v Primary Sources v

Paul Dukes, the son of Edwin Joshua Dukes, a Congregational minister, and his wife, Edith Mary Pope, was born on 10th February 1889 at North Field, Bridgwater. Dukes was educated at Caterham School before travelling to St Petersburg to study music. He found work at the Mariinsky Theatre with the conductor Albert Coates.

Soon after the outbreak of the First World War he became a member of the Anglo-Russian Commission, a British propaganda organisation. According to his biographer, Michael Hughes: "For the next two years he was involved in promoting the somewhat nebulous range of propaganda activities carried out by the commission, serving both in the Russian capital and at the Foreign Office in London." In the summer of 1917he was asked by the Tsarist Secret Police to spy on the Bolshevik leaders. Michael Smith, the author of Six: A History of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (2010), argues: "In order to spell out to officials back in Whitehall precisely what the Russians did and did not know, Dukes filed two heavyweight reports on the leading Bolsheviks, derived from information provided by the Russians and the French."

In the summer of 1918 Dukes was recalled to London for a meeting with Colonel Frederick Browning. In his book, Red Dusk and the Morrow: Adventures and Investigations in Soviet Russia (1922) Dukes reported that Browning explained: "You doubtless wonder that no explanation has been given to you as to why you should return to England. Well, I have to inform you, confidentially, that it has been proposed to offer you a somewhat responsible post in the Secret Intelligence Service. We have reason to believe that Russia will not long continue to be open to foreigners. We wish someone to remain there to keep us informed of the march of events."

Dukes was then taken to see Mansfield Cumming, the head of MI6. "This extraordinary man was short of stature, thick-set with grey hair half covering a well-rounded head. His mouth was stern and an eagle eye, full of vivacity, glanced - or glared as the case may be - piercingly through a gold-rimmed monocle. At first encounter, he appeared very severe. His manner of speech was abrupt. Yet the stern countenance could melt into the kindliest of smiles, and the softened eyes and lips revealed a heart that was big and generous."

Dukes was sent back to Petrograd, using a false identity as a Ukrainian member of the Cheka. He joined up with other British secret agents that included John Scale and Stephen Alley. Dukes spoke fluent Russian and was able to pass himself off as a member of the secret police. He also joined the Bolshevik Party. His biographer, Michael Hughes claims that: "Dukes showed himself to be a master of disguises during his time in Russia, frequently changing his appearance and using more than a dozen names to conceal his identity."

In his autobiography, Red Dusk and the Morrow: Adventures and Investigations in Soviet Russia, Dukes recalled his work as a spy: "I wrote mostly at night, in minute handwriting on tracing-paper, with a small caoutchouc (latex bag) about four inches in length, weighted with lead, ready at my side. In case of alarm, all my papers could be slipped into this bag and within thirty seconds be transferred to the bottom of a tub of washing or the cistern of a water closet. In efforts to discover arms or incriminating documents, I have seen pictures, carpets, and bookshelves removed and everything turned topsy-turvy by diligent searchers, but it never occurred to anybody to search through a pail of washing or thrust his hand into the water-closet cistern. Only on one occasion was I obliged to destroy documents of value, while of the couriers who, at grave risk, carried communications back and forth from Finland, only two failed to arrive and l presume were caught and shot."

Dukes returned to London where he was awarded the KBE by King George V, since he was not, as a civilian, eligible to receive the Victoria Cross. Despite the success of his activities in Russia the Secret Intelligence Service appeared unwilling to make further use of him and so he moved to the United States where he joined a tantric community at Nyack, 15 miles from New York City.

On his return to England he became a special correspondent of The Times. He was also chairman of British Continental Press from 1930 to 1937. Just before the outbreak of the Second World War he was asked by some acquaintances to visit Germany in order to trace the whereabouts of a wealthy Czech businessman who was in hiding in Nazi Germany. He wrote about this in his book, An Epic of the Gestapo (1940). During the war he lectured on behalf of the Ministry of Information.

Dukes developed a strong interest in yoga and was the author of Yoga for the Western World (1955) and The Yoga of Health, Youth and Joy (1960). He also made a series of broadcasts for the BBC on the subject.

Sir Paul Dukes died in Cape Town, South Africa, on 27th August 1967.

