Michael John Smith (born on 22 September 1948) was convicted of spying in the UK. In 1992, Smith was arrested, accused of spying for the

KGB The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...

, and charged with four offences under sections 1(1)(b) and (c) of the UK

Official Secrets Act 1911 The Official Secrets Act 1911 ( 1 & 2 Geo. 5. c. 28) was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It replaced the Official Secrets Act 1889 ( 52 & 53 Vict. c. 52). The act was introduced in response to public alarm at reports of wide- ...

. Smith was convicted on the three section 1(1)(c) charges relating to "communicating material to another for a purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State". He was sentenced to 25 years in prison, reduced in June 1995 on appeal to 20 years. Christopher Andrew, in his history of the KGB, described Smith as "probably the most important British Line X agent since the retirement of (Melita) Norwood".

Education

Between 1960 and 1967, Smith attended Ockendon Courts County Secondary Modern School in Essex and gained nine GCE 'O' levels and four 'A' levels. He went on to the

University of Surrey The University of Surrey is a public research university in Guildford, Surrey, England. The university received its Royal Charter, royal charter in 1966, along with a Plate glass university, number of other institutions following recommendations ...

where he graduated in 1971 with a degree in electronic and electrical engineering.

Early politics

Smith joined the

Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPGB ...

in 1972. In 1975, he became the secretary of the Kingston branch of the

Young Communist League The Young Communist League (YCL) is the name used by the youth wing of various Communist parties around the world. The name ''YCL of ountry' originates from the precedent established by the Communist Youth International. Examples of YCLs includ ...

Employment

After graduating, Smith found employment for a short time as a trainee assistant electronic engineer at a small engineering company. In April 1972, he joined

Rediffusion Rediffusion was a business that distributed radio and TV signals through wired relay networks. The business gave rise to a number of other companies, including Associated-Rediffusion, later known as Rediffusion London, the first ITV (TV network ...

in Chessington as a junior engineer. In July 1976, he started work as a test engineer in the

quality assurance Quality assurance (QA) is the term used in both manufacturing and service industries to describe the systematic efforts taken to assure that the product(s) delivered to customer(s) meet with the contractual and other agreed upon performance, design ...

department of

Thorn EMI Thorn EMI was a major British company involved in consumer electronics, music, defence and retail. Created when Thorn Electrical Industries merged with EMI in October 1979, it was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituen ...

Defence Electronics at

Feltham Feltham () is a town in West London, England, from Charing Cross. Historically part of Middlesex, it became part of the London Borough of Hounslow in 1965. The parliamentary constituency of Feltham and Heston (UK Parliament constituency), Felt ...

, Middlesex. As a part of this role he had

security clearance A security clearance is a status granted to individuals allowing them access to classified information (state or organizational secrets) or to restricted areas, after completion of a thorough background check. The term "security clearance" is ...

to allow him access to material classified up to SECRET. From 1985 to 31 July 1992, when he was made redundant, he was a quality audit manager at the

Hirst Research Centre The Hirst Research Centre, also known as the GEC Hirst Research Centre or GEC Research Laboratories, was established in 1919 at Wembley, Middlesex, by the General Electric Company. History Formally opened in 1923, the site at East Lane, Wembley ...

Wembley Wembley () is a large suburbIn British English, "suburb" often refers to the secondary urban centres of a city. Wembley is not a suburb in the American sense, i.e. a single-family residential area outside of the city itself. in the London Borou ...

, the central research laboratory of

General Electric Company plc The General Electric Company (GEC) was a major British industrial conglomerate involved in consumer and defence electronics, communications, and engineering. It was originally founded in 1886 as G. Binswanger and Company as an electrical good ...

(GEC), which undertook a wide range of

Ministry of Defence A ministry of defence or defense (see American and British English spelling differences#-ce.2C -se, spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is the part of a government responsible for matters of defence and Mi ...

(MoD) and commercial projects. Since at least 1977, it had been a "prohibited place" under Section 3(b) of the ''

'' because it held classified material for the purpose of fulfilling MoD contracts. These contracts covered a range of military equipment, including the

Rapier missile Rapier is a surface-to-air missile developed for the British Army to replace their towed Bofors 40/L70 anti-aircraft guns. The system is unusual as it uses a manual optical guidance system, sending guidance commands to the missile in flight over ...

