EYE SPY INTELLIGENCE MAGAZINE 115 2018 17
Prime Minister Harold Wilson
defended Stonehousepar ty near Parliament. Nevertheless, Stross’s
name also appears in intelligence files under
the codename GUSTAV. He had been identified
by defector Josef Frolik in 1969 - two years
after his death.Besides his political career, Stross is also
remembered for his leadership of a campaign
to rebuild the village of Lidice in Czechoslova-
kia, which was destroyed on the orders of
Adolf Hitler in WWII.SECRETS AND TECHNOLOGYPolitician Will Owen, codename LEE, was also
linked to the StB. Intelligence files suggest he
operated for Moscow’s proxy for well over a
decade.At the subsequent trial of Owen in 1970, an
StB officer and defector gave evidence.
Stonehouse’s name was mentioned again. He
had allegedly passed technical details of
British and NATO aircraft to the Czechs; some
historians said this included material on
Concorde of which the result was the
somewhat technically challenged Russian
Tupolev TU-144 ‘Concordski’ - NATO
reporting name - CHARGER. An agent
codenamed ACE was identified (see sidebar),
and some intelligence analysts believe this
was Stonehouse himself.Stonehouse’s business and political links with
Czechoslovakia and aviation began in the early
1960s. He was involved in deals involving
BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation)
purchase of US aircraft; and in 1968 negoti-
ated an aircraft technology programme
between the UK and Czechoslovakia. This led
to an ‘exchange’ of information and fur ther
projects of cooperation. By 1967, the year
Concorde was officially rolled out, he hadAGENT ACE AND CONCORDSKI
LOSS OF CONCORDE INTELLIGENCE OR MI6 MISCHIEF?
here is much evidence to
suggest that over 100,
pages of technical data,
information, analysis notes and
Tdiagrams were secured by the
KGB on the Anglo-French endeavour and
other advanced aircraft such as
Lockheed’s L-1011. The Concorde
material was undoubtedly used by the
Russians to hastily produce their own
‘cloned’ version of the supersonic aircraft- the Tupolev Tu-144.
Intelligence files provided by MI6 agent
and defector Vasili Mitrokhin names an
aircraft engineer codenamed ACE as the
culprit. However, his true identity was
never revealed; a puzzle in itself. This fact
led to some conspiracy theorists suggest-
ing it was all a ruse and that MI6 had
actually inserted bogus papers into the
mix, which resulted in the Russian variant
crashing at the 1973 Paris Air Show.Agent ACE was but one of around a
dozen Soviet spies operating in Britain
who passed technical secrets to the KGB
at the height of the Cold War. He report-
edly died in the early 1980s.Concorde at the 1967 inaugural
ceremony. Inset: First flight 1969Tu-144LL with retractable canards
and lowered nose- Russian Tu-144LL 1969. Soviet Tu-144 prototype
The ‘real thing’- Concorde
Space age cabin crew© ANDRÉ CROS FONDS, PRESERVED BY THE MUNICIPAL ARCHIVES OF THE CITY OF TOULOUSE