Hyfler/Rosner
2004-05-12 22:56:44 UTC
From The Independent:
Solicitor who acted as secretary to SOE's Council and
continued secret work into the Cold War
13 May 2004
Victor Montgomery Cannon Brookes, solicitor,
secret-service officer and publisher: born London 24 May
1911; married 1935 Nancy Markham Carter (died 1994; two
sons); died Oxford 18 April 2004.
Victor Cannon Brookes, a solicitor, was the last survivor of
those who attended the Council of the Special Operations
Executive, the formidable body that directed the subversive
secret service's work. He did not belong to Council - all
those who did are now dead; but he was its secretary and
kept its minutes, once deadly secret, now in the National
Archives at Kew.
His father was a London solicitor; his mother died, in the
Spanish flu epidemic that killed more people than died in
the First World War, in 1919 when he was a small boy. He was
brought up in East Anglia in what were then regarded as
Bohemian circles. From Bilton Grange preparatory school,
young Victor - he had an elder brother - went to Sherborne,
where he was a friend and contemporary of Alan Turing, the
cryptographic genius who helped break Enigma ciphers during
the next world war.
From Sherborne in turn he moved on, by family tradition, to
Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he read Modern Languages and
Economics. In 1933 he went to stay in south Germany, to
improve his knowledge of the language, and was thus able to
observe at first hand the early stages of the Nazi
revolution at work in German society; as well as making
several friends in the German aristocratic opposition,
several of whom came to horrible ends in the last winter of
the war. He also met there several notable musicians,
including Arturo Toscanini, Bruno Walther and Benjamin
Britten.
Returning to England, he took up his lifelong career as a
family solicitor, working at first in Slaughter & May. In
1935 he married Nancy Markham Carter, the cousin of a
Cambridge friend, his devoted wife for almost 60 years (she
died in 1994). As soon as he qualified, he joined the family
firm of Cannon Brookes & Odgers; but he received an
invitation, early in the Second World War, to join the
Ministry of Economic Warfare, where he did much for the
Finns during their winter war against the Soviet Union in
1939-40. At MEW he again met Harry Sporborg, whom he had
known at Slaughter & May; and in late summer 1940 Sporborg
invited him to join the ministry's secret appendix, the
Special Operations Executive.
In those early days, SOE had to recruit on the old-boy net;
its members invited those they knew and trusted already to
join them - there was no other safe way of staffing a new
secret service. Sporborg's choice of Cannon Brookes was
fully justified: as a solicitor, he understood already the
need to keep his mouth shut, he had a clear, trained head,
he knew something about the enemy, he was prepared to work
irregular hours, his personality was stable. He never rose
to high rank, but he never made an indiscretion, and nothing
surprised him - not even having to work briefly with Kim
Philby, whom he found disagreeable. Philby was soon removed
into a post with a rival secret service more interesting to
his Soviet masters.
Cannon Brookes held a series of medium-ranking posts in SOE,
with a galaxy of cover initials, mainly as assistant to
Sporborg, who rose to be one of the two deputies on whom
General Colin Gubbins, SOE's last executive head, chiefly
depended. They dealt mainly with the always delicate problem
of relations with the governments in exile in London. All
these bodies were longing to see their countries liberated
from Nazi or Fascist occupation, but few of them (the Poles
were here an honourable exception) were prepared to risk the
casualties that were likely to be involved.
In the winter of 1943-44, after Gubbins had taken overall
charge, Cannon Brookes succeeded Sporborg as principal
private secretary for SOE affairs for the Earl of Selborne,
whose cover was that he was Minister of Economic Warfare
(Selborne said that SOE took up about four-fifths of his
time; Parliament, Cabinet, MEW and his family estate
absorbed the rest).
As such, it was Cannon Brookes's duty to attend SOE's
Council meetings - every Wednesday without fail, more often
(daily if necessary) when a crisis was running, as it often
was. It was his business to summon the members, keep and
circulate the minutes, and ensure that Council's decisions
were carried through: no light task, but one calmly and
efficiently performed.
On SOE's abrupt winding-up in January 1946 Cannon Brookes
went back to Cannon Brookes & Odgers, and picked up as best
he could the threads of the business and family affairs he
had been running before the war. He was a trustee, and for
26 years a governor, of Bilton Grange, his preparatory
school. As a devout Christian, he worked hard for the SPCK,
reorganising its finances; and when he retired to
Sunningdale he was for years Vicar's Warden at his local
church.
The Foreign Office kept in touch with those few of SOE's
members whom it regarded as entirely reliable; he was one of
them. His Christian faith made him sternly anti-Stalinist;
and the researches at Company House of Peter Lashmar and
James Oliver have revealed in their 1998 book, Britain's
Secret Propaganda War, that Cannon Brookes was the front man
for several news agencies and publishing firms, ostensibly
quite independent, which spread round the Near and Middle
East notions of how the free world should run.
He soldiered on, in fact, for nearly 30 years more, well
into the Cold War; while preserving his public face as a
genial, safe, reliable family man.
