Interdoc

Interdoc
Formation	1961
Founder	•  Brian Crozier •  Dick Ellis •  Walter Bell
Interest of	Giles Scott-Smith
An "information and documentation centre" which specialised in research on the European left. Spooky anti-communist group.

Interdoc was a 1960s "anti-communist" think tank, described briefly in issue #11 of The Lobster.

Origins

Interdoc was established in the early 1960s "by Western intelligence services as a multinational effort to coordinate an anti-communist offensive." An appendix in Lobster stated that it was financed by the Dutch Secret Service. Hermann Foertsch was involved in its establishment.

Stewart-Smith's publishing company, Foreign Affairs Publishing Co. (FAPC) had links to The East-West Institute in The Hague, which was run by Mi Van Den Heuval, the Dutch representative on the World Anti-Communist League. According to one report (Liberation 9 October 1975), "Interdoc was set up during a meeting at Brabizon, near Paris, on 5-8 October 1961 ... the participants decided to unite behind the new organisation ... all the efforts and initiatives of the struggle against communism and place them on a serious and expert footing."

Operations

The Italian participant was Professor Luigi Gedda, the CIA and Vatican's man. An Italian secret service document states that the whole endeavour had been financed by the Dutch secret service. There is also a report that it received support from the CIA and Moral Re-armament(!). This latter piece states that Interdoc gave financial assistance to the Lady Birdwood - Ross McWhirter 'Inter-City Research'. There were also links with The Monday Club and ISC.

Actions?

The British representative of Interdoc at the London office during the sixties and early seventies was Major Charles Howard Ellis. Ellis' intelligence career went back to Czarist Russia. During WW2 he worked for William Stephenson's British Security Coordination in the US. Post-war he rose to no.3 in the MI6 hierarchy and ended his career weeding MI6 files. He had been recommended to Interdoc by ex MI6 head Stewart Menzies. While working for Interdoc, 'with the other chaps' Ellis put together an 'action group', keeping it 'private and confidential as publicity would kill it'. What this 'action group' did isn't known.

 

Related Quotations

Page	Quote	Author	Date
Document:Psychological Warfare for the West: Interdoc and Youth Politics in the 1960s	“Psychological warfare has two sides: The build-up of moral strength within one's own side and the undermining of the morale of the opposing side.”	Cees van den Heuvel	1959
Document:Psychological Warfare for the West: Interdoc and Youth Politics in the 1960s	“We say to the leaders of the capitalist states: Let us try out in practice whose system is better, let us compete without war... The main thing is to keep to the positions of ideological struggle, without resorting to arms in order to prove that one is right... We believe that ultimately that system will be victorious on the globe which will offer the nations greater opportunities for improving their material and spiritual life.”	Nikita Khrushchev	1959
Strategy of tension	“Ultimately, Interdoc’s value comes from it being a remarkable example of the way European security services sought to engage with and manipulate the public sphere, initially out of serious concerns for the effects of peaceful coexistence on Western ideological solidity, and eventually as a means to secure a strategic advantage in the Cold War.”	Giles Scott-Smith	2011

 

Related Document

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:Psychological Warfare for the West: Interdoc and Youth Politics in the 1960s	book excerpt	2011	Giles Scott-Smith	A book chapter covering Interdoc's activities in the international student/youth field during the 1960s.

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