At the 1960 Labour Party Conference the CNDers won. The Labour Party was committed to unilateral nuclear disarmament. This was the culmination of a mass extra-parliamentary campaign which went right through the ranks of the Labour Party and resulted in a defeat for the right-wing.
Hugh Gaitskell pledged that he would "fight, fight and fight again" to win the party back. Few realised however, that this tight, as others in which the right-wing had been previousiy engaged, was to be financed by the Central Intelligence Agency, via its numerous front org anisations. CIA money coupled with the pathetic failure of the Labour Jeft to resist, led to a right-wing victory at the 1961 conference. The Agency had scored another SUCCEE.
in the late "60s and early "70s, when the role of the CiA in setting up various front organisations had been admitted, the Sunday Times commissioned Richard Fletcher to write a piece for their magazine on CIA penetration of the Labour Party, Fletcher produced a text which was cieared for libel; expensive artwork was then prepared ready for printing.
But the Editor of the Sunday Timer, Harold Evans, censored it at the last minute because of the embarrassment it would cause the Labour right wing. The offending article, How CIA Money Took the Teeth Out of Socialism, was suppressed. It would have remained lost had not an enterprising new proup called Radical Research Services decided to reporduce it as a pamphiet with additional information explaining why it was censored and the political antecedents of Harold Evans.
This is the second article by Fletcher to have been censored by the Sunday Timer In August 1967 he wrote a piece detailing CIA penetration of the international trade union movement, showing how the British TUC was a member of ClAsupported bodies. On that becasion, Bruce Page, the commander of the Insight team, effectively prevented the article from being published.
None of the facts cited by Fletcher are sensational or surprising: but given the end of the Cold War and the almost universal disgust with the CIA. not forettine Water.
gate, it would be embarrassing for at least two senior members of the present Labour Cabinet to he exp osed as having been on the CIA payroll for a whole period.
Denis Healey, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Anthony Crosland, Secretary for the Environment, were bath assisted by the CIA. Crosland was for a whole period a paid adviser to the Congress for Cultural Freedom, a CLA front organisation It was in this period that he wrote his bonk The Future of Socialism, which became the bible of the Latour right through the "50s and carly Healey was the paid London correspondent of the New Leader, a ferociously anti-communist magazine financed by the CIA. Socialist Commentary, The "theoretical Anthony Crosland-tormer paid adviser to a CiA front, the Congress for Cuttural Fres journal of Labour's right wing, was heavily financed by the J.M. Caplan Fund, yet another CIA subsidiary. Others on the CIA payroll were Dick Taverne, Hugh Gaitskell, Rita Hinden and William Rodgers The latter was the main organiser of the Campaign for Derocratic Socialism (CDS) grouping inside the Labour Party, which was known to have had "rich backers". Fletcher's picce makes it obvious where some of the money was coming from.
The effects of this CIA money were obviously not unimportant, It is not surprising that Healey, Crosland and the Labour right were the most vociferous defenders sE NATO, SEATO, CENTO and American foreign policy throughout the "5Os and '60g, Hugh Galtakell —vowed to tight, light and fight again', but the money came from the CIA. the CDS are still with is - Brian inct -Healey, Crosland, Jenkins.
It is not surprising that the Sunday Times their cupboard firmly closed on then, was just not on.
had been accepting money from case the Sunday Times, together with every paper, would have broadcast the news and witchhunted the lefties' sic example of the double book-keeping in which the unfree press excels.
OWN AGENTS whos own Credenlas are increa Another Labour right-winger, Michael Stewart, then Foreign Secretary in the 1964-70 Labour Government, was one of the more effective apologists for US imperialism in Vietnam, The young terriers of Walden, Roy Hattersley, Bill Rodgers, Shirley Williams -together of course with their elders in the Cab- light.
would like to keep this particular skeleton. Discrediting the 'people we support', as Harold Evans is reported to have described And if it had been the Left who Eastern Europe? Just suppose Foot, Greenwood, Allaun, et al had been on the payroll of the KGB. In that other Fleet Street news out of public life. Yet another clas It is hardiy surprising that even the belated publication of Fletcher's articie has aroused the wrath of the Thomson House barons, Bruce Pago, also be borne in mind when we analyse the recent formation of the Manifesto Group —an attempt to counter the Tribunites by the Labour right wing. Its leading members include Brian Walden and Michael Stewart, and as time passes we shall no doubt see many other old familiar names coming into the limeSome of Kissinger's recent statements have implied that he is not happy with the situation in Europe, and while Italy and Portugal are his main worries, he has also exp ressed concern over the Labour Party, Given all the information we have about the CiA, we should not be at all surprised to find the hand of the CIA gently pushing the Labour friends of imperialism to start combatting the left.
THE FRAGILE WITH CARE TINE Pamphlet ailable from RED BOOKS, 97 Caledonian Road, London N.1. at 25p plus Alter all. the leading CIA agent in London today is none other than Cord Meyer, who funded the Congress for Cultural Freedom in the old days and is on visiting and first name terms with a number of members of the present Government.
As the social and cconomic crisis deepens and causes increasing strains within the Labour Party, the fellow travellers of US imperialism will get more and more nervous and edgy. In the present period, however, they will not get much mass support as it is their system which is in crisis. Striking Hard and effective bows at them will therefore be much easier. Richard Fletcher's article provides us with extremely useful material, and it should be circulated as broadly as possible within the labour movement.
Who are they travelling with? Michael Foot: during the 1960 Labour Party Conference
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