[…] services of several countries Britain, the US and the Soviet bloc. The first I want to look at is the UK’s. In 1948 the psychological warfare organisation, IRD, the Information Research Department, was set up within the Foreign Office. IRD worked abroad trying to combat nationalism in the British Empire, and at home to […]
[…] with British assistance. Vialls’ attempt to prove that he committed a murder everyone else thinks done by someone else is unique, as far as I am aware. IRD: new material, old lies Another flurry of newspaper articles about IRD’s early years occurred in August based on the release of some hitherto secret government files […]
[…] in International History Review February 1987 This is an interesting addition to what little information we have on the early years of the Information Research Department ( IRD) and the uses to which IRD put Soviet defectors. It also contains a couple of names to add to the list of known IRD people. Wark […]
IRD, home and away The creation of the Information Policy unit in HQ Northern Ireland in 1971 may have been the last occasion on which the classic IRD psy-war operation was created. Evidence of previous examples is hard to find, but skimming through Charles Foley’s Legacy of Strife: Cyprus from rebellion to civil […]
[…] On March 7th Livingstone asked the Foreign Office “How many civil servants were engaged in the Information Research Department in each year since 1971.”And got an answer. IRD is the one bit of the secret state, not officially a part of MI6, which the state can’t refuse to answer questions on. The figures are: […]
[…] that were in line with my own objectives.'(pp. xii, xiii) But on p. xii of the preface he tells us he ‘worked with’ the CIA, MI6 and IRD; on p. 20 he tells that briefings he had been getting from an MI6 officer secured for him the job as editor of the Economist’s Foreign […]
[…] Home Affairs correspondent when it still was the voice of the ‘British establishment’. Evans knew MI5 people and got material from them. He also got material from IRD (unidentified by Evans) but these IRD briefings were ‘too right-wing’ to be used. Then MI5 tried to recruit him as an informant and he declined the […]
[…] sentence in the document: “As far as is known this project was cleared through H. Mooney, the FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) Information Adviser.” Mooney was the IRD (Information Research Department) officer involved in the creation of the Information Policy Unit and his name is to be found very rarely indeed. I just do […]
[…] the US group was a US General called Stilwell, a member of the Pinay Circle, whose meetings were also attended by Mr Crozier.) Pranks by MI5 and IRD Like their friend? mentor? case officer? Brian Crozier, messrs Lewis, Kerpel and Leigh are really bemoaning the demise of IRD in 1978. For it was IRD’s […]
[…] on Dorril’s part: his preface states that he intends to publish another volume on the roles of MI6 and MI5 with reference to counter-insurgency in the Th ird World. This will give more attention to South East Asia and Africa than was possible in the present volume. Fair enough. As the British Empire dissolved […]
