gravalicious

“The cleverest Black woman I know to have spied for White South Africa is Patience Busisiwe McHunu, better known as ‘Patty Patience’, a very smart operator who managed to drag herself out of the slums of Soweto by becoming a photographic model and actress. When I first heard of her, mid-1979, Patty was still spying for BOSS in London and living in a comfortable flat in Braemar Avenue, Neasden Lane. I know about Patty being a spy because when I first met her in 1965 I was so impressed by her shrewdness and natural acting ability that I put her name up for recruitment. She was signed on and sent to London, where she married a charming Englishman, Mr Stuart Cook, who was in partnership with Mr Ken Warren, then the Tory MP for Hastings. One of the highlights in Patty’s spying career came in May 1970, when the Black American soul singer Percy Sledge toured South Africa. Pretoria thought he might cause trouble on an anti-apartheid level and decided to plant a girlfriend on him who could watch him at close quarters. The girl was Patty. She was flown to South Africa especially for the assignment, which she carried out expertly by quickly becoming an important member of Mr Sledge’s entourage. The famous singer left South Africa before his tour was completed without giving any sound reason. Only Patty and BOSS know the answer to that.(p. 278-279)”

“In April 1976, the [Police] Federation held a seminar on ‘The Challenge of Crime’ at Cambridge, attended by ‘politicians, church leaders, magistrates and trade unionists, leaders of voluntary bodies and members of the police service’. Among the main speakers were Enoch Powell and Mr. Justice Melford Stevenson. The decision to invite Powell was attacked by representatives of black people’s organizations. This criticism is understandable in view of Powell’s previous image with regard to race relations. This cannot have been improved by his speech itself, with its references to 'the introduction of these alien wedges into the population of our cities’ as a major source of the increase of violence represented by 'mugging’. The criticism of the Federation’s invitation to Powell was attacked by the Chairman as 'ill-conceived and totally misdirected. In a free society an organization must be free to hold what meetings it wishes and invite which speakers it wants, without having to submit them to the Community Relations Commission for prior approval’.”

“Whether or not Michael [X] deserved his prison sentence, his punishment (along with the UCPA prosecutions) left many feeling that legislation designed to protect Britain’s black communities was being used disproportionately against them.[118] Lester and Bindman recorded this ‘widespread and erroneous impression that most of the prosecutions have been brought against black people’.[119] Such was the potency of this perception that John Lyttle (Chief Conciliation Officer of the Race Relations Board) felt the need to write a note to all conciliation committees providing data to set the record straight: ‘There is a widespread belief, particularly rife in the Race Relations Industry, that Section 6 of the 1965 Act is being used wholly or almost wholly against coloured defendants.’[120] Whatever the numbers involved, what seems to have particularly aggravated black communities was a perception that while marginal figures like Sawh and Michael were put on trial for their speeches, famous white firebrands like Enoch Powell and Streatham MP Duncan Sandys were not pursued for their racist outbursts.[121] In 1967, Jeff Crawford, Secretary of the West Indian Standing Conference, complained about this unfairness, specifically relating to a television interview given by Sandys. ‘We are becoming increasingly concerned at the tough measures being taken and the pressure being put on black leaders while white racialists are being allowed to continue their campaign unchecked.’[122] This perception of imbalance was equally felt among many other race relations activists and analysts. For example, Tony Smythe (the General Secretary of the National Council for Civil Liberties) complained that ‘incitement clauses have been used successfully against the very minority they were designed to protect and yet have been used unsuccessfully in prosecutions against white racialists’.[123]”

“The SIS [Secret Intelligence Service] documents are still held back at the National Archives for many decades so we do not know what they will tell us about British Intelligence in the post-war years that is new. However, stories of the SIS in those years pop up from time to time, often in unlikely sources. In 2019 yet another story about SIS covert operations made news about events of some sixty years ago. It again showed that despite IRD’s wide remit, the SIS liked to keep its own hand in ‘front’ publishing and using journalists. The story came from the wife and son of a deceased SIS officer called Peter Hornsby. Hornsby, whose early SIS handler was George Blake, the Soviet double agent, had been recruited as an SIS asset after being elected national treasurer of the National Union of Students (NUS). In 1956, he took up a post with the Coordinating Secretariat of the National Unions of Students (Cosec), an international anti-communist organisation which was also funded by the SIS and housed in the Dutch city of Leiden. In 1960 another one of Hornsby’s handlers, Margaret Bray,[4] discussed with Hornsby the idea of setting up one of the first magazines aimed at Afro-Caribbean readers, as a means of monitoring national movements and discreetly recruiting agents. An SIS front company called Chalton Publishing was set up to produce the magazine and also published Feline, a soft porn magazine aimed at the Afro-Caribbean community. Journalists and editorial staff were hired. The exotically titled Flamingo was considered an innovative magazine, even in the cultural whirlwind of the 1960s, mixing glamour, sex, culture and international politics. Hornsby’s wife and then son told the intelligence writer Stephen Dorril about his work for the SIS. ‘In Peter’s mind, a magazine focusing on immigrants would make them feel welcome and ease their integration into British society’, says Jennifer Hornsby (Doward 2019).(p. 108-109)”