The Vassall Tribunal was a public inquiry undertaken in 1963 by the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

government in the wake of the

John Vassall William John Christopher Vassall (20 September 1924 – 18 November 1996) was a British people, British civil servant who spied for the Soviet Union, allegedly under pressure of blackmail, from 1954 until his arrest in 1962. Although operating o ...

affair. Vassall, a

civil servant The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil service personnel hired rather than elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leadership. A civil service offic ...

working in the Admiralty, had been revealed the previous year to be a

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

spy, and considerable criticism had been levelled at the security arrangements that were in place. The tribunal was established to investigate the claims and determine whether any blame could be laid on officials or ministers. At first, the inquiry was to be conducted by three senior civil servants: the Permanent Under-Secretary of the Treasury, the Treasury Solicitor, and the Second Secretary at the Treasury. Before it could begin, letters were discovered in Vassall's possession from

Tam Galbraith Sir Thomas Galloway Dunlop Galbraith, known as Tam Galbraith, (10 March 1917 – 2 January 1982) was a Scottish Unionist politician. Early life The eldest son and heir of Thomas Galbraith, 1st Baron Strathclyde, Galbraith was educated at Ayto ...

, who had been Civil Lord of the Admiralty. Vassall had been Galbraith's junior private secretary, but some people suggested that it was odd that a minister would communicate by post with an official of his own department, and there was considerable speculation of impropriety in the press. Given Vassall's homosexuality, which had become known, it began to be put around that he and Galbraith were involved with each other and that Galbraith might have shielded him from discovery. The committee of civil servants investigated the correspondence and declared it innocent, but the verdict was not universally accepted. Eventually, the Prime Minister was compelled to open a wider inquiry, conducted by three jurists: the Viscount Radcliffe, Mr Justice Barry, and Milner Holland QC. The inquiry determined that Vassall had not been helped or favoured by any of his seniors. The inquiry was controversial in some quarters for requiring journalists to reveal the sources that they claimed for their allegations and for having prosecuted two journalists, Brendan Mulholland of the ''

Daily Mail The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily Middle-market newspaper, middle-market Tabloid journalism, tabloid conservative newspaper founded in 1896 and published in London. , it has the List of newspapers in the United Kingdom by circulation, h ...

'' and Reg Foster of the ''

Daily Sketch The ''Daily Sketch'' was a British national tabloid newspaper, founded in Manchester in 1909 by Sir Edward Hulton, 1st Baronet. The ''Sketch'' was Conservative in its politics and populist in its tone during its existence through all its ch ...

'', who refused and were jailed for contempt of court, Lord Radcliffe sentencing Mulholland for six months and Foster for three months.Wilson, John
''Understanding Journalism: A Guide to Issues''. Routledge, 2006.
At Google Books. Retrieved 27 October 2017.Wilkinson, Nicholas John
''Secrecy and the Media: The Official History of the United Kingdom's D-Notice System'', p. 203. Routledge, 2009.
At Google Books. Retrieved 27 October 2017.

References

{{reflist Vassall, John Espionage scandals and incidents Soviet Union–United Kingdom relations 1963 in the United Kingdom 1963 in British politics LGBTQ history in the United Kingdom