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(1) Michael Smith, Six: A History of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (2010)

Paul Dukes, a fluent Russian speaker, had already been in contact with the intelligence services while working in Petrograd as a member of the Anglo-Russian Commission, a British propaganda organisation. A few months before the October Revolution, he was asked by Tsarist intelligence chiefs to provide them with as much information as possible on the Bolshevik leaders. In order to spell out to officials back in Whitehall precisely what the Russians did and did not know, Dukes filed two heavyweight reports on the leading Bolsheviks, derived from information provided by the Russians and the French. These added significantly to what MI1c and MI5 knew and almost certainly had an impact on Cumming's subsequent decision to select him for the secret service mission in Russia. After the revolution, Dukes remained in Russia, working in the south, ostensibly with a relief mission funded by the American YMCA. Called back to England in the summer of 1918 by an "urgent" telegram from the Foreign Office, Dukes arrived by Royal Navy destroyer at Aberdeen and was put on a train to London's King's Cross station where a car was waiting to pick him up....

The colonel, Frederick Browning, took Dukes to Cumming's office to meet the chief. "From the threshold the room seemed bathed in semi-obscurity," Dukes recalled. "The writing desk was so placed with the window behind it that on entering everything appeared only in silhouette. A row of half-a-dozen extending telephones stood at the left of a big desk littered with papers. On a side-table were maps and drawings, with models of aeroplanes, submarines, and mechanical devices, while a row of bottles of various colours and a distilling outfit with a rack of test tubes bore witness to chemical experiments and operations."

These evidences of scientific investigation only served to intensify an already overpowering atmosphere of strangeness and mystery. But it was not these things that engaged my attention as I stood nervously waiting. My eyes fixed themselves on the figure at the writing table. In the capacious swing desk-chair, his shoulders hunched, with his head supported on his hand, sat the Chief. This extraordinary man was short of stature, thick-set with grey hair half covering a well-rounded head. His mouth was stern and an eagle eye, full of vivacity, glanced - or glared as the case may be - piercingly through a gold-rimmed monocle. At first encounter, he appeared very severe. His manner of speech was abrupt. Yet the stern countenance could melt into the kindliest of smiles, and the softened eyes and lips revealed a heart that was big and generous. Awe-inspired as I was by my first encounter, I soon learned to regard "the Chief" with feelings of the deepest personal admiration. In silhouette, I saw myself motioned to a chair. The Chief wrote for a moment and then suddenly turned with the unexpected remark, "So I understand you want to go back to Soviet Russia, do you?" As if it had been my own suggestion.''

Dukes was given the designation ST25, as he was to be run by John Scale in Stockholm. Cumming told him that he had to find Merrett and pick up the reins of the agent networks set up in Petrograd and Moscow by Stephen Alley, Ernest Boyce, Scale and Jim Gillespie, as well as those run by the now-dead naval attache Francis Cromie. "The words Archangel, Stockholm, Riga, Helsingfors recurred frequently, and the names were mentioned of English people in all those places and in Petrograd," Dukes recalled. "It was finally decided that I alone should determine how and by what route I should regain access to Russia, and how I should dispatch reports. "Don't go and get yourself killed," said the Chief in conclusion, smiling. Three weeks later, I set out for Russia, into the unknown."

(2) Paul Dukes, Red Dusk and the Morrow: Adventures and Investigations in Soviet Russia (1922)

Knowing neither my destination nor the cause of my recall, I was driven to a building in a side-street in the vicinity of Trafalgar Square. The chauffeur had a face like a mask. We entered the building and the elevator whisked us to the top floor, above which additional superstructures had been built for war-emergency offices. I had always associated rabbit warrens with subterranean abodes. But here in this building, I discovered a maze of burrow-like passages, corridors, nooks and alcoves, piled higgledy-piggledy on the roof. Crossing a short iron bridge, we entered another maze, until just as I was beginning to feel dizzy I was shown into a tiny room about ten-toot-square where sat an officer in the uniform of a British Army colonel. "Good afternoon, Mr Dukes," said the colonel. "You doubtless wonder that no explanation has been given to you as to why you should return to England. Well, I have to inform you, confidentially, that it has been proposed to offer you a somewhat responsible post in the Secret Intelligence Service. We have reason to believe that Russia will not long continue to be open to foreigners. We wish someone to remain there to keep us informed of the march of events."

(3) Paul Dukes, Red Dusk and the Morrow: Adventures and Investigations in Soviet Russia (1922)

I wrote mostly at night, in minute handwriting on tracing-paper, with a small caoutchouc (latex bag) about four inches in length, weighted with lead, ready at my side. In case of alarm, all my papers could be slipped into this bag and within thirty seconds be transferred to the bottom of a tub of washing or the cistern of a water closet. In efforts to discover arms or incriminating documents, I have seen pictures, carpets, and bookshelves removed and everything turned topsy-turvy by diligent searchers, but it never occurred to anybody to search through a pail of washing or thrust his hand into the water-closet cistern. Only on one occasion was I obliged to destroy documents of value, while of the couriers who, at grave risk, carried communications back and forth from Finland, only two failed to arrive and l presume were caught and shot.