John Smith: Old Labour’s lost leader?
In non-New Labour Labour Party circles the late John Smith is remembered with great reverence.(1) Quite what this is based on escapes me. All I can identify is his dislike of Peter Mandelson: Smith kept him at bay therefore Smith was a good man seems to be the argument. But John Smith was the man under whose influence the Labour Party began the sorry road it is now on when he decided to give up the entire economic game and do what the City told him; the man who, with Marjorie Mowlam, Shadow Chief Secretary, at his side, toured the City’s dining rooms announcing Labour’s conversion to economic orthodoxy – the most complete and protracted act of political surrender in British history this century.
Further, while John Smith was spurning the skills of Mr Mandelson and wooing the money-lenders he was a member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group, in the inner circle;(2) and Bilderberg has been one of the leading forums promoting the transnational, American-dominated New World Order which is now wrecking the world.
Then there was Smith’s life-long friendship with Baroness (Meta) Ramsay, the former career SIS officer, with whom he became friends at university. She became President of the Scottish Union of Students and went on to a career in the murky world of Cold War international student politics prior to joining SIS. Private Eye 973 of 2 April 1999 noted that Jack Straw, while an official of the National Union of Students, visited Chile in 1966, sponsored by the Foundation for International Student Cooperation, a Foreign Office or SIS front – which isn’t clear – whose manager at the time was Ramsay.(3) Apparently now retired from ‘the diplomatic service’, Baroness Ramsay was a member of the Executive of the Labour Finance and Industry Group (LFIG) and in edition 5 of the LFIG News (1997) she was described as Foreign Policy Adviser to John Smith (1992-4) and Special Adviser to Jack Cunningham. In 1997 she became Chair of the Atlantic Council and she has since been appointed to the Intelligence and Security Committee.(4)
The SIS-John Smith connection extends a little further. John Smith’s widow, Lady Smith, was appointed to the SIS-front organisation, the Hakluyt Foundation.
Baroness Smith has recently been appointed a director of the Hakluyt Foundation…… established in 1995 by the late Sir Fitzroy Maclean…… managing director, Christopher James…..Baroness Smith joins Sir Brian Cubbon, a former top civil servant, Lord Laing of Dunphail, Treasurer of the Conservative Party towards the end of the Thatcher period…Earl Jellicoe….Sir Peter Cazalet, director of the P and O Group, former BP Chairman…and Sir Peter Holmes, one-time managing director of Shell…..[Hakluyt’s] brochure makes clear that clients can expect information they “will not receive by the usual government and commercial routes”.'(5)
The Hakluyt Foundation was first indentified in ‘Top firms get secrets from MI6’ by Mark Watts in Sunday Business, 11 October 1998,(6) and was discussed in ‘Cloak and Dagger’, Nicholas Rufford (Management Today, February 1999) which named another SIS officer, Mike Reynolds, as one of the co-founders of Hakluyt with Christopher James.(7)
All of which might be said to prove little but it certainly shows that Smith’s political milieu was more complicated than the public image of the upright Scottish lawyer, the man who loved Scotland’s hills and whiskey; the man whose death let in the shysters, who might have preserved us from this Thatcherite nightmare…..
Postscript: I gave the information that John Smith had been a member of the Bilderberg Steering Committee to a journalist at the Independent. He thought it was a story but reported back that those above him did not; that since the Prime Minister had been to Bilderberg it was OK……..
BAP
The Tom Easton piece on the British-American Project for the Successor Generation (BAP) in Lobster 33, and subsequent reworking of the same material by Paul Foot and John Pilger, has provoked the BAP to produce a pamphlet describing its origins, The British-American Project: A Common Bond: The Origins of the British-American Project, by Martin Vander Weyer. The pamphlet is very interesting indeed, though perhaps not for the reasons the author intended.(8)
Nick Butler MP, we are told in the BAP pamphlet, ‘originally thought of the Project as a way of putting Labour people like himself in touch with American ideas – but on economic and social issues.'(9) It was 1982. Butler was then a 27 year-old Research Fellow at the Royal Institute for International Affairs (as well as an economist with British Petroleum) and Treasurer of the Fabian Society.(10) In 1982 the UK was in the depths of the Thatcher/Lawson/Howe-created depression; the Tories were showing the lowest poll ratings since polls had been created;(11) CND was booming; anti-nuclear (and thus anti-American) campaigns were blossoming all over Western Europe. In this context Butler wrote a memo to David Watt, then director of Chatham House (the RIIA), in which he said, inter alia,
‘We start from the point of view that as well as the active hostility to all things American from some parts of the political spectrum here [ie the Michael Foot-led Labour Party] there is in addition a serious lack of mutual understanding over a wide range of policies ……the possibility of establishing some form of regular contact for Britons and Americans similar in style and purpose to Konigswinter.’
