British Atlantic Committee

The British Atlantic Committee (BAC) was a pro-NATO group.

Creation

In 1952, NATO Secretary-General Hastings Ismay encouraged the British Society for International Understanding to start building an international pro-NATO network. This process began with an Atlantic Community conference at Oxford in September 1952. A second conference in Copenhagen the following year led to the formation of the international Atlantic Treaty Association.

The, now defunct, British Atlantic Committee, was funded by the government and an understanding of its function can be gained from this exchange in Hansard, February 1983, between the late Robin Cook and Douglas Hurd (now Lord Hurd).

Mr. Cook: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how much money is provided by Her Majesty's Government to the British Atlantic Committee; and what stipulation is made as to the use of the money.

Mr. Hurd: Parliamentary approval has been given to the payment of grant-in-aid to the British Atlantic Committee of up to £61,500 in this financial year, 1982–83. The purpose of the grant-in-aid to the British Atlantic Committee is to help this all-party organisation to promote knowledge and understanding of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

Mr. Cook: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what assistance with resources and speakers is provided by Her Majesty's Government to the British Atlantic Committee.

Mr. Hurd: Like other non-governmental organisations, the British Atlantic Committee is given, on request, some government publications and films. Ministers have on several occasions spoken at meetings organised by the committee.

Other Hansard entries establish that in 1981 the funding to the British Atlantic Committee was £33,185 rising to £44,000 this was paid through the Foreign and Commonwealth Services Vote, Class II, Vote 5. David Osler in Lobster 33, 1997, states that the BAC was funded by The Dulverton Trust whose Trustees listed for 1994 included Lord Carrington.

We can go back further to the 1950s, and 'NATO in the "new Europe"'by Alexandra Gheciu available via Google Books, states that the BAC published The Atlantic Community, which was distributed to most British Secondary Schools in 1957:

"The same ideas appeared in material diffused by the Atlantic Council of the U.S., which used publications, radio programs, posters, and films about NATO to promote the "Atlantic idea" of a community of values and NATO as the expression of that community."

The British Atlantic Committee became the Atlantic Council of the UK and is part of a nexus of 'Atlanticist' organisations which bring together the USA's, the UK's and European military-industrial-complexes although we can also add a political dimension to that. Some historical indication of their deliberations can be gained from the the European-Atlantic Group website

John Jenks' (2006) ' British Propaganda And News Media in the Cold War' (p.104) states that:

The British Atlantic Committee took shape in 1953 and became an umbrella for existing societies and 'ginger groups' for better international relations. such as the English Speaking Union, the United Nations Association and the Labour Party-backed Friends of the Atlantic Union. The BAC had impeccable establishment credentials, with the Foreign Office's endorsement and former Moscow ambassador Sir David Kelly at its head. Official and NATO propaganda continued, but the private entities now handled most publicity work."

This is in the context of the rise of the Information Research Department. Jenks adds:

"Denis Healy worked closely with the Foreign office laundering propaganda, providing tips and coordinating strategies abroad."

Jenks work is part of a growing body of studies of the British state's "generation, suppression and manipulation of news" to further foreign policy goals during the early Cold War. Jenks argues this included "Bribing editors, blackballing "unreliable" journalists, creating instant media experts through provision of carefully edited "inside information," and exploiting the global media system to plant propaganda -- disguised as news —around the world." There is some irony in that these methods were used by the British to try to convince the international public of Soviet deceit and criminality and thus gain support for anti-Soviet policies at home and abroad.

Hugh Wilford's (2003) 'The CIA, the British Left, and the Cold War: Calling the Tune?' mentions the BAC in the context of Atlanticist organisations with labour (in the sense of trade union) connections, and its role in aiding American labour diplomats within both "British labour and intelligence circles." But he also notes that the organisation of these Atlanticist organisations in the early 50s were partly a response to a concern over anti-Americanism in the British labour movement gathering around Aneurin Bevan — but he does not note that the BAC's Frank Roberts was Bevan's PPS. An Independent Obituary of Roberts states:

When Frank Roberts first met Stalin towards the end of 1945 Stalin's first words were, "I know you. You are our enemy. And what's more you are a member of the British intelligence service."

The fears over 'anti-Americanism' (heightened by several factors such as the Korean war) became a priority for the newly formed U.S. Information Agency and motivated the mission of US labour diplomat Joseph Godson.

