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Article source: http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/uk/rss/~3/Y1gkPH1kkoY/english-defence-league-woolwich-video

A government agency has licensed the secret destruction of the eggs and nests of buzzards to protect a pheasant shoot, according to documents released under the Freedom of Information Act.

The action sets a historic precedent, being the first time such action has been licensed against any bird of prey to protect game shoots since raptors gained legal protection decades ago. Buzzards are recovering from near extinction and now number 40,000 breeding pairs, while 35m pheasants are bred each year for shoots.

It is also less than a year after the wildlife minister, Richard Benyon, abandoned related plans citing “public concerns”. Benyon, whose family estate in Berkshire runs shoots, cancelled plans to spend £375,000 on testing control measures for buzzards around pheasant shoots after a public outcry in May 2012. “I will collaborate with all the organisations that have an interest in this issue and will bring forward new proposals,” he said at the time.

The destruction of the nests, which took place in the last few weeks, was only revealed after the event through a freedom of information request by the RSPB.

A man holds a dead pheasant shot during a pheasant hunt in Lewknor, England. Photograph: Eddie Keogh/Reuters

“We were proceeding collaboratively and that is why we are so angry now,” said Martin Harper, the RSPB’s conservation director. “Most people would prefer to see buzzards soaring in the sky. They are big, majestic creatures in the wild and we don’t have many of them in the UK: they are England’s eagle. The fact the licence process takes place without public scrutiny is wrong.”

The licences were issued by the government’s licensing body, Natural England (NE) and permitted destruction of up to four nests and the eggs they held. “The law allows action to be taken against protected species to protect livestock, which includes any animal kept for the provision or improvement of shooting,” said a spokesman for NE. “We rigorously assessed the application [and] were satisfied the case met the criteria.”

The locations of the destroyed nests were not made public. NE stated the issue was “emotive and sensitive” and cited “public safety”. NE issued the licences despite its own expert reviewer stating: “There is no body of published evidence demonstrating that the presence of buzzards is likely to result in serious damage to a game shoot.” A related application to kill sparrowhawks was rejected.

The National Gamekeepers Organisation (NGO) was closely involved in winning the licences and had threatened NE with judicial review if they were not granted. “We believe the long-standing licensing process was correctly used in this case,” said a spokesman. “A few buzzards had been consistently killing a large number of pheasants. Most birds of prey are now at or near record levels in the UK, so conflicts with game management and farming are bound to occur from time to time.”

Pheasants are not native to the UK and were introduced to stock shoots, but the biomass of the population makes it now the single biggest bird species in the countryside. The growing popularity of shoots in the Victorian era saw buzzards poisoned, shot and trapped until just 1,000 pairs were left, but protection in recent decades has led to a partial recovery.

Jeff Knott, the RSPB’s bird of prey expert, said: “The buzzard has full legal protection, so why are we undermining this when all the available evidence shows they are not a significant source of loss of pheasant chicks.” An independent study commissioned by the British Association for Shooting and Conservation found that, on average, 1-2% of pheasant poults released were taken by all birds of prey, Knott said, adding that a third of all pheasants are killed on the roads. The NGO spokesman said the buzzard control project was cancelled last year after the RSPB’s campaign would have provided evidence of predation: “They can’t have it both ways.”

A spokeswoman for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said: “After a thorough assessment, Natural England granted a licence for the removal of a small number of buzzard nests. Buzzard populations are thriving in the UK and this licensed action had no effect on their population.”

Labour’s environment secretary, Mary Creagh, said buzzards had recovered under the previous government: “This latest revelation blasts a hole in ministers’ empty words about protecting Britain’s iconic native species. It is astounding the government has granted licences after ministers were forced to U-turn last year.” She also criticised Benyon: “Who exactly do ministers think they are there to serve? “

A key criteria for the granting of the licences was that all non-lethal control methods, such as creating places for pheasants to hide and diverting buzzards away by leaving food out, had been unsuccessfully tried. But the NE expert who reviewed the application reported: “Overall, there is a pattern of [non-lethal] methods being employed inconsistently.” The reviewer also noted that “the efficacy of [nest and egg destruction] is untested”. Harper said the RSPB was considering its legal options.

