-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/"> </A> -Cui Bono?- http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/Sunday-Times/frontpage.html Young Britons lose sense of nation Jack Grimston MEET the post-British generation. They see themselves as English, Scottish or Welsh patriots and would be prepared to die for their country. Neither Britain nor Europe are their homeland and they associate the Queen with the British past. The picture presented by a Sunday Times poll of more than 1,000 British schoolchildren confirms fears that tensions could grow between the countries of a devolved United Kingdom. Typical of the new English is Natalie Harris, 13, a pupil at John Bramston school in Witham, Essex. "I'm English and I've never thought of myself as anything else," she said. It emerged last week that an internal cabinet report warned Tony Blair that British identity could be in permanent decline. "International institutions, sub-national entities and the courts all have their own dynamic, over which national government has only limited influence," said the report from the Performance and Innovation Unit.The poll supports the unit's view, with a majority believing the British identity is breaking up. A large minority, 35%, even believe that in 20 years the country will be divided into states separated by border crossings. However, individualism does not seem to have overtaken children completely: most are prepared to die for their country. In Scotland, 20% are ready to lay down their lives even if they disagreed with the cause. "These results show that youngsters are neither British nor European," said John Charmley, a historian at the University of East Anglia. "They show a backlash against the beliefs of the older generation. The English are increasingly defining themselves as such in reaction to rising Scottish and Welsh national feeling." Charmley fears that tensions could arise between the different nationalities in areas such as public spending, where the Celtic countries receive proportionately more of Britain's central funds than England. The new generation appears to be alert to such dangers. Although their identity is not British, young people see few attractions in a full break-up. Most English children who have an opinion on the subject believe that Scottish and Welsh MPs should continue to sit at Westminster, while there is little interest in the regional English assemblies proposed by many new Labour supporters. Traditional icons remain popular. The most potent symbols for English respondents were the national anthem, the England football team and the Palace of Westminster. In addition, there is little sign that the rival pulls of Europe and globalisation are competing with the dying British identity. Only 1% of English children, and almost no Scots or Welsh, said they thought of themselves first as Europeans. Vink Tran, 15, was born in Britain of Vietnamese parents and also goes to John Bramston school. "I tend to think of Europe as foreign and that I live in England," he said. In addition to more than 800 English pupils, 200 Scottish and 100 Welsh children were surveyed. Their rejection of Britain is even more pronounced. In Wales, 79% of pupils saw themselves as Welsh first; in Scotland the figure was 82%. John Wyn Jones, head teacher of Ysgol Uwchradd Bodedern, a comprehensive in Anglesey, refused to distribute the questionnaire because it was not in Welsh. "This is Wales, boy. It's a nation, not a state," he told a researcher. Not all young people have foresaken Britannia. Katherine Rich, 15, of Henleaze, Bristol, said she lived in Great Britain. She was "definitely not European" and saw the national anthem as the defining feature of her nationality. The report's findings support efforts by Buckingham Palace to portray the monarchy as cement holding the UK together. Half of English respondents saw the Queen as British, although most Scots and Welsh thought she was English. Old bloodlines die hard, though: 16% of English children think the Queen is German. The Sunday Times surveyed more than 1,000 children aged 13-16 at schools in England, Scotland and Wales last week, asking nine questions related to national identity. -------------------- <A HREF="http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/Sunday-Times/frontpage.html">ht tp://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/Sunday-Times/frontpage.html </A>===== http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/Sunday-Times/frontpage.html March 19 2000 ESPIONAGE The men from the ministry MI6: Fifty Years of Special Operations by Stephen Dorril Fourth Estate �25 pp907 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- PHILLIP KNIGHTLEY Read on ... In 1956 Major Francis Quinn, the head of MI6's "Q" Ops Department and the real-life version of the long- suffering boffin in the James Bond films, was asked to inject some lethal poison into a popular brand of