The "Colonel B" case

This is the short version. Medium and long versions are available on application...

1: The begats

In the beginning were Phil Agee and Mark Hosenball, two American journalists working in London. Agee is ex-CIA and Hosenball's father had "State Department connections". They wrote in 1975 in Time Out about GCHQ Cheltenham - the UK Signals Intelligence outfit which, astonishingly, had remained an unmentionable secret for three decades. The US and UK governments were not amused. Labour Home Secretary (Minister of the Interior) Rees decided to deport Agee and Hosenball.

Thus Rees begat the Agee-Hosenball Defence Committee.

The AH-DC brought together journalists Crispin Aubrey and Duncan Campbell (not the Crime Editor at the Guardian, the other one). They were contacted by one John Berry, who had worked for GCHQ in Cyprus as a lowly soldier. The three arranged a meeting, entirely by telephone. They were arrested as they were leaving, and charged under the Official Secrets Act with offences carrying penalties of up to 14 years.

Thus AH-DC begat the ABC Defence Committee.

At ABC's "committal hearing", the prosecution produced one "Colonel B", as an anonymous expert witness. This seemed especially pernicious since he was expected to testify to the heinousness of the secrets which had, it was alleged, been discussed between Crispin Aubrey, Duncan Campbell, and John Berry.

2: The actual story

I was working for Peace News, which with the Leveller published Colonel B's name, on good liberal grounds: how better to impress a jury, we wondered, than with the theatricality of a witness behind a screen? A witness, to boot, whose testimony was to how big an Official Secret was involved, who demonstrated that point before he even began his evidence? And the whole idea of an anonymous expert witness smells as I, Professor J, will now demonstrate...

I can't deny that an instinct for devilment was also involved.

Ten people working for the two magazines, plus Ron Knowles, the then editor of the NUJ's paper the Journalist, and the Union itself, were charged with contempt of court.

Thus the ABC-DC begat the Colonel B Defence Committee.

You just don't get third-order Defence Committees these days.

We eventually appeared in front of the Lord Chief Justice Lord Widgery, and two other Very Senior Judges. A finding was entered against us - and then overtured in the House of Lords. One side-effect was that the late Hugh Anthony Johnstone became possibly the most famous British Army officer since Montgomery. Another was the part of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 which clarified when UK court proceedings could and could not be reported.