In 1952, Wilson also published a pamphlet titled In Place of Dollars, urging the UK government to defy the Americans and relax controls on “strategic” exports to the USSR. Given the extent of his contacts with the Soviet Union, unusual for a Western politician in the early years of the Cold War, Wilson was an almost inevitable target.”, Meet the cast & characters of The Crown season 3, The Crown season 3 soundtrack – all the songs and music in the Netflix show. But things really heated up when former KGB agent and Soviet defector Anatoli Golitsyn pointed the finger at Harold Wilson. Did the Queen visit Winston Churchill before his death – and attend his funeral? (Warning: There will be spoilers for The Crown, Season 3, episode 1 in this article.). Wilson's possible status as a KGB spy was (and in some quarters has remained) a persistent conspiracy theory. Access exclusive energy deals! HOWEVER, there are some big holes in this theory. After leaving office in 1976, Wilson spoke with The Observer for a July 1977 article, and shared the claim that a faction in the Service was mounting a "whispering campaign" against him and that he had been bugged. Though the Queen's meetings with her Prime Ministers have always been, by their nature, business associations, Wilson enjoyed what he referred to as a "relaxed intimacy" with Elizabeth II. Given the extent of his contacts with the Soviet Union, unusual for a Western politician in the early years of the Cold War, Wilson was an almost inevitable target.”, But before anyone gets too excited, the file also notes the KGB’s ultimate failure to bring Wilson on board: “The development did not come to fruition.”. However, you can see why they earmarked him as a potential recruit. The establishment was not concerned by this as Gaitskell was on the right of the party. Queen Elizabeth II (seen here in 1964) is suspicious that Prime Minister Harold Wilson (left) was a Russian spy, The Crown contends. What was the evidence? When he was exfiltrated to the West he took with him what the FBI called ‘the most complete and extensive intelligence ever received from any source. A 2008 study, by neurology researcher Dr. Peter Garrard, examined Wilson's speeches throughout his two terms as PM to look for linguistic changes that could signal a neurological shift associated with Alzheimer's. Harold Wilson was a real person. But the entry of a third candidate in the race (James Callaghan) and some major miscalculations by Brown led to a surprise victory for Wilson; it was an unpredictable race it would have been impossible for the Soviets to engineer. In his book The Mitrokhin Archive, the ex-archivist and his co-author Christopher Andrews explain: “The most important British politician identified in the files noted by Mitrokhin as a target for KGB recruitment was Harold Wilson. That said, Wright later backed down from that allegation and altered the book accordingly, following a protracted legal battle to get the book published in the U.K. Wilson was suffering from the effects of Alzheimer's disease at the time of his death from colon cancer in 1995, but it's unclear when his deterioration from the disease began. For more information about how we hold your personal data, please see our privacy policy. It was a role he held until 1970, when he lost the general election to Tory leader Ted Heath; he remained as Leader of the Opposition, and in 1974 he returned as Prime Minister for a second stint in office. He attended Oxford, studying history, philosophy, politics, and economics, and at 24 married his sweetheart, … According to Telegraph, Golitsyn claimed that Gaitskell was assassinated by the Soviets to make way for Wilson. Following their first meeting, she took the rare step of inviting him to stay for drinks, and he was reportedly allowed to smoke his pipe during their audiences. (The Queen hears a rumor that he was poisoned but MI5 doesn’t believe that’s true, either.). News, photos, videos and full episode guide. Then BBC journalist Barrie Penrose told the Radio Times that the paranoia needed to be considered in the context of the era, saying, “Our establishment, from the intelligence services down to parts of Fleet Street, were paranoid about the threat of communism. Harold Wilson seemed very friendly towards the Soviet Union early on in his political career, and it is true that the KGB did consider him as a potential target for recruitment. Did Princess Margaret charm (and kiss) President Lyndon B Johnson? However, in 1976 he suddenly stepped down for good, with Labour MP James Callaghan taking over as Prime Minister. In 1987, a former M15 officer named Peter Wright wrote a book called Spycatcher in which he alleged that a top CIA official, James Angleton, had told him that Wilson was a Soviet agent, Express reports. This seems to pacify the now middle-aged Queen, who approaches Wilson at an art exhibit to apologize for misjudging him. I had met him and his family at the Blackwater Sailing Club, and I recall about a month before he died he told me that he was going to Russia. And how did his predecessor really die? Then, when Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell died suddenly in 1963, Golitsyn went even further. Golitsyn – who had worked for the euphemistic “Department of Wet Affairs” responsible for organising assassinations – claimed that just before he left, he’d heard that the KGB were planning a high-level political assassination in Europe in order to install their agent as leader. The new