To print this page, select "Print" from the File menu of your browser salon.com > People Sept. 16, 1999 URL: http://www.salon.com/people/rogue/1999/09/16/lolkgb The little old lady from the KGB Grannies will be spies and spies will be grannies. It's a mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up world except for Hola! H-0-L-A, Hola! - - - - - - - - - - - - By Douglas Cruickshank Tut-tut! Britain's got itself all a-twitter over Saturday's revelation that Melita Norwood, the little old lady from Bexleyheath, was a KGB operative for four decades. In its Saturday edition, the Times of London reported that Norwood, 87, who these days enjoys making jam and sipping tea from a Che Guevara mug, began passing top-secret documents related to the "development of the British nuclear deterrent" to the Soviets as early as 1937. But what's causing even more commotion than the report of Norwood's treasonous behavior is the furious backpedaling, equivocating, rationalizing and all-around long-winded blathering being indulged in by the country's politicos and other officials. It's a bit of a sticky wicket and nobody wants to get stuck with it. You see, British intelligence -- everybody from MI5 (the British equivalent of the FBI) and MI6 (ditto of the CIA) right down to "M" and Miss Moneypenny, apparently -- have known of Norwood's misdeeds, which she freely admits, since 1992 and, according to the Times, the non-intelligence agency sectors of the government have known since "early summer." Nevertheless, all chose to keep it mum and not prosecute. Now what they've got on their hands is something of a P.R. nightmare for the Blair government. It's a real no-winner. The government has two choices, neither of which is desirable: Prosecute the frail, preserve-making great-granny and supply the media with no end of photos and editorials featuring a petite, shaking woman of 87 being confronted by the full weight of the English justice system. Or let her go and be taken to task for allowing Norwood, code name "Hola," who was secretly awarded the Order of the Red Banner by the KGB, to get away with her misdeeds. Meanwhile, MI5, which oversees British internal security (OK, give 'em a break, they're tryin' -- it's a real, real hard job) has its top secret posterior in a sling. If heads don't roll at the agency, at the very least there are likely to be some serious migraines. An investigation has been ordered. But who will do the investigating? Austin Powers? Or here's an idea: In the interest of utter neutrality, how about we ship some FBI agents over to London to head up the MI5 "Hola" investigation, and, in turn, MI5 will ship a few of its Saville Row-suited operatives down to Waco to sort out that mess. Sort of a spook cultural exchange program. Just a thought. Just trying to help. The other little problem the Brits are having is that while Norwood may have betrayed her country, she's a kick in the trousers and the Brits can't seem to decide if she's a hoot or a horror. She's such a game old gal, and utterly unrepentant ("I thought it [Soviet communism] was an experiment ... a good experiment, and I agreed with it ... I would do it again," she told the Times), that it's hard to be too upset with her. In fact, in the dozen or so stories on the dust-up that the Times carried in the last few days, the reporters seem rather smitten with our Melita. In my favorite story of the bunch, Times writer Tim Reid spent the day at Norwood's Bexleyheath cottage chatting her up while lounging around her kitchen and monitoring the various incensed government officials' various incensed proclamations on the radio. Thoughtfully, Reid spared his readers the speeches, but included generous helpings of Norwood's reaction to them. As Ann Widdecome, the shadow home secretary, yammered on about Norwood's "40 years of sustained treachery," Hola herself laughed it off: "Oh gosh, oh dear. She sounds quite angry, doesn't she?" Norwood said of the secretary's vituperative outburst. "Oooh, she is awful, isn't she?" Then, when a commentator read the charges, claiming that Norwood passed the Soviets secrets that were so critical they advanced the Russians' nuclear weapons program by five years, Hola (whose own code name seems to surprise her) said, "Ooh, I didn't know that. I didn't know it was that important, the stuff I gave them. Hola? I had no idea that's what they called me ... I think they are making a bit of a fuss over all this." And indeed they are. But setting aside the little issue of Norwood betraying her country, the bigger question -- in light of recent events from Waco to Bexleyheath and beyond -- is why these terrifically somber, well-funded secret police organizations -- British, American or whatever -- keep blowing it so badly. And what does it say about the degree to which we, their taxpaying employers, can depend on them, not to do the right thing -- let's be realistic -- but to do anything that might actually be in our interest? The whole goopy business brings to mind a remark that great scalawag of a journalist I.F. Stone once made about the CIA: "How can you control an organization," he wondered, "that can't control itself?" salon.com | Sept. 16, 1999