Minutes of the Forty-third Meeting of the Committee (Deputy Directors (O and S)), Held in Conference Room "H", at the Ministry of Defence, S.W.1. on Friday, 28th April, 1950 at 10.15 a.m.

THIS IS A COPY. THE ORIGINAL IS RETAINED UNDER SECTION 3 (4) OF THE PUBLIC RECORDS ACT SECRET COMMANDER WHITESTONE said that the Slav aliens would not be suitable for employment in the Intelligence Division although there might be scope for the employment of a few in other Departments on straightforward translation work. They could not be employed as interrogators since they would not have the necessary Naval background, although in certain circumstances their assistance as interpreters might be useful. The Admiralty considered that there might be far more scope for the employment of these individuals in post and telegraph censorship. GROUP CAPTAIN BRODIE said that the Air Ministry would not be able to employ any appreciable number of these aliens since the great majority of the linguists posts were for special purposes for which aliens were not acceptable. For example, on mobilisation, the Air Ministry required about 800 Russian speakers, of whom 650 were for special purposes and of the remaining 150 only some 30 or 40 were translators or interpreters. There was therefore little scope for the employment of these aliens in the Air Ministry, in war. COLONEL HARDING-NEWMAN said that the War Office could accept the employment of these aliens in principle but their employment would depend on the individuals concerned, their satisfactory vetting and their personal qualifications. They would be of certain value to the War Office if they had satisfactory military education and background. It was not considered that the employment of these Slavs could make any substantial contribution to the problem of meeting National requirements of Russian speakers for war and the proposal should not, therefore, be allowed in any way to affect plans for increasing facilities for training United Kingdom personnel as linguists. The employment of the aliens should be treated only as a bonus in the event of war since the value of the individuals could only be assessed at the time. CAPTAIN MOORE said that the Joint Intelligence Bureau were concerned only with translators. The Slave might be of use provided they had no dependants in their country of origin; their security vetting was satisfactory; their knowledge of English was very good; and, most important of all, they were well educated and adaptable. Individuals with all these qualifications could be employed by the Joint Intelligence Bureau. said that in his Department, security considerations were paramount and only individuals of British parentage could be employed. There was therefore no scope for the employment of the Slav aliens. MR. TURNEY said that the Directorate of Scientific Intelligence would only require a very small number of linguists for straightforward translation work. Requirements in war would probably be less than in peace, due to the reduced supply of Soviet scientific journals. Scientific qualifications were not essential provided the translator worked with someone who knew the subject. M. HOLLIS said that the Security Service were naturally particularly concerned over the proposals. In general terms, the employment of aliens was less reliable than that of British subjects since there was less information available on aliens on which they could be vetted. Even if quite good records were available, the reactions of an alien working for a country at war with his own country were quite unpredictable. When the war -2-