The secret agents of the UK press

[elbows]

This should be fun on several levels.

In December 1968 the state-controlled Russian newspaper Izvestia ran a series of articles accusing several high-profile British journalists of being spies - listing their names and alleged codenames.
The articles caused a storm of protest in Britain: the Russians were claiming journalists and editors at the Sunday Times, the Observer, the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail and the BBC worked directly with MI6.

The Soviets' evidence for all this? A cache of documents they claimed were MI6 memos, and which looked to have been photographed with a miniature spy camera.

One showed a table listing each publication, the journalist or editor MI6 had as its contact there, their codename and the codename of their MI6 "handler".

Another discussed the procedure for the BBC to broadcast prearranged tunes or sentences that could be used by MI6 officers in the field to prove they were acting on behalf of the British government.

At the time, the claims were dismissed as nonsense by all the newspapers and journalists concerned. The head of the BBC's External Service - later renamed the World Service - called the articles "a fantastic example of secret police propaganda".

The BBC's official historian Jean Seaton said the claim that the BBC had broadcast prearranged messages during the post-war period was "very plausible".

The Soviets naturally put the worst slant possible on the memos, but in the main they were telling the truth: during the Cold War, MI6 did have a network of journalists and editors embedded in the British press.

According to Stephen Dorril, the documents offer a rare glimpse into the workings of MI6, and open up a new field of research.

"We really need to go back and look in detail at some of the key events of the Cold War," he says. "Look at the newspapers, see what was planted, who were the journalists, and what was it they were trying to put out and say to the British public."

Document will be broadcast on Monday 4 March at 20:00 GMT on BBC Radio 4.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21628728

 

[elbows]

I left out lots of detail from the article that was interesting because I didnt want to just copy & paste the whole thing. Always entertaining seeing the press write about spooky matters, especially when it concerns their own. I note the emphasis on it being a cold war thing, its a different world now guv, explore the history not the present.

 

[elbows]

It was fun in the expected ways Some great accents. Much keener to focus on fleet street than the BBC, with the official historian of the BBC not liking the suggestion of respected broadcasters in the BBC's Russian service working for MI6. "You would try and tar those people, because they are the source of the trustworthy, reliable conversational tone that large numbers of Russian citizens are terribly interested in listening to". An unlikely allegation apparently. Much happier to describe the 'sending coded messages over the air' stuff as plausible BBC style.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01r0hsx/Document_MI6_and_the_Media/