In Lobster 11 we included a little appendix on ‘the Pinay Circle’. Lobster 11 was done at full-tilt, researched, written and produced in about 4 months, and there were a number of bits and pieces we didn’t evaluate which went undigested into the appendices. One was this Pinay Circle. At the time all we had was a couple of references to it, status unknown. But it looked interesting.
Since then we have made a couple of discoveries. One was the text reproduced below. This is one of a handful of the 1975 Institute for the Study of Conflict internal documents leaked to Time Out which we managed to track down in London. Most of the reported 1500 documents are now missing. (If anyone reading this knows who has them, please get in touch. We all know a lot more than we did then and they ought to be re-examined.) The minute reproduced below of an ISC meeting in 1972 confirms the references to ‘the Pinay Circle’ and its links to ISC carried in Time Out in 1975.
CONFIDENTIAL Council Minutes
21 JAN. 1972
Report on European Security and the Soviet Problem;
Visit of Maitre Jean Violet
The Chairman said that from what he had heard this report had been a remarkable success. He was impressed with the way in which M. Pinay had accepted the views of the ISC on how the Institute thought it should be handled and it was gratifying that the Pinay Committee had been so delighted with the finished result.
Mr Crozier said that M. Violet, who had commissioned the report on behalf of the Pinay Committee, had come to London with M. Pinay during that week and that he, with Mr Goodwin, had met then over lunch. Pinay had given Mr Crozier documents relating to their next project. M. Pinay had presented a copy of European Security and the Soviet Problem to President Nixon and Dr Kissinger in America. Earlier that week he had had a three hour session with President Pompidou, during which time he had presented him with a copy of the publication in French. Maitre Violet had also presented copies to a number of German politicians, mainly Christian Democrats, who are having the report translated into German. And he had shown a copy to the Spanish Minister and to the Pope. NSIC in New York had bought 500 of the ISC’s initial print order, and another 500 had been bought by the American Bar Association. In effect we were out of print on the day of publication. Numerous orders were in hand for the reprint. A leader in the Daily Telegraph of 14 January spoke highly of the publication.
8th November 1979
Protected source contributions to state security. Personal for the state minister only”The militant conservative London publicist, Brian Crozier, Director of the famous Institute for the Study of Conflict up to September 1979, has been working with his diverse circle of friends in international politics to build an anonymous action group, ‘transnational security organisation’, and to widen its field of operations. Crozier worked with the CIA for years. One has to assume, therefore, that they are fully aware of his activities. He has extensive connections with members, or more accurately, former members, of the most important western security and intelligence services, eg the Comte de Meronges, ex Director of the French SDECE. Furthermore he has a close relationship with Mr ‘Dickie’ Franks, Director of the British SIS and his closest assistant Mr N. (Nicholas) Elliot who was a department head in MI6. Crozier, Elliot and Franks were recently invited to Chequers for a working meeting. It must therefore be concluded that MI6 is fully aware of, if not indeed one of the main sponsors of, the anonymous security group. Also closely connected with Mrs Thatcher and Mr Franks is the prominent journalist Robert Moss, who, together with Fred Luchsinger editor of Neuen Zuricher Zeitung, Dr Cux of the Swiss Intelligence Service of Colonel Botta and Gerhard Lurventhal, moderator of the German TV channel ZDF, are involved in the promotion of the group’s publicity programme …”Amongst other points in the (Crozier) planning paper are Specific Aims within this framework are to affect a change of government in
- the United Kingdom – accomplished.
- In West Germany to defend freedom of trade and movement and oppose all forms of subversion including terrorism …
What the group can do:
- provision of contributions by certain well-known journalists in Britain, the US and other countries
- access to television
- creation of a lobby in influential circles directly or indirectly through middlemen whether they are informed of this or not
- organisation of public demonstrations in particular areas on themes to be decided and selected
- the involvement of the main intelligence and security agencies both as information sources and as recipients for information in these institutions
- undercover financial transactions for political aims.
What the group can do if financing is available.
- Conduct international campaigns aiming to discredit hostile personalities or events.
- Creation of a (private) intelligence service specialising according to a selective point of view.
- The establishment of offices under suitable cover each run by a co-ordinator from the central office. Current plans cover London, Washington, Paris, Munich and Madrid.
