244 • HOLLIS, SIR ROGER
pointed deputy director-general toSir Dick White. In 1963 as direc-
tor-general, Hollis came under suspicion as a potential Sovietmole
and was the subject of a secret investigation codenameddrat.He
was recalled from retirement to undergo a hostile interrogation and
died in 1973 surrounded by much controversy.
When challenged in the Commons, Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher read a prepared statement that, far from ending the specula-
tion, promptedPeter Wrightto publicly denounce his former direc-
tor-general as a traitor. The question of whether MI5 ever suffered
Soviet penetration after the departure ofAnthony Bluntin 1945 is
an issue that may only be resolved when theKGB archivesare
opened to public scrutiny. In the meantime, the only certainty is that
both Hollis and his deputy,Graham Mitchell, suffered the ignominy
of being accused by colleagues of having betrayed secrets to Moscow
over an extended period.
Hollis was the son of the bishop of Wells. He dropped out of Ox-
ford and sought a job in journalism in Hong Kong. Later he moved
to China, where he was employed by the British American Tobacco
Corporation as a manager and where he contracted tuberculosis, a
disease from which he never fully recovered. Invalided back to Lon-
don, Hollis applied unsuccessfully toRoger Fulfordfor a job on the
Times, was turned down by theSecret Intelligence Service(SIS)
where his brother Marcus went to work, and was eventually accepted
by MI5 in 1938.
Once in MI5 Hollis worked in the countersubversion division and
made himself an expert on British Communists. He earned a reputa-
tion as a diligent but dull worker who ably represented his organiza-
tion in Whitehall’s committees. His route to advancement was not
through the relatively glamorouscounterespionagesections, but via
the more mundane countersubversion and protective security
branches. His promotion to the post of deputy director-general was
entirely unexpected and followed the sudden departure in 1952 of
Guy Liddell, who switched toGCHQfollowing the embarrassing
defectionof his friendGuy Burgess. Hollis had little hope of mov-
ing up to the top job until White’s transfer to SIS in 1956 in the wake
of the BusterCrabbincident. Prime MinisterAnthony Eden, furi-
ous that his instructions to suspend all clandestine activity for the
duration of the visit by Nikita Khrushchev and Marshal Bulganin,