The government has previously been criticised for favouring grouse shooting in the Pennines, after NE abandoned plans to ban the burning of peat land on a grouse moor and withdrew from a related legal action against the Walshaw Moor estate.

Article source: http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/uk/rss/~3/0JW97FNpS7Q/government-licenced-buzzard-egg-destruction

Investing in new renewable power generation, rather than a “dash for gas”, will be the lower-cost option for keeping the lights on while cutting greenhouse gas emissions, the government’s climate change watchdog has said.

The sooner the UK makes large investments in low-carbon generation – including offshore and onshore wind, nuclear power and energy from waste – the cheaper it will be, according to David Kennedy, chief executive of the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), the statutory body that advises ministers on meeting emissions targets.

The conclusions are likely to be controversial, as many MPs on the right of the Tory party have been clamouring for an end to onshore windfarms and reductions in renewable subsidies.

They would prefer to see a new “dash for gas” that would require the UK to massively expand shale gas drilling and import tens of billions of pounds worth of fuel each year as North Sea reserves run down. They point to lower gas prices in the US that have resulted from the aggressive pursuit of shale resources.

The CCC’s analysis found that investing in renewable energy made sense even if the price of gas was relatively low. Previous analysis by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) relied on scenarios of large increases in the gas price to make renewables and other forms of low-carbon power, such as nuclear, more economic.

Kennedy told the Guardian: “Not investing in renewables only makes sense if you don’t want to meet our emissions targets – if you tear up the Climate Change Act.”

That is precisely what some on the rightwing of the Tory party would like to do, although the act passed in 2008 with just a handful of no votes. The opponents included Peter Lilley, recently appointed as a senior adviser to David Cameron, although No 10 said his focus would be on foreign policy and not on energy.

A DECC spokeswoman said: “We agree with the CCC on both the need to invest in a portfolio of low-carbon technologies, and the need to reduce our dependence on imported gas which is the main factor driving up household energy bills.

“We recently trebled support for low-carbon technologies to £7.6bn to 2020, and have introduced landmark legislation through the energy bill to incentivise £110bn of investment in clean energy infrastructure, which has the potential to support 250,000 jobs in the energy sector.”

Kennedy said targets on emissions from the electricity sector to 2030 were likely to be needed, in order to spur low-carbon investment by giving companies the clarity and certainty they needed to put money into UK projects.

The government has rejected a target of decarbonising electricity generation by 2030, as had been proposed for the energy bill now on its passage through parliament. Tim Yeo, the Tory former minister, is leading a rebellion on the target, which he wants reinstated, and has gathered at least 45 supporters including the prominent Tories Zac Goldsmith and Sir Peter Bottomley.

Green campaigners welcomed the CCC report. Leila Deen, energy campaigner at Greenpeace, said: “Every MP in British politics should take heed of this report, because in two weeks’ time they’ll be making the biggest changes to the UK’s energy system in a generation when they vote on the energy bill.

“The CCC’s advice is clear: a clean energy system is better for business and better for consumers. George Osborne has ripped a 2030 decarbonisation target from the bill, but with hundreds of businesses and investors crying foul, it’s up to coalition MPs to vote it back in.”

The passage of the energy bill promises to be tempestuous because of the deep divisions within the Tory party on energy and climate change. Yeo said: “This report raises serious concerns about the mixed messages the government has been sending on energy and climate change policy. The energy bill is supposed to deliver billions of pounds of investment in clean energy infrastructure by providing long-term certainty and reducing capital costs, but the Treasury has undermined investor confidence by stripping the legislation of a clear carbon reduction target.”

Article source: http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/uk/rss/~3/w0lmzvJ_rdg/renewable-energy-committee-climate-change

• Government emergency committee Cobra
• Two men under arrest in hospital
• Man brutally killed in broad daylight on London street

Article source: http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/uk/rss/~3/82BbIgRHgrk/woolwich-latest-developments-live

“I was just on my way home after a trip to France. I was visiting my children in Plumstead and I had taken a 53 bus to get to Parliament Square where I was going to meet my children and walk to Victoria coach station before getting the coach to Helston in Cornwall.

