John Graham (alias)

This article is part of the Undercover Research Portal at Powerbase - investigating corporate and police spying on activists

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Part of a series on undercover police officers
John ? / HN329
Alias:	John Graham
Deployment:	1968-1969
Unit:	Special Demonstration Squad
Targets:	Vietnam Solidarity Campaign, Revolutionary Socialist Students Federation

John Graham is the alias of a Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) undercover police officer. He was active for one year over the period 1968 to 1969, when he infiltrated a north London branch of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign (VSC) and he also reported on the Revolutionary Socialists Students Federation (RSSF). Little else is known of him. His cover identity and groups he reported on were revealed by the Undercover Policing Inquiry in August 2017. He is also referred to as HN329, the cypher given to him by the Inquiry and Operation Herne.

Update (May 2018): This profile updates an earlier version where it was believed that John Graham had focused on the north London Trotskyist milieu; that understanding has evolved and we now believe his focus was prominent but unaligned activists based in Camden who had formed a local branch of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign there. If anyone recalls 'John Graham' from his time in the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign please get in touch. We appreciate that these events took place 50 years ago, so welcome corrections on how we have portrayed the history of the organisations mentioned.

Undercover as 'John Graham'

First page of HN326's personal statement in support of his restriction order application. UCPInquiry.org.uk, August 2017

'John Graham' was among the very first of the SDS undercovers. His 2017 Risk Assessment says he became a Special Branch officer early on in his police career, then states:

3.3 Recruitment to UCO Role
He cannot recall how he was recruited to SDS, but he would not have been a volunteer. There was no psychometric testing at the time. There were a number of UC's at the start of the SDS. He had no training. He thinks his deployment must have been around 1968 because it was at the time of the Vietnam crisis, but he cannot recall precisely. He was politically aware, and his back story was sufficient in that he was pretending to deliver cars from one garage to another. He had less of a formal legend than later operatives.

The job was 'simply a story, and he had no actual cover occupation'(4.9). From known tradecraft techniques, it is likely he will have maintained his own first name as part of his cover. The Risk Assessment explicitly states he did not use the identity of a dead child.

In his personal statement he wrote:

3. I can't remember exactly but I believe I was deployed into the Special Operations Squad between 1968 and 1969. I don't know exactly though as it was just life. If you're posted somewhere you just went. It wasn't something I had always wanted to do.

At the time of his deployment, 'Graham' was recently married with young kids.

'My undercover role wasn't someting that I discussed with my wife. I think she probably knew the object of the exercise but not anything more. She wasn't that interested.'

Graham does not mention to have had a home visit from the SDS, to check if his family situation was upto him going undercover - that routine may have been developed a bit later.

Nothing further of his police career is known, other than after serving undercover he remained a Special Branch officer for the rest of his career. (4.17) He has long retired from the police, and while in his 70s now, Graham is still working. In his personal statement he says that he thinks his current colleagues know he is a former undercover, and that it would not matter to them.

Since retiring from the police he has made a number of television appearances under his real identity.

Targets

The 'Open Risk Assessment' prepared by the Metropolitan Police for the Undercover Policing Public Inquiry stated that 'John Graham' was:

4.2 ...deploy[ed] into the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign (Kilburn & Willesden Branch); and he also reported on the Revolutionary Socialist Students Federation.

The Risk Assessment is clear in that the VSC was his main target, and he 'occasionally reported' on the RSSF (4.2, 4.3).

The Vietnam Solidarity Campaign

In 1968, left wing political protest was dominated by the war in Vietnam. Many on the left supported the National Liberation Front (NLF - 'Viet Cong') in a war against Western presence in the country. The struggle of the NLF and the communist North Vietnam government, supported by China, then under the rule of Mao Zedong, was a proxy struggle in the Cold War.

In Britain, there were a number of anti-war groups, but by 1968 the leading one was the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign. Controlled by the International Marxist Group (IMG) and strongly based in the Trotskyist milieu, it was supported by the International Socialists (IS / later Socialist Workers Party), New Left Review and the Revolutionary Socialist Students' Federation (RSSF). Through the use of 'ad hoc committees' to organise different demonstrations, it was able to reach out across the left to build broad but temporary coalitions.

