566 • WATSON, ALISTER
commissioned officers and members of the MI5 families to provide
the personnel whose skill is considered exceptional.WATSON, ALISTER.Educated at King’s College, Cambridge, where
he had been an ardent Marxist, twice secretary of theApostles, and
a friend ofGuy BurgessandAnthony Blunt, Dr. Alister Watson
was a mathematician who had joined the Admiralty’s Radar and Sig-
nals Establishment before moving to the Admiralty Research Labora-
tory at Teddington, where he had been promoted to head of the
Submarine Detection Research Section. In 1965 Blunt identified
Watson toMI5as a covert Communist who had spied for the Soviets.
The MI5 officer responsible for investigating Watson wasPeter
Wright, who had worked alongside him during World War II in the
Admiralty Research Laboratory; in a further coincidence, Watson
had lodged in Bristol for two years with Wright’s brother. Under in-
terrogation, Watson denied that he had ever been a spy, but Blunt
attended one interview, conducted at Brown’s Hotel, and remained
convinced that he had been. All that Watson would admit to was hav-
ing been in contact with three different Soviet diplomats, all of whom
were identified as members of theKGB’srezidentura. As a result of
MI5’s suspension of Watson’s security clearance, he was transferred
to unclassified work at the National Institute of Oceanography.
WATTS, STEPHEN.At the outbreak of World War II in September
1939, Stephen Watts, previously the film and drama critic of theSun-
day Express, was the spotter in a battery of Royal Engineers search-
lights with the rank of lance corporal. A year later he had been
commissioned and was appointed editor ofWar, the broadsheet of
the Army Bureau of Current Affairs. Watts stayed with this rather
obscure branch of Army Education until early in 1943, when he was
invited to lunch bySir David Petrieand invited to join the Security
Service.
Watts’s work inMI5began with routine port security, vetting re-
cent arrivals from the Continent and checking their credentials. In
March 1944 he was assigned to a liaison role with thedeceptionstaff
at theSupreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forceand
participated incopperhead. After the liberation of France, Watts
was sent to Paris to trace the source of an indiscreet newspaper article