CIA activities in the United Kingdom

Last updated

There is a long history of close cooperation between the United States and the United Kingdom intelligence services; see Clandestine HUMINT and Covert Action for World War II and subsequent relationships. There are permanent liaison officers of each country in major intelligence agencies of the other, such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Secret Intelligence Service ("MI6") (which is the British counterpart of the CIA), FBI and the Security Service (MI5), and National Security Agency (NSA) and Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). From 1943 to 2017, the Open Source Enterprise, a division of the CIA, was run out of Caversham Park in Reading, Berkshire. American officials worked closely with their British counterparts to monitor foreign TV and radio broadcasts, as well as online information. [1]

Contents

Oleg Penkovsky, a Soviet military intelligence colonel, who was a defector in place, was a joint US-UK espionage operation. Much of Penkovsky's product is available online at the CIA FOIA Reading Room under the code name IRONBARK. [2]

A major source of tension between the two countries was Kim Philby, a senior UK SIS officer who was a Soviet agent. Philby, at one point, was the SIS liaison officer resident in the US. James Jesus Angleton, head of CIA counterintelligence, was surprised by Philby's activity, and, as a consequence, began hunts for moles within CIA.

In January 2014, newly released documents revealed that Margaret Thatcher had been warned while she was Prime Minister that the CIA did not always give sufficient notice in advance when it carried out operations in the UK. In 1984, Paddy Ashdown, who later became leader of the Liberal Democrats, raised fears about clandestine approaches made by CIA agents, but his allegations were dismissed by Thatcher. [3]

Labour Party

Harold Wilson

During the 1960s and 1970s, MI5 and the CIA's chief of counterintelligence, James Jesus Angleton, spied on Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson [4] because elements in those agencies claimed that Wilson was a Soviet agent or a blackmail risk. [5]

As Peter Wright confirmed in his book Spycatcher , Wilson was the victim of a protracted, illegal campaign of destabilisation by a rogue element in the security services. Prompted by CIA fears that Wilson was a Soviet agent - put in place after the KGB had, the spooks believed, poisoned Hugh Gaitskell, the previous Labour leader - these MI5 men burgled the homes of the prime minister's aides, bugged their phones and spread black, anti-Wilson propaganda throughout the media. They tried to pin all kinds of nonsense on him: that his devoted political secretary, Marcia Williams, posed a threat to national security; that he was a closet IRA sympathiser. – The Guardian (2006) [6]

1983 general election

A series of CIA memos were released in January 2017 after a legal case by MuckRock, which promotes freedom of information. [7] One memo was dated May 1983, shortly before the UK general election, and stated that the CIA was concerned about certain figures in the Labour Party, such as then-leader Michael Foot and deputy leader, Denis Healey, accusing them of "aping anti-American rhetoric". Titled "The British Labor Party: Caught Between Ideology and Reality", it cited Labour's then-commitment to trade "protectionism," withdrawal from the European Economic Community (later the European Union), and the dismantling of its Trident nuclear programme. Consequently, "a majority government headed by Labor [sic] would pose the most serious threat to US interests." The Labour Party "roundly criticizes US policy in the Third World, particularly in Latin America, and calls for ... improv[ing] relations with other socialist regimes." [8]

Jeremy Corbyn

Jeremy Corbyn, who became a Labour MP in 1983 and was later elected leader of the party in 2015, was the subject of CIA interest due to his visit to Grenada in 1979.

[In 1984], Corbyn had come to the attention of the CIA as a Labour MP (for Islington North). He was critical of the U.S. invasion of Grenada, which had taken place in the previous year. In 1979, says the Spectator , Corbyn "went to Grenada with dignitaries of the Islington race relations and feminist industry, to see and admire the Revolution." Corbyn participated in a fact-finding mission, which claimed that most Grenadian working class people supported the revolution. In 1983, the US invaded to restore a political system favourable to its elite interests. A year later, the CIA noted the publication of a book written about the revolution in which, it says, the findings of Corbyn are quoted. [8]

The CIA also kept tabs on Corbyn because of his support for the Salvadorian union, FENASTRAS. Notably, in a 1986 memo detailing FENASTRAS' conference in San Salvador, Corbyn's name was mentioned explicitly, whilst other foreign "union members" were not named.