These ad hoc committees, generally dominated by the IMG and IS, were behind the large demonstrations of 1967 to 1969. In particular, they had been the driving force behind the 17 March 1968 protest which had seen large scale disturbances and an attack on the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square. A second large scale protest was planned for 27 October that year which caused the establishment considerable anxiety at the time.

In September 1968, Conrad Dixon of the Metropolitan Police Special Branch successfully proposed the formation of the Special Operations Squad (later the Special Demonstration Squad - SDS), in which 12 Special Branch officers would be deployed undercover into protest groups planning to participate in the October protest. From the dates, it appears that John Graham / HN329 was among those first twelve officers.

• This section is extracted from a much larger piece. For more detail, see Dónal O’Driscoll, 1968 – Protest and Special Branch at SpecialBranchFiles.uk

Revolutionary Socialists Students' Federation

Cover of Student International, Issue 1, February 1969.

Not much has been revealed yet about Graham's reporting on the RSSF or how he came to have access to information of their activities. Other than the one line in his Risk Assessment, the group is not mentioned in documents released by the Undercover Policing Inquiry. He does not seem to have actively participated in it. The following material is provides some general context on the group.

Founded in late 1960s, the RSSF was a coalition of student groups which lasted only a couple of years. Closely associated with Trotskyist and Maoist parties, it had a broad church of left wing activists and branches in universities and colleges across the country. The heart of the organisation was focused on the London School of Economics, which over the period 1967 to 1969 experienced considerable student radicalism. As such, the RSSF was born out of and a key player in the radical student movements of the late 1960s and the anti-Vietnam war protests of the time.

At the London School of Economics one of the group's leading lights was Richard Kuper - who was also active with the International Socialists (elected a member of the National Committee in 1968) and the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign. In October 1968, some 3000 students occupied the LSE following an attempt by management to close the university ahead of the 27 October anti-Vietnam War demonstration. During this occupation, the LSE was used as a base for the protests, including a medical centre established by the Socialist Medical Association.

Undercover as 'John Graham'

Cover of Issue 19 of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign Bulletin, November 1968.

According to the Risk Assessment, 'John Graham' grew a beard and simply turned up to the VSC branch meetings.

4.4 [...] HN329 attended meetings, demonstrations, handing out leaflets and occasionally traveled some distance for conferences, etc.

4.5 Tasking
There were regular meetings at a flat where he could feed back information about the likely size of demonstrations, whether those demonstrations were likely to be violent etc.

The Risk Assessment stated the group size at the time was 15-30 and used to meet at the Durham Arms in Kennington. However, 'John Graham' would often go to meetings elsewhere in London, including Camden, and recalled going to a conference in Sheffield (4.8). (See below for analysis and queries over some of this material.)

The Risk Assessment noted that he did not take an active role in the group other than attending demonstrations and meetings, and did not become close to any individuals (8.2). According to HN329, his group was generally non-violent, the worst they ever suggested being to jump on the back of a policeman (11). Indeed, the only time he was subject to violence was when he was hit by a security guard at the Australian High Commission (12.1).

N329 gives a slightly different account in his personal statement:

4. I reported on the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign, and I think it was the Camden branch. The reason for being in the group was for me to find out what the strategy was for a big VSC march. I attended meetings and took part in demonstrations. I wasn't involved in any confrontations. The only two things I can remember are a big VSC march which we all went on and protesting at the Australian High Commission but I don't remember what it was for.

5. I regarded the people I was with as intellectuals, they were well-educated people, one of whom was a doctor or something similar. They were just people that believed the Americans shouldn't have been in Vietnam but had no idea of how to get them out. I would include myself in that.

6. For my cover name [John Graham]. I can't remember on how many occasions I gave out my full name but I don't think it was many. Maybe at the beginning when I was introducing myself. The VSC didn't keep any written records of members or anything like that. It was a very loose-knit organisation. It's been so long that if you spoke to anybody, I believe they wouldn't even remember my cover name. I doubt if anyone would even remember me.

