Jump to content
The Education Forum

Was Harold Wilson a KGB Agent?


John Simkin

Recommended Posts

On January 18, 1963, Hugh Gaitskell, a leader of the British Labour Party, died at the age of 57.  Gaitskell was opposed to the policv of his party favoring unilateral nuclear disarmement.  At the time Gaitskell was likely to become the next prime minister of Great Britain.

Many people (including my "left-wing" friend Mark Howell, who was living in Britain at the time) believe the KGB killed Gaitskell.

If in fact the KGB killed the likely prime minister of Great Britain in 1963, this, I believe, adds some support to the theory that the KGB killed Kennedy.  At a minimum, it shows that the KGB was willing to assassinate world leaders.  Granted, Gaitskell was not yet a foreign "head of state" but he most likely would have become one but for his premature death.

The story that Hugh Gaitskell was murdered by the KGB was first put forward by Peter Wright in Spycatcher (1987):

Much has been written about Harold Wilson and MI5, some of it wildly inaccurate. But as far as I am concerned, the story started with the premature death of Hugh Gaitskell in 1963. Gaitskell was Wilson's predecessor as Leader of the Labour Party. I knew him personally and admired him greatly. I had met him and his family at the Blackwater Sailing Club, and I recall about a month before he died he told me that he was going to Russia.

After he died his doctor got in touch with MI5 and asked to see somebody from the Service. Arthur Martin, as the head of Russian Counterespionage, went to see him. The doctor explained that he was disturbed by the manner of Gaitskell's death. He said that Gaitskell had died of a disease called lupus disseminata, which attacks the body's organs. He said that it was rare in temperate climates and that there was no evidence that Gaitskell had been anywhere recently where he could have contracted the disease.

Arthur Martin suggested that I should go to Porton Down, the chemical and microbiological laboratory for the Ministry of Defense. I went to see the chief doctor in the chemical warfare laboratory. Dr. Ladell, and asked his advice. He said that nobody knew how one contracted lupus. There was some suspicion that it might be a form of fungus and he did hot have the foggiest idea how one would infect somebody with the disease. I came back and made my report in these terms.

The next development was that Golitsin told us quite independently that during the last few years of his service he had had some contacts with Department 13, which was known as the Department of Wet Affairs in the KGB. This department was responsible for organizing assassinations. He said that just before he left he knew that the KGB were planning a high-level political assassination in Europe in order to get their man into the top place. He did not know which country it was planned in but he pointed out that the chief of Department 13 was a man called General Rodin, who had been in Britain for many years and had just returned on promotion to take up the job, so he would have had good knowledge of the political scene in England.

Wright also explains why the Soviet Union wanted Gaitskell dead. His replacement, Harold Wilson, was a KGB agent. In 1963 the Conservative government was unpopular. It looked like that the Labour Party would win the next election. The establishment was not concerned by this as Gaitskell was on the right of the party. However, when Gaitskell died, Wilson became the new leader.

There are several problems with Wright’s theory. After Gaitskell died, it was expected that George Brown or James Callaghan would become the new leader. Brown and Callaghan both held similar views to Gaitskell. However, Brown and Callaghan split the right-wing vote and Wilson, who held centrist views, was chosen in order to unite the party (he had been on the left in his youth but he had long abandoned those views).

Wilson won the General Election in 1964. I had a lot of media contacts and during the next couple of years I heard several rumours that Wilson was a KGB agent. I also heard other rumours that their was a right-wing conspiracy within MI5 who were involved in a smear campaign against Wilson. We now know that the second of these rumours was true.

In 1968 right-wing conspirators in MI5 attempted to organize a political coup. The man selected to become the next prime minister was Cecil King, the chairman of International Publishing Corporation. The choice is very interesting. King’s company was the publisher of the Daily Mirror, the UK’s largest circulation newspaper at the time. It was a strong supporter of the Labour Party. King was thought of as a left of centre figure. However, in reality he held right-wing views. He in fact held his position as a result of his family. His mother was the sister of Lord Northcliffe and Lord Rothermere. These were the press barons who supported Adolf Hitler and the British fascists in the 1930s. It it possible that the UK had its own version of Operation Mockingbird.

