Peter Janke

Peter Janke worked for the Institute for the Study of Conflict. A South African national, he was close to the Apartheid era intelligence services and later worked at Control Risks Ltd and at its subsidiary Control Risks Information Services.

Edward S. Herman and Gerry O'Sullivan write of Janke that:

ISC's Peter Janke, now with Control Risks Ltd., was a good friend and close ally of Michael Morris of the South African security police and, eventually, head of the South African Terrorism Research Centre. ISC's Conflict Study no. 52, 'South Africa - The End of Empire', written by Janke, was based in part on information on "terrorism" in Mozambique supplied him by P. J. De Wit, the head of South African intelligence, a source unacknowledged in the report. ISC also passed along to South African officials their report 'Sources of Conflict in British Industry', which would be useful for indicating how South African unions might be attacked as recalcitrant and strikeprone, not on account of any real grievances but only because of "left-wing militants" and outside agitators.

ISC also established close working relationships with the British police and military. John Alderson, the director of the Bramshill Police College in 1972, asked Janke to help the college develop a course on terrorism and counter-subversion. The ISC's "Manual on Counter-Insurgency" was developed and used at the Police College and elsewhere. The stress of ISC's instruction was on the need for more extensive surveillance and preemptive action. This training, sponsored ultimately by the CIA and British intelligence, is strongly reminiscent of the U.S. training of Latin American police in the 1960s and 1970s on subversion and the need for preemptive counterinsurgency, which [...] played a significant role in the rise of torture, disappearances, and large-scale state terrorism in that area.

The records of the ISC showed close contacts with top police officials Britain, Rhodesia, South Africa, as well as with other leaders around the world.

One of the documents leaked to Time Out was a letter to Peter Janke from Claud Greathead of the Rhodesian Secret Service. The two men were on first name terms. There was also a letter to Janke from a Mr P. J. de Wit of the South African Secret Service (BOSS) noting that Janke was in contact with their ‘man in London’.

By the early 1970's the British Army were bringing in outside experts in 'subversion' to extend their programme of political education, and ISC became involved. John Alderson, the director of the Bramshill Police College in 1972, asked ISC's Peter Janke to help the college develop a course on terrorism and counter-subversion. The ISC's "Manual on Counter-Insurgency" was developed and used at the Police College and elsewhere. In July 1972 Janke stated in ISC documents that: ‘This would be the first time that policemen in this country were introduced to the idea that political terrorism grew out of the early stages of subversion and it was the responsibility of the police to detect these phases…’

At Bramshill Janke met the commandant John Alderson who he said was ‘clearly aware that the whole topic of police concern with subversion was a delicate one and that the Home Office felt particularly strongly about this.’ This was a reference to the Home Secretary Reginald Maudling blocking an invitation to Frank Kitson to lecture at the college. Despite this, according to Janke: ‘Alderson felt that the police college itself had a certain autonomy derived from daily decision taking and that small steps along new paths could in fact be made without prior consultation.’ In a subsequent visit Janke urged Alderson to take out a corporate subscription to ISC publications for the college, but according to Janke Alderson was concerned that, ‘on the face of it ISC would appear to others as very right-wing.’ Janke reassured Alderson that ISC was an academic outfit and was financially independent and ‘unattached to any political or government body’. Alderson was later promoted to assistant commissioner at Scotland Yard and stayed in touch with ISC. His successor at the college declined to take out a corporate subscription after consulting the Home Office but agreed to continued lectures.

Analysis of the Institute's own correspondence from the documents leaked to Time Out revealed that most of the evidence for the anti-left allegations came from the files of well-known and widely disregarded right-wing organisations.

On 7 February 1974 Richard Clutterbuck wrote to Peter Janke asking for “sources of specific evidence” for statements in the report that the International Socialists, the Socialist Labour League and the Worker’ Revolutionary Party were associated with violent industrial disputes. Janke wrote back saying: ‘I have rung Frank Broadway (who was responsible for the research) and as I feared he relied on other people’s work and had no references).’ Broadway was the director of Facts about Business, a company that supplied classroom materials, claimed that “apathy and hostility towards free enterprise begin in the schools”. He argued that this was not because teachers were Marxists but rather because they didn’t know enough to provide children with a good understanding of free enterprise and its benefits. The solution was to provide teachers with this material and his experience was that most teachers were willing to use “quality material supplied by business”.

Control risks

Lockerbie bomb warning

Corporate executives plugged into a private computer network were warned not to fly out of Europe on U.S. airlines in the days before terrorists bombed Pan Am Flight 103. The ability of businesses to buy security information unavailable to other airline passengers angers some relatives of people killed when the Boeing 747 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland.

"As far as I can tell the middle-class flying public is prevented from getting information that is available to the rich," said Susan Cohen, whose daughter, Theo, was returning on Flight 103 from a Syracuse University overseas study program. "Those who have can find out. Those who haven't can't."

Control Risks Ltd., a security consulting firm in London, offers clients a data base on risks of traveling overseas, said the firm's Peter Janke. The data base, called Travel Security Guide, is updated daily with information and assessments on airlines, land transportation and hotels drawn from a variety of intelligence sources. Typical subscribers are executives of large multinational corporations.

"We give clients a full picture of the kind of environment they are flying into," Janke said...

...While the public was unaware of the Helsinki warning, the alert was posted on a cafeteria bulletin board at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. Similarly, the Control Risks Ltd. alert was available to a select group of business travelers.

The alert posted on the computer system in December 1988 was not specific to Flight 103, which terrorists attacked on Dec. 21, killing 270 people including 40 with ties to Central New York.

"There was reason before the alert was given to think that radical Arab groups would attack American aircraft," Janke said. "We told our clients it was quite likely an American flight out of Europe or the Middle East would be targeted." He said he could not recall the source of the information that prompted the alert.