In a letter inviting certain U.S. labor leaders to attend FENASTRAS' November 13-15 congress in San Salvador, [trade unionist Francisco] Acosta called FENASTRAS "democratic" in spite of its guerrilla and WFTU connections. British Labor M.P. Jeremy Corbyn and French, Australian, and Swiss union members also lent their names to [a FENASTRAS newspaper ad]. [8]

British Pakistanis

In February 2009, journalist Tim Shipman revealed in The Spectator that the CIA was "running its own agent networks on an unprecedented scale in the British Pakistani community."

A British security source told me that somewhere between 40 and 60 per cent of CIA activity designed to prevent a new terrorist spectacular on American soil is now directed at targets in the UK. This is a quite staggering number. I ran the figure by several former CIA officers in the US, all of whom still have close links with the intelligence community. The consensus was that the 40 per cent figure is about right. 'If you're talking about total global operations, that would be an exaggeration,' one national security official said. 'If you're talking about operations to deal with threats against the US homeland, that's the ball park.' This has caused some tensions in what my old tutor Dr Chris Andrew, now the official historian of MI5, calls 'the most special part of the special relationship'. A former CIA officer who still does freelance work for the agency, said: 'Britain is an Islamist swamp. You don't want to have to spend time spying on your friends.'


As far as our closest ally is concerned, Britain is not part of the problem, Britain is the problem. Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer and Middle East expert on the NSC for three presidents, who has just been appointed to head Barack Obama's overhaul of Afghan strategy, told me: 'The 800,000 or so British citizens of Pakistani origin are regarded by the American intelligence community as perhaps the single biggest threat environment that they have to worry about.' [9]

In February 2019, the Intelligence and Security Committee unearthed a number of examples of GCHQ's intelligence being used to locate and detain terrorism suspects who were subsequently rendered and tortured during the 2000s as part of the War on Terror. The committee also found that GCHQ provided intelligence to assist the interrogation of terrorism suspects held at CIA black sites. [10]

National Endowment for Democracy

In January 2022, former CIA agent-turned whistleblower, John Kiriakou revealed that the National Endowment for Democracy—a non-profit corporation created in the 1980s by President Ronald Reagan and funded by the United States Congress—had funnelled millions of dollars into British independent media groups since 2016. These include investigative outlets such as Bellingcat, Finance Uncovered and openDemocracy, as well as media freedom and training organisations like Index on Censorship, Article 19, the Media Legal Defence Initiative, and the Thomson Reuters Foundation. [11]

In 2011, the US Congress changed the law that forbade the Executive Branch from propagandizing the American people or nationals of the other 'Five Eyes' countries—the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The National Endowment for Democracy, like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, countless Washington-area 'think tanks', and Radio/TV Martí, are the vehicles for that propaganda", referring to the US broadcaster that transmits to Cuba. Kiriakou continued: "And what better way to spread that propaganda than to funnel money to 'friendly' outlets in 'friendly countries'? The CIA's propaganda efforts throughout history have been shameless. But now that they're not legally relegated to just Russia and China, the whole world is a target." – Declassified UK [11]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kim Philby</span> British intelligence officer and Soviet double agent (1912–1988)

Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby was a British intelligence officer and a double agent for the Soviet Union. In 1963 he was revealed to be a member of the Cambridge Five, a spy ring that had divulged British secrets to the Soviets during the Second World War and in the early stages of the Cold War. Of the five, Philby is believed to have been the most successful in providing secret information to the Soviets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MI5</span> British domestic intelligence agency

MI5, officially the Security Service, is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), and Defence Intelligence (DI). MI5 is directed by the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), and the service is bound by the Security Service Act 1989. The service is directed to protect British parliamentary democracy and economic interests and to counter terrorism and espionage within the United Kingdom (UK). Within the civil service community, the service is colloquially known as Box, or Box 500, after its official wartime address of PO Box 500; its current address is PO Box 3255, London SW1P 1AE.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cambridge Five</span> British ring of spies for the Soviet Union

The Cambridge Five was a ring of spies in the United Kingdom that passed information to the Soviet Union during the Second World War and the Cold War and was active from the 1930s until at least the early 1950s. None of the known members were ever prosecuted for spying. The number and membership of the ring emerged slowly, from the 1950s onwards.

