Declassified files reveal new details about UK Foreign Office propaganda unit

A British ‘black propaganda’ unit carried out a vast range of ‘anti-communist’ influence operations and even owned international news agencies. The Foreign Office ran the Special Editorial Unit (SEU) from the late 1940s to the 1970s. Declassified UK‘s Jon McEvoy, who has reported on the unit before, accessed a new tranche of files released from London’s National Archives.

McEvoy said:

The focus of much of this material was on the Soviet Union and its external activities, but other campaigns targeted left-wing and national liberation movements across the developing world.

The SEU was part of the Information Research Department (IRD). It served as a:

clandestine anti-communist propaganda unit which operated in the Foreign Office between 1948 and 1977.

And the SEU made deniable (or ‘black’) propaganda. Targets included nationalist movements around the world:

Anti-colonial leaders such as Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, Indonesia’s Sukarno, and Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah were a frequent focus of British propaganda operations.

McEvoy added:

Elsewhere, the SEU orchestrated propaganda campaigns on such diverse topics as fishing rights in the North Atlantic, apartheid in South Africa, and European communist parties.

The operations included running entire fake media outlets.

Foreign Office — fake news before it was cool

Running news agencies was one of SEU’s “core activities”. These are described as “controlled outlets” in the archival material. SEU tried to ensure:

they were stocked with a constant stream of propaganda material.

Some are even named:

Agencies controlled from Whitehall included Near and Far East News (NAFEN), the National Guardsman, the Guardian of Liberty, Lion Features, and World Feature Services.

The unit considered Guardian of Liberty particularly successful:

“With the Hungarian Uprising as its ostensible origin”, one SEU file noted, the Guardian of Liberty was able to build up “a reputation as an authoritative source of information on Communist affairs” which was often “embarrassing to the Soviet authorities”.

Adding:

The SEU was particularly pleased with how it functioned as a “hard-hitting disavowable outlet available for the dissemination of particularly ‘difficult’ subjects” such as “the naming of KGB agents operating in foreign countries”.

The fake outlets mixed everyday news items with overtly political material to appear less suspicious:

In order to look like bona fide news agencies, the SEU’s “controlled outlets” fused political with “anodyne” content in order to “sweeten the pill” of the propaganda material.

These “anodyne” articles covered such issues as women’s affairs, health, sociology, geography, history, and sport.

One SEU operative quoted in the files remarked of fake new agency Lion Features:

In order to attract editors and readers, and to maintain the appearance of a genuine features agency, an average issue is usually made up of two polemical articles, combined with three others of a positive or anodyne nature.

The unit also supplied secret briefings to outlets and journalists:

In addition to controlling news agencies, the SEU supplied “independent” outlets and journalists with secret briefings and pre-written content for publication under their own names.

Some of those stories emanated from British intelligence material, helping journalists to build their own prestige and disseminate stories internationally.

The intelligence services built links with journalists from major outlets of the time. The documents mention outlets like Reuters, the Sunday Telegraph, the Scotsman and the Economist. Other sections describe how the UK sought to increase racial tensions between Africans and the Chinese inside former colonies.

SEU also sought to play off Russia and China and cause discord between Egypt’s nationalist leader Gamal Abdel Nasser and other North African and Middle Eastern nations.

The IRD officially shut down in 1977. Today we cannot fully know where the UK state is running influence operations, if it still operates entire media outlets or which journalists it may seek to recruit influence. Using propaganda to shape global and domestic politics is still standard fare for states and corporations.

Featured image via the Canary