However, the MI5, like the CIA, was deeply divided in the 1960s. There were some who held left-wing views. It was probably those figures who leaked stories of this conspiracy and it was Cecil King who was forced to resign in 1968.

Was there a KGB conspiracy to kill Hugh Gaitskell? Maybe. Some left-wing historians have claimed that Gaitskell was a CIA asset. Was that a reason he was killed?

Was Harold Wilson a KGB agent. Highly unlikely. There is nothing in his record as prime minister (1964-70 and 1974-76) that suggested he followed pro-KGB policies. However, to those on the far-right, Wilson was a dangerous left-winger who introduced what they consider to have been socialist policies. One thing is certain, he was definitely more left-wing than Tony Blair. Of course, there are some people who think he, like Gaitskell before him, is a CIA asset.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TUgaitskell.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRwilsonHa.htm

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Stephen Turner
On January 18, 1963, Hugh Gaitskell, a leader of the British Labour Party, died at the age of 57.  Gaitskell was opposed to the policv of his party favoring unilateral nuclear disarmement.  At the time Gaitskell was likely to become the next prime minister of Great Britain.

Many people (including my "left-wing" friend Mark Howell, who was living in Britain at the time) believe the KGB killed Gaitskell.

If in fact the KGB killed the likely prime minister of Great Britain in 1963, this, I believe, adds some support to the theory that the KGB killed Kennedy.  At a minimum, it shows that the KGB was willing to assassinate world leaders.  Granted, Gaitskell was not yet a foreign "head of state" but he most likely would have become one but for his premature death.

The story that Hugh Gaitskell was murdered by the KGB was first put forward by Peter Wright in Spycatcher (1987):

Much has been written about Harold Wilson and MI5, some of it wildly inaccurate. But as far as I am concerned, the story started with the premature death of Hugh Gaitskell in 1963. Gaitskell was Wilson's predecessor as Leader of the Labour Party. I knew him personally and admired him greatly. I had met him and his family at the Blackwater Sailing Club, and I recall about a month before he died he told me that he was going to Russia.

After he died his doctor got in touch with MI5 and asked to see somebody from the Service. Arthur Martin, as the head of Russian Counterespionage, went to see him. The doctor explained that he was disturbed by the manner of Gaitskell's death. He said that Gaitskell had died of a disease called lupus disseminata, which attacks the body's organs. He said that it was rare in temperate climates and that there was no evidence that Gaitskell had been anywhere recently where he could have contracted the disease.

Arthur Martin suggested that I should go to Porton Down, the chemical and microbiological laboratory for the Ministry of Defense. I went to see the chief doctor in the chemical warfare laboratory. Dr. Ladell, and asked his advice. He said that nobody knew how one contracted lupus. There was some suspicion that it might be a form of fungus and he did hot have the foggiest idea how one would infect somebody with the disease. I came back and made my report in these terms.

The next development was that Golitsin told us quite independently that during the last few years of his service he had had some contacts with Department 13, which was known as the Department of Wet Affairs in the KGB. This department was responsible for organizing assassinations. He said that just before he left he knew that the KGB were planning a high-level political assassination in Europe in order to get their man into the top place. He did not know which country it was planned in but he pointed out that the chief of Department 13 was a man called General Rodin, who had been in Britain for many years and had just returned on promotion to take up the job, so he would have had good knowledge of the political scene in England.

Wright also explains why the Soviet Union wanted Gaitskell dead. His replacement, Harold Wilson, was a KGB agent. In 1963 the Conservative government was unpopular. It looked like that the Labour Party would win the next election. The establishment was not concerned by this as Gaitskell was on the right of the party. However, when Gaitskell died, Wilson became the new leader.

There are several problems with Wright’s theory. After Gaitskell died, it was expected that George Brown or James Callaghan would become the new leader. Brown and Callaghan both held similar views to Gaitskell. However, Brown and Callaghan split the right-wing vote and Wilson, who held centrist views, was chosen in order to unite the party (he had been on the left in his youth but he had long abandoned those views).

Wilson won the General Election in 1964. I had a lot of media contacts and during the next couple of years I heard several rumours that Wilson was a KGB agent. I also heard other rumours that their was a right-wing conspiracy within MI5 who were involved in a smear campaign against Wilson. We now know that the second of these rumours was true.

