The Forgotten Spy by Nick Barratt Page B

because they were female, but because many had undertaken signals intelligence work during the war – the ‘Hush-WAACs’ – and could therefore be trusted on a security detail.
    Alongside various plain-clothed police officers from Special Branch, he requested two men for ‘subterranean activities’ – his own intelligence-gathering operation, which included Major Stewart Menzies, who would rise to lead Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service. The entire staff of the hotel were replaced by British workers and even local messenger services were shunned on the grounds of security. A group of ten Girl Guides – the youngest being Jessie Spencer from Richmond, Surrey aged only 13 years and 7 months – were sent over to run messages and undertake light office work. This provoked an outcry from various groups shocked at the exploitation of children – ‘prurient little flappers who should be at school and under parental control’, according to the chairman of the advisory committee for Eltham schools, Lady Ellen McDougall. 60
    Back in England, the task of assembling the support staff from within the Foreign Office who would work at the Astoria continued through November and December, alongside the job of ensuring that sufficient arrangements were made for those left behind. In effect, there would be two Foreign Offices in place, a shadow one in Paris focusing on conference activity under the control of Balfour and Hardinge and the permanent one in London which was temporarily placed under the command of Lord Curzon, Lord President of the Council.
    During this period of frenzied activity and growing excitement, Oldham finally returned to his desk in Whitehall – a war hero, and a wounded one at that, who had served his King and country valiantly with tales to tell worthy of any of the King’s Messengers. Coupled with his application to join the diplomatic corps in 1916, which had received strong support from his superiors, itis clear that his star was in the ascendancy. Even so, it is still surprising to find that Oldham was selected as one of the team of six clerks who would travel to Paris for the conference, part of the centralised Establishment Section that would oversee all the day to day administration, filing, correspondence and registry work for all the delegations from different departments. This was a pivotal role – the key bureaucracy not just for the Foreign Office but the entire British presence in Paris.
    Correspondence to secure the funds to enable selected staff to go to Paris flowed thick and fast between the Foreign Office and the Treasury as time started to run out. On 12 December, Assistant Under-Secretary Sir Maurice de Bunsen made it clear to Treasury officials that the Foreign Secretary himself had approved their plans to create a fully staffed secretariat in Paris.
    With reference to the semi-official correspondence which has passed between this office and your department on the subject of the arrangements to be made for the control of the expenditure of the British delegation to the peace conference at Paris, I am directed by Mr Secretary Balfour to request that you will lay before the lords commissioners of His Majesty’s Treasury the following proposals which have been framed with a view to the setting up of a strong establishment section which shall ensure both economical administration and efficient accountancy. 61
    The post of Establishment Officer was granted to Alexander Allen Paton, a Liverpool-based businessman who had made his name in cotton and was closely associated with Balfour. He had acted as attaché to the British Embassy in Washington in 1915 and organised the arrangements for Balfour’s mission to the US to cement American intervention in 1917. He was a trusted advisor with a track record of work within the Contraband Department of the Foreign Office. In a move to secure Treasury support, it was pointed out that:
    Mr Paton is prepared to give his services without a salary