Cynical and shady links of Social Democrats

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Decked fittingly in cratic Party set sail last month in a blaze of free media publicity. It now claims over 40,000 members.

But it is plain that the decision to launch the Party was no sudden whim, or fit of pique, on the part of Williams, Rodgers, Owen and Jenkins in the aftermath of their humiliating defeat at the Wembley conference.

The split had been discussed and planned in detail before the end of 1980.

A leaked internal document, probably written in late November by either Rodgers or Owen, has been published by Labour Weekly revealing the Social Democrats' strategy for a "clean break and the party launch" in the spring of 1981 regardless of the Wembley decision.

coverage The document outlines the need to uttise the opportunity for endless free media coverage prior to and following the conference.

.. for every week we wait in February and March we lose momentum, lose the feeling we know where we are going and why, lose the justification of the Special Conference as the break point. We need therefore decisions early in January so that we escalate the significance of the Conference ... and put the issue to the forefront of the public's mind, particularly between January to 12 January when Parliament is not sitting."

Such timing is also regarded as ideal because it came hefore growing numbers of would-be detectors among the right wing PLP faced the embarrassment of reselection conferences in, their constituencies, which might make the new party seem like "a home for rejects"

Other problems discussed in the document include how to handle Roy Jenkins' return from Brussels, since some of the Social Democrats' supporters understandably recognise him as:

"a liability, linked to the Liberal Centre party concept and not a Social Democrat"

Harm identity

The author speculates on the possibility that the media might not be fully enthusiastic about the new Party, and that:

"those in the media who wish us ill will be only too happy to portray • him (Jenkins) as the leader, sensing he will do harm to the identity of Social Democracy.

In their efforts to avoid this, the Sucial Democrats evolved their much-vaunted "collective leadership" structure.

And the document advocates that the new party should avoid overt links with David Steel and the Liberal Party until January 1982, although "privaic, personal contacts would, ot course continue (!) and be usetul.

At this point of time of course Shirley Williams and Tom Bradley were both still on the Labour Party's NIC, The therefor embrace their spl 13 years And Owen plann and Williams was publicly denying as late as February that she was or had been planning to launch a new The SDP's plans gathered most momentum however, in the aftermath of the miners' strike-at a point where the potential vulnerability of the Thatcher government to militant working class action had been sharply exposed.

Worried sections of capitalists and their assistants in the media turned eagerly towards the Social Democrats as a means of offering possible Parliamentary coalition partner to a beleagured Tory government-and as a possible means of splitting the Labour vote in the next General Election.

Lavish resources were provided for endless interviews and "news" coverage as the Social Democrats limbered up prior to the official party launch.

The political basis for this is also contained within the leaked document.

The anonymous "Gangster" voices the view that:

•.. the unacceptability of allowing Britain to have after 25 years a further ten years of bad government outweigh the real danger that splitting the left could allow the right a sustained period of government, longer than the 13 years between 1951 and 1964. The ques tion then is how to split. timing is a tactical decision Tory rule Social Democats quite easily the prospect that lit could precipitate of Tory rule. with precisely this plit goal in mind, their cause drew in the backing of the press barons and many of the more astute sections of the capitalist class and their propagandists.

Nor is it the first time that the right wing has looked to Rodgers and his right wing Labourite cronies as a stalking horse for their anti-socialist politics.

Rodgers in particular was spotted in the late 1950s as a useful organiser for extreme right wing causes within the His talents came to light in a period in which many of Labour's leading right wingers had become involved with CIA-backed anti-communist intellectual front organisations.

CIA-backed

In the late 1950s Hugh Gaitskell, Anthony Crosland and Denis Healey were among those attending functions of the CIA-sponsored "Congress for Cultural Freedom"

Gaitskell and Healey also went as guests of Prince Bernhardt of the Netherlands to attend sessions of the "Bilderberg Group" organised by an influential American, Joseph Reitinger, who also arranged US Marshall Aid funding for the European Movement.

Dick Taverne, the renegade Lincoln Labourite, was also both a leading figure in the Bilderberg Group and an active member of the Furopean Parliament.

Sponsorship for the European Movement also came trom the netarious "American Committee for a United Europe" • Whose members included the former head of the CIA's forerunner. the OSS: Lucius D. Clay, a founder of Radio Free Europe; and CIA men Allen Dulles and Tom Braden.

While the living was easy for the Labourite lured onto such binges, the CIA funds were put to good use. Gaitskell, together with his cabal of right wingers including Roy Jenkins, Crosland and Douglas Jay, took the occasion of Labour's electoral defeat in 1959 to launch a fight to delete Clause IV -the call for nationalisation-from Labour's constitution.

