A FORMER Hospitals Sweepstakes employee offered to sell the organisation’s highly secret list of ticket sellers in the US to British intelligence in the early months of the second World War, newly released files in London reveal.
John Gerard Andrews, who lived at the time in Seafield Road in Clontarf, made his first approach to a HM Customs and Excise official, H Kimber, in 1939, who passed the information on to MI6.
The list of 12,000 names, Mr Andrews said in a letter to Mr Kimber, was wanted by German agents in Dublin, who saw possibilities that it could form the backbone of a Fifth Column in the US.
The Andrews file is one of dozens of MI5 and MI6 intelligence files released today by the UK national archives. Some of the documents will be available on its website from today.
“I was employed by Hospitals Trust for six years. For four years I had charge of all monies from foreign department handling about £20 million for two years. I was supervisor of foreign agents’ correspondence,” Mr Andrews wrote. “In June 1936 I went to the US. I obtained a greater knowledge of the working of the Hospital Trusts organisation in the USA. I found that a small clique controlled the organisation there.
“One of these men [Joseph McGarrity of Philadelphia], most of whom have extremist opinions on Irish politics, [was among] the prime movers in the Clann na Gael organisations that supplied funds for the bomb outrages in England.
“I have a complete list of names, 12,000, or so. I was approached by someone in Dublin who wants to buy it. I suspect that it came from someone in touch with Germany. The potentialities of the list for obtaining information are enormous. I refused to have anything to do with the proposal. The USA authorities are anxious to get the information,” wrote Mr Andrews, who was later suspected of working with German agents, and of betraying one of them, Hermann Goertz.
The Sweepstakes, set up by Dublin bookmaker Richard Duggan, Welsh-born Capt Spencer Freeman and Joseph McGrath, once an associate of Michael Collins, sold millions of tickets in the US, despite gambling bans in many states.
In a November 1940 letter, the head of MI5’s Irish section, Capt Cecil Liddell, told a superior officer, Lt Col V Vivian: “I myself think it would be worthwhile carrying this matter further, and if possible obtain the list of name of which Andrews speaks . . . Some time ago I was trying to see if there was any evidence of German funds being passed on to the IRA. I had a long talk with Canning in the Special Branch on the subject.”
In a reply, Lt Col Vivian wrote: “Wire our man in New York and tell him of Andrews’ offer. [The head of the FBI] Mr Edgar Hoover might like to know, and in particular the allegation that the Germans were looking for the same list.
“The significance of this is, I think, that the list might be regarded as representing anti-British extremists in all parts of the US who would form good potential enemy agents,” he said.
Later, Capt Liddell discovered Mr Andrews had offered the list to the Metropolitan Police’s Special Branch, who suggested he approach the American authorities: “I think this is probably the wisest course,” wrote Capt Liddell.
In November 1941, Capt Liddell expressed a belief that Mr Andrews had tried to blackmail the Sweepstakes by threatening to sell the information to the US minister in Dublin, David Gray.
Later in the war, Mr Andrews, who had fallen on hard times and had to sell his house, sought permission to be allowed to work in Scotland for a US contractor building military bases there.
An Irish Department of External Affairs official contacted the British authorities to warn that Mr Andrews was “undesirable”, but External Affairs never produced extra information it promised on the matter.
In a letter to a Mr Jeffes in charge of passport control, Capt Liddell wrote that the Irish might have wanted Mr Andrews barred from the UK for fear he would go to the US and threaten the Sweepstakes operation there.
“(He) has undoubtedly worked as a German agent in Dublin as an intermediary with the extremist IRA. He was arrested in October 1941 and released, but arrested again the following month and interned.
“He is now, once again, at liberty, probably owing to having turned informer against his former employers. It is believed that he it was who informed the Garda of the whereabouts of Hermann Goertz, who had been sought for over a year. It was subsequently learned that Maurice Moynihan, Secretary of the Eire government, had stopped Andrews going to the UK.”