Rupert William Simon Allason is a British former Conservative Party politician and author. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Torbay in Devon, from 1987 to 1997. He writes books and articles on the subject of espionage under the pen name Nigel West.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Jesus Angleton</span> Central Intelligence Agency officer (1917–1987)

James Jesus Angleton was an American intelligence operative who served as chief of the counterintelligence department of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1954 to 1975. According to Director of Central Intelligence Richard Helms, Angleton was "recognized as the dominant counterintelligence figure in the non-communist world".

<i>Spycatcher</i> Memoir by Peter Wright

Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer (1987) is a memoir written by Peter Wright, former MI5 officer and Assistant Director, and co-author Paul Greengrass. He drew on his own experiences and research into the history of the British intelligence community. Published first in Australia, the book was banned in England due to its allegations about government policy and incidents. These efforts ensured the book's notoriety, and it earned considerable profit for Wright.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oleg Penkovsky</span> British spy in the USSR (1919–1963)

Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky, codenamed Hero and Yoga was a Soviet military intelligence (GRU) colonel during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Penkovsky informed the United States and the United Kingdom about Soviet military secrets, including the appearance and footprint of Soviet intermediate-range ballistic missile installations and the weakness of the Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) program. This information was decisive in allowing the US to recognize that the Soviets were placing missiles in Cuba before most of them were operational. It also gave US President John F. Kennedy, during the Cuban Missile Crisis that followed, valuable information about Soviet weakness that allowed him to face down Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and resolve the crisis without a nuclear war.

Peter Maurice Wright CBE was a principal scientific officer for MI5, the British counter-intelligence agency. His book Spycatcher, written with Paul Greengrass, became an international bestseller with sales of over two million copies. Spycatcher was part memoir, part exposé detailing what Wright claimed were serious institutional failures he investigated within MI5. Wright is said to have been influenced in his counterespionage activity by James Jesus Angleton, counter-intelligence chief of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 1954 to 1975.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dick White</span> British intelligence officer (1936-1972)

Sir Dick Goldsmith White, was a British intelligence officer. He was Director General (DG) of MI5 from 1953 to 1956, and Head of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) from 1956 to 1968.

Anatoliy Mikhaylovich Golitsyn CBE was a Soviet KGB defector and author of two books about the long-term deception strategy of the KGB leadership. He was born in Pyriatyn, USSR. He provided "a wide range of intelligence to the CIA on the operations of most of the 'Lines' (departments) at the Helsinki and other residencies, as well as KGB methods of recruiting and running agents." He became an American citizen by 1984.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intelligence Identities Protection Act</span> United States federal law

The Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 is a United States federal law that makes it a federal crime for those with access to classified information, or those who systematically seek to identify and expose covert agents and have reason to believe that it will harm the foreign intelligence activities of the U.S., to intentionally reveal the identity of an agent whom one knows to be in or recently in certain covert roles with a U.S. intelligence agency, unless the United States has publicly acknowledged or revealed the relationship.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Portland spy ring</span> Soviet spy ring that operated in England

The Portland spy ring was an espionage group active in the UK between 1953 and 1961. It comprised five people who obtained classified research documents from the Admiralty Underwater Weapons Establishment (AUWE) on the Isle of Portland, Dorset, and passed them to the Soviet Union.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harold Wilson plot allegations</span> Conspiracy theories involving the UK Prime Minister

Since the mid-1970s, a variety of allegations have emerged regarding British Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson, who served as the prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1964 to 1970 and 1974 to 1976. These range from Wilson having been a Soviet agent, to Wilson being the victim of treasonous plots by conservative-leaning elements in MI5 and the British military, claims which Wilson himself made.

Countries with major counterintelligence failures are presented alphabetically. In each case, there is at least one systemic problem with seeking penetration agents when few or none may actually have existed, to the detriment of the functioning of the national service involved.