Understanding Transatlantic Understanding

There is a slightly complex inter-weaving of organisations: the Trades Union Committee for European and Transatlantic Understanding began as the Labour Committee for Transatlantic Understanding and this organisation was connected to the BAC working to foster sympathy towards the aims and policies of the USA with Godson at the helm (who had returned to the UK in 1971). The Committee's membership experienced defections to the Social Democratic Party during the 1980s. One more contemporary figure in this network has been George Robertson:

A former secretary of the right-wing Labour Manifesto group (most of whose members defected to the Social Democratic party in 1981), Robertson joined the government-funded British Atlantic Committee in the same year that it was publicly attacking the Labour party's non-nuclear defence policy. He was on the Council of the Royal Institute for International Affairs (Chatham House) from 1984 to 1991 and on the steering committee of the annual Konigswinter conference for much of that time. He has been a governor of the Ditchley Foundation since 1989 and was vice-chairman of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy from 1992 to 1994.

In the context of the debate surrounding the Labour Party’s defence policy and membership of NATO, Stuart Croft states that in 1984 the BAC published 'Diminishing the Nuclear Threat', a report written by a number of 'distinguished former military officers' who argued that the notion of controlled escalation enshrined in flexible response was impractical. These he characterizes as "a group of analysts who may perhaps best be termed disenchanted orthodox thinkers, people who shared many of the orthodox assumptions and yet agreed with the alternative thinkers on this issue". This also touches on the 'special relationship;

For the orthodox thinkers, the maintenance of NATO and the American nuclear guarantee of European security were fundamental concerns. Alternative thinkers, however, were willing to see NATO as a means to a very different end. They also saw the role of the United States in a very different light. The most explicit view came from the Alternative Defence Commission, which called for the decoupling of the United States and Europe, since the United States had been developing nuclear strategies likely to lead to war. Whereas the orthodox view stressed the influence that the United Kingdom had in Washington through the special relationship, alternative thinkers argued that no such special relationship existed. Booth suggested that ‘the unique Reagan-Thatcher personal relationship will soon come to an end; then it will be just a matter of time before the “special relationship” is fully revealed to be special only in its one-sidedness’. For Duncan Campbell, ‘The British political leadership has often deluded itself about the “special relationship” it believes we enjoy... ’ Martin O’Neill, later to be the Labour Party’s Defence Spokesperson, argued that the special relationship ‘is more a matter of sentiment than of reality. Certainly, we have a relationship in so far as we are both nuclear powers within the Alliance, but I don’t think it’s quite as significant as people seem to think’. The critics argued that the purpose of the ‘special relationship’ was to prevent the sort of events that had actually taken place during the 1980s, where British interests were often not seriously considered in the formulation of American policy: over, for example, the invasion of Grenada in 1983; the bombing of Libya in 1986; the near-agreement on nuclear issues at the Reykjavik super-power summit in 1986; and movement throughout 1987 towards the zero option in the INF Treaty.

The first episode of Duncan Campbell's BBC documentary series 'Secret Society'(1987) called 'The Secret Constitution' offered a critique on covert groups and committees within the UK government, explored the secret decision to buy U.S. Trident nuclear submarines and the cabinet level dirty tricks campaign against CND and this included criticisms of the BAC, and the Coalition for Peace Through Security for keeping key decisions secret from MPs. It was banned by the BBC, although the programme on the 'Zircon' spy satellite tend to be the focus of reporting on the affair.

Steve Dorril in (1984) Lobster 3 'American Friends: the Anti-CND Groups,' states that:

Ernest Lefever used the $200,000 given by USIA to help "highly placed and influential leaders in Western Europe to gain a solid understanding of US defence and arms control policies, with special reference to their religious and moral implications." One conference was organised in Britain in May (New Statesman 20th May 1983) with church leaders in attendance. It was sponsored by the British Atlantic Committee (BAC) and the Institute for European Defence and Strategic Studies.

Lefever was refused a position in Reagan's administration because his views on human rights were to the right of [Jeanne] Kirkpatrick's distinction between 'friendly authoritarianism' and 'hostile totalitarianism'. Lefever's Centre for Ethics and Public Policy received $250,000 in 1983 and is linked to the Heritage Foundation. He is co-author (with Roy Godson) of the apologist 'The CIA and The American Ethic'. Godson is a member of the Consortium for The Study of Intelligence (CSI) which includes 8 serving or former CIA officers. He is also a staff member of the National Strategic Information Centre (NSIC), Director of Georgetown University's International Labour Programme and a prominent member of CDM.