“As far as can be judged by outsiders Crozier has initiated with his group the project ‘Victory for Strauss’ using the tactics applied in Great Britain, of major themes such as the communist, extremist subversion of government parties and trade unions, KGB manipulation of terrorism and damage to internal security. The future form of the project will be left to be determined by Crozier with him in a directing role. The operational themes will be announced. However, temporarily my evaluation is that given the personal opinions of the Crozier group, and particularly Crozier’s affinity to personalities in the secret services, the tactical and conspiratorial aims and methods laid down in the planning paper for ‘Project: Victory for Strauss’, can in fact be completely identified. It is also almost certain that on the basis of his project laid down in the document Crozier will run up against sharp defensive reactions from such security and intelligence services whose operational chiefs do not follow his political lines, such as, for example, the BND and the BfV. As Crozier speaks readily of his basic plan and the aforementioned victory project the problem is quite obvious. One possible consequence is that the story could end in undesired negative publicity.”
The Spiegel text then continues that in 1980 Spiegel had reported about the multiple contacts of Strauss to various security service members all over the world and particularly the extremely confidential participation of the CSU chief in the meetings of a mysterious ‘circle’. In a confidential note to the Personal Secretary to the Minister of the Interior Tandler, Langemann gives some details of what this ‘circle’ does.
Confidential note to Dr Waltner as agreed in conversation. (written 1980)
‘… the Circle consists of a loose gathering of various conservative and anti-Communist politicians, publicists, bankers and VIPs that meets some twice a year in various parts of the world. Its origins stem from the former French Prime Minister Antoine Pinay. The Circle, which still exists today, also invites guest speakers. The last meeting of the Pinay Circle was on the weekend of 1st December 1979 in the Madison Hotel in Washington. Among the participants were the German minister Narjes (now influential in the EEC), ex Minister of Air Julian Amery, from Great Britain, ex CIA Director William Colby, Federal Reserve Bank manager Volkers, President of the Heritage Trust Foundation, Feulner, Italian Finance Minister Pandolfi, and the South African General Frazer. Acting as a kind of co-ordinator from the original French side is the Parisian lawyer Maitre Jean Violet who took over the central operation of the Pinay Circle as Pinay himself got older. Violet has connections to several intelligence services in the West, certainly to the CIA, to the French SDECE, to British SIS and Swiss Military Intelligence Service, particularly to its chief of provisions Colonel Botha.’
‘Gehlen, who was always interested in the undertaking, its figures, its personalities and its results, succeeded in recruiting Violet as a special agent and granted him 6000 DM a month for many years. He also claimed that this sum had been agreed with the former head of the SDECE, General Jacquier because Violet is also receiving the same sum from the SDECE. As I was the leading operator for Special Affairs for the Gehlen organisation I met Violet several times with my operative colleague, the now deceased Marchese de Mistura, and we met Violet in his Paris apartment. In our conversations with Violet the Pinay Circle was never mentioned in any depth. However, on General Gehlen’s orders, I did once give him, 30,000 DM for this aim.’
‘The reporting from this complex which also included the French statesman Poher, was essentially undertaken by the special contacts Dr Johannes Shauff and the now deceased Klaus Dohrn. Later the Parliamentary State Secretary, Baron Guttenberg, personally gave me the task of keeping the dubious Mr Violet – whose cover name was Little Violet – under observation for counter espionage purposes. Nothing came of this for reasons that I don’t need to go into here …
‘One recent development is the establishment within the Circle of a command staff or of an inner circle which then works out particularly suitable means for action on current political questions. The transnational security attempts of Brian Crozier have already been the subject of previous reports. On 5 and 6/1 1980 members of the Circle met in Zurich to discuss executive measures. At this meeting, which was lead by Mr Violet, were Graf Huyn MP, Brian Crozier former long-term operative of the CIA, Mr Nicholas Elliot former Department Head of SIS, General D. Stimwell ex DIA, and Mr Jameson, CIA.
The main things discussed were:
-
- (a) international promotion of the Minister President (Strauss) in international publications
- (b) influencing of the situation in Rhodesia and South Africa following a European Conservative guideline and
- (c) the establishment of a powerful directional radio station aiming at the Islamic region and including the border populations of the Soviet Union.
‘Note: these recommendable aims have not been followed with sufficient attention paid to protection of their secrecy and therefore negative publicity cannot be excluded. There is simply too much talk about it. In my opinion there is an urgent need for expertly restricted consultation in the sense of the influence of foreign intelligence services both here and in other regions abroad. (Munich 7th March 1980, Dept 1(f) Dr Langemann.)’
