l4sfdrx

230 SPACE, SPY SHIPS AND SCANDALS
that they might be approached by the KGB or the GRU. It was
clear that they needed full briefings with real-life case studies.
Issues like Patchett's 'bed-wetting' were always lurking in the
background, and officials demanded a selection process that
would eliminate people with emotional disorders from duty in
sensitive units. 9 However, most of the sensible suggestions were
undercut by the extreme shortage of sigint intercept personnel.
Sigint managers insisted that the idea of not posting servicemen
under the age of twenty-one to places like Berlin was just impossible.
They also disliked the idea of some sort of special psychiatric
assessment for sigint staff, which they thought would have
an adverse effect on recruitment. lO Only the Army Intelligence
Corps introduced psychological testing for all personnel on sensitive
postings. ll
Even as officials debated the Patchett case, further sigint security
disasters were in the making. In 1962 Douglas Britten, a
thirty-year-old RAF technician, began a six-year spying career
for the Soviets. Britten was no ordinary RAF technician. He had
joined the Air Force in May 1949, at the age of seventeen, and
had spent twenty years as sigint 'special operator' in some of
the most important collection stations. After initial training he
was sent to Habbaniya in Iraq between 1950 and 1953. He then
worked briefly in Egypt, before returning home in 1954. He
served with 264 Signals Unit at Ayios Nikolaos in Cyprus between
1956 and 1959, and then again between 1962 and 1966, before
being posted to RAF Digby. There was little he did not know
about the business of sigint interception. Yet the serious nature
of the Britten case was carefully hidden from the public, which
was not told about his real duties. The authorities were helped
by the fact that he pleaded guilty, ensuring a short trial of which
parts were held 'in camera' - away from the public gaze.
Born in Northampton in 1931, Douglas Britten came from a
troubled and impoverished background. In 1940 his father joined
the RAF and was posted to Bolton for training. There he struck
up a relationship with a woman in the house where he was