In other words, in 1982 the Anglo-American political alliance looked in danger; there was a chance that the Conservative Party would lose the next General Election (the Falklands card had not then been played) and something had to be done. And unlike CND which raised its own money as far as I know, young Mr Butler, we are told, got $1000 from the US embassy in London to take a couple of chums across to the States to beat the bushes for private sector funding for his project.(12)
Robin Cook at the Foreign Office
Shayler
Hundreds of column inches about the David Shayler affair between August 2 and August 10 1998 produced rather little of significance other than the fact that Shayler, while head of MI5’s Libya desk, learned from his MI6 counterpart that 6 had bunged £100,000 at a Libyan exile group to try and kill Gadhafi. Trying to contain the situation, Whitehall began the flogging of straw men and the issuing of non-denial denials.
- An unnamed Foreign Office spokesman said, ‘It is inconceivable that in a non-wartime situation that the government would authorise SIS to bump off a foreign leader.'(13) A non-denial. Shayler did not allege the government authorised this.
- Home Officer Minister Lord Williams announced there was no ‘officially sanctioned’ plot by MI6.(14) Another non-denial. Shayler did not allege an ‘officially sanctioned plot’.
- On 10 August Foreign Secretary Cook himself issued a statement. ‘I’m perfectly satisfied that the SIS never put forward any such proposal for an assassination attempt …’ Shayler did not allege this.
‘…Nor have I seen anything in the 15 months I have been in the job which would suggest that SIS has any interest, any role or any expertise over the decades in any such escapade……’
Which tells us nothing: a Labour Foreign Secretary would not see the appropriate files or speak to the appropriate people unless he was told what and whom to ask for.
‘There was no government-inspired plan to assassinate Gadhafi. There was no SIS proposal to do it and I’m fairly clear there has never been any SIS involvement.’
Which is a restatement of the non-denial denial; Shayler did not allege a ‘government-inspired plan’. Whether or not we should read anything into his use of ‘fairly clear’ as opposed to, say, ‘certain’, I don’t know.
Since this flurry of Whitehall flannel there has been not a word on this subject.
Zinoviev
On 4 February 1999 Foreign Secretary Robin Cook wrote – or had written under his name – a piece for the Guardian to launch the publication of a report by the Foreign Office’s historian on the notorious Zinoviev letter.(15) Cook had been asked by the Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker – the current Parliament’s leading member of ‘the awkward squad’ – to open the MI6 files relating to the Zinoviev letter. Cook wrote, ‘I was not prepared simply to say no.’ (Implicitly: he never considered saying ‘yes’.) According to Cook:
- ‘The historian who compiled the report has had full access to MI5 and MI6 files’. This is not only dubious as the comments below by Gordon Brook-Shepherd show, it is also impossible to verify. Cook asserts that the author had ‘full access’ because the agencies concerned told him so.
- ‘The archives have been opened to public scrutiny’ – a bizarre claim since the public cannot access the files. Apparently for Cook, having a Foreign Office official read the files is the same thing as ‘public scrutiny’.