M. R. D. Foot
Solicitor who acted as secretary to SOE's Council and
continued secret work into the Cold War
13 May 2004
Victor Montgomery Cannon Brookes, solicitor,
secret-service officer and publisher: born London 24 May
1911; married 1935 Nancy Markham Carter (died 1994; two
sons); died Oxford 18 April 2004.
Victor Cannon Brookes, a solicitor, was the last survivor of
those who attended the Council of the Special Operations
Executive, the formidable body that directed the subversive
secret service's work. He did not belong to Council - all
those who did are now dead; but he was its secretary and
kept its minutes, once deadly secret, now in the National
Archives at Kew.
His father was a London solicitor; his mother died, in the
Spanish flu epidemic that killed more people than died in
the First World War, in 1919 when he was a small boy. He was
brought up in East Anglia in what were then regarded as
Bohemian circles. From Bilton Grange preparatory school,
young Victor - he had an elder brother - went to Sherborne,
where he was a friend and contemporary of Alan Turing, the
cryptographic genius who helped break Enigma ciphers during
the next world war.
From Sherborne in turn he moved on, by family tradition, to
Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he read Modern Languages and
Economics. In 1933 he went to stay in south Germany, to
improve his knowledge of the language, and was thus able to
observe at first hand the early stages of the Nazi
revolution at work in German society; as well as making
several friends in the German aristocratic opposition,
several of whom came to horrible ends in the last winter of
the war. He also met there several notable musicians,
including Arturo Toscanini, Bruno Walther and Benjamin
Britten.
Returning to England, he took up his lifelong career as a
family solicitor, working at first in Slaughter & May. In
1935 he married Nancy Markham Carter, the cousin of a
Cambridge friend, his devoted wife for almost 60 years (she
died in 1994). As soon as he qualified, he joined the family
firm of Cannon Brookes & Odgers; but he received an
invitation, early in the Second World War, to join the
Ministry of Economic Warfare, where he did much for the
Finns during their winter war against the Soviet Union in
1939-40. At MEW he again met Harry Sporborg, whom he had
known at Slaughter & May; and in late summer 1940 Sporborg
invited him to join the ministry's secret appendix, the
Special Operations Executive.
In those early days, SOE had to recruit on the old-boy net;
its members invited those they knew and trusted already to
join them - there was no other safe way of staffing a new
secret service. Sporborg's choice of Cannon Brookes was
fully justified: as a solicitor, he understood already the
need to keep his mouth shut, he had a clear, trained head,
he knew something about the enemy, he was prepared to work
irregular hours, his personality was stable. He never rose
to high rank, but he never made an indiscretion, and nothing
surprised him - not even having to work briefly with Kim
Philby, whom he found disagreeable. Philby was soon removed
into a post with a rival secret service more interesting to
his Soviet masters.
Cannon Brookes held a series of medium-ranking posts in SOE,
with a galaxy of cover initials, mainly as assistant to
Sporborg, who rose to be one of the two deputies on whom
General Colin Gubbins, SOE's last executive head, chiefly
depended. They dealt mainly with the always delicate problem
of relations with the governments in exile in London. All
these bodies were longing to see their countries liberated
from Nazi or Fascist occupation, but few of them (the Poles
were here an honourable exception) were prepared to risk the
casualties that were likely to be involved.
In the winter of 1943-44, after Gubbins had taken overall
charge, Cannon Brookes succeeded Sporborg as principal
private secretary for SOE affairs for the Earl of Selborne,
whose cover was that he was Minister of Economic Warfare
(Selborne said that SOE took up about four-fifths of his
time; Parliament, Cabinet, MEW and his family estate
absorbed the rest).
As such, it was Cannon Brookes's duty to attend SOE's
Council meetings - every Wednesday without fail, more often
(daily if necessary) when a crisis was running, as it often
was. It was his business to summon the members, keep and
circulate the minutes, and ensure that Council's decisions
were carried through: no light task, but one calmly and
efficiently performed.
On SOE's abrupt winding-up in January 1946 Cannon Brookes
went back to Cannon Brookes & Odgers, and picked up as best
he could the threads of the business and family affairs he
had been running before the war. He was a trustee, and for
26 years a governor, of Bilton Grange, his preparatory
school. As a devout Christian, he worked hard for the SPCK,
reorganising its finances; and when he retired to
Sunningdale he was for years Vicar's Warden at his local
church.
The Foreign Office kept in touch with those few of SOE's
members whom it regarded as entirely reliable; he was one of
them. His Christian faith made him sternly anti-Stalinist;
and the researches at Company House of Peter Lashmar and
James Oliver have revealed in their 1998 book, Britain's
Secret Propaganda War, that Cannon Brookes was the front man
for several news agencies and publishing firms, ostensibly
quite independent, which spread round the Near and Middle
East notions of how the free world should run.
He soldiered on, in fact, for nearly 30 years more, well
into the Cold War; while preserving his public face as a
genial, safe, reliable family man.
M. R. D. Foot