Clandestine human intelligence is intelligence collected from human sources using clandestine espionage methods. These sources consist of people working in a variety of roles within the intelligence community. Examples include the quintessential spy, who collects intelligence; couriers and related personnel, who handle an intelligence organization's (ideally) secure communications; and support personnel, such as access agents, who may arrange the contact between the potential spy and the case officer who recruits them. The recruiter and supervising agent may not necessarily be the same individual. Large espionage networks may be composed of multiple levels of spies, support personnel, and supervisors. Espionage networks are typically organized as a cell system, in which each clandestine operator knows only the people in his own cell, perhaps the external case officer, and an emergency method to contact higher levels if the case officer or cell leader is captured, but has no knowledge of people in other cells. This cellular organization is a form of compartmentalisation, which is an important tactic for controlling access to information, used in order to diminish the risk of discovery of the network or the release of sensitive information.

<i>Nuclear Secrets</i> 2007 British TV series or programme

Nuclear Secrets, aka Spies, Lies and the Superbomb, is a 2007 BBC Television docudrama series which looks at the race for nuclear supremacy from the Manhattan Project through to Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MI6</span> British intelligence agency

The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6, is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligence on foreign nationals in support of its Five Eyes partners. SIS is one of the British intelligence agencies and the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service ("C") is directly accountable to the Foreign Secretary.

The Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG) is a unit of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British intelligence agency. The existence of JTRIG was revealed as part of the global surveillance disclosures in documents leaked by the former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.

The Government of the United Kingdom maintains several intelligence agencies that deal with secret intelligence. These agencies are responsible for collecting, analysing and exploiting foreign and domestic intelligence, providing military intelligence, and performing espionage and counter-espionage. Their intelligence assessments contribute to the conduct of the foreign relations of the United Kingdom, maintaining the national security of the United Kingdom, military planning, public safety, and law enforcement in the United Kingdom. The four main agencies are the Secret Intelligence Service, the Security Service (MI5), the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and Defence Intelligence (DI). The agencies are organised under three government departments, the Foreign Office, the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence.

Graham Russell Mitchell OBE, CB, was an officer of MI5, the British Security Service, between 1939 and 1963, serving as its deputy director general between 1956 and 1963. In 1963 Roger Hollis, the MI5 director general, authorised the secret investigation of Mitchell following suspicions within the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) that he was a Soviet agent. It is now thought unlikely that Mitchell ever was a "mole". Mitchell was an International Master of correspondence chess who represented Great Britain.

References

  1. ↑ Bond, David (20 October 2017). "US to close CIA division's UK intelligence monitoring unit" . Financial Times. Retrieved 29 March 2022.
  2. ↑ "Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room | CIA FOIA (foia.cia.gov)". www.cia.gov.
  3. ↑ Bowcott, Owen (3 January 2014). "Thatcher received warning about CIA's activities in UK, secret file reveals". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 August 2021.
  4. ↑ Leigh, David; Ware, John; Greengrass, Paul (22 July 1984). "MI5 and CIA suspected Harold Wilson was Russian agent". The Observer. Retrieved 28 March 2022.
  5. ↑ Bley Griffiths, Eleanor (17 November 2019). "The Crown: Did people really think Prime Minister Harold Wilson was a Soviet agent?". Radio Times. Retrieved 28 March 2022.
  6. ↑ Freedland, Jonathan (15 March 2006). "The Wilson plot was our Watergate". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 March 2022.
  7. ↑ Rosenbaum, Martin (20 January 2017). "CIA fears about 1980s Labour 'threat' revealed". BBC News. Retrieved 1 October 2021.
  8. 1 2 3 Coles, T. J. (20 September 2018). "The deep state vs. Jeremy Corbyn: three decades of spying, smearing, and intimidating". Counterfire . Retrieved 16 May 2022.
  9. ↑ Shipman, Tim (28 February 2009). "Why the CIA has to spy on Britain". The Spectator. Retrieved 1 August 2021.
  10. ↑ Cobain, Ian; Usiskin, Clara (27 February 2019). "UK spy agency under pressure to open up over support for CIA torture programme". London: Middle East Eye . Retrieved 29 March 2022.
  11. 1 2 Kennard, Matt; Curtis, Mark (17 January 2022). "'CIA SIDEKICK' GIVES £2.6M TO UK MEDIA GROUPS". Declassified UK. Retrieved 18 January 2022.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.