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Rory Cormac Profile picture
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26 Aug, 4 tweets, 1 min read
So this week I’m taking flak for being an establishment academic after our recent appointment of Sawers as hon prof

Yet at same time, I’ve been called too anti-establishment / critical to get funding (with all the impact required)

Just can’t win 🤷‍♂️
I have it on good authority that Prince Charles once called me “that little shit” though, so there’s always that
For the sake of balance, I should add that Prince Philip was, according to a different source, quite the fan!
And by flak I mean we’ve now been called: nonce, spook, shameful, stooge, gross, complicit in gov disinformation campaign, and so it goes on.

I’ve not personally experienced this infamous side of Twitter before, but by god I’m bored of it now. Please stop tagging me!

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More from @RoryCormac

Rory Cormac Profile picture
27 Aug
1968: mass protests, social unrest, opposition to Vietnam, assassination of Martin Luther King.

How did UK a propaganda exploit this?

With a fake “ultra-left” student group of course!

This week’s #fakefriday thread from the archives… 1/7
The 1968 World Youth Festival took place in Sofia.

The IRD swung into action to expose it as a Soviet front - using unattributed newspaper articles and even a reports by a fake thinktank

But they wanted to do more. 2/7
Exposure was not enough.

Enter the “Committee for European Syndicalist Action”

The IRD put out a pamphlet in its name to “cause trouble” and disrupt the event.

The group did not exist.

3/7
Read 7 tweets
Rory Cormac Profile picture
25 Aug
#OTD 1953:

The Iranian Shah, days after the successful #MI6 / @CIA sponsored coup, demands British intrigue must now stop. Enough.

The response?

1/2
“Steps that had been taken in this particular case were not in accordance with usual practice, but were due to the special importance of Persia”

(meanwhile the U.K. was stepping up covert ops all over the Middle East!!)

2/2
Oh here’s an interesting coincidence

Also #OTD but 1970

UK wonders what to do about ex Sultan of Oman (whom they’d just deposed in a coup).

They knew he’d feel “sore” about it!

How to keep him quiet? How to stop him writing a tell all book?

The answer…
Read 4 tweets
Rory Cormac Profile picture
30 Jul
Who wants to see a real British forgery from 1963?

This one was designed to “intensify indignation” of African students towards the Soviets

A #fakefriday thread 🧵 1/9
First, some context:

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

(WFDY being a Soviet front)

3/9
Read 9 tweets
Rory Cormac Profile picture
4 May
Copyedits arrived for 240k word book. One week to turn it around.

Proofs arrived for Disrupt and Deny arrived. To do at my “earliest convenience”.

And just realised today is essay deadline day for my module.
And now nursery have sent my daughter home because she has a slight cough.

When will this madness end???
And now my son (with no symptoms) has been sent home 30 mins later...
Read 5 tweets
Rory Cormac Profile picture
28 Dec 20
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

journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…
@ThomasEason_ in @BritJPIR similarly tells us that exposure needs to be accompanied by politicisation to have effect.

Exposure without narrative/coverage among target audience is inconsequential. Exposure is what observers make of it 3/7

journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…
Read 7 tweets
Rory Cormac Profile picture
4 Sep 20
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
Read 6 tweets

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