Michael Keaney wrote:
> Brad queries how I can link Simon, Yeo and Burns with MI5.
I didn't see Brad's post but it sounds disingenuous. The concerted nature of
the campaign to destabilise Wilson's govt simply stares you in the face: MI5
and Special Branch dirty tricks were closely coordinated with a series of
actions which destroyed the old Labour Party, the old trade union movement,
and even the old heavy-industrial base of the British economy, which was
(allegedly) not merely uncompetitive but hag-ridden with industrial
militancy, out-of-control shop steward movements and the CPGB's Industrial
Department.
It is the case that in 1972-74 Britain passed thru a period of social
turbulence during which organised labour saw off Ted Heath's Tory govt, a
deeply disturbing event which had the Establishment reduced to collective
hysteria. See Edward Thompson's 'Writing by Candlelight' for an evocation of
the mood of the era. Outraged and fearful Col Blimps wrote to the Times with
their appeals for the military to take charge, form a junta and close
parliament down-- a commonly-held view in British r/c circles in the
early-70s-- and their letters were perforce written by candlelight because
of power outages. These outages were caused by the unwillingness of loco
drivers to haul the coal wagons across miners' picket lines set up outside
power stations. Sometimes these 'pickets' was as perfunctory as a miner
standing on a bridge over the railway with a small placard reading 'Official
NUM picket'. This kind of solidarity among British workers --which brought
industry to a standstill as effectively as a general strike--caused
pandemonium in London high society and at Westminster. Something had to be
done, and what was presumably the world's first IMF structural adjustment
programme, was it. This was a clear case of politics (ie, class struggle in
a vivid, open form) driving so-called economic necessity.
The fact that the IMF programme was driven by politics is clear if only
because there was never going to be any need for IMF money, in any case (and
as we know, the IMF credits were never actually taken up). This is so
because by 1974 it was already clear that Britain was going to be the
beneficiary of a North Sea oil bonanza, so there could not have been any
underlying balance of payments crisis which necessitated such draconic and
urgent measures. In the circumstances ONLY conspiracy theories add up: of
course the IMF was party to a game plan which also heavily involved MI5--and
the CIA.
In fact, it was precisely awareness of the strategic importance of N Sea oil
which encouraged the Thatcherites, under the ideological stewardship of
people like Keith Joseph and Alfred Sherman and under the banner of
monetarism, to take the unprecedented step of liquidating more than a third
of the UK's industrial base, which Thatcher did by the simple expedient of
letting the exchange rate change. When Britain became the world's third
biggest oil exporter, after Saudi Arabia and the USSR, sterling appreciated
by more than two-thirds after 1979. British manufacturing industry: steel,
coal, engineering, shipbuilding, motor vehicles: collapsed almost overnight
and unemployment rose from nothing to more than 3 million: this was how the
British working class, which in 1972 the CIA considered to be on the verge
of insurrection, was tamed for good and all.
The great monetarist experiment was a resounding success and the
Thatcher-Reagan grand plan went on to see off the USSR itself, in the end.
British living standards did not suffer much because of the flood of oil,
and in fact life even became more pleasant for those still in work.
Unpleasant, loutish but previously-indispensable proles and their Fred
Kiteish leaders were firmly handbagged back into place. The pickets went
home. Factories closed forever, which was great! No industry meant no
smokestacks, cleaner air and water and the chance to reinvent Heritage
Britain, a land of doilies, Bronte theme villages and contented peasants
smiling and bowing at their ivy-covered gates.
For countries not endowed with oil, the effect of SAP's, pioneered in the
UK, has of course been a lot more baleful. Incidentally, N Sea oil is now in
precipitous decline, so we shall see what happens to the servile peasantry
in ten years time when and if they are back on the dole.
Now, Michael Keaney mentions inter alia the role + views of James Jesus
Angleton, onetime No. 3 in the CIA hierarchy. To say that Angleton had
'regular contacts with MI5' is to considerably understate the case. His
whole life and career from start to finish was intimately, and in the end,
disastrously, wrapped up in his relationship with the British SIS. This poor
chap, it must be remembered, never recovered from the fact that his dearest,
closest British chum, who was possibly his best friend, was a shy, modest,
brilliant and unassuming man who in the 1940s seemed to personify all that
was best and special (in American eyes) about the Brits: and his name was
Kim Philby.
Spy-writer Anthony Cave Brown said in an interview: >> I think you should
say that Philby destroyed Angleton's existence. Angleton was the son of a
wealthy Spanish American father, Spanish mother who joined the old Office of
Strategic Services. That was the predecessor to the Central Intelligence
Agency. During World War II [he] went to London, was trained by Philby in
the arts and crafts of counterespionage in the Iberian Peninsula. He was
admitted to what was virtually a brotherhood. This whole group of men became
a brotherhood, simply and solely because they had acquired the ability to
read the German supreme command's ciphers. That ability was political power
on a scale which most people have never experienced before and are unlikely
to have experienced again. Secret intelligence is political power on the
grand scale. And so Angleton joined the club. They became great friends. How
far their friendship went and what it entailed is anybody's guess. <<
Angleton was head of the crucial counterespionage department of the CIA.
