Norman Reddaway

Overview

Characterised by John Pilger as 'One of Her Majesty's most experienced liars' over his role in the bloody coup which brought General Suharto to power in Indonesia in the laste 1960's, Norman Reddaway was the head of the Information Research Department of the UK Foreign Office.

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 In an unpublished interview, Reddaway says: "The researchers were extremely good at researching the facts about going into Europe"

It is alleged that in 1956 the Conservative MP Douglas Dodds-Parker, a former anti-communist ally of Labour Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, 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'. This committee was comprised of personnel from Ministry of Labour, Home Office, police (presumably Special Branch), IRD and MI5. 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 marked the beginning of official British secret state offensive operations against the CPGB.

Affiliations

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

Connections

David Reddaway, son

Notes

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