[A-List] UK state: CIA penetration of the Labour Party

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Following recent discussions with Michael Hudson I dug out my copy of Dorril
& Ramsay's definitive account of all the plots to oust Harold Wilson from
the party leadership and 10 Downing St...


"While the permanent government was concerned about leaks and opposition to
nuclear policies from Ministers and officials regarded as being on the left
of the Government, it turned a blind eye when its major ally, the United
States, used its 'assets' to promote its cause. Barbara Castle attended the
Cabinet meeting on 6 July 1967 which discussed the White Paper on Defence.
'Harold began by saying he had a telegram from [President] Johnson asking us
to go slow on defence cuts East of Suez. This was the second time a foreign
power had got to know Cabinet business. In these two cases, being the U.S.,
it wasn't serious.' It would seem that at least one of Mrs Castle's
colleagues was leaking to the Americans.

"Chapman Pincher has written that the Labour Party had been 'penetrated for
many years by agents of the CIA' and that he knew 'the identity of one
former Cabinet Minister who was in regular contact with the CIA'. Political
correspondent James Naughtie disclosed that a minister had been subject to a
telephone-tapping operation and 'was found -- to the surprise of ministers
who had served with him -- to have been a regular informant to Washington'.
According to David Leigh's sources the former MI5 officer Arthur Martin told
friends, 'I did hear that _____ was a spy'. An MI5 officer from K branch
confirmed to Leigh that 'we knew that _____ was a CIA agent, or if not an
agent, at least very close to the Americans' (deletions in Leigh's account).
We can reveal that the 'agent of influence' was the Foreign Secretary,
Michael Stewart.

"Stewart turned out to be the most pro-American of all the former
Gaitskellites, supporting US involvement in Vietnam to the bitter end. He
had deep personal links with the pro-Vietnam lobby in Washington. Stewart
disliked Wilson because of his 'equivocal attitude during the CND dispute' a
nd 'hostility to Hugh [Gaitskell]' -- which puts into an interesting light
Edward Short's comment that ' the relationship of Harold Wilson to Michael
Stewart ... was one of great regard and growing reliance -- indeed, he
probably depended more on his advice than any other minister's.' Short says
that 'this was a development which almost everyone in the Government
welcomed, for Michael Stewart was a man of considerable wisdom and
versatility.' Benn begged to differ. He though Stewart was 'the most
unattractive Cold War warrior, his attitude is a completely transparent
plastic bag covering and preserving old Foreign Office policies ... [they
are still in the Cold War stage and have always got their eyes turned over
their shoulders to the United States.'

"Twenty years on, despite the collapse of the Cold War and the end of the
'Soviet threat', the Parliamentary Labour Party remains wedded to the link
forged with the Americans during and after the Second World War. None of the
issues discussed in this and preceding chapters about the relationship have
yet made their way out of the left fringe into the main agenda of the
party."

--Stephen Dorril and Robin Ramsay, "Smear: Wilson and the Secret State",
Grafton, 1991, pp. 165-6.

NOTE: David Leigh's "The Wilson Plot" (Heinemann, 1988) was published two
years before Michael Stewart's death. Given the nature of this subject it is
not surprising that, with English libel laws in mind, most authors prefer
not to make allegations concerning living persons, considering the burden of
proof placed upon libel case defendants AND the likely sympathies of the
judiciary, itself a part of the permanent government apparatus. It was not
so long ago when dinosaurs like "Lords" Denning, Widgery and Lane were
lumbering through the Jurassic Park of the British legal system. Thus, when
investigating accounts of the secret state shenanigans of the 1970s, you
will find far more references to Ross McWhirter than to Norris, despite the
fact that these twin brothers acted in concert until Ross was assassinated
by the IRA in 1975. Norris is still alive and still fighting for "freedom",
although the company he keeps (Patrick Minford, Neil Hamilton, Gerald
Howarth and Teresa Gorman) should tell you something about what sort of
freedom. Dorril and Ramsay, referring to Ross specifically, highlight his
former membership of the League of Empire Loyalists (forerunner of the
National Front), money-raising activity for John Tyndall (longtime British
racist "politician" and self-styled führer) and associations with the likes
of the equally racist Dowager Lady Birdwood and George Kennedy Young. The
McWhirters were involved in Young's Unison Committee for Action and General
Sir Walter Walker's Civil Assistance. But information about their activities
becomes harder to trace after Ross's assassination, for the reason of the
English libel laws I suspect.

According to Dorril and Ramsay, Leigh provided them with the information on
Stewart.

I will repost my extensive review of David Leigh's "The Wilson Plot",
originally written for PEN-L two years ago. It covers a lot of ground
alluded to in this discussion and may yet stimulate further discovery and
analysis.

Michael Keaney