“I was sitting on the lower deck and the bus stopped. I could clearly see a body in the road and a crashed car. I trained as a first aider when I was a Brownie leader, so I asked someone to watch my bag and then got off to see if I could help.

“I went over to the body where there was a lady sitting there and she said he was dead. She had comforted him by putting something under his back and a jacket over his head. I took his pulse and there was none. I couldn’t see the man’s face but I could see no evidence that suggested someone had tried to cut off his head. I could see nothing on him to suggest that he was a soldier.

“Then a black guy with a black hat and a revolver in one hand and a cleaver in the other came over. He was very excited and he told me not to get close to the body. I didn’t really feel anything. I was not scared because he was not drunk, he was not on drugs. He was normal. I could speak to him and he wanted to speak and that’s what we did.

“I spoke to him for more than five minutes. I asked him why he had done what he had done. He said he had killed the man because he [the victim] was a British soldier who killed Muslim women and children in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was furious about the British army being over there.

“There was blood on the pavement by the car where the man on the ground had been hit by it.At first there was no blood by the body but as I talked to the man it began to flow which worried me because blood needs a beating heart to flow. But I didn’t want to annoy the man by going back to the body.

Ingrid Loyau-Kennett

I asked him what he was going to do next because the police were going to arrive soon. He said it was a war and if the police were coming, he was going to kill them. I asked him if that was a reasonable thing to do but it was clear that he really wanted to do that. He talked about war but he did not talk about dying and then he left to speak to someone else.

“I went to speak to the other man who was quieter and more shy. I asked him if he wanted to give me what he was holding in his hand, which was a knife but I didn’t want to say that. He didn’t agree and I asked him: ‘Do you want to carry on?’ He said: ‘No, no, no.’ I didn’t want to upset him and then the other man came back to me. I asked him what he wanted to do next.

“At that point, there were so many people around that I didn’t want him to get scared or agitated. I kept talking to him to keep him occupied.

“Then I saw my bus was moving and I knew that the police would arrive very soon. I asked him if there was anything else I could do for him because my bus was about to leave and he said no.

“I got on the bus and, after 10 seconds, someone came on and told everyone to get down. I saw a police car pulling up and a police man and policewoman getting out. The two black men ran towards the car and the officers shot them in the legs, I think.

“When the shooting started, I was not scared. There was so many women screaming and crying on the bus, it took me a minute to calm them down. I didn’t have a moment to think of myself.

“I could see the man with the black hat on was badly hurt as he was being operated on but both were still moving.”The bus then started to move away. They dropped us in the middle of Lewisham which really annoyed me because I had no idea how to get from there to Parliament Square. “I am just happy that I managed to do something that might have prevented more trouble. I feel fine at the moment but I suppose the shock could hit me later.”

Article source: http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/uk/rss/~3/RnzxBBQW-wk/woolwich-first-person-account

“I was just on my way home after a trip to France. I was visiting my children in Plumstead and I had taken a 53 bus to get to Parliament Square where I was going to meet my children and walk to Victoria coach station before getting the coach to Helston in Cornwall.

“I was sitting on the lower deck and the bus stopped. I could clearly see a body in the road and a crashed car. I trained as a first aider when I was a Brownie leader, so I asked someone to watch my bag and then got off to see if I could help.

“I went over to the body where there was a lady sitting there and she said he was dead. She had comforted him by putting something under his back and a jacket over his head. I took his pulse and there was none. I couldn’t see the man’s face but I could see no evidence that suggested someone had tried to cut off his head. I could see nothing on him to suggest that he was a soldier.

“Then a black guy with a black hat and a revolver in one hand and a cleaver in the other came over. He was very excited and he told me not to get close to the body. I didn’t really feel anything. I was not scared because he was not drunk, he was not on drugs. He was normal. I could speak to him and he wanted to speak and that’s what we did.

“I spoke to him for more than five minutes. I asked him why he had done what he had done. He said he had killed the man because he [the victim] was a British soldier who killed Muslim women and children in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was furious about the British army being over there.

“There was blood on the pavement by the car where the man on the ground had been hit by it.At first there was no blood by the body but as I talked to the man it began to flow which worried me because blood needs a beating heart to flow. But I didn’t want to annoy the man by going back to the body.

