--- title: Information Research Department (UK Foreign Office), 1948-1977 url: https://propagandaarchive.org/campaigns/information-research-department-1948-1977/ description: 'Opinion-formers rather than mass audiences: journalists, broadcasters, politicians, trade unionists, publishers and officials in Western Europe, Asia…' section: Campaign dossiers --- ![Illustration: a redacted-dossier collage of press photography, contact sheets and political crowds from multiple eras.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/hero-case-studies.jpg) [Campaigns](https://propagandaarchive.org/campaigns/) # Information Research Department (UK Foreign Office), 1948-1977 [![Foreign secretaries meeting around a large table at Cecilienhof Palace during the Potsdam Conference, 1945, with British and American flags on the table and officers standing behind](https://propagandaarchive.org/campaigns/images/information-research-department-1948-1977-potsdam-foreign-secretaries-1945.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/campaigns/images/information-research-department-1948-1977-potsdam-foreign-secretaries-1945.jpg) Foreign secretaries meeting around a large table at Cecilienhof Palace during the Potsdam Conference,... [![Four panels of the Animal Farm strip cartoon commissioned by the Foreign Office in 1950, showing the farm animals, the drunken farmer Jones and the boar Old Major dreaming](https://propagandaarchive.org/campaigns/images/information-research-department-1948-1977-animal-farm-strip-1950.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/campaigns/images/information-research-department-1948-1977-animal-farm-strip-1950.jpg) Four panels of the Animal Farm strip cartoon commissioned by the Foreign Office in 1950, showing the farm... [![Carlton House Terrace, London, photographed in 2008](https://propagandaarchive.org/campaigns/images/information-research-department-1948-1977-carlton-house-terrace-2008.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/campaigns/images/information-research-department-1948-1977-carlton-house-terrace-2008.jpg) Carlton House Terrace, London, photographed in 2008 - **Actor:** The British Foreign Office (from 1968 the Foreign and Commonwealth Office), through its Information Research Department (IRD), with regional offices, close links to MI6, and a covertly funded publishing and news-placement network - **Target:** Opinion-formers rather than mass audiences: journalists, broadcasters, politicians, trade unionists, publishers and officials in Western Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, and inside the United Kingdom - **Source:** Unidentified gray to black (most output was factual in form with the British source removed, which is gray; some named operations used invented authors or a forged letter in another organisation's name, which is black) - **Techniques:** [Narrative laundering](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/narrative-laundering/) [Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/card-stacking/) [Disclosure theater](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/disclosure-theater/) [Name-calling](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/name-calling/) [Astroturfing](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/astroturf/) - **First seen:** January 1948 (Cabinet approval); active to 1977, with successor arrangements after that year - **Status:** closed April 30, 1977 on the Foreign Office's own account (Hansard, 1 February 1978); existence first made public January 27, 1978; its unattributable function passed to the Overseas Information Department - **Related briefs:** none ## Mechanism The department's stated purpose, in the Cabinet paper of 4 January 1948, was "to collect information concerning Communist policy, tactics and propaganda and to provide material for our anti-communist publicity through our Missions and Information Services abroad" (quoted in Gwinnett 2021). Its 1961 guidance said its material was "as factual and as accurate as we can make it" and that the facts "can all be used openly". It gave "policy reasons" for hiding the British source, and said official ownership would in many circumstances "lessen or destroy its effectiveness" (FO 1110/1355, quoted in Gwinnett). Christopher Mayhew, who proposed IRD, told the Observer in 1978 that it dealt in "true facts". The method was to remove the source. Briefing papers went to selected journalists under plain cover marked "personal", with a note that they "should not be attributed to HMG" (Leigh 1978). Books were commissioned and subsidised through a small firm, Ampersand Ltd, and appeared under commercial imprints, including the Bodley Head's Background Books series (Observer, 29 January 1978). Bodley Head's managing director called the arrangement "orthodox" and said he did not know of Ampersand's link to IRD. Crozier, who consulted for IRD, describes turning "a thick