- The 126 pages of the report and its annexes ‘puts a huge amount of material into the public domain…..a remarkable exercise in openness …… It is a demonstration of our commitment to be as open as possible, and our recognition that being open with the British public is a British national interest. New Labour is determined to end the culture of secrecy in Whitehall.We are moving government from the presumption that the least said the better, to the firm belief that the public has a right to know as much as possible. It is an important democratic principle. And the publication of this report is a celebration of it…… ‘
Which is an astonishing piece of dishonest or delusory guff to erect on 120 pages of material produced by a Whitehall insider. The Zinoviev report is a classic limited hang-out, confirming what we all know already – the Zinoviev letter was a fake, passed to the Daily Mail by Tory-supporting intelligence officers – combined with the classic ‘no conspiracy’ line. In this case, since the letter is an acknowledged forgery, and there was a conspiracy, there are two specious cop-outs. Not only is there ‘no evidence of an organised conspiracy against Labour by the intelligence agencies’, the author’s employers are innocent: ‘the Foreign Office thought it was genuine……because they got it through MI6 channels….and were also given corroborative proofs by MI6, which have now been shown to be suspect. But there is no evidence that MI6 forged the letter.’
What the Ms Bennett means by no ‘organised conspiracy’, I guess, is that there is no memo in the files she was shown in ‘C’s’ famous green ink saying, ‘Fabricate a letter from Zinoviev’. This is reminiscent of David Irving arguing that because there is no piece of paper in Hitler’s writing saying, ‘I order you to kill all the Jews’, he is somehow innocent of the Holocaust!
In the various comments and correspondence which followed the Zinoviev report’s publication,
- Guy Kindersley’s grandson claimed that he had been told that the person responsible for leaking the document was Lord Davidson (J. C. C. Davidson MP, Chairman of the Conservative Party);(16)
- Robin Bruce Lockhart claimed the affair and been organised by the SIS agent Sydney Reilly, the subject of a biography by Lockhard.(17)
- Gordon Brook-Shepherd pointed out that the Foreign Office historian hadn’t seen evidence he himself had seen while researching his recent book Iron Maze: the Western Secret Services and the Bolsheviks (Macmillan, 1998).(18) ‘I devoted only four pages to the affair. But these include material which Dr Gill Bennett, the highly respected Foreign Office historian, was either not shown or did not use.’ (Brook-Shepherd clearly implies in his letter that material was not shown to Bennett.)
- David Stafford raised the suggestion that Winston Churchill was probably involved. ‘The report mentioned the involvement of Joseph Ball and Sir Desmond Morton, but did not mention their intimate relationship with Churchill. Stafford says the two spooks supplied Winnie with sensitive info to damage opponents.'(19)
- Dr. Scott Newton informed me that Adrian Liddel Hart told him that Joseph Ball had signed the cheque which had paid the forger of the Zinoviev letter.
When the Zinoviev report appeared the major media forgot – or chose to ignore – that it wasn’t the first time since Prime Minister Blair took office that the Zinoviev story had appeared. In August 1997, just after Labour won the General Election, MI6 leaked material about Zinoviev to a couple of friendly journalists, Patrick French (‘Red letter day’ in the Sunday Times 10 August 1997) and Michael Smith (‘The forgery, the election and the MI6 spy’ in the Daily Telegraph 13 August 1997). This is discussed in Lobster 34, p. 22.
Number of column inches devoted by the Daily Mail to a story ‘proving’ that the Zinoviev Letter was not a forgery (12 August 1997):35. Number of column inches devoted by the Daily Mail to Gill Bennett’s conclusion that the Zinoviev Letter was probably a forgery (4 February 1999): 0. (Source: David Turner)
Sierra Leone
Cook’s acquiescence in the culture of secrecy in Whitehall was demonstrated again with the publication of the Sierra Leone Report by the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee just days after the Zinoviev stunt. In Volume 1 we find the Committee’s comments on their dealings with the intelligence services.
Para 103 ‘We asked the Foreign Secretary….to allow us access to relevant intelligence reports and assessments. This request was refused on the basis that intelligence information was not normally released to select committees.’
Para 105 ‘We also sought to have a private evidence session with the Head of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) or “C”. This was refused by the Foreign Secretary, who told us that the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) set up under the Intelligence Services Act 1994 was the appropriate committee to examine the work of the SIS…..’
Para 106 ‘We then attempted to have an informal briefing from “C”, drawing a parallel with the informal briefings which are, we understand, being offered to the Home Affairs Committee by the Director General of the Security Service…Again, this was refused.’
