Tomás "Tommy" Joseph Harris (10 April 1908 – 27 January 1964) was a British art dealer and artist, who also served as an

MI5 MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), officially the Security Service, is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Gov ...

intelligence officer during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. As a Spanish-speaker, he worked with

Juan Pujol García Juan Pujol García (; 14 February 1912 – 10 October 1988), also known as Joan Pujol i García (), was a Spanish spy who acted as a double agent loyal to Great Britain against Nazi Germany during World War II, when he relocated to Britain t ...

, a very important

double agent In the field of counterintelligence, a double agent is an employee of a secret intelligence service for one country, whose primary purpose is to spy on a target organization of another country, but who is now spying on their own country's organi ...

in the Double Cross System. Born of a Spanish mother, Enriqueta Rodriguez, and an English father, Lionel Harris, an art dealer specialising in Spanish paintings, he grew up in a Jewish household in Hampstead, his mother having converted to Judaism at the time of the marriage, Harris continued his father's successful art dealing business, and was essentially an amateur artist himself. Harris had an important collection of Spanish prints, especially those of

Francisco Goya Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 1746 – 16 April 1828) was a Spanish Romanticism, romantic painter and Printmaking, printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Hi ...

, which was mostly acquired by the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

after his death. In fact, Harris, while still alive, placed his collection on indefinite loan in the British Museum. The British Museum has 708 objects formerly in his collection, including 22 prints he made himself, and in 1981 published ''Goya's Prints, The Tomás Harris Collection in the British Museum'', edited by Juliet Wilson Bareau. He had five siblings, including Enriqueta Harris (1910—2006), an art historian specialising in Spanish art, and four others: William, Morris, Violeta, and Conchita.

Possible double agent

In 1962, Flora Solomon – a friend of

Kim Philby Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby (1 January 191211 May 1988) was a British intelligence officer and a double agent for the Soviet Union. In 1963, he was revealed to be a member of the Cambridge Five, a spy ring that had divulged British secr ...

– told Victor Rothschild, who had worked with MI6 during World War II, that she thought that Philby and Tomás Harris had been Soviet spies, since the 1930s. "Those two were so close as to give me an intuitive feeling that Harris was more than a friend." As a result of this information,

sought to interview Harris. However, Harris was killed in a motor accident at Llucmajor,

Mallorca Mallorca, or Majorca, is the largest of the Balearic Islands, which are part of Spain, and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, seventh largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. The capital of the island, Palma, Majorca, Palma, i ...

, before an interview could occur. It has been suggested that Harris was murdered. For example, Chapman Pincher suggested that Harris was killed by Soviet agents to prevent him speaking to MI5: Pincher pointed out that the most likely source of any leak was Roger Hollis, then director-general of MI5 who Pincher controversially claimed was a Soviet agent. According to Bill Bristow, Tomas Harris's godson, his father, Desmond Bristow, was a very close friend of Tomas Harris and interviewed Juan Pujol (Garbo) before Tommy became Garbo's case officer. He reveals the fact that Tomas Harris funded Philby's book, which he never wrote. Bill Bristow believes Tommy would have known Philby was a KGB operative but was never involved himself, although it was possible. In a letter dated 8 September 1981Paul Mellon Centre, BS/2/3/2

/ref> to Dick Brewis, Brian Sewell wrote: “''I had a very long and confidential conversation with an old friend and contemporary of Tomas H last night. It seems clear that TH was involved in espionage, but for the Americans and not the Russians: at his death MI5 managed to suppress information about work done specifically for Eisenhower details of which were know to one particular obit writer.''” The “old friend” was probably

Anthony Blunt Anthony Frederick Blunt (26 September 1907 – 26 March 1983), (formerly styled Sir Anthony Blunt from 1956 until November 1979), was a leading British art historian and a Soviet spy. Blunt was a professor of art history at the University ...

Harris and Pujol

Together they made up a fictional team of 27 fake sub-agents, who were created in order to convince German intelligence that Garbo was a reliable spy. This resulted in what became known as the Garbo deception.

Pujol's and Tomás' network of fictitious agents

References

Bibliography

External links

MI5 Profile
(archived)
www.tomasharris.com
More information about the life of Tomas Harris (family site) {{DEFAULTSORT:Harris, Tomás 1908 births 1964 deaths MI6 personnel People from Hampstead Road incident deaths in Spain British art collectors Art dealers from London 20th-century English businesspeople