Historical Dictionary of British Intelligence

Z ORGANISATION• 597

interpretation of someultramaterial and misleading reports from

the field—to switch support to the Communist leader of the parti-

sans, Josip Broz, known as Tito. By September 1943Fitzroy Mac-

leanhad been attached to Tito’s headquarters as the British liaison

officer, and links were established toSpecial Operations Execu-

tive’s forward base in Bari. The decision to abandon Mihailovic and

consign Yugoslavia to a postwar Communist dictatorship remains

one of the most controversial of the war, influenced inCairoby the

covert activities of prominent Communists, among themJames

Klugmann.See alsoYUGOSLAV SECTION.

–Z–

Z ORGANISATION.In recognition of the vulnerability of hispass-
port control officers, the chief of theSecret Intelligence Service
(SIS), AdmiralHugh Sinclair, authorizedClaude Danseyin 1937 to
develop a parallel SIS network in Europe under a variety of business
covers—some authentic, others created specially to accommodate the
agents. The fundamental attraction of this ‘‘Z Organisation’’ was, of
course, its isolation from the Passport Control Offices, which was
known to have been compromised.
Dansey had no qualms about recruiting journalists, and among his
first agents wasFrederick Voight, formerly the Berlin correspondent
of theManchester Guardian. Like Eric Gedye of theTimes, his col-
league John Evans in Prague, and theDaily Expresscorrespondent
in Vienna, (Sir) Geoffrey Cox, Voight was approached informally by
Dansey.
Dansey, himself a colorful character with quite a checkered past
of business failures in the United States, specialized in exploiting
commercial fronts, and among them were SirAlexander Korda’s
London Films, a Highgate travel firm named Lammin Tours, and the
General Steamship Trading Company. However, it was Dansey’s net-
work of patriotic journalists that proved the real worth of his organi-
zation, many supplying material for not much more than the privilege
of being invited by him to lunch at the Jockey Club in Paris. Usually
they restricted their activities to compiling reports, probably not
going much further than they were for Fleet Street, but it seems likely