CRADOCK, SIR PERCY• 119COWELL, GERVASE.TheSecret Intelligence Servicestation com-
mander in Moscow in 1962, Gervase Cowell acted asOleg Penkov-
sky’s case officer but was expelled when theGRUcolonel was
arrested. It later emerged that Cowell had been compromised by
George Blakebefore he had even left London on his assignment and
was under constant covertKGBsurveillance wherever he went. For-
tunately, his contact with Penkovsky was limited to a clandestine en-
counter at a party held inside the British embassy. In his retirement,
Cowell was theSpecial Operations Executive adviserat the For-
eign Office.
COWGILL, FELIX.A former Indian Army officer, Cowgill joined
theSecret Intelligence Servicein the early 1930s and was appointed
head ofSection Vin 1940. He was skillfully outmaneuvered byKim
Philby. After the war, he took an administrative post in Germany.
CRABB, LIONEL.A pioneer scuba diver, Lieutenant Commander
‘‘Buster’’ Crabb was an expert in the removal of underwater muni-
tions who was decorated for his work inGibraltarduring World War
II. He died in April 1956 while undertaking a clandestine mission for
theSecret Intelligence Servicein Portsmouth Harbor, surveying the
hull of the visiting Soviet cruiserOrdzhonikidze, prompting a diplo-
matic incident; major embarrassment for Prime MinisterAnthony
Eden, who had banned potentially risky operations during the offi-
cial visit to London by Nikita Khrushchev and Marshal Bulganin;
and an investigation headed by Lord Bridges. A badly decomposed
body was recovered from the sea a year later and was buried as
Crabb’s.
CRADOCK, SIR PERCY.Percy Cradock was appointed chairman of
theJoint Intelligence Committee(JIC) in 1985 in succession toSir
Antony Duff, and he combined the post with his role as the prime
minister’s foreign policy adviser, an innovative post initially held by
Sir Anthony Parsons. Cradock, who was to hold both posts for eight
and a half years until June 1992, had previously served as the chief
of theSecret Intelligence Service’sForeign Office adviserand
head of the JIC’sAssessment Staffbetween 1971 and 1975, and
therefore had an unrivaled knowledge of the intelligence community.