Spy rule No 1: no cravat

Your article on American spies ("CIA outrages UK academics by planting spies in the classroom", June 3) reminded me of a similar occurrence when I was at Cambridge University in the mid-1960s. An American undergraduate took to appearing at meetings of the Labour Club. Nothing strange, you might think. Even then Cambridge had more than its fair share of long-haired jean-wearing students. However, this chap was immaculately groomed, wore a Savile Row hound's-tooth check jacket and, if my memory serves me correctly, a cravat. He would sit quietly at the back of meetings while the revolution was being planned on the front rows (yes, honestly, revolution in the Labour Club).

A group of us befriended him and took him for a couple of pints and, after little more intimidation than a few more jars of Greene King, wormed it out of him that the CIA was paying his way in return for reports about student politics in Cambridge. It seemed that Uncle Sam was particularly interested in the political activities of this student's fellow Americans. The poor lad was distraught at having been cracked and said that, if he were discovered, his funding would be stopped and he would have to return home. Even battle-hardened Fidelistas like us could not bring ourselves to expose him to the university authorities. Instead, we "turned" him and agreed to supply suitably realistic stories for him to relay back to his controllers in return for not exposing him.

Howard Gannaway
Doncaster