The Eye and MI5
Sir: Paul Foot's sloppy review (Books, 16 November) of Smear!: Wilson and the Secret State deserves some comment.
Foot accuses us of 'ascribing perfectly justifiable journalistic attacks on their hero (Wilson) to the loonies of MI5'. This is far from the truth. 1 believe that we see here the defensive psychological reaction on the part of a journalist and member of the Socialist Workers' Party who hated Harold Wilson. As we note, it was not MI5 but Foot who in the columns of Private Eye led the sustained and cynical attack on the journalists, Penrose and Courtiour, after they had been briefed by Wilson about the secret plotting against him and his govern- ments.
What I hoped and expected that we might see in a review by Foot was a discus- sion about the way Private Eye became a conduit of MI5-generated material. As we explain in the book, perfectly justifiable journalistic investigations of Wilson were easily turned and twisted to MI5's advan- tage with the leaking of corrupt intelli- gence.
The Eye and other outlets in their eager- ness to attack Wilson were easy prey in the hands of skilled operators. 1 am surprised that the author of a book on Colin Wallace, a former expert on this form of media manipulation, did not recognise that this was one of the major themes of Smear! That is why we concentrated on the intelli- gence side and not the journalist side (which we explained had been covered else- where) of the stories surrounding Thorpe, Stonehouse and the slag-heaps affair.
Stephen Dorril
135 School Street, Netherthong, Huddersfield
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