It also noted that while undercover he handed out leaflets on the day of the 'big VSC march, which is presumed to be the march of October 1986.

HN329 ceased his spying the VSC at an unknown point in 1969. According to the Risk Assessment:

4.16 Withdrawal / exit strategy
He was asked by a Chief Inspector to attend a particular meeting, but he felt that to do so would operationally compromise himself, so he declined. The senior officer immediately assigned him to other duties within Special Branch.
He did not use any excuse for his exit. He simply stopped attending meetings.

Kilburn VSC

The Risk Assessment, presumably relying on contemporary notes, states that John Graham infiltrated the Kilburn and Willesden branch of the VSC - the NW6 & NW10 postcodes in north London. Several specific references to the Kilburn group can be found in contemporary material archived at Marxists.org. The VSC Bulletin noted its recent formation in its February 1968 issue, while in July 1968, a member of the Kilburn VSC co-authored a pamphlet entitled Background to the Vietnam War. Kilburn VSC also appears in a Special Branch report of late August 1968, listed as one of the active VSC branches in London (others including Earls Court, Hampstead, Notting Hill Gate, Fulham, Lambeth, Walthamstow, Hornsey and Highgate & Holloway).

Cover of Issue 18 of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign Bulletin, October 1968.

Conrad Dixon's Special Branch report of 10th September makes note of several London 'ad hoc committees' forming to co-ordinate local activity, including ones for North London and North West London (via the North-West London Action Group), while a VSC Bulletin from October 1968 in London listed contacts of ad hoc committees for NW6 / Northwest London and NW8 / Kentish Town.

Dixon's intelligence reports in the run up to the 27 October protest of 1968 contain details on the activities and plans of the North West Ad Hoc Committee which the Kilburn branch would have no doubt played a part in. For example, the 23 September report says that the North West London ad hoc committee planned to follow the decisions of the VSC national committee, while his report of 16 October notes:

The North west London ad-hoc Committee of the VSC intend to assemble at Henrietta Street in Covent Garden at 1.30pm on the 27th. They are expected to be about 150 strong.

It is likely that some of this material will have come from John Graham.

The Kilburn group appears to have declined after October 1968. Only one further mention of the group has been identified to date in contemporary publications, a Red Camden publication noting that Willesden / Kilburn VSC would be meeting on 16 January 1969 at The Common Room, Tollgate Gardens, Kilburn High Road, NW6.

Camden Vietnam Solidarity Campaign

Background to Camden VSC

The Vietnam Solidarity Campaign encouraged the setting up of local branches, which would send delegates to VSC conferences. These conferences established the national executive and working committees that oversaw the actual work of the campaign. Among those who played a significant role in these committees and in establishing groups in north London were a group of mostly unaligned activists based in and around Camden. Their general background was Communist with strong leanings to Maoism rather than Trotskyism, albeit there were cross-overs with the International Socialists as well.

By mid-1968, this group of campaigners were very active, organising locally and submitting important proposals to the national VSC meetings. Its members were listed as contacts for the various ad hoc committees in north west London. They also had connections with key figures in the London School of Economics branch of the Revolutionary Socialist Students Federation. Another set of contacts was with Australians and New Zealanders Against the Vietnam War, which spearheaded protests against the Australian government's involvement in the war.

Emergence of Camden VSC: local activities

The first mention identified to date of a specific Camden VSC branch comes in December 1968, when a letter was circulated stating the Hampstead group renamed itself as Camden VSC. 'John Graham' in his personal statement recalled that he thought it was the Camden branch meetings he attended.

The January 1969 issue of the Vietnam Solidarity Bulletin reported that London VSC committees had taken over a pro-Vietnam War meeting at Kensington Town Hall on 3 December 1968. Singled out for special mention is Geoff Richman, a central figure in the Camden groupand who is likely to be the doctor referred to by ‘John Graham’ as one of those he got close to.

