MONKHOUSE, ALLAN• 373ganization after their arrival on USSR territory and instructed as to the
information required. During the whole period of our presence on USSR
territory, from the total of British staff employed, 27 men were engaged in
spying operations. Of the above, fifteen men which included Monkhouse
were engaged in economic and political spying, also in the investigation of
the defense and offense possibilities of the Soviet Union. The remaining
12 were engaged in political and economic spying.A construction engineer, William MacDonald, similarly agreed that
he had been collecting and reporting information from the Zlatoust
Armament Works for SIS.
Monkhouse, the senior Vickers representative, was identified as
the ringleader, but he pleaded innocent to all the remaining charges
and protested that the bribery incident merely concerned a loan that
had been written off as a bad debt. Nevertheless, under interrogation
he also made a deposition regarding his predecessor, Anton Simon,
who had worked for Metropolitan-Vickers until his death in 1928:
I knew that Simon had a special fund which he used for bribes. I firmly
believe that he was interested in certain counter-revolutionary movements,
but I did not enjoy his confidence. He did not trust me for certain personal
and political reasons. I cannot give exact information about his activity in
this direction. Upon Simon’s death I was, immediately afterwards, ap-
pointed Metro-Vickers’ manager in the USSR.The trial was brief and was reported by a large press corps that in-
cludedIan Fleming, then a young reporter working forReuter’s
News Agencyon his first foreign assignment. In April, Monkhouse
was acquitted on the charge of espionage but was convicted of having
known of Thornton’s sabotage and of complicity in bribery. Thorn-
ton was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, MacDonald to two
years. Only William Gregory was acquitted on all charges. Together
with his South African-born engineer John Cushny and his colleague
Nordwall, Monkhouse was deported to London. Upon his return
Monkhouse was invited to Buckingham Palace to give the king an
account of his experiences, and among the many journalists covering
the story was a youngSunday Dispatchreporter namedJohn Bing-
ham.
The British government expressed indignation at the treatment of
the six prisoners from the moment of their arrest, but Monkhouse’s