Egyptian chocolates. It did not take Quinn long to figure out what was going on - MI6 planned to assassinate President Gamal Abdel Nasser, the troublesome leader of Egypt. Quinn did the job, but told his section head that he was concerned that Nasser might offer a deadly chocolate to some innocent person. " was assured there would be no danger of this in the planned precise arrangements for donation and subsequent removal of evidence." The chocolates were handed over, but since Nasser lived until 1970, the arrangements must have gone wrong somewhere down the line - as a lot of spy plots tend to do. This is just one of the many MI6 operations Stephen Dorril describes in this huge book on the service's history since the second world war. It is an ambitious project. Similar but less exhaustive books have been written either by former MI6 officers or trusted historians. Dorril is an outsider, but he has several interesting theories. The first is that too much attention has been paid to traitors such as Philby, Burgess, Blake, Blunt, Cairncross and Maclean (Foreign Office), and not enough to what MI6 itself did over the past 50 years. Next, that, contrary to received opinion, the activities of MI6 are not as secret as it likes to make out, and that there is more in the public domain than anyone realised. The first theory is a matter of opinion. I believe the focus on Philby et al had to do with explaining Britain's post-war decline - "It wasn't our fault; we were betrayed from within." But the second theory turns out to be spot on. From a wide range of sources, many of which I have not encountered before, Dorril paints a disturbing picture of a secret service whose power and wideranging activities make it more a government within a government, shaping and implementing British foreign policy towards the image of the world it wants to see. This is not only conservative, but anti-nationalist and anti- reformist. MI6 was in love with the way things were before the war, saw the fight against Nazi Germany as a mere interlude in the struggle against Bolshevism, and believed that the spy was the guardian of all that was great in Britain. Dorril quotes one MI6 officer, George Young, expounding what could be termed the spy's manifesto: "The nuclear stalemate is matched by a moral stalemate. It is the spy who has been called upon to remedy the situation . . . We do not have to develop, like parliamentarians conditioned by a lifetime, the ability to produce the ready phrase, the smart reply and the flashing smile. And so it is not surprising these days that the spy finds himself the main guardian of intellectual integrity." So, over the past 50 years, there they were, up to their necks in all the main international events involving Britain - Palestine, Greece, the cold war, Suez, Cyprus, Iran, Africa, Yemen and the general retreat from Empire. They recruited some of the brightest and best. They loved journalists. There was hardly a newspaper, magazine, radio or television station without an MI6 officer under cover or an agent working on it. Dorril writes: "The Spectator unknowingly served as 'cover' for three MI6 officers working in Bosnia, Belgrade and Moldova." And they recruited some important national leaders, among them, says Dorril, Nelson Mandela. This claim should be treated with caution. Dorril carefully writes, "Another MI6 catch was ANC leader Nelson Mandela," leaving open what he means by "catch". Does he mean Mandela was a witting agent of MI6? Or, more likely, that MI6 had friendly dealings with Mandela, felt it could rely on his sympathy and so regarded him - probably without his knowledge - as "an agent of influence"? Morality and fair dealing did not come into it. In order to recruit a prominent Egyptian intelligence chief, MI6 offered him valuable intelligence about Israel. "Harming Israel's security . . . did not appear to trouble the conscience of the British," said one Mossad officer. Even the British judiciary was not immune. When the Americans insisted that the traitor George Blake be heavily punished, Harold Macmillan, the prime minister, Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller, the Attorney-General, and Lord Parker, the Lord Chief Justice, "cooked up" between them the sentence of 42 years' jail. Such ethics infected politicians who had anything to do with MI6. When the Soviet shooting down of the American U-2 pilot, Gary Powers, threatened to reveal that there had also been British U-2 flights over the USSR, George Ward, the air minister, told MI6 that he was prepared to lie to Parliament if he could get away with it. Now that the cold war is over, is MI6 finished or just diminished? Dorril says it is actually stronger and better funded than ever. Only its targets have changed. "Ten officers in the UKB Unit at MI6 headquarters have been running Operation Jetstream, which directs economic espionage against