Much more of the group is known for the year 1969. In January 1969 Camden VSC begins to publish its own newsletter, Red Camden which gives considerable insight into its activities. The official address for this publication was Flat 3, 12 Rosslyn Hill, NW3, though later it moved to 8 Bramshill Gardens, NW5.

The Camden VSC centred on a couple, Marie and Geoff Richman, the latter a socialist doctor. Both played prominent roles in the VSC nationally, being executive committee members, and Marie being its Treasurer. They had been previously involved with a Maoist grouping within the Communist Party but were expelled in 1966. In 1967, they developed the 'Friday Group', a small group of political activists who developed their own thinking among the new left milieu in a different route than had been taken by the more traditional Trotskyists. Before it evolved into becoming Camden VSC, the group had been a key driving force behind 1968's North West London Ad Hoc Committee. Into this circle were pulled others who active in Vietnam War campaigning, including those involved in groups such as Stop-It and Medical Aid for Vietnam. Through their work protesting the Vietnam war they were also inspired by some of the on the ground activities of the NLF.

Among its early activities is participation in a demonstration of 8 January 1969 at Brent Town Hall, where the local council were having a meeting. This was protest of Brent Council having banned a session where the public could donate blood to aid the people of Vietnam due to be held on 8 December in Kilburn Square.

Dublin Castle Pub, Camden

The group initially met at Dublin Castle pub, The Parkway, NW1, including on Wednesday 15 January 1969 though by mid-February it had switched to meeting at The Laurel Tree, Bayhem Street, NW1 - were it continued to meet every Wednesday for the rest of the year.

The group was a very active one. On Fridays, they would leaflet the queue to The Everyman Cinema in Hampstead, NW3 and on Saturdays, it held a stall at Queen Crescent Market raising funds for the group and the national VSC by selling pamphlets and posters - including of Ho Chi Minh. While on Sunday's it had a social session playing volleyball and other sports on Parliament Hill Field. Both events were apparently to be found by looking out for the NLF flags they used. Later in the year, it added a regular Sunday night newcomers meeting, held at 11 The Grange, Maitland Park Road, NW3.

Red Camden

It also produced the regular Red Camden newsletter, whose second issue carried the title 'By Any Means Necessary', a probable reference to the use of the phrase as popularised by Malcolm X, but ironically later adopted as an informal motto by the Special Demonstration Squad.

Early issues of Red Camden advertised the Agit-Prop workshops and play, and also a regular VSC Poster making workshop which took place at 61 Camden Road, NW1. It would appear that the latter is what is better known as the Camden Poster Workshop, which during the October 1968 protest had moved the studio briefly into the London School of Economics). Founded in early 1968, it had become a source of radical posters for the era.

Agit-Prop was 'a radical information service which also did street theatre as the Agit-Prop Street Players'.

The Agit-Prop work was later replaced in diary listings by activities of the Angry Art Society, a film collective which was very closely associated with Camden VSC. Later, and through this art related world, the group would connect into the important Women's Liberation group based in Tufnell Park.

Political campaigning

As well as the local work, the group continued to be politically active:

• 1 March 1969, a Saturday: 23 people from Camden VSC attend an anti-Vietnam War protest in Sheffield, which was followed on the Sunday by a conference.
• 20 March 1969, Camden VSC and the International Socialists host a joint meeting at the Enterprise pub, 2 Haverstock Hill, Chalk Farm, NW3 - another address which appears time to time in issues of Red Camden. There they heard author Roy Battersby talk about ecological destruction and capitalism.

• 26/27 April: members of the group attend the anti-racism demonstration of 26/27 April in Wolverhampton.

A particularly noteworthy event was the annual C.N.D. Easter Monday march, which arrived in London on 7 April 1969, having come from Cardiff. It was joined on the outskirts of London by Nguyễn Thị Bình "Madame Binh", a leading figure in the NLF and negotiator in the Paris Peace talks. Madame Binh's presence in the UK was notable, having previously been prevented by the Government and raised as a campaigning issue by the VSC who said she should be allowed to come. As part of the publicity around the march, Camden VSC renamed the section of the route from Haverstock Hill to Rosslyn Hill as the 'Ho Chi Minh Trail'. Red Camden in its account, noted that Madame Binh stood on the steps of Haverstock Hill town hall (Hampstead Old Town Hall, NW3), to watch the march pass.

