A newly declassified dossier has shown that MI5 in the UK kept tabs on author Kingsley Amis when he was at Oxford University, referring to him as “a very promising member of the Communist Party”. The dossier, which may shock many shows that the Secret Service asked local constabularies for reports on the young academic and even quizzed Army commanders about his conduct.
The revelation came about after newly declassified documents were released from the National Archives in Kew. These archives also show that Army superiors took a dim view of the young Kingsley Amis marking him as a deliberate contrarian as reported in today’s Telegraph.
As the files show, eventually it was decided that he wasn’t a threat and came to view his time at Oxford as youthful indiscretion given that as he grew older he became disenfranchised with Marxism. This belief was marked down and recorded ensuring he wouldn’t be excluded from opportunities to work within the government if he so wished.
It was 1942 when Amis was first flagged by MI5 after they intercepted a letter mentioning his role in the Oxford Communist Party. In 1944 there were more reports that he’d been receiving regular supplies of the Communist newspaper The Daily Worker. Amis was noted to be ‘well read by a bit young and inexperienced in the ways of the world.’ It was noted that while he didn’t hold any extremist views that might make him a threat to National Security, the Secret Service felt that if he tried, people would have taken him seriously.
While they were partly correct, Amis was certainly something special going on to become one of the best known English writers of all time, he did turn his back on Communism and Marxism, and it seems it was just the fleeting folly of a young impressionable man.
Birmingham Poet, Benjamin Zephaniah dies, aged 65
Top Authors Join Legal Battle Against OpenAI for Mass Copyright Infringement
Literary Icon, Cormac McCarthy has died
The Literary World Mourns Martin Amis
Anne Perry, Murderer turned Crime Writer dies, aged 84