Doris Lessing spied on by MI5 over concerns about communist sympathies

MI5 snooped on author Doris Lessing because they were concerned about her sympathies with the communist movement, previously secret files have revealed.

Files showed that spooks monitored the Nobel laureate's phone calls and tracked her travel movements as they investigated how far her left-wing sympathies went.

She was labelled by MI6 as having communist sympathies that bordered on the "point of fanaticism". The security agency also said that her opposition of racial discrimination had led to her becoming "irresponsible in her statements".

The revelations, which cover the years between 1943 and 1964 in five files, released by the National Archives at Kew, west London, on Friday.

Lessing, who was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 2007, roused interest from the security services in the 1940s because of the left-wing views of her second husband, communist activist Gottfried Lessing, and her association with left-wing groups in southern Africa, including the Rhodesian Friends of the Soviet Union.

A letter from the Air Ministry in September 1944 revealed concerns among security organisations about those with left-leaning sympathies, noting that the Lessings ran the Salisbury Left Club in Southern Rhodesia, a club "patronised by persons with foreign accents" and RAF personnel.