To: Ian Chapman

Chief Executive and Publisher

Simon and Schuster

1st Floor

222 Gray's Inn Road

London WC1X 8HB 

8 November 2022

Dear Mr Chapman

I’m the daughter of John Stonehouse, the subject of your book Agent Twister. If authors published by a reputable company such as Simon and Schuster are going to state categorically that a person was a communist agent, they should be able to provide proof. This book does not do that. The authors only refer to five instances of specific information being passed to the Czech secret service and in no instance have the facts been accurately presented. Indeed, they have been misrepresented, as I detail below:

Instance 1, page 98 (see also page 93, para 2):

“When Stonehouse gets to Prague, he is again staying at the residence of Cecil Parrott … Little does Parrot know that Stonehouse has been handing over ministry documents that detail a new way of reinforcing structural plastics with carbon fibres, complete with scientific formulas. The British hope this alternative to metal and fibreglass will revolutionise the construction of aircraft and, as the document states, the Royal Aircraft Establishment is hoping to patent it for the nation.”

This was supposed to be in 1968 and Parrott ceased being ambassador in 1966, that aside, their reference for this statement is:

“’Carbon Fibres for the Reinforcement of Structural Plastics’ report, Mintech (Ministry of Technology)/RAE (Royal Aircraft Establishment), StB (Czech Security Service) file 680220”, which is shown below:

As you can see, this 4-page leaflet is not “complete with scientific formulas” – either singular or plural. It only details the physical properties of the new material, comparing these to those of glass fibre and steel. And as you can see on the last page, it has three references showing that much of this information is already in the public domain, from The Engineer and Nature periodicals and a book. Contrary to Augar/Winstone saying it is “documents” (page 98) and a “report” (ref 12, page 368), it is in fact an advertising leaflet. There is nothing secret about it; it is neither “documents” nor “a report”; and it certainly does not contain any “scientific formulas”, as Augar and Winstone assert.

To make a simple comparison, it’s as if Augar and Winstone had represented an advert for a new iphone listing its features as the actual, pre-patent, secret designs (plural) of that iphone. In this case, they have represented the properties of the new material as “scientific formulas”. Surely they can see the difference? I certainly can, as I expect you can. But, knowing full well their readers are unlikely to have access to the StB source, Augar/Winstone have deliberately misrepresented the StB documentation for the purpose of promoting their ‘spy’ narrative.

This innocuous public leaflet could have made its way into the file via several routes and I can write you a short thesis on that subject should you require it. The fact remains: Augar/Winstone have misrepresented it in a deliberate and malicious way, knowing full well their readership can’t check it as they’re unlikely to have access to the material in the StB file.

Instance 2, page 93:

Augar/Winstone write that “At the beginning of 1967” John Stonehouse “gives the Czechs some serious intel” including “he confirms that Polaris submarines are [their emphasis] being deployed in the Indian Ocean to ward off China”. But that assertion is the exact opposite of what is written in StB document 43075_43075_021_0119, dated 24 February 1967, reproduced below and followed by a professional translation:

“The government of India has asked the UK to deploy submarines equipped with POLARIS missiles in the Indian Ocean region as a guarantee and defense against the possible use of nuclear weapons by China. The British government denied India’s request and decided that once they are finished, all four submarines will be deployed only around the British Isles.”

Instance 3, page 353:

“We assessed the value of the verbal information Stonehouse gave to the Czechs by checking across many sources whether or not it was in the public domain at the time they recorded receiving it. This reveals that while in general the Czechs were disappointed with what he gave them, on occasion his intelligence was strong and based on confidential information. An example of this is when Stonehouse revealed that the Americans were building a military base on Diego Garcia, then a British territory … confirming what had previously been only an unsubstantiated rumour.” They give no reference but I reproduce below the relevant StB document, 43075_43075_021_0117, dated 24 February 1967, followed by a professional translation:

“Besides the island Gan, England is building another air base in the Indian Ocean region on the islands Aldara [sic, recte Aldabra] (near Madagascar) and Diego Garcia. F111 aircraft will be deployed at both bases. In terms of size and equipment, they will be among England’s most important bases east of the Suez.”

Although Augar/Winstone assert this report was “based on confidential information”, it was in fact largely based on information put in the public domain in the House of Commons on 22 February 1967, (British Indian Ocean Territory {Staging Posts} Vol 741 cc285-6W) and reported in Hansard - as Augar and Winstone should know, given that Hansard is online. James Davidson MP asked the Secretary of State for Defence “(1) what is the estimated cost of construction of the staging posts at Aldabra and Diego Garcia and the annual cost of maintaining staging posts at Gan, Masirah and Cocos; (2) if the Government intend to proceed with the construction of staging posts at Aldabra, Diego Garcia, and elsewhere, and to maintain the staging posts at Gan, Masirah and Cocos”. Denis Healey replied “As announced in the Statement on the Defence Estimates, we are examining the possibility of establishing a staging airfield in the British Indian Ocean Territory but no decisions have yet been taken. We intend to maintain staging posts at Gan and Masirah for the foreseeable future. The annual cost of these staging posts is £1.8 million and £0.5 million respectively. There is no Royal Air staging post at Cocos.” Also on 22nd February 1967 there was a question to Denis Healey in the House of Commons regarding the F111K Aircraft (vol 741 cc284-5W). 

