Henry and the Socialists

...The next day this was officially confirmed...

...Mercenary Pressmen Bernard D. Nossiter...

...Nossiter subsequently disclosed that Crozier's new employer, the London-based Institute for the Study of Conflict, was also the creature of an undercover service-British this time...

...How can we be sure that we have the aircraft we really need for Western defense...

...First, he reported that a "British" features agency, Forum World Features, had been run by the CIA for nine years...

...Well-informed Arabs used to identify as "Whitehall cavalry" some who regularly broadcast a "commentary" (a five-minute talk following the news) in the BBC World Service...

...In addition, he may split the Socialist International, which is having difficulty reaching agreement on this problem yet overall remains hostile to collaboration with the Communists...

...London correspondent of the Washington Post, brought into the open a subject journalists sometimes mutter about in quiet bars but rarely discuss in print...

...And the appointment meant that the State Department would at last have an incumbent who understood Europeans, who even spoke one-and-a-half of their languages...

...The CIA has announced that it will discontinue using American journalists as agents...

...and, simply by keeping tabs on such visiting firemen and their contacts, Arab security services (and probably the Russians) were able to learn a lot...

...What on earth did he expect to achieve by sending a posse of U.S...

...There has been much concern over here for the "good names" of Prince Bernhard and other gentlemen who are alleged by some tactless Americans to have accepted bribes from aircraft manufacturers...

...The people who debase journalism are the mercenaries who intrigue and ingratiate in order to sway editorial policy, discredit more conscientious colleagues, and carve out private zones of influence, the better to serve their covert paymasters...

...and in due course the New York Times revealed that, according to authoritative sources, Forum had been designed as a conduit for secret payments to foreign journalists working for the CIA...

...If they can win power without an alliance with the Communists, they will naturally spurn Moscow's minions...

...but up to a few years ago the journalists who read them were carefully briefed, had close connections with officialdom, and were viewed with some distrust by the politically sophisticated when they popped up in Mideastern capitals...

...There was unhealthily close collaboration between a few genuine pressmen and British brass in the Near East at one time...

...Unfortunately, they are mere human beings-and, what is even worse, politicians...

...But they would have no hope of independently capturing a West European federal government...

...Phoney press cards are not a new invention...

...diplomats are not the kind of people who have much rapport with Socialists...

...They will always be uneasy, however, about sharing power with moderates and leaving a substantial Communist party in opposition where it can exploit discontent...

...One would like to be able to report that European Socialist leaders are all lily-white idealists...

...If they are foreign correspondents, the suspicions they arouse eventually create difficulties for other newsmen they don't even know??just as the use of false press cards in Ireland is bound to endanger the lives of genuine reporters there...

...To help ease the economic strain of its massive military assistance to Syria, Angola and Somalia, the Soviet Union intends to draw on a cheap credit line supplied by Britain, which has been obliged to borrow money from Iran, which is in turn borrowing money on the Euromarket...

...but still pretty good...

...This was firmly denied, of course-as firmly as a devaluation rumor two days before a change of parity...

...Its "commentaries" are now fewer and less propagandist than they once were...

...This drew an angry denial from the agency's director, Right-wing publicist Brian Crozier...

...Not quite as impressive as the success of Julie Andrews or Boris Karloff, of course...

...In December Nossiter wrote that "a remarkable number of British journalists" are reputed to work for the SIS...

...The possibility of the Communists winning an election, with Socialist or Demochristian (Catholic) aid, in one or two states can never be excluded...

...He will simply embarrass moderates and enable the Communists to pose as the defenders of national self-determination (the French CP, particularly, is playing a very nationalistic game...

...In France they have formed a Federation of Democratic Socialists, and the Socialist essayist Jean-Francois Revel has just published a fast-selling book (La tentation totalitaire) arguing that "the principal obstacle to Socialism is not capitalism but Communism' Sheriff Kissinger will not help matters by galloping around with his posse, brandishing a six-shooter...

...diplomats to urge West European Socialist leaders, in strong terms, not to form electoral alliances with the Communists...

...Moreover, within a federal system there would be no danger to Western security in their sharing power at the state level??as they already do at the provincial level in Italy??and bogging themselves down in the problems of urban development, industrial relations and agriculture, if the electorate so desired...

...If a Communist alliance offers a real hope of electoral success, they will be tempted to believe that Moscow's minions are not such bad fellows after all...

...No one, though, is asking the really important question: Is there not a risk that, because certain sales were decided by bribes, Western European air forces may have bought lemons...

...And Others ? British mercenaries returning from Angola recently were questioned by Scotland Yard about the reported shooting of other British mercenaries who had gone to the South African territory and then refused to fight...

...He doesn't seem to understand Europeans any better than John Foster Dulles...

...and Socialists are apt, at the best of times, to take a slightly cynical view of the policies of a Republican administration in Washington...

...Although the Socialists who oppose the Communist connection are a minority, they are a substantial, active one...

...The World Service is government-financed and, overtly and legitimately, used to plug Whitehall's views...

...I have never had the misfortune of meeting Bernard D. Nossiter," Crozier declared frostily, "and I hope I may be spared it...

...It has no means of convincing skeptical Europeans and others that it is keeping its word...

...Continental newsmen took this up and concluded that the ISC is CIA-controlled but drops hints that it is run by the British Secret Intelligence Service so as to keep away inquisitive British reporters and members of Parliament...

...One wonders why it bothered...

...In mid-February the London Times reported that operatives of British military intelligence in Northern Ireland had been issued phoney press cards and were posing as newsmen...

...Sadly, some newsmen in sensitive areas may now feel it advisable to display a little anti-American bias to ward off suspicion...

...Maybe it would be simpler if the Euromarket financed Soviet Mideastern and African adventures directly in the future...

...The Italian and French Communist parties are strong partly because nobody can blame them for faulty government policies, and partly because the Socialists and Social Democrats have put water in their wine, as the French say-diluting their reformist policies in deference to coalition partners of the Center and Right...

...People in the know said Nossiter was right...

...Now, though, a lot of people here are wondering who forged Henry's birth certificate...

...In Italy and France many Socialists now believe Communist participation in government would sanitize the political situation by obliging the CP to share responsibility for implementing unpopular policies...

...Personally, I am not shocked by the newsman with honest convictions who passes on useful information to an organization he believes to be doing good work, whether it be a labor union, Amnesty International or the SPCA...

...Oddly enough, nobody seemed bothered about how many Africans the mercenaries might have shot...

...Local Boy Makes Good, and all that...

...The French Socialists are now in opposition, but they participated in most of the coalitions that led the Fourth Republic to collapse...

...And its announcement may simply persuade some witchhunters that, say, British or Australian newsmen have been recruited to fill the gap (Australians are especially suspect in Europe because of rumors that the CIA has, in effect, taken over the Australian intelligence service...

...Frequently, it must be admitted, the distrust was justified...

...If one British subject has shot another," said an official, "he will be brought to justice, even if the murder took place in Africa...

...In the longer term, Washington's best policy will be to encourage the European Community to speed up economic and political integration...

...A curio in my possession is a press card issued by a British official organization in a Mediterranian country declaring its bearer to be the correspondent of a leading Scottish newspaper: The young man to whom it was issued had never written a newspaper article in his life and did not even know the name of the editor of the paper he was supposed to represent...