Para 107 The Committee commented, ‘We believe it is most regrettable that our Committee is apparently not regarded by the FCO as sufficiently trustworthy to have access to intelligence material or personnel. Sir Thomas Legg and Sir Robin Ibbs were so regarded; junior civil servants are so regarded, but the Members of Parliament charged with the oversight of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office are not.’
If John Smith is Old Labour’s lost leader, Robin Cook is considered to be Old Labour’s leader-in-waiting. Precisely what this is based on is now as opaque to me as the affection felt for John Smith. Despite the stream of leaks against him and smears about him which have emanated from Whitehall, Cook gives every indication of finding the role of conventional Foreign Secretary – and poodle for the American government – entirely comfortable.
Notes
- See, for example, Peter Dobie’s ‘For John’s sake, end your silence now, Elizabeth’, in The Mail on Sunday, 28 March 1999.
- Letter from Maja Banck, Executive Secretary of Bilderberg Meetings, to the author, 13 April 1999: ‘the late John Smith has been a member of our Steering Committee between 1989 and 1992.’
- This story appeared first in The Mail on Sunday, 28 March 1999
- Text of speech by Defence Secretary George Robertson, ‘NATO for a new generation’, given to the National Conference of the Atlantic Council, 19 November 1997, begins with Robertson congratulating Ramsay on becoming Chair.
- David Osler, ‘Privileged information’ in January’s Red Pepper p. 35.
- ‘Sunday Business has identified an MI6 cut-out organisation, The Hakluyt Foundation, which channels intelligence from the agency to big companies and gathers information from its own contacts. It is run by [Richard] Tomlinson’s old MI6 boss, Christopher James, who retired from the agency in 1994. Other directors include a former Royal Dutch Shell managing director and a one-time Home Office permanent secretary.’ The publication of this story earned Sunday Business a visit from an SIS official.
- On Hakluyt and another apparent MI6 front, Ciex, see also ‘Spies defect from MI6 to shadowy careers in the City’, Sunday Times 15 November 98.
- The Project has now dropped ‘for the Successor Generation’ from its title. Apparently the future has arrived….and remember: in two days time tomorrow will be yesterday…..
- Quite which American ideas on economic and social issues it would be useful to study, and why this could not be done by reading, is not stated.
- US one-world conspiracy theorists please note: BP, RIIA and Fabians, all at once! In 1979 Butler was co-author, with Neil Kinnock, of Why Vote Labour?
- ‘By the autumn of 1981 her economic policies made her the least approved-of Prime Minister since Dr Gallup invented opinion polls. The government did not recover its lead in the opinion polls until the Falklands war in 1982.’ Peter Jenkins, Mrs Thatcher’s Revolution, (Cape, 1987), pp. 98-9 The Thatcher government’s unpopularity in the early 1980s, despite the Labour Party’s internecine squabbling, is one of the awkward facts omitted from Phillip Gould’s The Unfinished Revolution: How the Modernisers Saved the Labour Party, Little Brown and Co., London, 1998.
- In the postscript to the BAP pamphlet Weyer seeks to refute the Tom Easton thesis on BAP in Lobster 33 which, he notes, began in ‘Lobster (an obscure anti-American newsheet)…..’ Obscure? Certainly. Anti-American? Anti-American foreign policy and American imperialism, yes; but like many people of my generation I grew up saturated in American culture – jazz, literature, blues, r and b. So: anti-American? Not entirely.
- Independent 7 August 1998
- Guardian 8 August 1998
- The complete report on the Zinoviev Letter, by Gill Bennett, can now be downloaded in Adobe Acrobat (*.pdf) format from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website: http://www.fco.gov.uk/news/keythemepage.asp?55 Free hard copies can be requested from the FCO Historical Branch: Library and Records Dept., FCO, Clive House, Petty France, London SW1H 9HD; tel.: 0171 – 270 1500.This and other information in this section on Zinoviev was supplied by Mr David Turner, to whom my thanks.
- Independent 11 February
- The Times 15 February
- Daily Telegraph 5 February 1999. Iron Maze is difficult to follow without considerable prior knowledge of the politics and geography of the period.
- The Times, Diary 19 March. Stafford’s recent book on Churchill and the secret state is reviewed in this issue of Lobster.