'Hairies'

[Ed George <edgeorge@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Inside job

They were the 'hairies' - undercover cops who created false identities
to infiltrate radical protest groups during the 60s, 70s and 80s. Until
now their existence has been secret. Now for the first time, they are
talking. Peter Taylor reports.

Wednesday October 23, 2002

The Guardian

When Dan joined the Metropolitan police special branch in 1964, he was
astonished when a senior officer warned that it was "quite likely that
in 10 years Britain could become a Communist state". The new police
recruits were being introduced to the subversive agenda of the Communist
party of Great Britain, the prototype "enemy within". Its intention,
they were told, was to use the trade unions as a revolutionary
instrument to undermine parliamentary democracy. "It felt as if you were
paddling in a pool of subversion," Dan says. Soon the pool deepened as
the Vietnam war radicalised thousands of young people and swelled the
ranks of Trotskyite organisations.

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,817133,00.html>

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