
ties he was rewarded with the post of ambassador to Warsaw, al-
though he was obliged to resign in 1947, without any pension
benefits, when his ex-wife made wholly false allegations during a
messy divorce. As the foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, said at the
time, ‘‘I could have saved him if his name had been Smith.’’
Bentinck went into business with the chemical giant Bayer and in
1980, when his brother Sir Ferdinand died without issue, he became
the ninth Duke of Portland, a title inherited through his cousin from
his great great-grandfather, the sixth Duke. Bentinck died in June
1990 without any surviving heirs to the dukedom, four years after the
publication of his biography by Patrick Howarth,Intelligence Chief
Extraordinary.

CAVERSHAM PARK.The BBC Monitoring Service at Caversham,
on the outskirts of Reading in Berkshire, makes a valuable contribu-
tion to British Intelligence, recording thousands of foreign-language
broadcasts daily and distributing translated summaries or transcripts.
The service is partly funded by the Foreign Office and theCentral
Intelligence Agency’s Foreign Broadcast Information Service.