folder of IRD documents" into a Bodley Head paperback (*Free Agent*, 1993). This is [Narrative laundering](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/narrative-laundering/) as the taxonomy defines it: a state message passed through a more legitimate-looking surface. Two features move the file beyond ordinary unattributed briefing. First, [Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/card-stacking/): Leigh reported that senior officials conceded past material was heavily "slanted". Second, some operations used invented voices (see Evidence). The [Disclosure theater](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/disclosure-theater/) match is the weakest: the Diplomatic List gave IRD's job as "the compilation of information reports for HM missions abroad" (Leigh), and recipients were told papers were prepared primarily for diplomats, so a formal description existed that did not travel with the material. ## Evidence - **January 1948.** Mayhew's plan is adopted by the Cabinet. His December 1947 memo, quoted by the Observer, proposed a book for "private circulation to key people in this country", because an English edition for public sale could be attacked as spending taxpayers' money on internal politics. - **1948-49.** The Observer reports a hidden subsidy to an anti-communist magazine, *Freedom First*, circulated to trade unionists. From 1949 the department sets up Regional Information Offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, Caracas, Beirut and Cairo (LoBue 2023, citing Jenks 2006). ![Foreign secretaries meeting around a large table at Cecilienhof Palace during the Potsdam Conference, 1945, with British and American flags on the table and officers standing behind](https://propagandaarchive.org/campaigns/images/information-research-department-1948-1977-potsdam-foreign-secretaries-1945.jpg) *Meeting of the foreign secretaries at Cecilienhof Palace, Potsdam, 30 July 1945: Ernest Bevin (British Foreign Secretary 1945-51, foreground, back to camera), James Byrnes and Vyacheslav Molotov, as identified in the Library's caption. Context for the Cold War diplomacy in which IRD was created; the photograph does not depict IRD. U.S. Army Signal Corps, Harry S. Truman Library & Museum, 63-1456-74; public domain.* - **1950.** The Foreign Office commissions a strip cartoon of *Animal Farm*, and embassies encourage newspapers abroad to print it (TNA FO 1110/319). ![Four panels of the Animal Farm strip cartoon commissioned by the Foreign Office in 1950, showing the farm animals, the drunken farmer Jones and the boar Old Major dreaming](https://propagandaarchive.org/campaigns/images/information-research-department-1948-1977-animal-farm-strip-1950.jpg) *First instalment of Norman Pett's Animal Farm strip, Foreign Office copy, 1950. The National Archives, FO 1110/319, via Flickr Commons and Wikimedia Commons.* - **1960-69.** The "Loyal African Brothers" series: 37 leaflets from a "Freedom for Africa Movement" that did not exist, mailed to African opinion-formers from several cities (FCO 95/2156, in LoBue). LoBue classes the content as gray ("often true, albeit selectively edited") and finds no record of what recipients did with it. A BBC programme of 31 May 1969 drew on one leaflet. A 1964 minute says a letter attributed to the World Federation of Democratic Youth and published in a Zanzibar daily "was also one of our productions" (FO 1110/2361, in LoBue). A fabricated organisation and a forged letter score black here ([Astroturfing](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/astroturf/)). - **1965-66, Indonesia.** IRD's Singapore unit sent an Indonesian-language newsletter, *Kenjataan2*, presented as émigré patriots' work (28,000 copies within a year, per its head Ed Wynne). After 30 September 1965 it demanded that "this communist cancer be cut out of the body of the state" and said the party "must be eliminated for all time" (Lashmar, Gilby and Oliver, Guardian, 17 October 2021): [Name-calling](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/name-calling/). Norman Reddaway said in 1996 he was told "to do anything I could do to get rid of Sukarno", and insisted IRD passed on only true facts; the Guardian authors call that "a partial truth". Impact is contested. The same article says the killings appear to have been triggered by local army commanders. The former Foreign Office desk officer Derek Tonkin said it "might not be easy to escape the charge" that Britain helped "in some small measure". See [Lubang Buaya, 1965: the mutilation story the autopsies did not support](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/indonesia-1965-lubang-buaya-story/) and [Pengkhianatan G30S/PKI: how Indonesia's New Order kept 1965 on screen](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/new-order-g30s-film/). - **1969.