In 1968 right-wing conspirators in MI5 attempted to organize a political coup. The man selected to become the next prime minister was Cecil King, the chairman of International Publishing Corporation. The choice is very interesting. King’s company was the publisher of the Daily Mirror, the UK’s largest circulation newspaper at the time. It was a strong supporter of the Labour Party. King was thought of as a left of centre figure. However, in reality he held right-wing views. He in fact held his position as a result of his family. His mother was the sister of Lord Northcliffe and Lord Rothermere. These were the press barons who supported Adolf Hitler and the British fascists in the 1930s. It it possible that the UK had its own version of Operation Mockingbird.

However, the MI5, like the CIA, was deeply divided in the 1960s. There were some who held left-wing views. It was probably those figures who leaked stories of this conspiracy and it was Cecil King who was forced to resign in 1968.

Was there a KGB conspiracy to kill Hugh Gaitskell? Maybe. Some left-wing historians have claimed that Gaitskell was a CIA asset. Was that a reason he was killed?

Was Harold Wilson a KGB agent. Highly unlikely. There is nothing in his record as prime minister (1964-70 and 1974-76) that suggested he followed pro-KGB policies. However, to those on the far-right, Wilson was a dangerous left-winger who introduced what they consider to have been socialist policies. One thing is certain, he was definitely more left-wing than Tony Blair. Of course, there are some people who think he, like Gaitskell before him, is a CIA asset.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TUgaitskell.htm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRwilsonHa.htm

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Stephen Turner

Darling Harold a KGB asset now that is truely mind boggling. Do you recall the seamans strike in 1966 when Wilson called the strike leaders 'Politically motivated men' code I belive for CPGB. I was a young shop steward in the NHS during the last days of Wilsons as PM all I can recall is a series of ever more bitter disputes as Wilson castle etc witch hunted leading socialist figures. A foreshadow of Kinnock & Castles 'in place of strife' & the monetorist policies of Callahan gave the green light to the Thatcher revolution. Now Blair as CIA bum kisser that I can buy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 years later...

Christopher Andrew has published this week a book called "The Defence of the Realm". This is the first "authorized" history of an intelligence agency. Andrew has been for a long-time a willing propagandist for MI5 so this does not come as an unexpected decision. After inspecting MI5 files Andrew has reached the conclusion that MI5 made no attempt to overthrow Harold Wilson's government. This of course goes against the account that appeared in MI5 agent, Peter Wright's book Spycatcher.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...

I don't believe Wilson was a KGB agent but he did suspect some of his Labour colleagues were working for the CIA. When the Labour Party was elected in the 1964 General Election, Wilson, the new prime minister, appointed Denis Healey as his Secretary of State for Defence. Wilson later commented: "He (Healey) is a strange person. When he was at Oxford he was a communist. Then friends took him in hand, sent him to the Rand Corporation of America, where he was brainwashed and came back very right wing. But his method of thinking was still what it had been: in other words, the absolute certainty that he was right and everybody else was wrong, and not merely wrong through not knowing the proper answers, but wrong through malice. I had very little trouble with him on his own subject, but he has a very good quick brain and can be very rough. He probably intervened in Cabinet with absolute certainty about other departments more than any minister I have ever known, but he was a strong colleague and much respected."

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRhealeyD.htm

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 9 months later...
However, to those on the far-right, Wilson was a dangerous left-winger who introduced what they consider to have been socialist policies. One thing is certain, he was definitely more left-wing than Tony Blair.

There was similar paranoia in 2002 – 3 in Brazil when Lula was elected and assumed office. He and his party, PT (the Worker’s Party) were pretty far left in 1980s and 90s but they moved to center over time leading some groups to break off and form new parties. But they maintained the old symbolism (red stars and the color red in general etc.) and at times rhetoric (pro-Castro, Chavez etc.) even as the policies they implemented - in the cities and states were they elected mayors and governors – and backed elsewhere and nationally moderated. Some people, especially conservative businessmen in Brazil and not very well informed foreign investors, feared once in power Lula and the PT would reveal their true agenda and go down a Chavez if not Castro-like path.