When such subjects are raised in the House of Commons there’s not only a next-day printing of the proceedings in Hansard, there’s press coverage and conversation within political and diplomatic circles. It is this that the StB agents reported back to Prague, packaging it as information from ‘agents’. Augar and Winstone will know that in the StB file the Czech agents said they sat in the public gallery at the House of Commons, purchased copies of Hansard, and gathered information from newspapers etc. As you can see in the two StB documents above, the name ‘Katalina’ has been handwritten at the bottom. That was the name the StB were using for my father at the time and it seems the agents embroidered gathered information for a ‘report’ and later allocated it to a so-called ‘agent’ – to keep Prague thinking they were running agents and doing their spying jobs, heading their reports “Top Secret!”.

Instance 4, page 93: 

Augar and Winstone write “At the beginning of 1967” … “he details the reality of West Germany’s nuclear plans” – without giving any details or reference. They have nonetheless given the impression secret information is being passed but on 21 February 1967 in the House of Commons (“Germany Non-Proliferation Agreement” Vol 741 cc251-2W) those plans were made public when Ron Lewis MP asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs “what agreement was reached by Her Majesty’s Government in regard to Mr Kosygin’s official proposal that the Federal German Government must be required to adhere to a nuclear non-proliferation treaty and must not herself obtain nuclear weapons”, and Fred Mulley replied “None. No such official proposal was made and no response therefore is required. Her Majesty’s Government’s position is well known. We hope that all States will sign a non-proliferation agreement in the near future.” 

The StB masters in Prague probably didn’t know that the position of HMG was “well-known”, or realise the full extent of the openness of the British Parliament, press, trade journals etc. etc. – which gave the StB agents in London wide scope to package information in the public domain as secret information provided by their ‘agents’. 

Instance 5, page 51:

As every word my father said in the House of Commons is available online it is easy to check against the StB file whether any questions were asked on their behalf, which they were not. Augar/Winstone only refer to one specific subject: “The next request is for the MP to ask an easy question. Stonehouse wastes no time and he asks Tory minister Ernest Marples if any decision has been made about nuclear propulsion for ships. In a timely fashion, Marples replies in the affirmative: nuclear reactors with propelling machinery will be used. Invitations for tender will be issued shortly. It is useful information for the Czechs.”

Augar/Winstone do not give the full story, which is that five MPs raised questions in the House of Commons on 9 December 1959 asking if the government intended to issue a tender for the nuclear propulsion of commercial ships, and my father’s questions were the least probing. And, of course, there is nothing to say he asked his questions on behalf of the StB and not on behalf of his heavy-industry based constituency. Questions were asked that day by Mr Wall, Mr Hay, Mr Popplewell, Mr Benn and Mr Aubery – do Augar/Winstone think they were all StB agents? Mr Wall asked “Is it not a fact that the United States, Japan and Soviet Russia are getting well ahead of us in this important matter, and will my hon. Friend undertake to go into the question so that we can get a nuclear-propelled ship commissioned at sea as soon as possible?” And Mr Awbery asked the Minister of Transport, “in view of the rapid progress being made by Western Germany in the field of nuclear marine propulsion, if he is satisfied that sufficient funds are being made available for the experiments which will be necessary to ensure that the United Kingdom is able to compete successfully in this field of development; and if he will make a statement.” My father asked the Minister of Transport two innocuous questions: “what is his estimate of the effect on the British shipbuilding industry of the development of nuclear powered ships by the German Federal Republic” and “will [he] make a further statement on the provision of nuclear propulsion for British merchant ships.” So while Augar/Winstone paint this as my father raising a question on his own, and do not specify that the entire conversation was about commercial shipping rather than military, this was an ongoing public discussion and my father did not raise questions eliciting “useful information for the Czechs” - especially given the Minister made a public announcement two weeks later, which Augar and Winstone know. 

The five instances above are the only places in Agent Twister where the authors give supposed details of my father handing the Czechs information and, as you can see for yourself, they’ve been very deliberate in the negative way they present the material or, to be more accurate, misrepresent it. Some might call it shoddy, others may call it dishonest, but we can all see that they have manipulated the StB material to create a particular narrative. 

There are other more generalised statements relating to Augar and Winstone’s Agent Twister spy accusation, which I will return to at another time.

On page 354, Augar and Winstone write: “We believe there is no more reason to question the validity of the Czech Security Services Archive than the archives of the UK Security Services.” This statement is breath-taking in its ignorance and naivety. Unfortunately, however, it is more than that, it is disingenuous because Augar and Winstone know there are lies in the StB file. I can state that categorically because in my book, published a year prior to theirs, I point out that the StB agents never once had our correct home address to which they were supposedly sending cuttings from The Times newspaper to call my father to meetings. Augar/Winstone know from my book that we never lived at “22 Aldwyne Road”, to which the agents said they sent cuttings indicating the date and location of future meetings, and given there are sixteen reports referring to this system in the StB file it could hardly have missed their attention. Indeed, they are pointedly quiet on the matter – presumably because it does not suit their narrative.

