JOHN McGLASHAN
John McGlashan, who died aged 88, was a British MI6 officer linked to a plot to assassinate Egypt's President Nasser during the Suez Crisis and subsequently accused of espionage - a capital crime
Exactly how he came to be siezed in Cairo in August 1956 by agents of the Egyptisn mukhabarat, or secret police, remains a mystery. But on February 8th the following year The Daily Telegraph reported President Nasser's demand for four other British 'plotters' to hang, under the headline "Egypt Demands Death of Spies".
Equally mysterious was the manner in which McGlashan - or John Reidmack Glashen, as some papers mangled it - was smuggled out of Cairo to safety. In June 1957, in his absence, he was accused in a major show trial with James Zarb, a Maltese businessman, and James Swinburn, Cairo business manager of the British-operated Arab News Agency (ANA). Both Zarb and Swinburn were jailed (then rapidly released), but McGlashan was acquited.
Based at the British Embassy in Baghdad, where he operated under diplomatic cover as third secretary, McGlashan was one of 20 people said to have belonged to a 'dangerous' Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) spy ring, and to have monitored Egyptian naval movements in the run-up to the 1956 Suez Invasion.
ANA was SIS's local commercial cover in Cairo and also served as a useful conduit for British propaganda which sowed 'disinformation' about Nasser via news outlets throughout the Arab world. It's journalists, including the agency's head, Tom Little, a correspondent for 'The Times' and 'The Economist' were British intelligence officers, a fact quickly grasped by the Egyptians, who raided its offices in August 1956, and closed it down. This immediately compromised the SIS's ability to work in Egypt - including on the plan ordered by the prime minister, Anthony Eden, for British agents to assassinate the Egyptian leader and facilitate a coup d'etat, in response to "the Muslim Mussonlini's" declaration the month before that he intended to nationalise the Suez Canal.
Along with McGlashan and the other British personnel, eleven Egyptians were also accused of espionage including Swinburn's principal agent, who was later executed. With MI6 in Cairo effectively neutered, the plot to assassinate Nasser was turned over to outside agents, including the BBC Panorama reporter James Mossman, who was posted to Egypt as "The Daily Telegraph's correspondent.
Pressed to help, Mossman reluctantly agreed to drop off a package from the boot of his Morris Minor at a spot 12 miles from Cairo. It contained £20,000 in British banknotes, intended as a bribe to Nasser's doctorto poison the Egyptian president. Telephoning to confirm safe delivery, Mossman realised he had given the money to the wrong man.
McGlashan had spent some years after the war running a firm of wine importers, but was recruited by SIS in 1952 andfor the next 27 years his professional life was shrouded in secrecy. He served in several overseas postings, ostensibly as third secretary at the British Embassy in Baghdad from 1955, second secretary in Tripoli from 1963, and station commander, under first secretary cover, in Madrid from 1968.
Befitting the nature of his work, McGlashen was unforthcoming about his activities, even to his wife and children. They recalled stories of 'difficult and dangerous' moments at the time of the assassination of King Faisal of Sauda Arabia, shot at point blank range in 1975, and how a powerful handshake from President Idi Amin of Uganda nearly broke McGlashan's wrist.
John Reid Curtis McGlashan was born in Hampstead, London on December 12, 1921, the son of a chartered accountant. Educated at Fettes, he was 18 when he joined the RAF in 1940, training as a pilot before joining No. 218 Squadron, which operated from Marham in Norfolk.
Returning in his Wellington bomber from Nuremburg on October 12, 1941, he was forced to crash land his aircraft, but he and his crew survived uninjured. They were less fortunate three weeks later. On the night of November 7/8th, the C-in-C Bomber Command, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Peirse, decided to mount a major effort against Berlin despite the forecast of storms and freezing weather on the route and the concerns of some of his group commanders.
With 392 aircraft sent out on the nights operations, 169 of them to Berlin, this was a record effort and included virtually every serviceable bomber in the Command. McGlashan and his all-sergeant crew took off at 17:30 hours and headed for Berlin. En route, his aircraft was forced down over Germany and all aboard were captured. According to his family, the German officer who greeted McGlashan on the ground at gunpoint really did observe "For you, the war is over". Of the other bombers sent to Berlin, 21 failed to return from the disastrous raid.
McGlashan was to spend the rest of the war was a prisoner-of-war in a series of five prison camps, including Stalag Luft IV, where he helped to set up and run the RAF School for Prisoners of War. This offered PoW's lectures on 34 subjects from Latin to hotel management. Although many of them went on to pass exams, McGlashan believed the true value of the courses lay in preserving morale in the camp. He also taught bridge.
At Stalag Luft IV McGlashan was awarded the YMCA sports medal for all round sportsmanship.
After the war he went up to Christ Church, Oxford, on a Classics scholarship, winning a rugby blue on his 24th birthday in 1945.
After taking a degree in PPE in 1947, McGlashan joined the family firm of Buxton Knight, importers and exporters of wines and spirits, and married Dilys, the middle daughter, the same year.
He was appointed CBE for services to the Foreign Office in 1974 and retired in 1979.
Subsequently, McGlashan applied his wide learning to his passion for crosswords, composing the challenging Mephisto puzzles for 'The Listener' magazine under the pseudonym Hubris. Refusing to embrace the internet age, he ignored the many blogs from solvers grappling with his clues, dimissing their arguments as trivial.
John McGlashan, who died on August 14, married Dilys in 1947 who survives him with their son and two daughters.