Philby later continued to carefully cultivate the ultra-anglophile Angleton
while he was posted to Washington after WW2. At this time, Philby was in
charge of the MI5's entire anti-soviet counter-espionage activity, and he
had full access to all CIA operations as well. This meant that right from
the beginning of the Cold War, Stalin had complete information about US and
British diplomacy, plans, strategies, operations, personnel etc. Philby was
the ultimate spy. He negated the CIA's mission from its outset. He came
close to being appointed head of MI5. And Angleton trusted him like a
brother.
The shock Angleton endured when he discovered the dismal truth about just
how perfidious we sly Brits really are, when we put our minds to it, was
something he never got over. In fact, one of Philby's greatest achievements,
to my mind (and if I may share a small secret with this list, I knew Philby
personally, because I met him when I lived in Moscow in the late 1980s) was
almost-singlehandedly to destroy the Special Relationship. This had been
carefully fostered by Roosevelt and above all by Winston Churchill during
the great wartime alliance. It should be remembered that while the British
SIS was already a legend, in 1941 there really was no US intelligence
service to speak of.
Roosevelt wanted British help to set one up. Churchill, in an extravagant
but cunning gesture, already gave to the Americans his most precious
intelligence secrets as early as 1940, including the Ultra secret. Thus the
Americans were privy to British intelligence even before the US entered the
war. Meanwhile, no such grace and favour was afforded the Soviet Union,
which actually was already at war with Hitler and with which Churchill had
already signed a 20-year treaty of alliance. No wonder Stalin was suspicious
of Churchill's good intentions (but I digress). Churchill's clever plan was
to lock in the US and effectively to make Britain, in military, industrial,
political and above all, i intelligence, spheres, objectively itself a
member-state of the Union. The trust he showed the American secret service,
in particular by giving them open access to the fabulous intelligence jewel
that was Bletchley Park, greatly impressed Roosevelt, of course. We were in
bed together, for the duration. But Churchill also wanted to demonstrate
that the British could not just make themselves useful, but that we (the
Brits) were actually indispensable. He succeeded here, too, because
Angleton, his close associate Dulles, and other founders of what became the
CIA were overawed by the great professionalism and depth-- and the global
reach-- of the SIS and of British intelligence services in general. They
came to Bletchley Park not to give orders but to learn from the real pros,
how it was done (among the British officers involved in liaison with US
counterparts was Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond).
Thus it was the case that the British were able to exercise a tutelary role
during the period when the USA began to create its own secret service,
modelled on SIS-lines; and just as the Brits shared everything, so too the
Americans also had few secrets and even the Bomb became by and large common
property.
This was the happy and seraphic union of like-minded anglo-saxon
brethren--future rulers of the world-- which Kim Philby helped to completely
fuck up. After Philby's horrible betrayal, the CIA and the SIS went their
separate ways, and as the Cold War developed there was no doubt about who
ruled whom. There was no longer any real trust, and never has been. And if
the secret servicemen don't trust each other, given that they are the heart
of the state, it follows as the night the day that there is really not much
trust anywhere else, least of all between politicians, who are all whores
and blood-sucking liars anyway. This is why the almost Wagnerian tragedy of
James Jesus Angleton, wounded in his heart by his best British chum, Kim
Philby, is no mere incidental detail. It lies at the heart of American
suspicions about the effete, corrupt, treasonous Brits. This is the
background to the uneasy relationship between SIS and CIA as it evolved
during the Cold War.
Advancing smartly on, in 1974 the Heath govt held a referendum to decide
whether or not Britain should join the Common Market. This was not a popular
option. Many on the Left were strongly opposed, on the grounds that
socialism would be harder to achieve inside than out. This was silly
thinking, but widespread, and even the CPGB was violently opposed to the
Common Market. Many on the Right were just as much against, including not
just fringes like the League of Empire Loyalists but many respected Tories,
including Keith Joseph and Margaret Thatcher. There was therefore an unholy
alliance of Left and Right on the issue. Heath's govt was unpopular anyway,
and the polls showed that he would lose the referendum. The referendum
campaign was a theatre of dirty tricks, and such was the desperation of the
Heath govt-- AND of its US backers-- to get Britain into the EC-- that a
very dirty game ensued, and these dirty tricks were often obvious to the
naked eye. And this is important when you try to work out exactly what MI5
was up to, and all those shadowy groups around it.
