Between 1954 and 1961, operating from an unassuming bungalow at 45 Cranley Drive, Ruislip, Lona and Morris Cohen smuggled out a vast haul of British nuclear secrets to their KGB paymasters.
Operating under the aliases Helen and Peter Kroger, the names taken from a New Zealander couple who had died in a car crash, the US-born Cohens were top Russian spies who in the 1940s had been key members of a network of agents collecting and passing on crucial information from research and development programme the Manhattan Project. This included a complete diagram of the US atomic bomb.
In 1950, their cover blown, the Cohens travelled to Russia and then to Poland, where they were given their new identities, and eventually to London. They opened an antiquarian bookshop on the Strand – great cover for sending parcels across Europe. Working with their handler Konon Molody, a Soviet intelligence officer masquerading as Gordon Lonsdale, a Canadian businessman selling jukeboxes and vending machines, they acted as the conduit for information collected by fellow London-based spies, Harry Houghton and Ethel Gee.
Houghton was a former Royal Navy master-at-arms who, in the 1950s, worked as clerk to the British Naval Attaché in Warsaw. He spied first for the Poles and then the Russians. Greedy for money, Houghton passed on huge amounts of material and was paid bonuses according to its sensitivity. His heavy drinking and troubled relationship with his wife became widespread knowledge at the Embassy and he was transferred back to the UK early. But in 1953 he began work in the Royal Navy’s Underwater Detection Establishment in Portland, Dorset and persuaded his work colleague, Gee, to help him access highly sensitive material on the UK’s nuclear submarine fleet.
Gee and Houghton would regularly travel up to London, taking in a show and a bite to eat, before handing their trove to Molody, who would pass it on to the Cohens in Ruislip. There, the material was photographed and reduced to the size of a micro dot, which went into one of the antiquarian books ready for dispatch abroad. Then, using a radio transmitter with a 23-metre arial, the Cohens would notify the KGB that the book was on its way. This was the arrangement that came to be known as the Portland spy ring.
Houghton’s extravagant spending attracted suspicion, but it wasn’t until 1959, when the Polish intelligence officer Michael Goleniewski defected to the US, that MI5 began surveillance of him and Gee. This led them to Molody and then to the Cohens. At that point began a protracted MI5 stakeout of 45 Cranley Drive, conducted from the side bedroom window of a house in nearby Courtfield Gardens, occupied by Wilfred and Ruth Search and their children Philip and Gay (who would later become a TV presenter and journalist).
The stakeout provides the starting point of the play Pack of Lies by the prolific writer of theatre, TV and film scripts, Hugh Whitemore. The Searches were good friends of the Cohens – the Krogers as they knew them, of course – and found the whole situation difficult. They were told bits of what the Security Service believed was going on, but not all, adding to their initial disbelief.
It is Ruth Search’s growing realisation of the scale of the Cohens duplicity and the strain that having MI5 watchers hidden in her house, together with pretending to the Cohen that everything was tickety-boo, that provides the dramatic drive of the story.
In the play, the Helen Kroger character “splashes the cash”, opening the door for Ruth to a life of gifts, boozy parties and provocative conversation and encouraging her in her desire to be a painter. This was in sharp contrast to the repressive silence of suburbia, the drudgery of repetitive housework, the twitching of net curtains and the fear of what the neighbours might think.” And Ruth, as she was all too aware, was engaged in her own kind of betrayal, being persuaded to put the interests of her country ahead of a deep friendship.
The Cohens-turned-Krogers were arrested at their bungalow in January 1961 and in March were convicted of espionage. They were sentenced to 20 years in jail. Kolody was given 25 years, and Houghton and Gee, 15 each. However, in 1969, the Cohens were released in a prisoner swap with the Soviet Union. Their feats were celebrated in Russia – they were even to appear on a set of postage stamps. Ruth Search, however, struggled to adjust and never got over the strain of weeks spent lying to a neighbour she thought she knew well. A few weeks after the Cohens’ release she died of a heart attack.
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This story of high-stakes international mystery in suburban London still intrigues. A recent production of Pack of Lies at the Compass Theatre in Ickenham played to sell-out crowds.
It was performed by Proscenium, a theatre company (pictured below) founded in 1924 whose aim is to present classic and contemporary plays to as wide an audience as possible. This includes work by Shakespeare, Ibsen, Bennett and Lorca and more. The amateur group based largely in north-west London puts on three shows a year and has around 30 active members, though its membership is much wider.
Recruiting and keeping actors, particularly young ones, is a big part of the stresses and strains of running the group. It is, after all, quite a commitment, with rehearsals three times a week and a lead-in time of seven or eight weeks to get a play ready for opening night.
Securing a long-term suitable performance space is another big part of the challenge, as On London’s recent piece about the Scrum theatre group highlighted. Izzie Cartwright, Proscenium’s artistic director, has over the years seen a number of groups disappear and venues close in this part of London. Proscenium uses all sorts of methods to promote its work, including social media, mailing lists, WhatsApp groups and even leafleting supermarkets to get people in through the doors.
But there is clearly an appetite for theatre close to home in outer London areas. People save on travelling into the West End, it is excellent value and there is a wide repertoire to choose from. Proscenium carefully balances its choice of plays between what will appeal to its likely audience and what will stretch it as a group. Next up is Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, which will be staged next March. Support your local theatre scene.
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