CIA at work in UK, anti-terror chief tells MPs

[Paul Rigby]

The sad fact is that the CIA have been actively operating in Britain for decades past. Not only have they (openly and without restrictions) recruited members of Her Majesty's forces to operate for them, but they were involved in the plot to overthrow a duly elected Prime MInister, namely Harold Wilson, thanks to private spook Brian Crozier a CIA and MI6 asset and leading light of the Pinay Circle.

I agree entirely with the point about Wilson, but would add:

1) the US history of buying up Britain's spooks and journos extends at least as far back as the American Civil War, when Confederate agents found it remarkably easy to purchase both (no doubt helped by the fact that the British Government was distinctly sympathetic). David Bruce and the OSS found the same during WWII;

2) the CIA actions against Wilson are merely the visible tip of a much bigger iceberg: from Suez, through Macmillan -when the CIA also targeted MI5's leadership, most notably Roger Hollis and his deputy - to Edward Heath and John Major (Yugoslavia), any British Prime Minister held insufficiently co-operative has been subject to covert attack. Too often, I suspect, we let ideological blinkers blind us to the range of US subversion against politicians of all stripes. I know I have.

Paul