Writer Sir Kingsley Amis was suspected to be a Communist by MI5 who monitored him during the Second World War, declassified files reveal.
MI5 kept a file marked ‘Top Secret’ which refers to ‘Comrade Kingsley Amis’ and his ‘communist activities’ which is released today by the National Archives at Kew, West London.
The father of novelist Martin Amis came under suspicion just days after VE Day, while a lieutenant in the Royal Corps of Signals.
As the war came to an end, intelligence services focused on the threat from former ally the Soviet Union and Communist activity in Britain.
Writer Sir Kingsley Amis (pictured) was suspected to be a Communist by MI5 who monitored him during the Second World War, declassified files reveal.
As a young man, he was a member of the Communist Party while at Oxford and received ‘regular supplies’ of The Daily Worker, the files noted.
Socialist newspaper the Daily Worker, now the Morning Star, even reviewed a pamphlet he wrote entitled ‘Socialism and the Intellectual’.
A memo from May 1945 notes: ‘This officer came to notice in 1942 (as) a student at Oxford University when he was reported to be a very promising member of the Oxford Branch of the Communist Party.
‘Since being in the Army and in BLA (British Liberation Army) he is known to have been in touch with the Headquarters of (Communist party newspaper) the Daily Worker and it is therefore reasonable to suppose that his political views have not changed in any way.’
In 1942, MI5’s Lt Col John Baskervyle-Glegg noted that there was ‘little doubt that his Left-wing opinions have not changed to any extent since he first came to notice and I accordingly think that he should remain under observation for the time being’.
He noted that Sir Kingsley’s commanding officer described him as taking ‘extremist views towards most aspects of life’ and making ‘extreme and controversial statements’.
MI5 kept a file marked ‘Top Secret’ which refers to ‘Comrade Kingsley Amis’ and his ‘communist activities’ which is released today by the National Archives at Kew, West London
But he noted: ‘My own view is that if he tried to there are few people who would take him seriously.’
A letter intercepted by MI5 between Communist Party members described him as ‘a very promising new member of the Oxford branch of the Communist Party’.
The file notes that Sir Kingsley was demobilised from the Army the following October.
When he returned to Oxford after the war, he worked as an academic, writing pieces on socialism and unashamed of his Left-wing views.
Because of his activities, he lost a position on a lecture tour in 1955, organised by the German Information department at the Foreign Office, the files reveal.
Despite Sir Kingsley’s later insistence that he Communism was an ‘ailment’ from which he was ‘immune’, officials worried about his Left-wing views.
In February 1957 he wrote in the Daily Worker that he had ‘utterly rejected’ Marxism.
When he later applied for a visa to travel to the US, files reveal that there was ‘good evidence’ that he was an ‘enthusiastic new recruit’ of the Party while at Oxford in the early 1940s.
‘it will be necessary for the Consulate to reinterview Amis with particular reference to his signed affidavit to the effect that he has never been a member of the Communist Party,’ one document notes.
Amis came under suspicion just days after VE Day, while a lieutenant in the Royal Corps of Signals
‘They will do this on the basis of published press material only – and in particular Amis’ denial (in the Daily Worker of 14th February 1957) of Marxist sympathies.’
In a Foreign Office letter, officials noted: ‘Amis claimed to have utterly rejected Marxism, and stated that he had felt obliged, after the Hungarian revolution in 1956, to break off contact with those of his friends who were Communists.’
In a letter to the American Embassy in 1957, officials wrote: ‘Kingsley Amis was reported, when at his University in 1942, to be a member of the Communist party.
‘In 1944, when in the Army, he again attracted notice as a recipient of the Daily Worker. He has not come to adverse notice since 1944.
‘On 12 February this year the Daily Worker published a review of his pamphlet on ‘Socialism and the Intellectual’.
‘Two days later, in his reply to the review, Amis claimed to have rejected Marxism, stating: ‘I have experienced the ailment and so am immune. And I have also utterly rejected it.’
While they decided they were grounds to block the visa, they worried that Sir Kingsley would make a public protest.
They allowed him to travel after giving ‘assurances about his dissociation from the Party’ and considered the matter ‘satisfactorily settled’.
The novelist, whose literary breakthrough came in 1954 with Lucky Jim, had a successful career as an academic in Cambridge and Swansea. He was knighted in 1990 and died in 1995 at the age of 73.
- c.ellicott@dailymail.co.uk