A mysteriously-financed opinion poll was commissioned to back up a propaganda campaign against nationalisation. As the Tory press joined in, so did William Rodgers, who as General Secretary of the Fabian Society began to rally support for Gaitskell.

But the 1960 Labour conference registered a body blow to their campaign. An increasingly militant working class had made its impact even on the bureaucratic Jenkins: pastuzo huhility leadership of the trade unions-and block votes were cast to defeat Gaitskell not only on the Clause IV issue but also on the issue of nuclear weapons with the endorsement of a call for unilateral disarmament and a break from NATO.

Gaitskell declared that he would "fight, fight and fight again" against socialist policies. He was backed by the Tory press-and by William Rodgers and a gang of right wingers.

Reactionary interests chipped in willingly. A large sum of money from an "anonymous" source enabled Rodgers to set up an office and a full time staff for his "Campaign for Democratic Socialism"

Local organisers were nirea, with travelling expenses lavishly printea pamphlets and boundless supplies of the CDS Manifesto. A regular bulletin was posted free of charge to a huge list of ward secretaries and party members.

In the event the unilateralist policy on nuclear weapons was overturned by the block vote in 1961-while the unresolved Clause IV issue was left on one side, and successive Labour leaders opted simply to ignore it (together with decisions of conference with which they disagree.

But Rodgers' campaign served to stiffen the core of Labour's extreme right wing in preparation for what was to be their return to government in 1964.

George Brown, Denis Healey, Crosland and Roy Jenkins were to be leading figures in the Wilson cabinet, while Rodgers himself had emerged as a leading figure with influential contacts in the media and elsewhere.

To this day Social Democrats and their allies continue to be involved in shady anti-Communist front organisations.

SDP MPs Mike Thomas and Neville Sandelson ' for instance, together with Dick Taverne and Social Democratic Alliance leaders Stephen Haseler and Douglas Eden are all members of the so-called "Campaign for a Free World" dozens of whose members have history of involvement with CIA-backed "cultural" fronts and think tanks.

Their fellow members include Sir James Goldsmith, Peregrine Worsethorne, Robert Moss, Paul Johnsonand EETPU leader Frank Chapple!

Haseler's connections to the ultra-right are even more unambiguous. For over five years he has been closely connected to the Heritage Foundation in the USA, which is funded with help from the boss of the union-busting Coors Brewery, and is directly associated with campaign and polit advisors.

Mike Thomas and Wrigglesworth's brush r CIA front organisati began when as execu members of the Nati Union of Students i opposed to the last attempt to disaffiliate fi the CIA-funded Internat al Student Conference in 1960s.

Only when the body hopelessly exposed and credited did the NUS le the ISC.

David Owen, on other hand has, toge with Tom Bradley William Rodgers remaine member of the so-ca Labour Committee Transatlantic Understand NATO-funded -fi organisation whose members include ubiquitous Frank Chap and which issues a bull to British trade UI journals.

Rockefeller And only last mr Owen visited the USA member of the Trial Commission.

The Trilateral ( mission was set up on initiative of a group leading American cap ists headed by multi-mill aire David Rockefeller.

Its initial recruits 1 from the US bourgeoisie its immediate team of ic ogists. But it was 1 expanded to draw in h: picked reactionaries f Europe and from J (hence the title Trilater Anti-communist driv provided by cold war such as Henry Kissinger Zbigniew Brzezinski. An‹ the list of invited guests pro imperialist US u leaders.

Owen brings up the for the British Social De crats, together with fe ex-Labourite Evan Luard The influence of Trilateral Commission waned somewhat with passing of the Carter adı istration in the US-whic one point boasted no than 16 TC members ir ranks.

Stabilise But it continues debate the best strategies the defence and stabilisa of imperialist rule.

Significantly a 1975 study on "The Gove bility of Democrac laments the "excess demands" being raised in "democratic" count leading to a crisis of poli authority.

*The effective opera oi a democratic poli system usually requires si measure of apathy and 1 involvement on the par some individuals groups"

Owen plainly uph: such positions today in launching of the SDP.

By turning to mob the anti-working class pr dices of well-heeled layer the middle class in their c paign to keep Labour ou office and the right wing the SDP make a virtue of "apathy" of sections of Labour rank and file.

Their reactionary en prise will no doubt conti to attract the support of Trilateralists, cold watri the CIA and the Eri media-not to mentici eager backing of Ameri Express!

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Youth build a barricade against police attack M/004:. Police chief McNee

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