SNOW• 501SMITHERS, SIR PETER.Educated at Harrow and Magdalen Col-
lege, Oxford, where he gained a first in history, Peter Smithers was
called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 1937 and on the outbreak of
World War II joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. However, in
January 1940 he fell ill and while recuperating received an invitation
fromIan Flemingto serve with Naval Intelligence in Paris, attached
toBiffy Dunderdale’sSecret Intelligence Servicestation. Upon the
fall of France, Smithers was posted toMI5, searching for Nazi para-
chutists, and undertook a survey of wrecks in the North Sea and the
Western Approaches in case any could conceal German radio opera-
tors. In 1941 thedirector of naval intelligencesent him to Washing-
ton, D.C., as assistant naval attache ́, and then down to Mexico and
Panama to supervise a coast-watching network. He returned to Lon-
don in 1945 to be adopted as the parliamentary candidate for Win-
chester, a seat he held until 1964 when he was appointed secretary-
general of the Council of Europe.
SMOLLETT, PETER.The only Soviet spy known to have been re-
cruited byKim Philbyduring World War II was Henri P. Smolka, the
London correspondent of the AustrianNeue Freie Presse. Smolka, a
Marxist who changed his name to Peter Smollett, was to head the
Russian Department of the Ministry of Information and was run suc-
cessively by Philby,Guy Burgess, andAnthony Blunt. Codenamed
abo, he had come to London from his native Vienna in 1933 and
achieved some celebrity with his pro-Soviet bookForty Thousand
against the Arctic, a romanticized account of the Gulag in Siberia.
Philby was rebuked by therezident,Anatoli Gorsky, for having re-
cruited Smollett without obtaining the permission of Moscow
Center.
SNOW. MI5code name for Arthur Owens, the Welsh proprietor of a
battery company who made regular visits toHamburgprior to
World War II. Originally run as an agent by theSecret Intelligence
Service’s Colonel Edward Peal, study of his correspondence showed
that he had been in undeclared contact with theAbwehrsince the
end of 1936, so he was taken into custody in September 1939 as an
espionage suspect. However, he traded possession of his wireless
transmitter and his cooperation for a degree of freedom and ex-