Ingrid Loyau-Kennett

I asked him what he was going to do next because the police were going to arrive soon. He said it was a war and if the police were coming, he was going to kill them. I asked him if that was a reasonable thing to do but it was clear that he really wanted to do that. He talked about war but he did not talk about dying and then he left to speak to someone else.

“I went to speak to the other man who was quieter and more shy. I asked him if he wanted to give me what he was holding in his hand, which was a knife but I didn’t want to say that. He didn’t agree and I asked him: ‘Do you want to carry on?’ He said: ‘No, no, no.’ I didn’t want to upset him and then the other man came back to me. I asked him what he wanted to do next.

“At that point, there were so many people around that I didn’t want him to get scared or agitated. I kept talking to him to keep him occupied.

“Then I saw my bus was moving and I knew that the police would arrive very soon. I asked him if there was anything else I could do for him because my bus was about to leave and he said no.

“I got on the bus and, after 10 seconds, someone came on and told everyone to get down. I saw a police car pulling up and a police man and policewoman getting out. The two black men ran towards the car and the officers shot them in the legs, I think.

“When the shooting started, I was not scared. There was so many women screaming and crying on the bus, it took me a minute to calm them down. I didn’t have a moment to think of myself.

“I could see the man with the black hat on was badly hurt as he was being operated on but both were still moving.”The bus then started to move away. They dropped us in the middle of Lewisham which really annoyed me because I had no idea how to get from there to Parliament Square. “I am just happy that I managed to do something that might have prevented more trouble. I feel fine at the moment but I suppose the shock could hit me later.”

Article source: http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/uk/rss/~3/RnzxBBQW-wk/woolwich-first-person-account

MI6 spent the present-day equivalent of more than $200m bribing senior Spanish military officers, ship owners and other agents to keep Spain out of the second world war, files released today disclose.

More and more money was delivered, mainly via a Swiss bank account in New York, as Sir Samuel Hoare, Britain’s ambassador in Madrid, warned London that unless it was paid, there was a real and immediate danger of Spain abandoning its neutrality and of Franco joining forces with Nazi Germany.

In June 1940, Hoare was demanding an initial $1m. “I personally urge authority be granted without delay, and that if you have doubts, the prime minister be consulted,” he told the Foreign Office in London. “Yes indeed,” Churchill initialled on a copy of Hoare’s deciphered telegram in red ink.

One file names “Senores Jose Jorro Andreo and Rasado Silva” Torres as recipients of British funds sent, in their case, to the Bank of Portugal in Lisbon.

“It may well be that Spain’s entry in the war will depend on our quick action,” telegraphed Hoare in another urgent plea for MI6 cash to spend on agents. The situation was “cricial”, he insisted: “I cannot spend spare time to explain the position in detail.”

Hoare claimed that British money was responsible for the arrest of people plotting to persuade the Spanish dictator to join the war on Germany’s side. Hoare succeeded in persuading ministers in London. A top secret message from Lord Halifax, the foreign secretary, referred to British contact with guerrillas in the event of Spain being invaded by Germany. “Please burn this letter when you have read it,” he told Hoare.

British agents later made contacts in Lisbon with an unnamed Spanish Republican leader and representatives of the Allianza Democratica Española. Churchill’s concerns that British agents were “contacting ‘Reds’ with the object of stirring up a revolution” were allayed by Hugh Dalton, the minister for economic warfare, the files show.

At least $14m, some $200m in today’s value, from MI6′s secret vote was spent on Spanish agents during the second world war, according to the documents. At one point, British ministers persuaded the US to unblock cash for Spanish agents held in banks in New York.

Franco seemed determined throughout the war to remain neutral, though was on close terms with Germany behind the scenes.

Spaniards were not the only beneficiaries of MI6 money approved by FO ministers. “We recently put forward to our ambassador in Baghdad a suggestion for the adoption of large-scale bribery of politicians and other leading personalities in Iraq,” says a file dated January 1941. The file suggests that Britain had to keep up with the Italians and Germans, placing an initial £100,000 at the embassy’s disposal. The document then adds: “We have been trying by hook or by crook to dislodge the Iraqi prime minister” – a reference to the pro-Axis Rashid Ali al-Gaylani.

