Conspiracy and suppression
Sir: I don't think your Letters page is a suitable place to try to cure Paul Johnson's virulent political paranoia, manifested in his article of 7 February in his apparent belief that the BBC has swung sharply to the left since the days of Sir Hugh Carleton Greene, that the IBA's new chairman, Lord Thomson of Monifieth, is a variety of political entrist (how clever of the Trots to get him a peerage!), and that television current affairs programmes (including Nationwide?) are staffed by agents of the world communist conspiracy.
However, his article appeared to be a defence of Sir Ian Trethowan's decision to suppress a Panorama investigation into the security services. Any intellectually reputable defence would need to answer at least the following questions, which do not appear to have occurred to Mr Johnson at all.
First, supposing, for the sake of argument Mr Johnson, that there is good reason to believe that the security services spend a good deal of their time, and our money, investigating and sometimes harassing people involved in perfectly legal political and trade union activities, shouldn't the British people know what is going on? Secondly, if the British government has surrendered its sovereignty, and the liberty of those it was elected to serve, to the extent of allowing a foreign power to engage in widespread and illegal telephone-tapping and other forms of surveillance in this country, shouldn't any reputable journalist try to explain how this could happen?
Thirdly, isn't a current affairs programme of international repute an excellent vehicle for such an investigation? Finally, if the answer to the first three questions is yes, which it is, shouldn't the DirectorGeneral's suppression of the programme be cause for great public concern, not to say outrage?
Paul Johnson tells anyone who will listen that he left the Labour Party because of his passionate concern for individual liberty. It now appears that this former radical has ended up in sympathy with the Festival of Light. I don't know whether to find this tragic or funny.
Ian Willmore Philosophy Department, University College, London WC1
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