Common Cause: UK anti-communist organisation - Revision history

David at 06:51, 14 May 2010

2010-05-14T06:51:27Z

David: /* Common Cause splits - IRIS is formed */

2010-05-14T06:49:08Z

Common Cause splits - IRIS is formed

David at 06:01, 29 October 2009

2009-10-29T06:01:34Z

David: /* Common Cause */

2008-10-31T08:01:14Z

Common Cause

David: /* Notes */

2008-10-31T07:59:05Z

Notes

David: /* Catholic Action? */

2008-10-31T07:58:25Z

Catholic Action?

David: /* IRIS activities to 1963 */

2008-10-31T07:56:00Z

IRIS activities to 1963

David: /* IRIS */

2008-10-31T07:55:26Z

IRIS

David at 07:47, 31 October 2008

2008-10-31T07:47:11Z

David at 00:13, 31 October 2008

2008-10-31T00:13:06Z

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 Robin Ramsay writes:
-:The failure of the [[Freedom and Democracy Trust]] seems to have deterred the TUC members from creating another body so directly linked to the TUC General Council.(79) Instead, some individual members of the General Council, who had been involved in the Freedom and Democracy Trust fiasco, joined a private group with the same anti-communist aims. This was Common Cause, whose origins are to be found in the merging of two quite distinct political strands.
+:The failure of the [[Freedom and Democracy Trust]] seems to have deterred the TUC members from creating another body so directly linked to the TUC General Council.<ref>Though there is a hint that such activities may have been continued abroad. In Coleman's book on the Congress for Cultural Freedom (discussed below) there is a reference to an Indian anti-communist politician, Minoo Misani, who in the early post-war years, founded the Democratic Research Service and published a magazine called… Freedom First. Coleman p. 150.</ref>Instead, some individual members of the General Council, who had been involved in the Freedom and Democracy Trust fiasco, joined a private group with the same anti-communist aims. This was Common Cause, whose origins are to be found in the merging of two quite distinct political strands.
 :One strand was the clandestine anti-communist (and anti-socialist) organisation in British trade unions, of which the best example is to be found within the [[Amalgamated Engineering Union]] (AEU). Within the AEU,
@@ Line 168: / Line 168: @@
 ==Notes==
 #{{note|80}} Wigham, p. 128
 #{{note|81}} Minkin p. 180

@@ Line 161: / Line 161: @@
 * the new chair, Peter Crane, the director of a number of British subsidiaries of American companies, including Collins Radio of England, whose American headquarters had connections with the CIA.(107)
-* David Pelham James - Conservative MP, and Director
+* [[David Pelham James]] - Conservative MP, and Director of the Catholic publishing house, Hollis and Carter. There were a number of Catholics prominent in the
-of the Catholic publishing house, Hollis and Carter.
+Common Cause network, including the man who ran IRIS for any years, [[Andy McKeown]].
-There were a number of Catholics prominent in the
+* [[Neil Elles]], barrister and later a member of the European-wide anti-subversion outfit, [[INTERDOC]].(108)
-Common Cause network, including the man who ran IRIS
+* [[Christopher Blackett]] - a Scottish landowner and farmer and, I presume, but cannot prove, a relative of
-for any years, Andy McKeown. This is discussed below.
+[[Frances Blackett]], the original secretary of the [[British League for European Freedom]], discussed above.(109)
 ==Notes==

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 Robin Ramsay writes:
-:The failure of the [[Freedom and Democracy Trust]] seems to have deterred the TUC members from creating another
+:The failure of the [[Freedom and Democracy Trust]] seems to have deterred the TUC members from creating another body so directly linked to the TUC General Council.(79) Instead, some individual members of the General Council, who had been involved in the Freedom and Democracy Trust fiasco, joined a private group with the same anti-communist aims. This was Common Cause, whose origins are to be found in the merging of two quite distinct political strands.
 :One strand was the clandestine anti-communist (and anti-socialist) organisation in British trade unions, of which the best example is to be found within the [[Amalgamated Engineering Union]] (AEU). Within the AEU,
@@ Line 11: / Line 10: @@
-::'In the mid 1950s ..... the Right-wing members of the
+::'In the mid 1950s ..... the Right-wing members of the Executive Council began attending the factional meeting. In this period also a National Committee "Club" organiser was discreetly appointed from amongst the regular delegates to tighten the organisation of the Right-wing faction(82)....At all National Committee meetings during the period from 1956 to 1970 the right-wing controlled all places on the Standing Orders Committee, and [[J. Ramsden]], organiser of the National Committee "Club" for nine years, was also Chairman of its Standing Orders Committee for seven of them. With [President] Carron in the Chair at the National Committee and the union Secretaryship also held by a "Club" member for the whole of the period, procedural control by the Right was overwhelming.'(83)
+:The late [[Ernie Roberts]] MP quotes from a report of a 1951 meeting of 'the Club' (infiltrated by a member of the left in the union), and notes that the principal figure was Cecil Hallett, then AEU General Secretary.(84)
 ==Common Cause==

@@ Line 38: / Line 38: @@
 with an Anglo-American anti-communist group called
 Common Cause. The American group was formed in January
-as [[Common Cause Incorporated]], by Mrs [[Natalie
+as [[Common Cause Incorporated]], by Mrs [[Natalie Wales Latham]] (nee Paine). Among the great and the good
 on its letterhead National Council were [[Adolph Berle Jnr]], [[Max Eastman]], [[Sumner Welles]] and [[Hodding Carter]].
 Another well-known member was [[Clare Booth Luce]], wife
@@ Line 63: / Line 62: @@
 his increasingly anti-Soviet stance. They baulked and
 eventually Smith left the party and joined or formed -
 which is not clear - Common Cause in Easter 1948.(87)
 ==The British League for European Freedom==

← Older revision		Revision as of 07:59, 31 October 2008
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	#{{note\|108}} On INTERDOC see Crozier pp. 49 and 81.		#{{note\|108}} On INTERDOC see Crozier pp. 49 and 81.
	#{{note\|109}} Frances Blackett in Duchess of Atholl, p. 250.		#{{note\|109}} Frances Blackett in Duchess of Atholl, p. 250.
−	~~#{{note\|110}} The Times, 6 April 1957~~
−	~~#{{note\|111}} IRIS News, vol. 1, no 1, 1956. According to Anthony Carew, Nash was also a member of the AEU.~~
−	#{{note\|112}} Fletcher's notes of the conversation say that that 'wealthy people got at [Common Cause executive member Charles] Sonnex (without telling CAS) asked him to lead IRIS. S.[onnex] remained on CC exec. Rich people attached more importance to IRIS.'
−	#{{note\|113}} See Tom Bower's Red Web on the SIS post-war operations and chapter 8, in particular, on the dawning realisation that they had been taken for a ride - again. On 'the Trust' see Andrew, Secret Service pp. 445-8
−	~~#{{note\|114}} Ibid p. 165~~
−	#{{note\|115}} Yakovlev p. 105. Soviet publications in this field are not famously accurate, but this account has since been confirmed by Tom Bower's biography of SIS chief Dick White The Perfect English Spy, pp. 206 and 7. Yakovlev quotes from what purports to be an SIS document, 'A Proposed Statement to the NTS Leadership', which, presuming it to be genuine, may have been given to the Soviets by Kim Philby or George Blake. Bower quotes a brief section from the same document.
−	~~#{{note\|116}} Labour Research, January 1961, p. 10~~
−	~~#{{note\|117}} See Roberts pp. 101, 122-4, 131 157, 203.~~
−	#{{note\|118}} The left-wing Engineering Voice, Christmas 1966, reported having received 'an anonymous and undated document purporting to describe the proceedings of a secret meeting recently convened by supporters of the present leadership of the AEU.' The document referred to a 'National Group meeting' and said attending it had been fourteen full-time officers of the AEU.Guardian, 2 January 1995, based on papers released under the 30 year rule. See also 'Anti-red and alive' in New Statesman, 10 February 1995.
−	~~#{{note\|119}} Pincher, Inside Story p. 335~~
−	~~#{{note\|120}} On Macmillan's paranoia about the 'communist conspiracy' see Bower, Perfect English Spy pp. 308-9.~~
−	~~#{{note\|121}} A director of Hollis and Carter~~
−	~~#{{note\|122}} Keating, PhD thesis, p. 350~~
−	#{{note\|123}} Ferris, p. 85. Engineering Voice, March 1969, reported a two-day conference of the Association of Catholic Trade Unionists, at which were H.E. Matthews, a director of Cable and Wireless and some time director of IRIS, and Andy McKeown of IRIS. Keating quotes McKeown as suggesting that originally IRIS was anti-Catholic because 'Freemasonry' had a 'strong hold' on the organisation, and claiming that the man who initially ran IRIS, Charles Sonnex, was a Mason!
−	~~#{{note\|124}} One of those who believes there was a national Catholic Action is former President of the Trades Union Congress, Clive Jenkins. Conversation with the author, 1995.~~
−	~~#{{note\|125}} Keating thesis, p. 335.~~

← Older revision		Revision as of 07:58, 31 October 2008
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−	~~==Catholic Action?==~~
−	~~There is a distinct Catholic tinge to Common Cause and~~
−	~~IRIS. Hollis and Carter, the company which published~~
−	~~the Common Cause Bulletin, was a Catholic publishing~~
−	~~house. Catholics among the leading figures in Common~~
−	~~Cause included chairs David Pelham James(121) and~~
−	~~Peter Crane, Brigadier George Taylor, a director of~~
−	~~Common Cause circa 1958,(122) and Sir Tom O'Brien.~~
−	~~Catholics among the AEU/IRIS network include AEU~~
−	~~President Bill Carron and Jim Conway, IRIS's Cecil~~
−	~~Hallett, and the man who ran IRIS for nearly twenty~~
−	~~years, Andy McKeown.(123) So was there, as some on the~~
−	~~British Left believed,(124) a national Catholic Action~~
−	~~organisation operating in Britain, as it had in other~~
−	~~countries, such as Australia? Joan Keating~~
−	~~investigated this belief in the course of her doctoral~~
−	~~thesis, and though she found quite a thriving~~
−	~~Association of Catholic Trade unionists - the Catholic~~
−	~~Worker was selling 25,000 copies in 1956 - she found~~
−	~~no evidence at all of any national, co-ordinated~~
−	~~organisation.(125)~~

← Older revision		Revision as of 07:56, 31 October 2008
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−	~~==IRIS activities to 1963==~~
−	~~IRIS published a newsletter and a variety of~~
−	~~pamphlets. They formed 'cells' - their word - to~~
−	~~combat communists in the trade unions. How many cells,~~
−	~~we do not know; nor in how many unions other than the~~
−	~~AEU. They intervened in union elections. A member of ASSET, (which became ASTMS and is currently a part of~~
−	~~MSF) sued IRIS and won in 1958 after IRIS News called him a communist. In the report of the TUC annual~~
−	~~conference in 1960, delegates describe IRIS personnel intervening in the Association of Engineering and~~
−	~~Shipbuilding Draughtsmen (AESD) and the [[Association of Supervisory Staff and Technicians]] (ASSET). The~~
−	~~delegate of the latter describes IRIS News publishing~~
−	~~the allegation that a candidate in a union election~~
−	~~was a communist. [[Labour Research]] alleged an IRIS role in the [[National Union of Mineworkers]] and the Foundry~~
−	Workers (as well as AESD and ASSET).(116) Reporting these events, Labour Research commented on IRIS News that 'the main feature in the paper however is and always has been news and advice about union elections. In most cases the paper reports that certain candidates are "receiving communist support" '. It seems reasonably certain - though unproven - the IRIS was receiving some of its information from IRD.
−
−	In putting out information - its monthly magazine and pamphlets - and telling its readers who to vote for and not vote for in union elections, IRIS behaved as an exact mirror image of the groups on the left: start a paper and put out a 'line'. The late Ernie Roberts MP, for many years the only left-winger in the senior ranks of the AEU - the union from whence came two of the IRIS directors in 1956 - describes how the left in the union and IRIS/and 'the Club' spent their time infiltrating and reporting on each other's
−	~~meetings.(117)~~
−
−	In February 1966 the left-wing magazine Voice of the Unions, part of the opposition to IRIS within the AEU, asked where the IRIS money was coming from and commented, 'At one time we are told IRIS employed an office staff of six to ten.' Almost thirty years later we learned that some of the money had come from the British government after Lord Shawcross had contacted Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and asked for funding for IRIS.(118)
−
−	~~Shawcross had approached Macmillan at the right time,~~
−	~~for 'Supermac' had become infected with the fear of~~
−	~~the 'communist threat'. The Radcliffe Tribunal had~~
−	~~reported in 1962, devoting a whole section to the~~
−	~~Civil Service staff associations and trade unions,~~
−	~~expressing concern at the number of communists and~~
−	~~communist sympathisers holding positions in the~~
−	~~unions;(119) and his administration was being~~
−	~~afflicted by the espionage scandals of George Blake~~
−	~~and Vassell - and the Profumo Affair which Macmillan~~
−	~~apparently believed was part of a communist conspiracy~~
−	~~the bring him down.(120)~~

← Older revision		Revision as of 07:55, 31 October 2008
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−	~~==IRIS==~~
−	~~More or less in parallel with the formation of Common~~
−	~~Cause Ltd., an industrial wing, Industrial Research~~
−	~~and Information Services (IRIS) Ltd. was formed and~~
−	~~set up in the headquarters of the National Union of~~
−	~~Seamen, Maritime House. Initially, IRIS Ltd listed~~
−	~~three directors:~~
−
−	* [[Jack Tanner]], the recently retired President of the
−	~~AEU;~~
−	* William McLaine, General Secretary of the AEU from
−	~~1938-47;~~
−	*and [[Charles Sonnex]], the Secretary and Managing Director, and the link with the parent body [[Common Cause]].(110) Also it had a manager, [[James L. Nash]].(111) According to Labour Research (January 1961), Nash left
−	~~to join the CIA labour front, the ICFTU.~~
−
−	In an interview with Richard Fletcher in 1979, C. A. Smith, attributed the formation of IRIS to Common Cause's discovery of just how careful they had to be about interfering in union affairs.(112) Another proximate cause for the formation of IRIS is suggested by the comment from the Common Cause Bulletin of January 1956 (pp. 4/5) that 'only a near-miracle can
−	~~prevent the Executive of the AEU from passing under communist control during 1956.....already there are clear signs of an all-out Communist effort to put [[Reg Birch]] in this top trade union job'.~~
−
−	~~However, another interpretation of the Common Cause split and the formation of IRIS is possible. In April~~
−	1955 SIS (MI6) were forced to acknowledge that their networks of 'agents' inside the Soviet Union had all been penetrated. Worse, the Soviets had been running a deception operation with uncomfortable parallels with
−	~~the 'Trust' deception in the 1920s in which the Soviet intelligence service created and ran a fake resistance~~
−	~~group to which the British government gave a lot of money.(113) SIS had been using agents from Bandera's~~
−	~~OUN in Ukraine and from NTS.(114) Some time later that year, SIS gave up all its emigre groups and in~~
−	~~February 1956 SIS handed over control of NTS to the~~
−	~~CIA.(115) What follows is what I surmise happened but~~
−	~~for which I have no evidence. Having taken control of~~
−	~~the British networks, new people were put in to run~~
−	~~things. The NTS support group in the United States was~~
−	~~Common Cause Inc. - with its British counterpart. In~~
−	~~London, the limited company Common Cause was formed~~
−	~~and all the trappings of members and branches were~~
−	~~dumped; a CIA officer or agent, under cover, the~~
−	~~cut-out to the Agency, was installed. (If this sounds~~
−	~~banal, it has to be remembered that in 1956 none of~~
−	~~this had ever been made public and there was no reason~~
−	~~for them to be anything but banal.) The American~~
−	~~assessment of the group's activities was that its most~~
−	~~important work had been, and should continue to be, in~~
−	~~the British trade union movement. The previous year's~~
−	~~attempt to have Common Cause put on the Labour Party's~~
−	~~proscription list was noted and a spin-off, trade~~
−	~~union subsidiary, was formed. Common Cause would fund~~
−	~~it - and act as another layer of insulation between it~~
−	~~and the Agency.~~

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-#{{note|79}}	Though there is a hint that such activities may have been continued abroad}} In Coleman's book on the Congress for Cultural Freedom (discussed below) there is a reference to an Indian anti-communist politician, Minoo Misani, who in the early post-war years, founded the Democratic Research Service and published a magazine called… Freedom First. Coleman p. 150.
+#{{note|79}}	Though there is a hint that such activities may have been continued abroad. In Coleman's book on the Congress for Cultural Freedom (discussed below) there is a reference to an Indian anti-communist politician, Minoo Misani, who in the early post-war years, founded the Democratic Research Service and published a magazine called… Freedom First. Coleman p. 150.
 #{{note|80}} Wigham, p. 128
 #{{note|81}} Minkin p. 180