A subversive writes
Sir: I wholeheartedly endorse the calls for MI5 to be prevented from destroying the bulk of its historical files (`Once red, but should they still be read?', 28 March). For the first 88 years of its existence MI5 did not release so much as a paper-clip from its archives. Then, last year, material from 1909-19 was released into the Public Record Office, accompanied by a flurry of publicity. But it was soon apparent that this had little to do with glasnost. The main class of material released (KV1) consists mostly of censored versions of anodyne in-house histories which tell us little of consequence that wasn't already known. The in-house histories contain ref- erences to operational records (`Subject Files' and 'Personal Files'), but this materi- al is conspicuous by its absence. Only two Subject Files from this period survive, together making up the second class of material released (KV3); both files have sections blanked out. Class KV2, I hear, contains a small number of Personal Files from 1909-19, including one on Ramsay MacDonald, but this class remains closed. The second world war and inter-war mate- rial which it is planned to release during 1998-99 will doubtless turn out to have been subjected to similarly drastic weeding and censorship.
There is good reason to believe that MI5 has on several (perhaps many) occasions behaved in ways that were inimical to democracy, free speech and civil liberties. The first two decades of MI5 history pro- vide some striking instances. During the first world war a family of socialists was framed by an MI5 agent provocateur on ludicrous charges of plotting to assassinate Lloyd George. MI5 is the prime suspect for having leaked the forged Zinoviev Letter in an attempt to influence the 1924 general election. And there is evidence that during the 1920s MI5 colluded with right-wing groups including the British Fascists. The wholesale shredding of MI5 files allows the historical record of such matters to be sys- tematically falsified. Instead of seeing MI5 in its true colours (as at best a rather silly waste of money and at worst something quite sinister) we get the image which MI5's spin doctors wish to project.
It is a sad irony that this is happening under a government some of whose mem- bers were once sworn enemies of MI5. In 1986 Robin Cook wrote that `today's secu- rity services are not pitted against the KGB, they parallel it in the surveillance of their domestic population'. Considering reform, he wondered 'whether it would not be sim- pler merely to legislate for the abolition of the security services', especially in the light of Peter Wright's revelation 'that MI5 pro- vides no discernible service to the public, even in the intervals between swapping per- sonnel with the Russians and destabilising democratically elected governments' (New Statesman, 12 December 1986, pp. 6 and 7).
The likes of Chris Mullin should realise that MI5 has not 'become somewhat more accountable and less politically biased'; rather, the Labour party has become a gen- uine convert to the doctrine of 'the free economy and the strong state'. The fact that MI5 now claims it is drastically down- grading its 'counter-subversive' function does not mean that the leopard has changed its spots. It only shows that the British Left is now so enfeebled that even those who are paid to be paranoid about it can no longer justify devoting sizeable resources to pursuing it. Roll on the day when we 'subversives' once again give the spooks sleepless nights!
David Turner
dst@canterbury.u-net.com
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