THE OBSERVER
Sunday, January 29, 1978
by RICHARD FLETCHER, George Brock and Phil Kelly
A SECRET Foreign Office department set up after World
War Two to distribute anti-Communist propaganda abroad also covertly planted
material in
Over a period of 30 years material and money
from the Information Research Department (IRD) went into books published under
highly respectable imprints. Some of them are still available in public, school
and university libraries. Anti-Stalinist material was also infiltrated into
trade union literature.
After 30 wears, the IRD finally became an
embarrassment to Ministers, who feared its approach to propaganda was out of
date and a threat to détente relations. Its activities were first curtailed by
the late Anthony Crosland, and last May it was closed down by his successor as
Foreign Secretary, Dr David Owen.
Documents in the hands of The Observer
reveal that within a year of its foundation in 1948 the department was paying a
hidden subsidy to an anti-Communist magazine, Freedom First, which was
circulated to trade unionists.
It was negotiated secretly between the editor
and Mr Christopher Mayhew, then a Foreign Office Junior minister and the man
who created IRD.
The department used a small publishing company,
Ampersand Ltd, which published IRD-inspired material for 20 years and bought
thousands of books for distribution by IRD.
A director of Ampersand since 1953, Mr. Stephen
Watts, confirmed to us that IRD paid his firm's costs including office bills
and authors' fees, and he always understood that the money was from the secret
vote, the Parliamentary allocation of money for the intelligence services.
The IRD Began life in January 1948 after the
Attlee Cabinet approved a plan put up by Mr Mayhew for a vigorous information
offensive against the Iron Curtain countries which, according to his memo, were
wining the ideological cold war.
Mr. Mayhew had asked his officials to draw up
plans for a `team of two or three devillers,` who were to prepare and assemble
material under a `specialist in ideological warfare.'
In a `Top Secret` memo to the Foreign
Secretary, Mr. Ernest Bevin in December 1947 he said: `The material would be
concocted and devised by the Communist Information Department` (IRD's
provisional title).
He proposed a book extolling the merits of
British social democracy, suggesting as a title `The Straight Answer.`
He added: `It would probably be madyisable to
issue an English edition for public circulation at home, since this could be
attacked as expenditure of taxpayers' money for internal political purposes;
but the private circulation to key people in this country of a limited number
of the English language edition would be practicable and extremely helpful.`
Mr Mayhew, his officials and his confidants at
Labour Party headquarters were well aware of the risks they were running.
Mr Mayhew, now a member of the Liberal Party,
said last week that IRD dealt in `true facts` and commented: `It's difficult to
make out that there's anything sinister about this. We were ahead of our time
in fighting Stalinism. In the postwar years there were many illusions about
Stalinism, not least inside the Labour Party. We were certainly taking great
political risks, and quite right too.`
In May 1948 Mr Mayhew told Bevin that he had
made arrangements with Herbert Tracey (an official in the Labour Party's
international section) for the dissemination in the Labour movement at home of
anti-Communist propaganda.
Mr Tracey ran an anti-Communist committee
called `Freedom First`. Mr Mayhew noted a month later that the committee's
material should be supplied by IRD on a `strictly confidential basis.`
The note went on: `Mr Tracey would work out a
financial estimate on the basis of 5,000 copies covering three or four
languages. We would then see what we could do in the way of a hidden subsidy -
e.g. by purchase of copies for use and distribution by our information
officers.`
An idea of IRD's information-collecting methods
as opposed to dissemination can be gathered from a vote from Mr Mayhew to one
of his officials in January 1949. It suggests `grey` propaganda - carefully
selected material energetically reproduced and distributed - other then `black`
propaganda of lies and fiction.
Mr Mayhew recommends using the Press monitoring
section at the Moscow Embassy to gather suitable material.
In addition to sponsoring anti-Communist books,
IRD also distributed British newspaper articles to developing countries.
Newspapers in those countries were carrying material supplied by Russian and
Chinese news agencies because it was all they could afford.
So IRD, wishing to counter that influence, made
arrangements with some British news organisations (including, in 1968, The
Observer Foreign News Service), which gave IRD the right to distribute
articles cheaply, or even free of charge to the media of selected countries.
In the case of THE OBSERVER Foreign News Service, which syndicates articles by Observer
writers it was a condition that the articles could not be altered.
The arrangement between IRD and Ampersand for
subsidising and publishing anti-Communist books began in 1950s.
Mr Stephen Watts, the head of Ampersand, said
last week that he would discuss possible book titles with the heads of IRD.
Those books would be commissioned and edited by Mr Watts who would arrange for
sales of copies to IRD for distribution overseas.
That discreet arrangement was merged with
conventional current affairs publishing. Mr Watts, as a freelance publisher's
editor, created and edited a series of more than 100 volumes called Background
Books, which was published by two small firms between 1950 and 1960, when
Bodley Head took over.
IRD paid for the books in two ways: by buying
up to several hundred copies of a title they wanted and by meeting production
costs for titles published by Ampersand under their own imprint.
Ampersand also acted as a purchasing agent for
IRD, buying Bodley Head hooks and other publishers' books' through Bodley
Head's credit facilities.
Ampersand's accounts for the years 1967-76 list
total payments to Bodley Head of Ł 55,991, but Bodley Head were not able to
confirm this.
They also show reimbursement of publishing
expenses and overheads overthe same period of Ł 88,670. Mr Watts said that this
had been paid by IRD.
The account were audited each year and copy of
them was sent to the Foreign Office which then paid reimbursements to
Ampersand.
Mr Max Reinhardt managing director of Bodley
Head said: `Ours was an orthodox publishing arrangement with Stephen Watts. I
naturally had no idea of Ampersand's connection with IRD or the Foreign Office.
Mr Watts told us that the arrangement between
IRD and Ampersand had been suggested by the late Mr Leslie Sheridan, a wartime
intelligence man. He was deputy head of IRD in 1961 and the founder of
Ampersand.
Although the British public didn't know about IRD's
activities, ironically the Russians were handed details of what was happening
on the plate.
When Mr Mayhew was assembling his staff a
colleague approached him and recommended a young diplomat as a `man deeply
versed in communism.` That men was Guy Burgess one of Britain's most famous
post war defectors, a who was on he staff of IRD for several years until sacked
by Mr Mayhew for being `dirty drunk and idle.'
Additional research by Paul Lashmar, Tony Smart
and Rickard Oliver.