puzzles website is now live - sign up now and enjoy a 7-day free trial! He was part of a spy ring known as the Cambridge Five.) “Golitsyn claimed that Hugh Gaitskell had been murdered in January 1963 to allow Harold Wilson, a KGB agent, to become leader of the Labour Party,” Spartacus International reported, writing that “Angleton believed Golitsyn but few senior members of the CIA agreed with him. He remained an academic and developed a passionate interest in statistics and economics; despite volunteering to serve in the Second World War, he was kept within the civil service. Arthur Martin, as the head of Russian Counterespionage, went to see him. Inside Eugenie's Relationship with Queen Elizabeth. However, Christopher Andrew, the official historian for Britain's MI5, has described Golitsyn as an "unreliable conspiracy theorist". By the end of the episode, MI5’s director douses the Queen’s suspicions, saying that, although there were clearly attempts by the KGB to recruit Wilson while he was on trade missions to that country, the evidence was weak that they succeeded. In 2009, a book was published called Defence of the Realm. The vast majority within the secret service found Golitsyn’s testimony unconvincing and implausible. Wilson faced claims not just of cronyism but of high-level links between the Labour Party and the KGB. In his new term, he concentrated his efforts on domestic policy, working on reforms in education, health, pensions, instituting pay regulations, as well as disability rights. Mail on Sunday reported that the intelligence services were bugging Wilson by installing listening devices in “No10 – the Cabinet Room, the Waiting Room and the Prime Minister’s study.” Wilson suspected he was being bugged and created the Wilson Doctrine outlawing such bugging. The study found that there was a marked difference in the vocabulary Wilson used toward the end of his career, as well as a loss of Wilson's distinctive voice that could be an indicator of the early stages of Alzheimer's. It was during a trip to Russia in 1956 that Wilson met (and was impressed by) Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, commenting on his return: “the West must not underestimate this man.” The Russians must also have been pleased when Wilson refused to join his colleagues in condemning the USSR for invading Hungary to suppress an anti-communist uprising in that same year. Wilson was elected as a Labour MP in 1945 and became a rising star in the Party. From 1955 to 1961 he served as chancellor in the Shadow Cabinet (a political group in the British government formed by members of the minority party to examine the actions of the Cabinet and offer alternatives), then as Shadow Foreign Secretary from 1961 to 1963. Wilson died at age 79 in 1995. The Crown Season 3 starts with Queen Elizabeth II’s suspicions that the new British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, might be a Russian spy. In the decades since Wilson's death, other evidence has emerged that suggests the former PM was having noticeable memory lapses within years of exit from office. However, was Harold Wilson a Russian spy? MI5 also kept a close eye on him in the years before he became Prime Minister – and a Soviet defector did come up with an implausible story about Wilson assassinating Hugh Gaitskell – so it’s plausible that the Queen would have heard rumours leaking out of the security services. By entering your details, you are agreeing to Radio Times privacy policy. He said that Gaitskell had died of a disease called lupus disseminata, which attacks the body’s organs. In 1945, he was elected to the House of Commons for the Labour party. According to his IMDB profile, Harold Wilson graduated from Oxford University and became an economics lecturer, eventually representing Huyton in Parliament and becoming president of the Board of Trade. Get four VASO premium glass straws for just £9.99! The Crown season 3 is available on Netflix now. Our best wishes for a productive day. It looked like that the Labour Party would win the next election. However, also sparking the conspiracy theories about Wilson: Soviet defector Anatoliy Golitsyn claimed Wilson was a KGB agent, according to Express. He replaced Hugh Gaitskell, who died suddenly in 1963 (in The Crown, the Queen also hears a conspiracy theory that Gaitskell was poisoned to make way for Wilson). There is absolutely no evidence that his death was caused by poison. At the outbreak of WWII, Wilson was drafted into civil service in the war cabinet, then as head of statistics and economics at the Ministry of Fuel and Power. Perhaps the most indelible public image of Wilson comes along with a pipe in hand or in his mouth. "Harold always smoked a pipe on public, on platforms, on Any Questions, if he was appearing in public, that was his father figure image,” Lord Donoughue, who served as a senior aide to Wilson during his second term told The Telegraph in 2013. While Wilson's two stints as PM (from 1964 to 1970, and from 1974 to 1976) were marked by liberalizing forces in the U.K., his time in office was also plagued by thorny economic and social issues. Copyright © 2020 Heavy, Inc. All rights reserved. The Crown: Did people really think Prime Minister Harold Wilson was a Soviet agent? Harold Wilson was a Soviet agent - Soviet defector Anatoliy Golitsyn is thought to have claimed that Wilson was a KGB spy. The doubters felt Golitsyn was still doing the bidding of the Soviets by confusing and lying to his new benefactors.