hold peculiar views about the C.I.A. and the British
Intelligence Service. So here I was strutting about in the uniform of
a war correspondent bearing the flashes 'I.S.', the butt of many a
joke from my friends who accused me of being a master spy. My boss,
Colonel Johnson, who had been the British Council representative in
Greece prior to the outbreak of war in 1939, came to my office one
morning and told me that he had heard a rumour that King George of the
Hellenes, who was then in London, was going to broadcast in the Greek
service of the B.B.C. I replied I had heard nothing, but would try
and find out if the rumour was true. As he left my office I glanced
at my watch; it was 11 o'clock in the morning, 9 o'clock in London. I
telephoned the General Manager of Cable & Wireless, Mr Briggs, who was
a personal friend. I told him I wanted to make use of his facilities
to ask an urgent question of the B.B.C. in London. He replied, "Tell
McTaggert" (the engineer in charge of the Central Telegraph Office)
"that I said he should help you in any way possible."

"Mac," I said over the telephone, "would you get one of your
operators to ring the B.B.C. in Bush House (from where the World
Service originates) and ask them if they have any plans for a
broadcast by King George of the Hellenes." I immediately tuned one of
my receivers to the frequency of the London telegraph link, which was
carrying high speed morse traffic. In a short while the tape was
stopped and an operator, using a hand key, asked my question slowly in
plain language, and then the tape was put on again. I waited anxiously
for about five minutes. Again the tape was stopped, a single letter
'R' (for received) was sent by hand, and traffic returned to
normal. My telephone rang; it was McTaggert. "Nothing doing, old
boy. The B.B.C. have no plans for such a broadcast." I thanked him
and looked at my watch. It was 11.25, just 25 minutes had elapsed. I
called my boss and told him the answer to his question. "How do you
know?" he asked. "I asked the B.B.C., sir." "You what?" he shouted
at me. "Don't you know there's a war on? I'm coming to see you." He
stormed into my office and demanded an explanation, so I told him what
I had done. "Good God, what is this going to cost us?". "Nothing at
all, sir. There is no provision for anything like that in the
operating procedure". "Then I must write a letter to Cable & Wireless
to thank them." I though