In the summer of 2002, as polls increasingly showed Lula would come out on top on Election Day (Oct. 3) and prevail a few weeks later if a runoff was necessary the value of the Brazilian Real fell. The exchange rate had been about R$ 2.3/US $1 since the spring of 2001 but fluctuated between R$ 3.4 and R$4 Sept. 2002 and May 2003. Lula was sworn in on the 1st day of 2003 and was not the radical some feared; Brazil went through its strongest ever economic growth, its GDP eventually passed Britain’s and the exchange rate continued to fall till the crisis of 2008 reaching R$ 1.5/$1.

I think it odd that the British Right would still be worried about Wilson after he’d been PM for 4 years. If he was going to be the UK’s answer to Castro or Lenin wouldn’t he have gone down that path earlier? And based on Stephen and your posts he wasn’t always that friendly to organized labor.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 7 years later...
On 8/23/2011 at 9:56 AM, John Simkin said:

I don't believe Wilson was a KGB agent but he did suspect some of his Labour colleagues were working for the CIA. When the Labour Party was elected in the 1964 General Election, Wilson, the new prime minister, appointed Denis Healey as his Secretary of State for Defence. Wilson later commented: "He (Healey) is a strange person. When he was at Oxford he was a communist. Then friends took him in hand, sent him to the Rand Corporation of America, where he was brainwashed and came back very right wing.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRhealeyD.htm

Kennedy/CIA related:

Swell documentary about how defector Anatoliy Golitsyn convinced James Angleton that British PM Harold Wilson was a KGB plant installed after Hugh Gaitskell was supposedly assassinated, and how Wilson's two governments (ending 1970 and 1976) each almost went down in military coups backed by the royals:

All I can say is, if England was so rattled by the Soviets, the labor unions and the IRA in the 1960s and 1970s, then it must have made a sweetheart deal with the US in order to survive Brexit unruffled.

Perhaps, however, this is a portrait of paranoia and hyperactivity in the later Cold War, and (unintentionally) of brilliant unconcern for the dangers of abandoning the EU.

Edited by David Andrews
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I bumped this thread. David Andrews had wanted to comment on it, but since the thread originated in Political conspiracies, anything said was only seen in the Political conspiracies thread.

If members have opinions they want to make I moved the thread so it is now on the JFK Assassination Debate forum.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 hours ago, James R Gordon said:

I bumped this thread. David Andrews had wanted to comment on it, but since the thread originated in Political conspiracies, anything said was only seen in the Political conspiracies thread.

If members have opinions they want to make I moved the thread so it is now on the JFK Assassination Debate forum.

 

I knew John Simkin had had a Harold Wilson thread, but when I searched it and replied with the post above, I didn't notice that it wasn't in the JFKA Debate section. Thanks, James, and apologies.

Nonetheless, that's a good Harold Wilson documentary linked above, and it relates to Angleton-era covert action and the spectre of military coups against Left-leaning governments, so it should be of interest to the JFKA Debate.  Do scroll up and check it out.

Here's another view of the Wilson-KGB-MI5-CIA nexus, apologetically calling it paranoia on Wilson's part.  But watch the documentary posted above first

Warning - contains commercials:

If the Golitsyn-Nosenko defections were a master plot by KGB to confound and embarrass CIA through Angleton, KGB may have also harassed Harold Wilson in order to raise his undesirable status at MI5 and CIA.

Edited by David Andrews
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I cannot fathom why John Newman thinks Golitsyn a genuine defector. He’s equally convinced that Nosenko was not. Perhaps the latter is true.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Paul Brancato said:

I cannot fathom why John Newman thinks Golitsyn a genuine defector. He’s equally convinced that Nosenko was not. Perhaps the latter is true.

I suspect KGB ran a double-game on Angleton, in which Golitsyn and Nosenko were each false defectors, tying up CIA in internal squabbles and leading to Angleton's retirement by Colby.  Whichever of their moles had to be sacrificed to establish Golitsyn's bona fides were pawns in a cynical greater game.  If Nosenko had to suffer, KGB gambled that we wouldn't kill a defector even if perceived as false.

If the views of the second Harold Wilson documentary above bear any credence, KGB may have run a similarly confounding game in England, harassing Wilson and MI5 each into paranoia about the other, knowing also that MI5 had a strong line to Angleton.

Edited by David Andrews
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...