In early 1963, African students in Bulgaria violently clashed with police after authorities banned their attempts to establish and all-African Students’ Union.
How could 🇬🇧 exploit this??
2/9
By forging a World Federation of Democratic Youth response obviously
Lots of recent analysis plays up the importance of exposing hostile Russian intelligence activity as a core part of the Western response.
But this is flawed because exposure isn’t enough - and can backfire
Here’s what recent research tells us ... 🧵 1/7
Exposure isn’t “a switch”. To have consequences it requires revelation too: “a collective recognition that something has happened”. See @stamp in @SecDialogue 2/7
Turns out it’s the 50th anniversary of Allende’s election win in Chile.
Guess what?
The U.K. had a bash at covert action to undermine him too.
[short thread on how and why] 1/5
U.K. admission (incredibly rare to see):
“Because there is a v real danger that the communists might gain control of this country by constitutional means, we are concentrating on covert operations which we think could influence the result of the next election”
2/5
What did U.K. do?
- bribed radio producers to buy airtime
- meddled in trade union politics
- influenced universities
- built up contacts in Christian Dems + “the left wing” parties
But all this was dwarfed by CIA activity. So why bother to take risk???
3/5