Historical Dictionary of British Intelligence

HOOPER, SIR LEONARD• 247

mander Anthony Courtney, MP, who resisted coercion but was forced

to resign his parliamentary seat, as described in his 1968 memoirs,

Sailor in a Russian Frame. All sides have indulged in honeytraps,

although theMI5operation mounted againstEugene Ivanovback-

fired and proved the catalyst for theProfumoaffair in 1961. A more

successful result was achieved withOleg Lyalinin 1971.

HONG KONG.The British Crown Colony of Hong Kong was always
an important outpost of British Intelligence, with representatives of
MI5, theSecret Intelligence Service(SIS), andGCHQpresent
until the withdrawal in July 1997. Thesecurity liaison officer, repre-
senting MI5, liaised closely with the local Special Branch, as did the
SIS station commander, who operated under a military attachment or
trade commissioner cover.GCHQ’s large intercept site, located on
the island of Little Sai Wan, was closed in 1984 and replaced by
Chung Horn Kok. Hong Kong was an important signals intercept site
from 1935 when theFar East Combined Bureauwas created and
managed by the Royal Navy on Stonecutter’s Island.

HOOPER, JOHN.Having joined thePassport Control Officein The
Hague at the age of 15, John Hooper was appointed a clerk in 1927
and directed to undertake a study of Communism in Holland. In
1935, during the course of his duties, he metHenri Pieck, a known
Communist, although Hooper only became aware of his espionage
after he had been sacked from the Passport Control Office, impli-
cated in the visa racket run by MajorHugh Dalton. After his dis-
missal, Hooper was invited to join Pieck’s spy ring and was
introduced toWalter Krivitsky, who took a disliking to him. Hooper
gave a comprehensive statement toMI5in October 1939 in London
and agreed to return to Holland to persuade Pieck to come to England
so he could be entrapped, but Pieck declined the invitation. Later in
the war, Hooper was employed by MI5 as an interrogator.

HOOPER, SIR LEONARD.Director ofGCHQfrom 1965 to 1973,
Leonard Hooper was born in Dulwich in July 1914 and after gradua-
tion from Worcester College, Oxford, went straight into theGovern-
ment Code and Cipher School’s Italian Section. In September 1943
he was made head of the Japanese Air Section and a month later was