Sven Kraemer, Programme Director of the NSIC was at the May meeting. He is also a member of the CSI and a close family friend of General Rowney.

This also adds that the Administrator of the Ethics and Nuclear Arms Conference was Ken Aldred, General Secretary of the British Atlantic Committee's 'Peace Through Nato' campaign. And it also points out that many of the Labour right-wing were members and were linked to the similar American right at Georgetown, adding that his has been covered in CIA Infiltration of The Labour Movement by Militant (1982), and also in State Research No 16 1980.

Paul Rogers in Lobster 28, 1994 stated:

I remember going on one of the British Atlantic Committee briefing visits to NATO in the late 1980s and talking to a German civil servant attached to NATO's Nuclear Planning Group. He spoke with considerable enthusiasm about the feasibility of using very small numbers of air-burst nuclear detonations, perhaps as few as five, which would cause very few casualties but would demonstrate to the Soviets that NATO was serious. As far as I could tell, he really did believe that a limited nuclear war could be fought and won, and would not escalate to an all-out nuclear exchange.

People

• Sir Frank Roberts: Was Chairman (1970-73), President (1973-83), then Vice-President of the European Atlantic Group (1983-); President of the Atlantic Treaty Association (1969-73); and also President of the Atlantic Council of the UK (formerly British Atlantic Committee) (1968-81).
• Hugh Hanning, (1974) Director of Studies for the British Atlantic Committee, wrote in the Daily Telegraph (5 January 1985) arguing for an aggressive, expansionist British military posture ('an extrovert defence policy'). This is apparently known as 'horizon stretching' in Whitehall (Lobster 8, 1985). Leader-writer, Westminster Press, 1951-1960; defence correspondent, ITN, 1961; consultant, International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1964-1970; defence correspondent, Observer, 1963; defence correspondent, Guardian, 1967-1969; advisor to Ministry of Defence, NATO and US Government; Deputy Director of the Royal United Services Institute, 1967-1970; Director of the British Atlantic Committee, 1975-1982; founder member of the Intermediate Technology Development Group, 1967; founder member of the International Peace Academy, New York, 1970; mission to Biafra with Leonard Cheshire, 1969; International Secretary, Church of England, 1972-1980.

• Sir Gilbert Longden: actively involved with a number of bodies including the Council of Europe, Conservative Group for Europe, Great Britain-East Europe Centre, United Nations, Chairman of the British Atlantic Committee and Vice-Chairman of the British Council. A founder members of the One Nation group of Conservatives MPs, he helped found the Great Britain-East Europe Centre. Having met Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi in India to discuss the campaign for Indian independence on 26 May 1945, he retained a concern for Indian affairs. He later became an opponent of apartheid in South Africa and having reportedly made attempts to persuade the Government to take a stronger line on this issue, he was deposed as Chairman of the back-bench Foreign Affairs Committee in 1961. In later years he emerged as a pro-Israeli and Chairman of the All-Party British Israel Committee. Although he retired in 1974 his interest in politics continued and his views were regularly published in the letters columns of the Daily Telegraph.
• Group Captain David Bolton: Director of the Royal United Services Institute who joined the British Atlantic Committee in 1981, the same year as Robertson. He is a former head of central planning at the Ministry of Defence and also an early overseer of the British American Project for the Successor Generation (see Tom Easton Lobster 33, 1997).
• John Watson: Assistant to Edward Heath 1970; Conservative MP Skipton 1979; President British Youth Council 1980; Chairman British Atlantic Group of Young Political Leaders 1982 and a member of Green Alliance (see Lobster 42, 2001).
• Major General C.J.Popham: BAC Director.
• Lord Neil Cameron: BAC President, Marshal of the Royal Air Force (Retd.) Asst. Chief of Defence Staff (Policy) in 1968. Senior Air Staff Officer, Air Support Command (1970-76), Chief of Air Staff (1976-77) and Supreme Chief of Defence Staff (1977-79). President of the British Atlantic Committee and Principal of King's Coll., London 1979-.