Britannia Radio

Norman Reddaway

Norman Reddaway was the head of the Information Research Department of the UK Foreign Office.

The civil servant who ran the covert pro-Europe campaign was Norman Reddaway, Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office, with a brief covering IRD and other FO information services.

Mr Reddaway, who later became ambassador to Poland, and is now retired, set up a special IRD unit to propagandise in favour of British entry and counter those who opposed it. In an unpublished interview, Mr Reddaway says: "The researchers were extremely good at researching the facts about going into Europe" ^[1]

The authors tell us that in 1956 the Conservative MP Douglas Dodds-Parker, a former anti-communist ally of Labour Foreign SecretaryBevin, had been appointed to the Foreign Office as Under-Secretary - and apparently in formal charge of liaison with IRD.(2) Dodds-Parker contacted IRD's Norman Reddaway who suggested using the files of the Home Region Committee 'which had been set up in the 1950s to gather information on the activities of Communists in British Industry'. (p. 106) This committee - whose existence is revealed here for the first time, I think - was comprised of personnel from Ministry of Labour, Home Office, police (presumably Special Branch), IRD and MI5. This looks very important - if there is anything on this committee. Unfortunately the authors do not tell us if there are minutes, files, records of any kind and I infer from their silence that none exist. Dodds-Parker then convened the meeting which Mayhew described, attended by the Cabinet Secretary Brook, Patrick Dean of the FO, Reddaway from IRD and Roger Hollis D-G of MI5, at which the Cabinet Secretary ordered MI5 to give their intelligence on the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) to IRD for their use. This meeting marks the beginning of official British secret state offensive operations against the CPGB.^[2]

Affiliations

• Research Foundation for the Study of Terrorism Council member, 1987

Connections

David Reddaway, son

Notes

1. ^ Paul Lashmar and James Oliver 'How MI6 pushed Britain to join Europe', Sunday Telegraph, 27 April 1997, page 10
2. ^Robin Ramsay, Review of Britain's Secret Propaganda War, by Paul Lashmar and James Oliver Sutton Publishing, Stroud (UK), Lobster, Sumer 1999, Issue 37