Camden VSC joined the demonstrators assembling in Hyde Park with a model tank they had constructed and marched with it to Trafalgar Square, where they set up a stall.

{{#ev:youtube|https://youtu.be/b8naHviSkF4%7C500%7Cleft%7CPathe News: Madame Binh Of The Vietnamese NLF Addresses CND rally in Trafalgar Square 7 Apr 1969.}}

During the visit, members of Camden VSC had a meeting with Madame Binh, during which she referred to them as the 'Viet Cong in London'. Unlike the Trotskyists who had political differences over the NLF, Camden VSC along with Maoists had embraced the NLF and adopted the slogan 'Victory to the NLF'. Indeed, Camden VSC produced its own NLF supporting literature - posters, pamphlets, etc. - which it sold on it's Saturday stall.

Tensions between Camden VSC and the national campaign emerged throughout the first half of 1969. The Camden group is referred to as the 'Richman faction', and led calls at the national conference of February 1969 that the VSC should re-orient around individual membership rooted in local branches.

Associated with Camden VSC is Ellen Adams Hammerschlag (of Angry Arts) who made the film 'End of a Tactic', a documentary on the 27 October 1968 march questioning the role of A to B marches such as that protest. Camden VSC showed the film on 18 April 1968 at the Camden Studio, Camden Street (presumably the same as the Camden Poster Workshop studio) followed by a discussion.

Political differences came to a head in April, when Marie Richman was sacked as treasurer of the VSC. The group continued to make its own way politically, when in May, two members of the group, Steve and Alicia Merrett, meet in Paris with Mr. Sau, a delegate of the NLF to the Peace Talks there. He recommended they remain in contact with Mr. Sao and Mrs. Linh Qui - NLF representatives based in Hampstead.

On 14 June, members of the group were among a party of people who had an audience with Mr. Dinh Ba Thi, the deputy leader at the Paris Peace Talks on behalf of the communist South Vietnam Provisional Government. He was passing through London on the way to talk at a protest in Manchester. Others groups represented are CND, Morning Star and the Communist Party. That evening, Camden VSC held a party at The Three Horse Shoes at 26 Heath Street, NW3. The same month, the group started to conducts local 'liberation tours', aimed at exposing local businesses and company directors involved in serving the pro-American government in South Vietnam. Mr. Sao and Mrs. Qui were noted again as representatives of North Vietnam, when following the death of Ho Chi Minh in September 1969, members Camden VSC visit them in at Eton Avenue, Hampstead to sign a book of condolences.

However, in late July, sixteen people from the group had a weekend holiday in Donhead St. Andrews, Dorset to discuss the future of Camden VSC. It recognised the declining interest in the weekly stall and leafleting sessions.

The weekend away seems to have crystallised the changing nature of their political activism, the group becomes more involved in local issues, such as housing, local community events and women's liberation, as shown in articles published in Red Camden throughout the rest of the year. So, though they maintain a focus on activities around the Vietnam War, by the end of the year they are ready to transform into the Camden Movement for People Power, finally ceasing to be Camden VSC.

John Graham in Camden VSC

Australia House protest

In the risk assessment for Graham, mention is made of an incident in which he was assaulted by a security guard at the Australian High Commission. It is likely this refers to an incident reported by Conrad Dixon on 3 October 1968:

The Revolutionary Socialist Students Federation continues to emphasise the importance of Australia House as a symbol of Commonwealth complicity in the Vietnam War and is calling for militant action there. Members of the group Australians and New Zealanders Against the Vietnam War attempted to disrupt a social event at Australia House on 27.9.68: Police had advance warning of their intentions, and about a dozen people who tried to create a disturbance were escorted from the premises. All the indications are that a further attempt will be made at this building.

