256 • IMPERIAL CENSORSHIP
in support of his former colleagueDick Ellis, complaining that doubt
had been cast unfairly over the latter’s loyalty. Prime Minister Mar-
garet Thatcher had declined to make a formal statement to the House
of Commons regarding Ellis, and her reluctance to vilify him had
given his few remaining supporters, Hyde and Stephenson among
them, the false hope that the accusations had been false. Hyde, who
continued to make an annual visit to Stephenson at his home in Ber-
muda every year, died in Tenderden, Kent, in August 1989.–I–IMPERIAL CENSORSHIP.One important branch of British Intelli-
gence was Imperial Censorship, the screening of all mail posted to or
from the empire or passing through British territory. In England this
was conducted in London and Liverpool, with the main overseas cen-
ters being in Bermuda and Trinidad. The overt objective of Imperial
Censorship was to remove any information that might be useful to an
enemy, but examination of all the transatlantic mails, including items
sent from the United States and addressed to neutral countries in Eu-
rope, provided an opportunity to test letters forsecret writingand
the concealment of microdots.
Whereas in World War I the censorship of the international mails
was limited to scrutiny atMI5headquarters of selected suspect cor-
respondence, with a small laboratory to develop methods for covert
opening of envelopes and the detection of secret ink, the procedures
had become considerably more sophisticated by 1939 when theDe-
fence of the Realm Actgave wide authority for the interception and
inspection of all mail.
During World War II Imperial Censorship took over the entire
Hamilton Princess Hotel in Bermuda, overlooking the Great Sound,
to process the airmail delivered daily on the transatlantic seaplane
route between New York and the Azores. As well as scrutinizing the
content and searching for blacklisted addresses, weekly intelligence
reports were prepared on topics ranging from morale to issues of po-
litical controversy. Imperial Censorship eventually employed more
than a thousand examiners in Bermuda and scored some notable suc-
cesses in tracing letters posted by enemy spies in the United States.