The spy who cross-dressed

An MI6 officer was arrested by police in Madrid during the second world war dressed “down to a brassiere, as a woman”, a file disclosed today recalls. Dudley Clarke, masquerading as a Times journalist, said he told Spanish police he was a “novelist and wanted to study the reactions of men to women in the streets”. He later explained that he was taking the “feminine garments to a lady in Gibraltar and thought that he would try them on “for a prank”.

An anxious report to C, the head of MI6, in London reported that among the items in his suitcase was a “roll of super fine toilet paper, which particularly excited the police, who are submitting the sheets to chemical tests”.

Communications intercepted by the British revealed that German officials described the case as a “first class espionage incident”.

But Clarke was released, and quickly made for Gibraltar. “Please keep him under strict surveillance and despatch to Middle East by next plane,” C told Gibraltar’s governor. “If he shows signs of mental derangement, he should however be sent home by first ship.”

He did not. Clarke “went on to have a brilliant career in deception”, wrote Keith Jeffrey in his official MI6 history.

Article source: http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/uk/rss/~3/nqiuwjxurXM/mi6-spain-200m-bribes-ww2

MI6 spent the present-day equivalent of more than $200m bribing senior Spanish military officers, ship owners and other agents to keep Spain out of the second world war, files released today disclose.

More and more money was delivered, mainly via a Swiss bank account in New York, as Sir Samuel Hoare, Britain’s ambassador in Madrid, warned London that unless it was paid, there was a real and immediate danger of Spain abandoning its neutrality and of Franco joining forces with Nazi Germany.

In June 1940, Hoare was demanding an initial $1m. “I personally urge authority be granted without delay, and that if you have doubts, the prime minister be consulted,” he told the Foreign Office in London. “Yes indeed,” Churchill initialled on a copy of Hoare’s deciphered telegram in red ink.

One file names “Senores Jose Jorro Andreo and Rasado Silva” Torres as recipients of British funds sent, in their case, to the Bank of Portugal in Lisbon.

“It may well be that Spain’s entry in the war will depend on our quick action,” telegraphed Hoare in another urgent plea for MI6 cash to spend on agents. The situation was “cricial”, he insisted: “I cannot spend spare time to explain the position in detail.”

Hoare claimed that British money was responsible for the arrest of people plotting to persuade the Spanish dictator to join the war on Germany’s side. Hoare succeeded in persuading ministers in London. A top secret message from Lord Halifax, the foreign secretary, referred to British contact with guerrillas in the event of Spain being invaded by Germany. “Please burn this letter when you have read it,” he told Hoare.

British agents later made contacts in Lisbon with an unnamed Spanish Republican leader and representatives of the Allianza Democratica Española. Churchill’s concerns that British agents were “contacting ‘Reds’ with the object of stirring up a revolution” were allayed by Hugh Dalton, the minister for economic warfare, the files show.

At least $14m, some $200m in today’s value, from MI6′s secret vote was spent on Spanish agents during the second world war, according to the documents. At one point, British ministers persuaded the US to unblock cash for Spanish agents held in banks in New York.

Franco seemed determined throughout the war to remain neutral, though was on close terms with Germany behind the scenes.

Spaniards were not the only beneficiaries of MI6 money approved by FO ministers. “We recently put forward to our ambassador in Baghdad a suggestion for the adoption of large-scale bribery of politicians and other leading personalities in Iraq,” says a file dated January 1941. The file suggests that Britain had to keep up with the Italians and Germans, placing an initial £100,000 at the embassy’s disposal. The document then adds: “We have been trying by hook or by crook to dislodge the Iraqi prime minister” – a reference to the pro-Axis Rashid Ali al-Gaylani.

The spy who cross-dressed

An MI6 officer was arrested by police in Madrid during the second world war dressed “down to a brassiere, as a woman”, a file disclosed today recalls. Dudley Clarke, masquerading as a Times journalist, said he told Spanish police he was a “novelist and wanted to study the reactions of men to women in the streets”. He later explained that he was taking the “feminine garments to a lady in Gibraltar and thought that he would try them on “for a prank”.

