European Movement

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As Robin Ramsay puts it:

"In the postwar era, as part of their attempt to manage the entire noncommunist world, the US, often through the CIA, funded social democrats all over the world. They ran a wide spectrum of anticommunist groups in the youth, student and labour fields. Peter Mandelson's World Assembly of Youth was one. The Americans promoted the development of the Common Market. The CIA funded the European Movement." [1]

Pro-Europe = Anti-Communist?

British and American intelligence services had traditionally supported Britain's entry into the European Economic Community as a bulwark against the Communist Eastern bloc. The CIA funded the European Movement, the most prominent extra-governmental group, seeking to influence public opinion for a European Community. Between 1949 and 1953, it was subsidised by the CIA to the tune of £330,000. In June 1970 Edward Heath's Conservative government had been elected with a pro-European manifesto. But public and parliamentary support for Europe was slipping and Britain's entry was in doubt. Although the Cabinet was dominated by pro-Europeans, Heath presided over a party that was deeply ambivalent about the "Common Market".

Later that year, a meeting of senior information officers in Whitehall was convened to discuss what could be done. An official present at that meeting says the only department that seemed capable of achieving something effective was the Foreign Office's Information Research Department. IRD had been set up in 1948 by Christopher Mayhew, then Foreign Minister, to place covert anti-Communist propaganda throughout the world and was funded by the intelligence budget - the secret vote. IRD was closely linked with MI6 and shared many officers - including at one time the double agent Guy Burgess. By the late Sixties, IRD had more than 400 people occupying River-walk House opposite the Tate Gallery and undercover officers in embassies all over the globe.

The civil servant who ran the covert pro-Europe campaign was Norman Reddaway, Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office, with a brief covering IRD and other FO information services.

Mr. Reddaway, who later became ambassador to Poland, and is now retired, set up a special IRD unit to propagandise in favour of British entry and counter those who opposed it. In an unpublished interview, Mr. Reddaway says: "The researchers were extremely good at researching the facts about going into Europe." [2]

People

Vice Presidents

Elected Posts

Chair

Deputy Chair

Treasurer

Executive Committee Members

Elected by the membership, except those by the English branches ('EB'), or nominated by the National Councils of Northern Ireland ('NI'), Scotland ('S') and Wales ('W').

Three representatives of the Young European Movement will also be nominated to sit on the Executive Committee.

(In alphabetical order)

Branches' Consultative Council

Elected by and to represent the regions/nations as specified (In alphabetical order)

Secretariat

Director

David Stephen

Staff

Powerbase Resources

Notes

  1. ^ Robin Ramsay 'The influence of intelligence services on the British left' A talk given by Robin Ramsay to Labour Party branches in late 1996. This is an adaptation and massive compression of the pamphlet The Clandestine Caucus written and published by Robin Ramsay in 1996. In that the sources for most of the claims contained in this talk are to be found.
  2. ^ Paul Lashmar and James Oliver 'How MI6 pushed Britain to join Europe', Sunday Telegraph, 27 April 1997, page 10
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