France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Switzerland." Dorril says MI6's real budget is anything from twice to five times the official figure of �776m. And it is just as successful in seducing Labour politicians as it has been with others. Robin Cook, the foreign secretary, has gone out of his way to laud MI6: "I have been struck by the range and quality of their work." If you want to compare this praise with the reality, then read this revealing book. Phillip Knightley is the author of The Second Oldest Profession, a history of intelligence services. MI6 by Stephen Dorril is available at the Sunday Times Bookshop special price of �22 inc p&p on 0870 165 8585 Read on ... Website: www.five.org.uk/security/security.htm How MI6 is coping with reduced post-cold war activities -------------------- <A HREF="http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/Sunday-Times/frontpage.html">ht tp://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/Sunday-Times/frontpage.html</A> ===== http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/Sunday-Times/frontpage.html March 19 2000 BRITAIN Met chief blames arson on army Liam Clarke BRITAIN'S most senior police officer believes that a covert British Army unit burgled and burnt down his offices in order to destroy incriminating evidence. Sir John Stevens, commissioner of the Metropolitan police, has ordered an investigation after The Sunday Times revealed that the army intelligence corps sabotaged the operations centre of his government-appointed inquiry. It is investigating collusion between the British military and loyalists in Northern Ireland. "There has been a meeting with Special Branch in relation to it and inquiries will continue," said a senior source in the Stevens inquiry. "We will be in close consultation." A whistleblower from the army's Kent-based force research unit (FRU) - one of the most secret in British military intelligence - had said the army intended to delay Stevens's inquiry into the leaking of army intelligence documents to loyalist terrorists. The source said: "The fire is being seriously reviewed in view of what was said in the article. We are also reviewing the entirety of what Martin Ingram [the whistleblower] said in relation to the Stevens inquiry. We take it seriously." Ingram (not his real name) is being pursued by the government, which wants to prosecute him under the Official Secrets Act. Geoff Hoon, the defence secretary, has obtained an injunction against The Sunday Times preventing it from reporting any more of Ingram's revelations. John Wadham, who is Ingram's solicitor, said: "Once the authorities take the law into their own hands, they undermine the very democracy they purport to be protecting. "Such actions should not be tolerated. Once they are, there is no difference between democracy and the dictatorships in Latin America and elsewhere." Ingram alleged that the fire in Stevens's office, put down as a freak accident at the time, could easily have cost the lives of police officers, a point acknowledged by the police. His revelations of dirty tricks by military intelligence were met with immediate denials from the Ministry of Defence, which said that there was no evidence to support them. Despite the denials, Hoon applied for and obtained the High Court injunction. Far from denying Ingram's claims, Hoon argued that the former soldier owed what he called "a duty of confidence/secrecy to the crown". Initially the court order barred this newspaper from reporting even the fact that it had been silenced and from repeating the allegations that it had already published, but the following day Mr Justice Sullivan relaxed these conditions. The Sunday Times has called for a public inquiry. "Martin Ingram is exposing an illegal conspiracy to obstruct justice. A democratic government should not be in the business of hounding him for speaking the truth," said John Witherow, editor of The Sunday Times. Jane Winter, director of British Irish Rights Watch, said she had spoken to Ingram and intended making a report to the United Nations: "The campaign to prosecute him should be brought to an end because it seems to be part of a cover-up rather than the protection of any legitimate national interest. "If it is true that British army intelligence burnt down Stevens's office, then that is more reminiscent of a banana republic than a civilised democracy. It raises serious questions about who sanctioned such an operation; and if it was not sanctioned by any higher authority, then who is in control of British army intelligence?" Ingram has let it be known that he is willing to co-operate with any official inquiry, providing the government abandons its attempt to prosecute him. "I am eager to help the police, but I am not eager to go to jail for it," he said. While the Official Secrets Act has no "public interest" defence, lawyers believe that a jury would be loath to convict a former soldier for exposing illegal acts by