An anxious report to C, the head of MI6, in London reported that among the items in his suitcase was a “roll of super fine toilet paper, which particularly excited the police, who are submitting the sheets to chemical tests”.

Communications intercepted by the British revealed that German officials described the case as a “first class espionage incident”.

But Clarke was released, and quickly made for Gibraltar. “Please keep him under strict surveillance and despatch to Middle East by next plane,” C told Gibraltar’s governor. “If he shows signs of mental derangement, he should however be sent home by first ship.”

He did not. Clarke “went on to have a brilliant career in deception”, wrote Keith Jeffrey in his official MI6 history.

Article source: http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/uk/rss/~3/nqiuwjxurXM/mi6-spain-200m-bribes-ww2

MI6 drew up plans for clandestine operations, including the “liquidation of selected individuals” and “kidnapping of high ranking Communist personalities” as the second world war led to the cold war, secret intelligence files released Thursday at the National Archives reveal.

The prime targets of the secret intelligence service were leading Soviet personalities. A file from 1947 entitled Covert Propaganda, listed “plants” and “fictitious indiscretions” as potential weapons.

The file notes said: “Action could be taken to discredit prominent Communist and other public figures, and to propagate dissension in Communist parties and organisations by (i) dispatch of forged letters through the post, and (ii) the planting of manufactured evidence.”

Referring to the head of MI6, known, as that person still is, as “C” for chief, an intelligence officer told Ernest Bevin, the foreign secretary: “C’s organisation should be given a free hand to carry out such special operations as are possible in peacetime in the Soviet Union itself and in Soviet zones of Germany and Austria.”

To the irritation of MI6 and military chiefs, Bevin, like the prime minister, Clement Attlee, was squeamish about what the MI6 papers euphemistically called special purposes and subterranean work.

Responding to the MI6 memo, Bevin wrote: “I have grave objections to this. We are letting loose forces difficult to control … I did not regard it too successful (sic) in the war.”

Ministers later softened their opposition to such MI6 operations in Europe and elsewhere, and “licensed to kill” was not officially abandoned until the mid 1950s.

During the later stages of the second world war, the files show, MI6 drew up a list of key German figures, included senior Gestapo officers, to be assassinated before the planned D-Day Normandy landings, at the request of US officers at the HQ of the allied commander, General Dwight Eisenhower.

Field Marshal Rommel, the “desert fox” who had been defeated in North Africa but who was commanding German troops in northern France, was a candidate for assassination.

However, the plan was dropped before D-Day amid concerns it would lead to what an MI6 officer called “a wave of murderings”. He warned against reprisals against civilians and allied prisoners of war held by the Germans. The officer advised: “It is likely that for every successful assassination, there will be two or three failures, as past records of these attempts show.”

Stewart Menzies, who was C, agreed, as did Victor Cavendish-Bentinck, chairman of the joint intelligence committee. “Not out of squeamishness”, he said, “as there are several people in this world whom I could kill with my own hands with a feeling of pleasure and without that action in any way spoiling my appetite, but I think that it is the type of bright idea which in the end produces a good deal of trouble and does little good.”

But in June 1944 British agents received reports of a plot to kill Hitler and of his having been spotted in the southern French town of Perpignan disguised and fleeing to north Africa.

Defence chiefs told Winston Churchill they were “unanimous that, from the strictly military point of view, it was almost an advantage that Hitler should remain in control of German strategy, having regard to the blunders that he has made, but that on the wider point of view, the sooner he was got rid of the better”.

MI6 believed the Middle East could provide fertile ground for its covert activities. In a file marked oral propaganda, it reported in 1947: “The widespread illiteracy among the people of the Middle East … points to the value of the spoken word as an effective means of propaganda. This kind of propaganda could be put across by the Moslem clergy, both Sunni and Shia, in the Arab countries and in Persia.”

The MI6 noted added: “But they will need to be supplied with the compelling arguments based on a comparison of Communist tenets with Moslem and Christian principles and teaching.”

C wondered whether to assign an officer after the war to the British embassy in Paris to spy on the French. He agreed to do so, the files show, in a letter which he instructed the recipient to burn.

But C wondered what cover his officer should have. After dismissing the labels of cultural attache and commercial secretary, the decision was made to call him “military adviser to the ambassador”.

