ABSTRACT
Early in 1962, George Thomson suffered a stroke, and in late March an Acting Secretary had to be appointed. This was the Deputy DPR for the Army and later for the MoD, Colonel ‘Sammy’ Lohan, 228 already therefore well known to the Media. Thomson did in due course return to part-time work in early 1963, reduced by his doctor to six cigarettes a day, but working from home on a reduced annual salary of £1,000, and in uneasy tandem with Lohan, who continued to be first port of call for media enquiries about Defence matters. On secret Agencies matters, however, Hill preferred to continue to deal with Thomson; he also took an unusually prominent role in looking for a suitable permanent successor for him, and, when the somewhat resentful and status-conscious Lohan refused to allow Thomson to share his secretarial support, Hill obtained the agreement of Way and Hollis to acquire a supply of SPBC-headed paper and have Thomson’s official letters typed by his own MI5 Secretary. Any conspiracy theorists in the Media of the time do not seem to have been aware of this symbiotic friendship; any of the present day may rest assured such practices have not occurred since.