As Michael Keaney says, these included:
> a network spanning corporate (Aims of Industry, John Cuckney),
> political (Conservative Party -- Airey Neave), military (Walker,
> Mountbatten) and a "civil society" comprising other connected movers and
> shakers like Alfred Sherman, Lord Harris of High Cross, the McWhirters,
These were exactly the people who later helped Thatcher consummate her
neoliberal revolution. They were to a person, opposed to Europe.
Nevertheless, it is the case that MI5 was deeply involved in a bitter, dark
struggle to destroy the credibility of the anti-EC campaign which these very
same people passionately espoused! Ah, the wilderness of mirrors.... Without
MI5, Heath would surely have lost and Britain would have remained outside
Europe.
This is why we need to be careful in evaluating the historic role of
agencies like MI5. It was Churchill's original intention (which he shared
with Adolf Hitler, as a matter of fact) that postwar Europe should be united
under some kind of federalist, and anti-communist, umbrella. This was the
architecture of the postwar world which the Americans themselves, from
Roosevelt and Truman to Eisenhower, wanted to create: a united, subservient
Europe which however would never acquire political or military independence
and which would always host large numbers of US troops, airbases, missiles
etc. And because the British SIS had accepted, or been obliged to accept, a
subordinate role vis-a-vis its US counterparts, it was always the case that
outfits like MI5 would act to support this strategic vision. Whatever their
private nostalgia for empire, angst, innate sense of superiority etc, might
be, the Special Relationship was actually that which obtains between a
commissioned officer and an NCO. The British, since the time when Angleton
discovered his mistake in allowing himself to be patronised by the likes of
Kim Philby, were seen as unreliable subordinates in need of constant
supervision. And the British accepted it; they had no choice.
Arguably, therefore, if MI5 is now helping Tony Blair dish the Tories, it is
simply doing what it always has done. Britain will indeed enter the Euro
zone. The Americans themselves want this to happen, so it will. Once inside,
the idea is that Britain will ensure that Europe does not develop into a
federal superstate which might acquire real competitive potential. But this
may not happen, of course. Instead, British links with the US may be
weakened or the Trojan Horse role may even be reversed.
Much has been written about possible US fears on the subject of the Euro. I
remember that Doug Henwood was very exercised with this question. But in
reality, the euro is not now a competitor for the dollar and never will be,
unless Europe somehow acquires its own army, state, and of course, its own
intelligence service. But none of these things is impossible. Full scale
British participation would drastically enhance the political potential of
the EU and even and above all, the military technology available to it.
Britain is the only US ally to have access to key steaslth and
communications technologies. This is a residual effect of the Special
Relationship. Of course, satraps can and do change masters, and the Brits
(we know) are perfidious. So it is not inconceivable that Britain might
reverse its traditional role and become the sponsor of a European supertsate
which will be a rival to US hegemony.
American military might exists above all to cow into submission, not rogue
states, not even China: but *Europe*. When US imperialism loses Europe, its
status as world hegemon will presumably be in question. The US ascent to
world domination began with Wilson's intervention in Europe's civil war in
1917. This historical logic still works. The British will continue to play
an important role as the US Trojan Horse in Europe.
This leaves finally the question of what is Norman Tebitt's game? Why are
the Tories themselves now denouncing MI5? Is it because they having nothing
left to lose because they are indeed marginalised and on the point of
extinction? Perhaps Tebbit does believe that his own spoiling tactics will
save a few marginal Tory seats now threatened by the intervention of the UK
Independence Party (which Tebitt claims is an MI5 front). And what about
those British missile submarines, all now mysteriously out of service? My
information may well be wrong or a misreading, I dunno. But I think a high
degree of suspiciousness about these seemingly chance events is always
advisable.
Norman Tebbit seems to think, along with Margaret Thatcher, that political
salvation for the Tories lies in strengthening the 'Special Relationship',
and prioritising Britain's US connection over Brtiain's relationship with
Europe. But since it is the US itself which is pushing Britain further into
Europe, it's hard to see why Tebbit etc should be so stupid; no-one in
Washington, even among the Bush camp, is supporting the Thatcher anti-EU
line, are they? Since I don't believe Tebbit is stupid, one is left again
with the idea that this is a public sign of a real split within the British
ruling class, about really-different alternative futures. Paradoxically,
what may be fuelling the paranoia and anxiety-state of the Thatcherites, is
fear of American *weakness*. There are good grounds, are there not? There
are structural disequilibria besetting the US economy. Meanwhile, the
European Union continues to make progress. During economic upswings, the
dynamic of fusion intensifies, and the EU is step by step bolting in place
the bits and pieces of a welfareist federal state. During a sharp world
crisis, if that happens, these centripetal forces not only will not
diminish, they will acquire an extra political imperative, because it is
obvious that European nations cannot look for individual salvation; and any
US weakness only accelerates the process of formation of a European
superstate. Therefore, under all circumstances, European integration
continues to develop and even the British are drawn into the process.
Mark Jones