The man chosen for the task was AJ Ayer, who became well-known as a philosopher. Ayer did not stay long in Paris before he was replaced by MI6 and returned to Britain.

Article source: http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/uk/rss/~3/VT59Vhe3ynY/wartime-mi6-targets-national-archives

MI6 drew up plans for clandestine operations, including the “liquidation of selected individuals” and “kidnapping of high ranking Communist personalities” as the second world war led to the cold war, secret intelligence files released Thursday at the National Archives reveal.

The prime targets of the secret intelligence service were leading Soviet personalities. A file from 1947 entitled Covert Propaganda, listed “plants” and “fictitious indiscretions” as potential weapons.

The file notes said: “Action could be taken to discredit prominent Communist and other public figures, and to propagate dissension in Communist parties and organisations by (i) dispatch of forged letters through the post, and (ii) the planting of manufactured evidence.”

Referring to the head of MI6, known, as that person still is, as “C” for chief, an intelligence officer told Ernest Bevin, the foreign secretary: “C’s organisation should be given a free hand to carry out such special operations as are possible in peacetime in the Soviet Union itself and in Soviet zones of Germany and Austria.”

To the irritation of MI6 and military chiefs, Bevin, like the prime minister, Clement Attlee, was squeamish about what the MI6 papers euphemistically called special purposes and subterranean work.

Responding to the MI6 memo, Bevin wrote: “I have grave objections to this. We are letting loose forces difficult to control … I did not regard it too successful (sic) in the war.”

Ministers later softened their opposition to such MI6 operations in Europe and elsewhere, and “licensed to kill” was not officially abandoned until the mid 1950s.

During the later stages of the second world war, the files show, MI6 drew up a list of key German figures, included senior Gestapo officers, to be assassinated before the planned D-Day Normandy landings, at the request of US officers at the HQ of the allied commander, General Dwight Eisenhower.

Field Marshal Rommel, the “desert fox” who had been defeated in North Africa but who was commanding German troops in northern France, was a candidate for assassination.

However, the plan was dropped before D-Day amid concerns it would lead to what an MI6 officer called “a wave of murderings”. He warned against reprisals against civilians and allied prisoners of war held by the Germans. The officer advised: “It is likely that for every successful assassination, there will be two or three failures, as past records of these attempts show.”

Stewart Menzies, who was C, agreed, as did Victor Cavendish-Bentinck, chairman of the joint intelligence committee. “Not out of squeamishness”, he said, “as there are several people in this world whom I could kill with my own hands with a feeling of pleasure and without that action in any way spoiling my appetite, but I think that it is the type of bright idea which in the end produces a good deal of trouble and does little good.”

But in June 1944 British agents received reports of a plot to kill Hitler and of his having been spotted in the southern French town of Perpignan disguised and fleeing to north Africa.

Defence chiefs told Winston Churchill they were “unanimous that, from the strictly military point of view, it was almost an advantage that Hitler should remain in control of German strategy, having regard to the blunders that he has made, but that on the wider point of view, the sooner he was got rid of the better”.

MI6 believed the Middle East could provide fertile ground for its covert activities. In a file marked oral propaganda, it reported in 1947: “The widespread illiteracy among the people of the Middle East … points to the value of the spoken word as an effective means of propaganda. This kind of propaganda could be put across by the Moslem clergy, both Sunni and Shia, in the Arab countries and in Persia.”

The MI6 noted added: “But they will need to be supplied with the compelling arguments based on a comparison of Communist tenets with Moslem and Christian principles and teaching.”

C wondered whether to assign an officer after the war to the British embassy in Paris to spy on the French. He agreed to do so, the files show, in a letter which he instructed the recipient to burn.

But C wondered what cover his officer should have. After dismissing the labels of cultural attache and commercial secretary, the decision was made to call him “military adviser to the ambassador”.

The man chosen for the task was AJ Ayer, who became well-known as a philosopher. Ayer did not stay long in Paris before he was replaced by MI6 and returned to Britain.

Article source: http://feeds.guardian.co.uk/~r/theguardian/uk/rss/~3/VT59Vhe3ynY/wartime-mi6-targets-national-archives