The documents tell us that in January 1980 ‘the Circle’ discussed ways of promoting Strauss’ image in international publications. Within a month the campaign had begun. On 15th February Crozier published an article in Sir James Goldsmith’s magazine NOW!. This dealt in depth with an allegation made in Der Spiegel (June 1963) that Strauss had been involved in a fraud when he was a Minister. Strauss was later exonerated but as a result of the notorious ‘Spiegel Affair’ Strauss’ hopes of becoming Chancellor were dashed. Crozier’s article was the beginning of a campaign of rehabilitation.
Goldsmith himself joined in this campaign. In January 1981 he addressed the Conservative Media Committee in the House of Commons on ‘The Communist Propaganda Apparatus and Other Threats in the Media’. In his speech he quoted the Czech defector Major-General Jan Sejna who ‘admitted that the campaign by the German news magazine Der Spiegel to discredit Franz Joseph Strauss was orchestrated by the KGB’. It was, of course, a load of rot and Der Spiegel took out a writ.
Goldsmith employed 20 researchers for three years to back up his case. One of those taken on was the temporary Soviet defector, Oleg Bitov. Bitov wrote of the episode in Moscow Literary Gazette (6 March 1985). Goldsmith included this ‘fanciful and entertaining’ piece in his own privately published collection of essays and speeches, Counter Culture (1985). In it Bitov alleges that Crozier was organising the research from an office in Regent Street. (Is this the ‘transnational institute?’)
Goldsmith was able to proclaim ‘I personally interviewed every major defector from the eastern bloc in the last 3 1/2 years’. (Sunday Times 7 October 1984) How he managed this is not mentioned but it was presumably arranged through ‘the Circle’ member, Jameson of the CIA, the man who set up the ‘private’ Jameson Institute which handles Soviet bloc defectors.
When the star witness, Bitov, returned to the USSR, an out of court settlement was made between Goldsmith and Der Spiegel. Although he retracted his original statement, Goldsmith claimed victory. (It is clear that Der Spiegel were in no position to fight the very long and costly court case Goldsmith threatened.) Later Goldsmith told the press he would reveal the results of the investigation he had paid for in a book. The book didn’t arrive but some of it was passed on to Chapman Pincher who wrote three chapters on the ‘Der Spiegel Affair’ in his book The Secret Offensive (London 1985). Pincher acknowledges the material he received from Goldsmith and his defector contacts on Soviet ‘Active Measures’.
This is only a skim across a very interesting episode which, given the allegation that Goldsmith attended the meeting between the G. K.Young-Anthony Cavendish ‘action group’, UNISON, and Peter Wright, may have some bearing on the ‘Wilson plots’. If there was a connection between the campaigns against both Wilson and Willy Brandt, as some believe, was it ‘the Pinay Circle’ which co-ordinated the action?
For accounts of the original ‘Der Spiegel Affair’ which place the episode firmly within West German power politics – the dispute between Gehlen and Strauss – see Network: The Truth About General Gehlen, Heinz Holhe and Herman Zolling (London 1972) and an interesting article by Sarah Gainham in the Spectator 9 November 1962.
Robin Ramsay adds:
Gainham is a writer of spy fiction. Her 1959 The Stone Roses (Sphere paperback, London 1971), a defector story set in Prague, carries the dedication ‘This story is for Friends in Prague’. ‘Friends’ is British secret state jargon for MI6, and was not at all widely known in 1959. Gainham is married to the journalist Anthony Terry. Terry was in New Zealand last year and part of this, sniffing around the anti-nuclear groups. (One of whom wrote to us asking about his background) I haven’t done a search for Terry’s material but have an absolute disinformation whizzer of his, ‘Red Paras join in Namibia build-up’ in the Sunday Times of July 2 1978, predicting an attack by East German paratroops on Namibia! On Terry’s background see Lobster 15, p2.
A thorough study of the entire collection of NOW! needs to be done. I picked up a few copies recently from 1980. Crozier had a column in it – he wrote again in praise of Strauss on September 26 – later an entire section of the magazine. The NOW! lay-out people presented this contents list on December 11:
Brian Crozier:
| Is Teng leading China to capitalism? | 16 |
| Colonel Gadaffi and the hit squads | 18 |
| Reshuffling the Middle East pack | 20 |
| Fight of the reluctant castaways | 21 |
| Poland: Russia on the border | 22 |
In fact three of the articles are by messers Payne, Dobson and Floyd – some of the more passionate friends that the British secret state has had in the British press.
- Ronald Payne, just back from Amman, looks at the confrontation between Syria and Jordan
- David Floyd reports on the mounting tension that followed an apparent reprieve
- The colonel who cannot understand what all the fuss is about talks to Christopher Dobson
So, was NOW! part of the Crozier operation?