Historical Dictionary of British Intelligence

ELGIN COMMISSION• 169

the slightest comprehension of the political minefield that awaited its

personnel there. The very first reference to EAM, the Communist-

run National Liberation Front that controlled ELAS, appeared in an

SOE signal toharling’s leader, Brigadier Myers, dated 21 Decem-

ber 1942, but it was not until 24 February 1943 that he stated, for the

first time, ‘‘I believe Communists control EAM unknowst to most

members.’’ By this time the whole of theharlingmission had been

transformed reluctantly and unintentionally, by SOE’s inability to

extract its men, into the first British Military Mission, thereby giving

de facto official British support to the Communists. This was com-

pounded by Rufus Sheppard, who initially failed to realize that the

guerrillas around Mount Olympus to whom he had been parachuted

were led by covert Communists. Indeed, they duped him into report-

ing that EAM was ‘‘purely a military resistance movement’’ with ‘‘no

political aims whatsoever.’’ However,Monty Woodhouseconcluded

that ‘‘the staff of SOE, in contrast with those of theSecret Intelli-

gence Service, were amateurs who had to learn on the job: there

could naturally be no trained professionals, as in espionage, for a task

which only existed in wartime. The main handicap of SOE in Greece

was faulty direction, not practical incompetence.’’

ELECTRA HOUSE.Known simply as ‘‘EH,’’ this black propaganda
department was established during the Munich Crisis of 1938 under
the leadership ofSir Campbell Stuartat Electra House on the Vic-
toria Embankment. Absorbed intoSpecial Operations Executiveas
SO1 in 1940, the Electra House staff was evacuated toWoburn
Abbeytwo days before the outbreak of war and a large transmitter
for low-power shortwave broadcasts to Germany was built at Gaw-
cott, with a duplicate completed at nearby Postgrove in November

1941. Responsibility for clandestine propaganda moved to the Politi-
      cal Warfare Executive in September 1941.

ELGIN COMMISSION.Following theBoer War, the Elgin Com-
mission was set up to look into lessons that should be learned from
the campaign and took evidence from many senior officers before
publishing its report in 1903. The commission concluded that the
War Office had assessed the enemy’s strength with great accuracy
but that the appropriate reports had not been circulated to the Cabi-