Espionage

The prosecutors alleged that Smith was recruited as a spy by Colonel Viktor Oshchenko (), a KGB Line X officer, who befriended him at a union meeting in 1975 and ran him until September 1979. In court, the prosecution offered no evidence to support this allegation. Oshchenko defected in July 1992 and provided information that is said to have confirmed suspicions that Smith had provided information on the XN-715 radar fuse for the British WE.177 free-fall nuclear bomb. The fuse was developed by Thorn EMI in conjunction with a number of MoD research establishments. Despite the fact that the most serious alleged espionage occurred whilst he was working for EMI, the trial was confined to charges relating to documents taken from GEC in his possession at the time of his arrest.

Arrest

By the time of Oshchenko's defection, Smith was no longer working for a defence contractor. The Security Service,

MI5 MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), officially the Security Service, is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Gov ...

, gave him the

code name A code name, codename, call sign, or cryptonym is a code word or name used, sometimes clandestinely, to refer to another name, word, project, or person. Code names are often used for military purposes, or in espionage. They may also be used in ...

Parellic and placed him under surveillance. Given the information provided by Oshchenko after his defection it was decided to arrest Smith as soon as possible. In August 1992, a member of the Security Service telephoned him pretending to be a friend of Oshchenko and suggested that they should meet. It was arranged to call Smith at a telephone kiosk near his home. The call did not take place due to a mix up, but Smith was under surveillance by the Metropolitan Police near the kiosk. When Smith returned home he was arrested. Analysis of Smith's financial affairs revealed unexplained income of over £20,000. Smith claims this was from his contact "Harry" for industrial espionage. During a search of the boot of his car, police found a plastic bag full of documents and some components. Among the documents were handwritten notes headed "Micromachining Project" and "Micron-Valve Project", and a document that an expert (Professor Lewis) at the trial linked to the

ALARM ALARM (Air Launched Anti-Radiation Missile) is a British anti-radiation missile designed primarily to destroy enemy radars for the purpose of Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD). It was used by the Royal Air Force, RAF and is still used by ...

anti-radiation missile project.

Damage assessment

The report of the

Security Commission The Security Commission, sometimes known as the Standing Security Commission,Geoffrey Philip Wilson, "Cases and materials on constitutional and administrative law", Cambridge University Press, 1976 p. 98. was a UK non-departmental public body or ...

dated July 1995, prepared after an inquiry into the case, stated that, :"The material known to have been obtained by Smith during his time at GEC which led to the charges and his conviction under the Official Secrets Act, was a mixed bag. Some was already in the public domain and some was of value more for its commercial than for its military potential. But a number of documents contained more sensitive material, relating to weapons systems. The potential damage to the UK overall including the Rapier is assessed as considerable. In the case of the other current weapon system, the detailed information contained in the document which should have been classified SECRET would have enabled an intelligent enemy to deduce operating parameters which would have allowed counter-measures to be developed. The potential damage to the national interest in the case of that weapons system is assessed as serious."

Follow-ups

On 10 January 2006,

Andrew Mackinlay Andrew Stuart MacKinlay (born 24 April 1949) is a British Liberal Democrat politician, who was the Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Thurrock from 1992 until he stepped down at the 2010 general election. In 2021 he was elected as a Li ...

MP asked in Parliament for clarification as to which weapon system the most serious document in the prosecution was linked.Bandpass Filter Assembly component
Andrew Mackinlay MP asks in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

for clarification on the document alleged to be linked to the ALARM missile project. 10 January 2006 ''

Hansard ''Hansard'' is the transcripts of parliamentary debates in Britain and many Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth countries. It is named after Thomas Curson Hansard (1776–1833), a London printer and publisher, who was the first official printe ...

'': Column 501W Smith alleges that this document had nothing to do with ALARM, as alleged in his trial.

References

External links

Operation Billiards
Smith's blog
Oshchenko debriefings
Oshchenko's MI5 debriefings on the case
Gordievsky briefing
Oleg Gordievsky's MI5 briefing on the case

prepared before the trial

"''Analysis of Exhibited Material from a Technical Standpoint''" dated June 1993

controversial evidence that resulted in Smith's conviction

cross-examinations of Stella Rimington and Gordievsky by defence counsel

a US citizen, that he had been recruited by Oshchenko

by Mr Justice Blofeld

final judgement issued at the appeal
Ruling of the ECHR that application by Smith was inadmissible on all grounds
{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Michael John 1948 births Living people Alumni of the University of Surrey British people convicted of spying for the Soviet Union British spies for the Soviet Union 1992 in politics General Electric Company