British military intelligence. Stevens is heading an independent investigation in Northern Ireland into the murder of Pat Finucane, a Belfast lawyer who was gunned down by loyalists in 1989. Between 1980 and 1991 Ingram was a member of the FRU, which recruited local people to spy on terrorist organisations such as the IRA and the loyalist Ulster Defence Association (UDA). The FRU was modelled on agent-handling units in Germany, the Far East and Central America. Its operational headquarters was in Thiepval barracks, Lisburn, but its real base was the Special Intelligence Wing centre at Repton Manor in Ashford, Kent. This facility has now been closed and the unit has been moved. In 1990 Stevens, then deputy chief constable of Cambridgeshire, was heading an independent inquiry into the leakage of military intelligence to the UDA, who used it to target republicans for assassination. Stevens discovered that the UDA head of intelligence, who collated all the leaked material and handed it out to the hit squads, was Brian Nelson, military intelligence agent number 6137. Although the army argued that Nelson's information on loyalist intentions was used to save lives, Stevens suspected that some killings were allowed to proceed. Finucane's murder is one of those under suspicion. On January 10, 1990, as Stevens prepared to arrest Nelson, a fire broke out at his offices in the then Police Authority of Northern Ireland headquarters at Seapark, in Carrickfergus. The blaze started at about 10.30pm under a table next to a cabinet containing exhibits and statements. A few hours earlier Nelson, who had been tipped off by FRU about the impending arrest, fled to Britain. The fire, which would have ruined Stevens's investigation had he not kept copies of key documents elsewhere, was discovered by chance. At the time it was blamed on a cigarette left in a waste bin, but that did not explain why the fire alarms were not working and the telephone lines were dead. Stevens officially accepted that it was not malicious in February 1990. However, he has always been suspicious that it may have been part of a pattern of intelligence corps attempts to obstruct his inquiry. Besides spiriting its agent out of Northern Ireland, the FRU had impounded Nelson's intelligence material - including lists of UDA targets and contact reports that he had made to his handlers - within a week of the Stevens team's arrival in Belfast. They refused to hand it over until May 1990. Some materials were not handed over until six months after that and some were never handed over. One of these files, already leaked to the press, suggested strongly that Nelson's role was not just to save life. It stated: "6137's appointment enables him to make sure that sectarian killings are not carried out, but that proper targeting of PIRA [Provisional IRA] members takes place prior to any shootings." Another, dated December 30, 1988, says: "6137 is in a position to see that correct targeting is carried out and that sectarian murders are avoided." Ingram claims that the FRU "wanted a little bit of time to construct an alternative cover story" to explain its relationship with Nelson. He revealed that the fire at Stevens's office in Seapark was set by top secret Controlled Methods of Entry (CME) operatives flown in from Repton Manor for the job. The CME specialists, who are trained in lock picking, safe cracking, burglary and the bypassing of burglar alarms, are not normally used in Northern Ireland. There, burglaries to gain access to IRA arms dumps, for instance, or to plant listening devices are carried out by a unit called 14 Intelligence Company. "CME-trained intelligence corps personnel from Ashford were used to try to solve what was essentially an FRU problem," Ingram said. He knew the personnel involved from courses he had attended at Repton Manor and he saw them celebrating later in a bar in Thiepval barracks. Fresh talks aimed at restoring the Stormont executive before Easter will begin this week, following the softening of the Ulster Unionist party position on decommissioning which was announced by David Trimble in Washington on St Patrick's Day. However, any new deal could spell trouble for Trimble. John Taylor, his deputy, last night rejected the proposals to enter government with Sinn Fein in return for a promise to decommission later. "We would look like idiots if we went back without decommissioning. I find it hard to believe David actually said this," said Taylor. -------------------- <A HREF="http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/Sunday-Times/frontpage.html">ht tp://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/Sunday-Times/frontpage.html</A> ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, All My Relations. Omnia Bona Bonis, Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soap-boxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. 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