CIA activities in the United Kingdom

There is a long history of close cooperation between the United States and the United Kingdom intelligence services; see Clandestine HUMINT and Covert Action for World War II and subsequent relationships. There are permanent liaison officers of each country in major intelligence agencies of the other, such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Secret Intelligence Service ("MI6") (which is the British counterpart of the CIA), FBI and the Security Service (MI5), and National Security Agency (NSA) and Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). From 1943 to 2017, the Open Source Enterprise, a division of the CIA, was run out of Caversham Park in Reading, Berkshire. American officials worked closely with their British counterparts to monitor foreign TV and radio broadcasts, as well as online information.[1]

Oleg Penkovsky, a Soviet military intelligence colonel, who was a defector in place, was a joint US-UK espionage operation. Much of Penkovsky's product is available online at the CIA FOIA Reading Room under the code name IRONBARK.[2]

A major source of tension between the two countries was Kim Philby, a senior UK SIS officer who was a Soviet agent. Philby, at one point, was the SIS liaison officer resident in the US. James Jesus Angleton, head of CIA counterintelligence, was surprised by Philby's activity, and, as a consequence, began hunts for moles within CIA.

1960s–1970s

During the 1960s and 1970s, MI5 and the CIA's chief of counterintelligence, James Jesus Angleton, spied on Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson[3] because elements in those agencies claimed that Wilson was a Soviet agent or a blackmail risk.[4]

As Peter Wright confirmed in his book Spycatcher, Wilson was the victim of a protracted, illegal campaign of destabilisation by a rogue element in the security services. Prompted by CIA fears that Wilson was a Soviet agent - put in place after the KGB had, the spooks believed, poisoned Hugh Gaitskell, the previous Labour leader - these MI5 men burgled the homes of the prime minister's aides, bugged their phones and spread black, anti-Wilson propaganda throughout the media. They tried to pin all kinds of nonsense on him: that his devoted political secretary, Marcia Williams, posed a threat to national security; that he was a closet IRA sympathiser. – The Guardian (2006)[5]

1980s

In January 2014, newly released documents revealed that Margaret Thatcher had been warned 30 years earlier that the CIA did not always give sufficient notice in advance when it carried out operations in the UK. In 1984, Paddy Ashdown, who later became leader of the Liberal Democrats, raised fears about clandestine approaches made by CIA agents, but his allegations were dismissed by Thatcher.[6]

A series of CIA memos were released in January 2017. One, dated from 1985, said that the CIA believed that Labour Party was "in the hands of urban leftists given to ideological extremes with only fringe appeal".[7]

2000s

In February 2009, journalist Tim Shipman revealed in The Spectator that the CIA was "running its own agent networks on an unprecedented scale in the British Pakistani community." He claimed "somewhere between 40 and 60 per cent of CIA activity designed to prevent a new terrorist spectacular on American soil is now directed at targets in the UK."[8]

In February 2019, the Intelligence and Security Committee unearthed a number of examples of GCHQ's intelligence being used to locate and detain terrorism suspects who were subsequently rendered and tortured during the 2000s as part of the War on Terror. The committee also found that GCHQ provided intelligence to assist the interrogation of terrorism suspects held at CIA black sites.[9]

2016–present

In January 2022, former CIA agent-turned whistleblower, John Kiriakou revealed that the National Endowment for Democracy—a non-profit corporation created in the 1980s by President Ronald Reagan and funded by the United States Congress—had funnelled millions of dollars into British independent media groups since 2016. These include investigative outlets such as Bellingcat, Finance Uncovered and openDemocracy, as well as media freedom and training organisations like Index on Censorship, Article 19, the Media Legal Defence Initiative, and the Thomson Reuters Foundation.[10]

"In 2011, the US Congress changed the law that forbade the Executive Branch from propagandizing the American people or nationals of the other 'Five Eyes' countries—the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand," he told Declassified UK. "The National Endowment for Democracy, like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, countless Washington-area 'think tanks', and Radio/TV Martí, are the vehicles for that propaganda", referring to the US broadcaster that transmits to Cuba. Kiriakou continued: "And what better way to spread that propaganda than to funnel money to 'friendly' outlets in 'friendly countries'? The CIA's propaganda efforts throughout history have been shameless. But now that they're not legally relegated to just Russia and China, the whole world is a target."[10]

See also

References
  1. Bond, David (20 October 2017). "US to close CIA division's UK intelligence monitoring unit". Financial Times. Retrieved 29 March 2022.
  2. "Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room | CIA FOIA (foia.cia.gov)". www.cia.gov.
  3. Leigh, David; Ware, John; Greengrass, Paul (22 July 1984). "MI5 and CIA suspected Harold Wilson was Russian agent". The Observer. Retrieved 28 March 2022.
  4. Bley Griffiths, Eleanor (17 November 2019). "The Crown: Did people really think Prime Minister Harold Wilson was a Soviet agent?". Radio Times. Retrieved 28 March 2022.
  5. Freedland, Jonathan (15 March 2006). "The Wilson plot was our Watergate". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 March 2022.
  6. Bowcott, Owen (3 January 2014). "Thatcher received warning about CIA's activities in UK, secret file reveals". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 August 2021.
  7. "CIA fears about 1980s Labour 'threat' revealed". BBC News. 20 January 2017. Retrieved 1 October 2021.
  8. Shipman, Tim (28 February 2009). "Why the CIA has to spy on Britain". The Spectator. Retrieved 1 August 2021.
  9. Cobain, Ian; Usiskin, Clara (27 February 2019). "UK spy agency under pressure to open up over support for CIA torture programme". London: Middle East Eye. Retrieved 29 March 2022.
  10. Kennard, Matt; Curtis, Mark (17 January 2022). "'CIA SIDEKICK' GIVES £2.6M TO UK MEDIA GROUPS". Declassified UK. Retrieved 18 January 2022.
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