Thread by @RoryCormac

#OTD 1955

Colonial Secretary Alan Lennox Boyd agrees to using covert action in colonial territories...

...so long as he maintained control

This was a big and controversial move. Why?

officials hotly debated
❓whether it was right to subvert colonial populations
❓whether locally elected ministers should be consulted
❓whether MI6 - which operated on foreign territory - should be involved
❓whether the Foreign Office should have control

The senior diplomat, Ivone Kirkpatrick, had no intention of relinquishing hard won foreign office control:

" we wish to have a finger in the colonial pie"

In true British style a new committee was set up, chaired by cabinet secretary Norman Brook but its activities came to little for 4 reasons:

1. Many colonial officials strongly opposed covert action against colonial citizens. It was "unBritish"
2. Colonial officials thought the communist-obsessed diplomats misunderstood the threats

[so MI6 sent a senior officer to tour colonial capitals to rally support for covert measures but received a bunch of "over my dead body responses]

3. The UK had colonial powers so didn't need to resort to covert action. They could - and did - simply change constitutions (se British Guiana)
4. London was too far away, and the situations too fluid, to plan this stuff centrally

But...

... that's not to say UK didn't do a lot of activity as various colonies transitioned to independence

END