Britain’s security services planned to intern the father of the actress Zo? Wanamaker in the event of a national emergency because of his communist links.
MI5 and Special Branch, alerted by the US Embassy in London, kept a close eye on Sam Wanamaker, a successful actor and director, after he fled a crackdown on communism in the United States with his young family in 1951.
The Wanamaker brief also shows that Special Branch kept a file on Michael Redgrave, the actor father of Vanessa Redgrave, because of his interest in “left-wing cultural activities”.
The secret memos and other correspondence, released by the National Archives, demonstrate the heightened sense of paranoia during the initial years of the Cold War.
At one point, even the New Shakespeare Theatre in Liverpool, where Mr Wanamaker was artistic director in 1957, is highlighted, with the city’s Chief Constable sending the director general of the security service drawings of the theatre as well as a programme from the latest show, Tea and Sympathy.
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The director general wrote back: “It confirms what we expected in that any venture of Wanamaker’s would attract a certain number of Communists and Communist sympathisers however much Wanamaker himself might seek to avoid becoming identified with such persons.”
Mr Wanamaker, who later led the campaign to re-create Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London, was caught up in the McCarthy-era communist purge that swept through the United States after the Second World War.
A member of the Communist Party from 1944 to 1947, he attracted the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. His FBI file was unearthed earlier this year during the making of an episode on Zo? Wanamaker of the BBC family history series Who Do You Think You Are?
MI5 took over the surveillance when her father moved the family to London to escape the anti-communist witch-hunt. Private letters were intercepted and telephone conversations tapped.
The actor, perhaps aware that his movements were being monitored, appeared at pains to keep a low profile on the political front. In a letter to Pamela Knelman, said to be a Canadian communist, he agreed to attend a gathering of communists in the film world, but stressed that he was doing so in a private capacity.
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“You must understand that being an American in Britain,” he wrote in May 1952, “one must tread with careful precision on matters involving peace which has now become a highly political and controversial subject.
“You may know of the recent activities of the Un-American Activities Committee in America and the work of our American State Department in connection with the rescinding of passports belonging to people having been found connected with political and unfavourable groups abroad.
“Therefore you see I must be extremely careful about protecting that position and not doing anything which will give them cause, just or not, for any action of the above nature.”
Mr Wanamaker and his wife, Charlotte, were made to apply repeatedly for renewed permission to stay in Britain, with MI5 recommending that visa extensions should only be granted on a short-term, six-month basis.
Memos between the Home Office, police and MI5 in 1954 reveal that Mr Wanamaker would be interned in an emergency, such as the outbreak of war with the Soviet Union.
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“Wanamaker, who has been recommended for internment in the event of an emergency (and his wife for restrictions), is known to have maintained his Communist sympathies and contacts until at least July 1954,” one note read.
In February of the following year a memo from the Metropolitan Police records that Mr Wanamaker recently expressed communist opinions.
“He said that British tolerance towards Communism was in the true spirit of a modern democracy and, as he appreciated the British way of life, he intended to apply for permanent residence in the UK in order to bring up his children here.” according to the document.
It took a further two years, however, until permission was granted, during which time the US Embassy continued to show a keen interest in Mr Wanamaker. At one point, the legal attach? told MI5 that the Embassy planned to confiscate his passport, though this never happened.
Britain’s investigative efforts, however, failed to find any evidence that the actor or his wife, who is alleged to have belonged to the Communist Party at the same time as her husband, had renewed their membership.
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A letter to the US Embassy in 1957 said: “The Wanamakers have not come to adverse security notice since our last letter to you dated August 21, 1956.”
It was sent after the Home Office finally granted the family indefinite permission to stay in Britain six years after their arrival. Mr Wanamaker died of prostate cancer, aged 74, in London in 1993.
Zo? Wanamaker was not available for comment.