-Caveat Lector- There's something spooky about the way MI5 chiefs become best-selling authors http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/uk.cfm?id=56187&keyword=the by Ron Mackenna THERE was little sign that the dark-haired man pacing nervously beneath the shield-shaped ceiling in the magnificent auditorium of the Royal United Services Institute in Whitehall was about to make history. Secret service heavies patrolling the exits and the grounds did so extremely discreetly. The audience was very politely warned that if they took photographs, the film would be removed from their cameras and they would be given their entrance fee back before being asked to leave the building. But when Sir Stephen Lander finally uncrossed his arms from his chest and took the podium on Thursday night, he was the first head of MI5 ever to address an open gathering since the security service was set up in 1909. Dressed in a sober blue suit, matching turquoise tie and gold cufflinks, a tense Sir Stephen treated his audience of admirals, brigadiers and a few "members of the public" to a quick quip about "letting the lambs see the fox" before delving into a 45-minute lecture delivered, as one observer put it, "with all the charisma of a platform assistant announcing a delay on the 5.55". His speech gave away no interesting secrets and told no tales of derring-do. But it did indicate that the "rules" have been relaxed. The same rules that have kept the murkier activities involved in defending the realm cloaked in secrecy. In particular Sir Stephen bent the rule that has been used until very recently by the intelligence services to keep the lid on the reminiscences of countless former field agents and officers who may have been tempted to make a bob or two from their experiences. As if to underline the new approach, Sir Stephen's speech was billed as being "open to the public", although curiously the Home Office said yesterday that no copies of it were available and journalists were not invited. Stranger still, on a notepad by the front door, the name David Shayler could be seen in tight handwriting. But Mr Shayler was the one member of the public to whom the event was most certainly not open. His application for a ticket had been turned down with the bizarre reason given that he was not "a member". Shayler, who was standing outside the Whitehall building while the speech took place, denounced the decision to bar him as "cowardly" and claimed "they can't take the rough and tumble of debate". He had good reason to be annoyed for the relaxation of the rules on disclosure do not cover him. Nor will they prevent the government from pressing on with his prosecution for telling tales of his life as an MI5 spy to a newspaper in 1997. Shayler joined the service straight from Dundee University after responding to a job advert in The Independent asking "Waiting For Godot?". Like Sir Stephen, he worked in MI5's F Branch, dealing with counter subversion, and T Branch, which operates against "Irish terrorism". Unlike Sir Stephen, Shayler left MI5 in 1997 and began briefing journalists about a number of the service's activities, including a plot to kill Colonel Gadaffi. He and his girlfriend then fled to Holland then France before returning this year to face prosecution in the British courts. Shayler has another very good reason to be unhappy at the apparent double standards of the British establishment when dealing with memoirs. It is the official decision to allow his former boss, Dame Stella Rimington, to go ahead with the publication of the story of her life as Britain's top spook which, it is estimated, will bring her in £500,000. Whitehall sources say Dame Stella has been allowed to go ahead with the book because "she went through the official channels." It has, they insist, nothing to do with the likelihood that she would have published anyway, causing great embarrassment to the government. Dame Stella recently suffered the ultimate indignity for a former spy of being door-stepped by a journalist at the flat she now lives in above a beauty parlour in north London. She had nothing to say then. But her public utterances have not been limited to the book. In 1999, she joined the Cunard liner QE2 at Leith docks in Edinburgh and embarked on an 11-day cruise to the Norwegian fjords. Her passage was paid for by the liner company and in return, she gave two 40- minute speeches entitled "Do you want to be a spy?" and "Mother of two comes in from the cold". Her activities passed uncensored and uncommented on by the intelligence services. Certainly, the spying game has changed dramatically since it was first set up in 1909 under the command of Captain Vernon Kell to counter German espionage. In 1931, its role was broadened to include threats to national security, which included communist subversion and fascism. And at the height of the Cold War, when betrayed spies regularly went to their deaths, its role was internally recognised for the first time in an official directive. Following the European Commission on Human Rights ruling in the late 1980s that MI5 surveillance on Harriet Harman, of the National Council For Civil Liberties, was illegal, the Security Services Act was passed making MI5's existence public. Now MI5 has its own website - www.mi5.gov.uk - where it is possible to discover, under the heading "assassination" that "the service does not kill people or arrange their assassination". It also helpfully reveals that it is not a criminal offence "for employees to reveal that "the Thames House [headquarters] carpets are blue, or that the staff restaurant serves a particularly good Chicken Madras!" Through the Peter Wright fiasco, when the book Spycatcher was banned in Britain while widely available across the world, and the recent Richard Tomlinson case which saw The Big Breach published in Russia before being made available in Britain, the government has suffered a succession of bruising encounters over publication. But there still remains a confusing ambiguity over just who can talk and who must remain silent. It is a contention with which Professor Hew Strachan, of the Scottish Centre For War Studies at Glasgow University, agrees. "It would appear to be the case that there is a law for one which does not apply to the other," he says "There is an ambivalence to the Official Secrets Act which can sometimes allow you to get away with doing certain things, while at other times you get into trouble. "In Stella Rimington's case, she is a public figure. The first MI5 chief to be such. They can argue that she and her work are in the public domain. "There is also greater readiness to release 'secret documents', such as those which named the 80-odd year-old woman [Melita Norwood] as a Russian spy. "But there has been greater toughness is Northern Ireland, which is an ongoing political issue where people involved could become terrorist targets." The relaxation of the rules regarding publication, or the decision by the current director general of MI5 to step out of the shadows, is unlikely to affect the David Shayler case. Indeed, the very fact Shayler was the only unwelcome guest at Sir Stephen's coming out this week is a very strong indication that he is still held in very low esteem by the intelligence services. Nor is Sir Stephen's experience in the limelight likely to soften his approach to how former members of the secret services handle their retirement years. He is known to have opposed the publication of Dame Stella's memoirs - although it was thanks to her efforts that he became director general and has recently been engaged in the spook's favourite activity; crossing out large sections of her manuscript as unsuitable for public consumption. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! 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