THE SOMERTON MAN MYSTERY: PEOPLE WHO LIE FOR A LIVING...

 ...For those who read the 1948 MI5 file, you will have read how Hollis and others created a lie to tell Ben Chifley and Evatt on their visit to Australia that year...

They called it a 'cover story' but a lie by any other name would still be a lie.

But when you take the words and actions in context, you soon see that it was an understandable lie, a necessary lie and therefore a forgiveable one.

Their 'cover story' that the information about a leak in an Australian Government department was exposed by a defector, was created in order to protect a greater truth. In this instance that 'Greater Truth' was the existence of the Venona project as it was later to be known. It was a code breaking project that, since 1939, had successfully intercepted and deciphered a large enough part of the Soviet Unions diplomatic secret messages. Without Venona much of the intelligence which was to keep the world safe for decades, would have been missed with potentially disastrous consequences.

All of this great work was down to people who successfully  lied for a living. Having said that, MI 5 eventually came clean later in 1948 and interestingly, that was the same year that the Soviets changed their coding techniques. But perhaps even that was part of a deception.

Lies and deception are an essential part of espionage and counter espionage. They were and no doubt still are at the heart of intelligence operations.

A pertinent question is this, was the death of the Somerton Man in any way connected to an intelligence operation?

I have my views on that and the unsolicited advice I offer is this:

If the animal you are observing has all the outward features and attributes of a donkey, then it most probably is one.