The publisher’s description of Agent Twister says my father had “links with the Mafia” and that concept is now all over the internet. This assertion relates to the death of a Nigerian man called Sylvester Okereke, who is mentioned on eight pages. Most of Augar/Winstone’s information comes from file FCO 65/1679 at the National Archives (although they reference “JWN 14/1”, that is a collection of 35 files pertaining to Nigeria of which only the aforementioned relates to Okereke.) It is interesting what information they choose to include or omit from the file. 

Augar/Winstone assert there was a business connection between Stonehouse and Okereke even though in the file there’s a letter from the Home Office to the Foreign and Commonwealth Dept., dated 22 May 1975, which states “In the view of the police it is quite probable that these men, both international business middle-men, were known to each other but there is no available evidence for police enquiries to show that this was in fact the case and that the matter had any relevance to Mr Okereke’s death.” Also in that file is a letter from The Solicitor at the Department of Trade and Industry dated 9 September 1975 stating that, with regard to various sensationalist Nigerian newspaper articles (in the file) they are “drawing the attention of the Inspectors to these articles” and, as both Augar/Winstone and I know, the DTI inspectors found no business or personal link between Okereke and Stonehouse. For their Mafia assertions Augar/Winstone have relied heavily on newspaper and magazine articles in the Nigerian press in the file, which are full of conspiracy theory, dubious sources, missing witnesses, red herrings, gossip and rumour. This is a convoluted story with more strands than I can explain here but, essentially, the Mafia connection comes in because, the conspiracy theory goes, both Stonehouse and Okereke were trying to set up a cement deal for the Nigerian government, which the Mafia were trying to stop so as to take the business, and two men died – Okereke and David Shaver – and Shaver was murdered and temporarily placed in a ‘concrete coffin’ in Florida, once thought to contain my father. 

Although Okereke’s family thought he had been murdered, and the Nigerian press devised a plethora of dramatic conspiracy theories around this, his tragic fate was more mundane. Okereke fell from a houseboat on the Thames around 9.30pm on 18 November 1974 (two days before my father faked his death), and his associate Mr Newman jumped into the raging Thames on that dark night to try and save him. But Okereke floated away and subsequently drowned, Newman was pulled from the river by a man living on a neighbouring boat, and they both then went to the Boatyard Foreman, Mr Lenthall, who told the inquest in February 1975 that at 5.30pm on 18 November 1974 he’d had a phone call “from the River Police that there was a Maid Line Hire Cruiser adrift and was in a sunken condition coming through the weir towards Tough’s moorings.” That cruiser had crashed into Mr Newman’s boat, thereby knocking Okereke off the pontoon and into the river, and become lodged underneath it. Ten days later the cruiser was winched out of the river. In other words, Mr Okereke was in the wrong place at the wrong time and was not murdered by Mr Newman or the Mafia – contrary to the many conspiracy theories. 

From the various news articles in file FCO 65/1679, Augar/Winstone have woven a story of meetings and connections for which there is no proof whatsoever. It is possible both Okereke and Stonehouse were chasing the same deal, if we are to believe something printed in Nigeria in June 1975 in Newbreed magazine, page 17, quoting The Sunday Times as having reported “that the Nigerian authorities for some reason issued identical letters of credit to about twenty different brokers to cover the cost of the cement and freight charges.” The only connection between Okereke and Stonehouse is a fabricated document reproduced in the Nigerian Spear magazine, July 1975, under the article title “Who killed Okereke?” purporting to be a letter dated 15 November 1974 from Okereke to Stonehouse. I say it’s a fabrication because my father’s address is given as “Vandon Court, Vandon Place, London SW1”. Aside from the fact that there is no “Vandon Place”, my father never used his flat at Vandon Court as a business address and the company through which all this was supposed to be happening was in Dover Street, W1. There are 100 studio flats at Vandon Court and if my father had given Okereke his address there it would have been 35 Vandon Court, 64 Petty France, London SW1. The fabricator of this letter knew from the British press that my father had a flat at Vandon Court but that is all the information he had so he invented the address around that. The letter itself refers to a meeting with Whiting Construction – which didn’t exist. Their address was false. This entire story is full of fabrications, and now Augar/Winstone are propagating this ludicrous Mafia myth, presumably because stories about the Mafia, and indeed ‘spies’, are lucrative. 

The Augar/Winstone ‘misrepresentations’ are an insult to their readers as well as to my family. They simply have no proof that my father was a spy and in the absence of proof have had to invent a narrative by ‘doctoring’ the paperwork in the StB file. That is disgraceful and unprofessional and as a highly reputable company I expect Simon and Schuster to do something about it. Please ask Augar and Winstone to respond to my complaints and provide actual proof of their assertions, then give me sight of any documentation they can provide so I can check it. By the same token, I would be glad to provide any evidential documentation your legal department may require. 

Yours sincerely,

Julia Stonehouse

c.c. Head of Legal and Compliance; Editorial Director – Non Fiction