John Kane (7 April 1921 – 27 September 2013) was a Scottish whistleblower who was prevented from publishing two books alleging corruption at the British intelligence agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).
While serving with GCHQ in Hong Kong, Kane was concerned with the lack of security and after uncovering fraud, raised his complaints with officials.
[1] After his marriage to Cynthia, Kane moved to Barton on Sea in Hampshire, where he worked as a milkman and school bus driver.
With the RAF Kane flew on sorties during the Battle of the Atlantic, tasked with calibrating radar signals, to help combat the threat of German submarines to Allied shipping.
[2] Kane also served with RAF squadrons supporting allied forces in North Africa and Italy, and was sent into occupied Yugoslavia in 1944, and Greece.
[2] During the Cold War, the target of Kane's interception efforts at Hawklaw were the Soviet Union and its allies behind the Iron Curtain.
[2] Much of the material collected at Hawklaw would be subsequently transferred to the United States National Security Agency for further analysis.
[2] The Cupar station was one of a number of British Y-stations, monitoring the radio communications of Soviet naval vessels.
To investigate Kane's complaints Callaghan appointed a senior civil servant from the Home Office, James Waddell.
[1] In July 1988, Kane made an extended appearance on the British Intelligence episode of the Channel 4 discussion programme After Dark, alongside Merlyn Rees, Robin Ramsay, H. Montgomery Hyde and others.
He discussed with the former home secretary why he had been singled out by the authorities and said, as reported by The Scotsman, "in reasoned and deliberate voice": "Special Branch arrived at my house in Hampshire on a Sunday morning and I endured three days of intense questioning.