364 • MINISTERIAL COMMITTEE ON THE INTELLIGENCE SERVICES
dubbedplan trojan, the proposal was based on the scheme exe-
cuted byRichard Meinertzhagenat Beersheba in October 1917 to
plant a ‘‘lost’’ briefcase containing secret documents on an unsus-
pecting enemy. In Cholmondeley’s version, a dead body, supposedly
that of a military courier, was to be floated ashore where the enemy
would be bound to find it and examine the contents of the briefcase.
A suitable cadaver was supplied by the West London coroner and
taken to the Spanish coast off Huelva by a submarine, HMSSeraph,
in April 1942. When the body of ‘‘Major William Martin’’ was soon
turned over to CaptainAlan Hillgarth, the British naval attache ́in
Madrid, he was convinced the documents in the briefcase had been
copied by the Spanish authorities and passed to the Germans. This
proved to be true, and the ruse succeeded in its objective. After the
war,Duff Cooperwrote a controversial, fictional account of the op-
eration,Operation Heartbreak, prompting an authentic version to be
released byEwen Montagu, calledThe Man Who Never Was.MINISTERIAL COMMITTEE ON THE INTELLIGENCE SER-
VICES (MCIS).Chaired by the prime minister, the MCIS consists
of the home, defense, and foreign secretaries, the chancellor of the
exchequer, and the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Its purpose
is to review policy, but in practice rarely, if ever, meets.
MINISTRY OF ECONOMIC WARFARE.A government depart-
ment that existed only during World War II, the Ministry of Eco-
nomic Warfare comprised two intelligence divisions: Blockade
IntelligenceandEconomic Warfare Intelligence.
MINISTRY OF MUNITIONS (MMLI).In May 1917William Mel-
villeofMI5was seconded to the Ministry of Munitions to supervise
a Labour Intelligence unit (later renamed Parliamentary Military
Secretary 2) that monitored unrest, sabotage, and subversion in stra-
tegically sensitive industries. The existence of the organization and
its fortnightly, and then weekly, reports became part of the prosecu-
tion of Alice Wheeldon in March 1917 on a charge of plotting to
assassinate Lloyd George. Evidence against Wheeldon was provided
by an MMLIagent provocateur, William Rickard. At the conclu-
sion of the case, the MMLI was absorbed into MI5.