Historical Dictionary of British Intelligence

ATKINS, VERA• 23

ceive German troops. It also occasionally participated indartboard

and jammed enemy transmissions on the medium wave suspected of

assisting Luftwaffe navigation.

aspidistratransmissions, supervised bySecret Intelligence Ser-

vicetechnicians, began in November 1942 and continued until the

end of hostilities. In 1944 an unsuccessful attempt, codenamedsi-

lent minute, was made to useaspidistrato jam the guidance sys-

tems of V-2 rockets.

At the end of the war, theDiplomatic Wireless Servicetook over

the site; it was later acquired by the BBC World Service. In 1984 the

Home Office developed the bunker as a secret nuclear headquarters,

but two years later it was handed over to the Sussex Constabulary as

a police training facility.

ASSESSMENT STAFF.Since 1968 theJoint Intelligence Commit-
tee(JIC) has had the benefit of a small, independent analytical com-
ponent. Its personnel are drawn on temporary secondment from the
armed services, Whitehall, and the agencies. Organized intoCurrent
Intelligence Groups, the Assessment Staff prepares weekly reports
for the JIC’s consideration.

ASTOR, LORD.The owner of Cliveden, a magnificent country home
overlooking the Thames, Bill Astor served as a naval intelligence of-
ficer in the Middle East during World War II, as theNaval Intelli-
gence Divisionrepresentative on theThirty-One Committee.He
later became embroiled in theProfumoaffair when he introduced
the secretary of state for war toChristine Keelerone weekend in
July 1962.

ATKINS, VERA.Born Vera Rosenberg in Bucharest in June 1908,
Vera Atkins was categorized an enemy alien at the outbreak of World
War II. Nevertheless, within a year she had joined the Women’s Aux-
iliary Air Force and been appointed assistant toMaurice Buckmas-
ter, the head ofF Section. She played a key role in the development
of F Section’s networks in occupied France. At the end of the war,
having been promoted to be Buckmaster’s intelligence officer, Atkins
searched Germany to learn the fate of 118 missing agents, among
them many women, who had been captured by the Nazis. She interro-