Sydney Morrell
 Sydney Morrell    (journalist, spook) | ||||||||||||||
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| Born | 1912 | |||||||||||||
| Died | 1985 (Age 72) | |||||||||||||
| Nationality | UK | |||||||||||||
British journalist and advertising executive. During World War Two he worked for the British Security Coordination spreading black propaganda in the United States.
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Sydney W. "Bill" Morrell was a British journalist and advertising executive. During World War Two he worked for British Security Coordination and the Special Operations Executive under the cover symbol G.101.[1]
Career
He became a journalist who worked for the Daily Mirror and the Daily Express. He became the newspaper's European correspondent.[2]
During World War Two he worked for British Security Coordination in New York. William Ross-Smith later recalled: "When Morrell first arrived at BSC he worked in my section for a while and did excellent, he soon moved on to dealing with press, radio, black propaganda and anti British pro-German organizations."[3]
In July 1941 he was asked to write a report on the organisations that had been set up with the help of the BSC:
(i) The Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League. Used for the vehement exposure of enemy agents and isolationists. Prints a wide variety of pamphlets, copies of which have been sent to you. Has recently begun to attack Lindbergh and the many other conscious or unconscious native Fascists.
(ii) The League for Human Rights. A subsidiary organization of the American Federation of Labour which in its turn controls 4,000,000 trade unionists....
(iii) Friends of Democracy. An example of the work of this organization is attached. It is a complete attack upon Henry Ford for his Nazi leanings.
(iv) Fight for Freedom Committee. Both this and (iii) above are militant interventionist organizations whose aim is to provide Roosevelt with evidence that the U.S. public is eager for action.
(v) American Committee to Aid British Labour. Another branch organization of tile American Federation of Labour. It is organized along the lines that British labour is in the front line defending American labour. The latest activity of this organization has been to inaugurate a week during which all American trade unionists are asked to donate towards a fund in aid of British labour....
(vi) Committee for Inter-American Co-operation. Used this for sponsoring SO.1 work in Central and South America. It is now being used intensively for penetration in all Latin American countries, both as cover for agents and for sponsoring pamphlets.
(vii) American Last. A purely provocative experiment started in San Francisco in an attempt to sting America into a fighting mood.[3]
At some time after the war he became executive vice president of Communications Affiliates Inc., a division of advertising agency McCann Erickson Inc. Morrell established Sydney Morrell & Company in Manhattan in 1963.[2]
Affiliations
References
- ↑ Thomas E. Mahl, Desperate Deception: British Covert Operations in the United States 1939-44, Brassey's, 1999, p.197.
- ↑ a b https://www.nytimes.com/1985/10/24/nyregion/sydney-w-morrell.html
- ↑ a b via Spartacus Educational https://spartacus-educational.com/SPYmorrell.htm