It is worth nothing that there were personal connections between the Camden and ANZAVW groups as well. However, other protests at Australia House took place, so the incident recalled by Graham may be a later one such as the 11 January 1969 protest against a visit by Australian Premier, John Gorton.

Article for Red Camden

The 8 June 1969 issue Red Camden had two very important sections. One is titled "John's Titbits", and is a short bit of miscellaneous information which if not written by John Graham, appears to be derived from his comments. It includes mention a protest phone-line in New York, where one could ring to get information of demonstrations happening in the city that day. More significantly, it also notes he was part of a loud political discussion in the Mail Coach pub in Sheffield with others from the group. This matches with his recollection of having gone to Sheffield for a conference - the newsletter having previously reported that Camden VSC had sent 23 people to to a large anti-Vietnam war protest in the city in March that year.

Article by undercover officer 'John Graham' (HN 329) in the 8 June 1969 issue of Red Camden newsletter, regarding a meeting of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign. Accessed via the Marie and Geoff Richman archives (grateful acknowledgment to the Bishopsgate Institute).

A couple of pages along from this, is an account of a meeting held at the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign offices at 120 Commercial Road on 15 May 1969. Its author is given as 'John Grahame', and it is clear he is one of the two people who attended a VSC Working Committee on behalf of the Camden group. He writes about anticipated hostility from the core VSC group staffed by members of the International Marxist Group (IMG).

The others named in the piece as being present besides the pair from Camden can be identified as IMG activists. Despite the wrong spelling of the name, it is highly likely the person behind both articles was the undercover officer using the name John Graham, which places him at the heart of the group's involvement in the Vietnam campaign.

There is one final possible mention. When the Merrett's meet Mr. Sau at the Paris Peace Talks in May 1969 (see above), their report talks of how Mr. Sau asked what persecution the group had as a result of their work on Vietnam. He was told two members of the group had been fined, while another, John, was imprisoned. While this could be John Graham, another possibility is John Hoyland, the Black Dwarf journalist and one of the founders of the Agit-Prop collective.

Undercover Policing Public Inquiry

'John Graham' is referenced by the nominal/cypher HN329 for the purposes of Operation Herne and the UCPI. On 3rd August 2017, his cover name was one of three released by the Inquiry, along with details of dates and targets of his deployment. As such he is also one of the first SDS / NPOIU undercover officers to be formally confirmed by the Inquiry who had not been previously exposed by activists. The Metropolitan Police have applied to have his real name restricted by the Inquiry, which the Chair, John Mitting, has indicated he is minded to grant. In support of this application a personal / impact statement and a risk assessment have been issued, both in redacted form.

In giving his reason for not wanting to have his real name released, he said:

I don't want to be associated with the idiot that caused all this because it's a question of being tarred with the same brush. And of course, there is also the issue of people subsequently coming forward and claiming things because they have just picked on a name or something. I'm not worried about that because I never did anything except not tell the people in the organisation I was a police officer.

Graham is not a core participant at the Inquiry (4.20).

Police line of command

John Waldron, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. Deputy Commissioner, her succeeded on the sudden death of his predecessor Joseph Simpson on 20 March 1968.

• Peter Ewan Brodie, Assistant Commissioner "C" (Crime), head of CID between April 1966 and 1972.

• Ferguson 'Fergie' Smith, Commander of Special Branch 1966 to 1972, with rank of Deputy Assistant Commissioner.

• Ch. Supt. A[rthur] Cunningham. Name appears as signing a number of Special Branch reports submitted by Conrad Dixon in 1968, though he is seemingly replaced by 3rd October by an Acting Chief Superintendent.

• Det. Ch. Insp. Conrad Dixon, founding head of the Special Demonstration Squad, 1968 onward.

Special Branch reports from 1968 authored by Conrad Dixon and under the authority of Ch. Supt. A. Cunningham were regularly submitted to one J. M. Clift of F.4 Division in the Home Office. In later years, F.4 is listed as having responsibility for overseeing counter-terrorism and related matters.