Truth of British propaganda:LETTER
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.THE Foreign Office's former Information and Research Department ("The British Ministry of Propaganda", 26 February), about which Scott Lucas writes so scathingly, was an important source of information and support in the West's long contest of ideas with the Soviet system and empire. As a member of the BBC's European Services in the 1950, then as a director of Radio Free Europe, and also as the founding editor of the American academic journal Studies in Comparative Communism, I benefited greatly from IRD's extensive knowledge of Eastern affairs and the accuracy of its analyses. My colleagues and I knew perfectly well where the information had come from and valued it all the more because it contained, inter alia, much diplomatic reporting that would otherwise not have reached us.
Cloak-and-dagger operations were wholly absent from IRD's work; rather was it a store-house of political, military, historical and psychological reflections of high intellectual quality. Some of the men and women responsible for them came from the top layers of British academic expertise. I cannot recall a single "atrocity story" unfounded in actual atrocities, nor any sign of "propaganda" other than speaking the truth in the face of falsehoods.
With Soviet archive materials becoming increasingly available, it is now clear enough that IRD's activities were, if anything, far too limited, especially in the field of neutralising disinformation, on which the USSR spent so lavishly. It was a mild, gentlemanly, elective and very British institution doing its best to protect Western values and interests vis- -vis a sophisticated and implacable ideological opponent.
G R Urban
Hove, Sussex
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments