CIA's activities in Britain, the media has been reluctant to use this "good story, Nor have Mr Wilson and his colleagues in the cabinet shown much zeal into enquiring into CIA activities.
Neither Wilson nor the press can complain that there is a shortage of juicy well-backed exposures about this sinsiter organisation.
HEAD MAN The head of the CIA in London until very recently was Cord Meyer. Mr Meyer, who played the role of • wealthy socialite, was the man who tugged the strings behind the CIA puppet Jay Lovestone. Lovestone -an ex-leader of the American CP- was for a time the Director of International Affairs for the AFL.-CIO, which is the equivalent of the TUC. Considered something of an expert on trade union infiltration, Meyer is known to have assiduously cultivated contacts in the British un3005.
Ex-CIA agent Philip Agee has pointed out that the London agents of the CIA are specifically concerned with the penetration and manipul ation" of political parties and trade unions. The CIA operation in Britain gets hacking and support from outfits like the Special Branch who have a keen interest in penetrating the trade ution movement. A hotel worker in Brighton who made a practice of passing himself off as a left-winger recently admitted that he had been working for the Special Branch. FINK One of the tasks of this fink was to pass on information about rork-andNile activities and tell them wnat the various left groups were doing in the THE VISIT of Alexander Shelepin to Britain at the invitation of the British TUC should cause little rejoicing amongst trade unionists, Shelepin is a Communist Party bureancrat in the Soyiet Union, and the ease with which he moved from head of the hated KGB to leader' of the trade unions in the mid-1960s demonstrates the throttling grip of the bureaucracy over the working class.
But concern for the rights of workers in the Soviet Umon, and defence of the social gains which continue to exist as a result of the 1917 Revolution and the introduction of a planned economy, are not the concern of those who oppose his visit to Britain. The hysterical campaign being run by the Daily Mail, u paper which has sup ported Hitler, Mosley, and the Chil can generals in its time, is not aimed at Shelepin but at the whole Soviel system.
At a time of deepening economic and social crisis, many more workers will begin to look at the successes of the planned economy in largely clim nating inflation and unemployment; they will scotits potential despite the massive social privileges and monopoly of political power held by the bureaucrats like Shelepin.
This is why the International Socialists make such a mistake in eq uating Shelepin with the CIA. The position put forward in their paper, Socialin Worker, of neither CIA nor KGB aligns them with the most reactionary cleocuts in British sociely. It is because of their noo Marxist idea that Russia is state capitalist that they are unable to distinguish be tween the single most important intelligence agency of world imperialium anu wint is part of the burcuucracy thowever degenerate and oppo sed to the real interests of the working class) of the workers movement. it is like saying that Jack Jones und Hugh Scanlon part of the bureaucracy of the workers movement in capitalist society who help to maintain Trying to keep un unions. He admitted that a Special Branch man asked him whether he would like a tull-time job in the unInformation on the activities of the revolutionary groups inside the unions is freely traded between the CIA and British secret services.
Elliot Richardson, the new US Ambassador lo London, made no capitalism-are exactly the same as. Edward Heath or Margaret Thatcher Similarly, in a country where cap italism has been overtlrown, the burenticrucy of the workers' movement if one emerges due to the degeneration of the revolution bureaucracy of the workers state, not a new capitalist class. I will doTend the revolution, in the same way that Scanion, Jones and the TUC opposed the induscrial Relations Act. not in the interests of the working class, but to defend their own material privileges. Because the IS cunnot understand the worsided nature of the Soviet Union-at once a workers state and ruled by a ruthless buremcratio caste they are incapuble of distinguising themselves from the most political liaison section is usually discreet language for "CIA agent"
bones about this when he told the is close cooperation between the CIA and their British collegaues, The CIA does not confine its work to simply collecting informatJon. Murder and mayhem are part of its stock in trade. The CIA were deepi? avolved in the Kennedy from chief cop to trade union boss: a shift possible only where the bureacrats control not only the workers movement but the state machine as well their position on the Soviet Union to this country, they would end up by saying that the trade unions have to -becomes the Ted by burcaucrats-not that it is ditionaily as a precondition for overthrowing the burcucracy.
oppose Shelepin's visit. What socalists in Britain should be dentanding, however, is that trade union delegations of rank-and-file workers. and not just exchanges herwcen the bureaucracy, should he allowed to travel froely between Britain and the Sovict Union in order to develop real international workers links. der cover-Sidney Bearman of the US Embassy in London, whose official listing as a "senior analyst' in the Senate Relations Committee ..there sass do we are conscre respunsible for the spate of "strange deaths of chose witnesses whose evidence could have biown shy high the parently rigged material that came out of the Warren Commission Never choosy about its company the CIA arranged for the Mafia to -TUC put out a contract to Kill Fidel Cas tro. Two one time aides of Robert Kennedy blew the gaff on Bris lo the New York Times. They say that the CIA were foroed to give Kennedy an assurance in writing that the assassination plans had been dropped Despite all their tirades against Shelepin, the pross are reticent abour the information that they have on Meyer and his band of political assassins and "dirty tricks' specialists The capitalist press however are not interested in stories —no matter how 'good" they are which reveal the way that capitalism actually operates Goardien editor Alastair Hethering ton, that well known defender of press freedom. recently suppressed a major article exposing CIA activitWilson recently told the House of Commons that he would not hes ¡lite to bold an independent inquiry into CIA activities in Britain should evidence be presented that CIA ag ents were operating under diplomatic cover here. But this is no mare thun an attempt to fob off the 34 Labour MPs who put down a motion numing ten Us Embassy staff members said to be working for the CIA.
Such an inquiry, Wilson liars, would lead right back to the Special Branch itself and their complicity with the CIA. The state is deeply invoived in sabotagc espionage and spying on the trade unions And the Labour Government usea that information.
It allocates funds and resources for the work of the Special Branch. It does not, will not, pertit any ing wiry which interferes with the anti-working class activity of the police