"The August 1954 list revisions were a resounding victory for the East–West trade policy of the Churchill Government. Despite protest from senior officials of the Eisenhower Administration, the CoCom membership agreed to remove restrictions on a large number of ‘dual purpose items’ contained on International List II and II"
"What should be included in the history of a country like France or Germany? What are its boundaries, geographic and temporal? Most historians decided to trace back the story as far as they could, using the territorial boundaries of the present, or even the boundaries as they were claimed at present. The history of France was thus the history of everything that had happened within the boundaries of France as defined in the nineteenth century. This was of course quite arbitrary, but it did serve one purpose—reinforcing contemporary nationalist sentiments—and it was therefore a practice encouraged by the states themselves."
"The communist-backed Peace Partisans – later renamed the World Peace Council (WPC) – fought for peace in ways that were favourable to Soviet state interests, such as focusing on the American reliance on nuclear weapons. The Soviets claimed their peace mobilisation was a defensive move in the face of growing Western military strength and cohesion, while privately recognising its ability to carry the offensive into Western domestic and alliance politics. The United Kingdom, the USA and other NATO powers clearly saw it as a threat. To them the Peace Partisans were nothing more than tools in a Kremlin-directed international conspiracy to weaken and divide the West in the face of superior Soviet military strength. Consequently, they counter-attacked. In the British counter-attack the comparatively weak British Partisans became a convenient target, mainly to inspire worried anti-communists overseas and to demonstrate anti-communist bona fides to the Americans."
The funniest thing is that while British anti-communists were demonstrating "anti-communist bona fides" to Americans, British communists were handing over American nuclear secrets to the Soviets.
"The British campaign against the Peace Partisans and its allied organisations began in 1948 and lasted, intermittently, through the late 1980s. The state’s covert anti-communist propaganda arm, the Foreign Office’s Information Research Department (IRD), generated most of the propaganda against the peace movement until it was wound up in the late 1970s."
No, it's just quotes from books or telegram channels.
"Like many Cold War episodes, the fight over peace was primarily a propaganda battle, with each side mobilising language, symbols and carefully applied facts to discredit its rivals, energise its supporters and woo the uncommitted."
"Within the United Kingdom, official news management and cooperative habits that had been built up among journalists since the 1930s continued after 1945. ‘Public Relations Officers’ had proliferated and in 1948 they were supplemented by the covert IRD."
"Foreign Office propagandists saw both the socialist and trade union movements as good propaganda allies and useful fronts. As Mayhew pointed out, foreign readers would often reject overt British propaganda, but accept the same information if it appeared to come from their independent British comrades."
"That summer the Peace Partisans decided to hold their second international congress in England. It is not clear why the Partisan leadership chose England"
"Leaders of the Peace Partisans had expected complications. A full two months before the congress was scheduled to begin in England, organisers were arranging for back-up facilities in Warsaw. They were having other problems as well. Comparatively few people in Britain were supporting the peace petition despite painful sacrifices for rearmament, rising anti-Americanism and war fears."
"The government also stepped up its propaganda attack. In a widely reported speech to the Foreign Press Association Attlee attacked the Sheffield congress as a piece of deceptive, undemocratic communist hypocrisy designed to subvert the West. The government would keep out foreign delegates who were threats, Attlee said, but would uphold civil liberties within Britain and not ban the congress. The speech not only set the tone for British media discourse on the Sheffield congress, but also reassured the NATO allies that toleration of the congress was not a sign of British weakness. The government persuaded the BBC to broadcast the speech in prime time on its home and overseas services, and most newspapers covered it prominently."
"The Reuters news agency had provided factual descriptions and quotations from the Sheffield congress and other Partisan gatherings. This commitment to objectivity deeply worried the government. As the Commonwealth Relations Minister Patrick Gordon-Walker pointed out, intelligent British readers could easily see through the outrageous accusations and claims quoted in the factual Reuters dispatches, but unsophisticated readers in the former colonies could be fooled. The High Commissioner in Karachi had explained that Pakistanis trusted Reuters and believed what they read, because they were ‘not sophisticated or capable of critical analysis’."