** The Foreign Office funds a Reuters Middle East service, routed through BBC "enhanced subscriptions" so that Reuters had "concealed support" (BBC News, 13 January 2020). Officials accepted Reuters "would not accept government control", and hoped for "a measure of political influence". Reuters said the arrangement "was not in keeping with our Trust Principles". See also [Voice of the Arabs and the Voice of Britain: the Arab radio war, 1953-1967](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/suez-radio-war/). - **1963.** Declassified UK (15 April 2024), reading Foreign Office files, reports IRD's head writing that the Americans and the British "are able to suggest themes" for *Encounter* without day-to-day editorial control. That file was not opened here. The CIA-funded Forum World Features, launched 1 January 1966 under Crozier (his account), was a separate operation; no source opened for this file shows IRD funding it. See [The Congress for Cultural Freedom: a CIA-funded intellectuals' network, 1950-1967](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/congress-for-cultural-freedom/). - **1969-73, at home.** A 1969 Cabinet Office note records the Home Secretary's thought that the union leaders Jack Jones and Hugh Scanlon might be "supplanted", and an official's idea of "inspired leakages to the Press"; what IRD did is unclear because part of the file is withheld (Guardian, 24 July 2018). IRD also worked on Northern Ireland in 1971-73 (Cormac 2016; see [Walls, prisons and airwaves: republican and loyalist paramilitary propaganda in Northern Ireland](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/northern-ireland-paramilitary-murals/)). - **30 April 1977 to 1978.** Foreign Office minister Evan Luard told the Commons on 1 February 1978 that IRD "was terminated on 30th April 1977, as a result of a reorganisation ... undertaken for both policy and economy reasons", and gave the successor department's terms of reference as "guidance and background briefing". The Guardian (27 January 1978) said the department was curtailed under Anthony Crosland, disbanded under David Owen in May 1977, and that ministers were alarmed to find Crozier on its contact list. Gwinnett argues from Foreign Office files that the cause was cost-cutting and integration, not politics, and that unattributable work continued in the new department. In December 1978 Owen proposed releasing the 1948 Cabinet paper and selected IRD publications; the Cabinet Secretary and Permanent Under-Secretary first opposed it, and Gwinnett states the documents were not released until 1995. ![Carlton House Terrace, London, photographed in 2008](https://propagandaarchive.org/campaigns/images/information-research-department-1948-1977-carlton-house-terrace-2008.jpg) *Carlton House Terrace, London, 2008. The Guardian (1978) places IRD's first offices on this terrace; the photograph does not identify the building it used. Photo by Suedwester93 (Wikimedia Commons user), released by the author to the public domain; 1,280 px copy.* - **Records.** IRD files are in National Archives series FO 1110 (to 1968), FCO 95 (1967-77) and FCO 168; the Archives' note for FCO 95 says it documents "the use of covert propaganda in furthering British foreign policy objectives". ## Sides on the record - **The department and defenders.** Mayhew: "It's difficult to make out that there's anything sinister about this." Sir Colin Crowe's 1976 review, as quoted by Gwinnett, judged that "obvious Government propaganda becomes counter-productive". Crozier called its papers "rigorously accurate but unattributable". - **Critics.** Leigh: the objection is "that the public does not know what it is getting and so cannot make allowances" for the slant. The Guardian's 2021 authors argue the Indonesian material helped incite violence. Gwinnett reports that many Foreign Office officials in 1976 viewed IRD's propaganda as the antithesis of "truth". ## Same-definition test against Soviet counterparts No scale comparison is claimed, because the sources opened here give no comparable Soviet figures; Leigh put IRD's unattributable spending at "almost £1 million" around 1977. The Central Committee's Propaganda and Agitation Department worked under the party's own name, so its output scores white ([The Agitprop Department: the Communist Party's standing propaganda apparatus, 1920-1991](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/soviet-agitprop-department-institution/)). The Novosti Press Agency, created in 1961 as a nominally non-government association, scores gray, as IRD's unattributed placements do ([Pravda, Izvestia and TASS: the institutional structure of the Soviet press monopoly, 1912-1991](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/pravda-tass-soviet-press-institution/)). The KGB's forged Klan letters of 1984 score black, as IRD's forged youth-federation letter does (['For whites only': the forged Klan letters sent to Olympic committees in 1984](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/kgb-olympic-klan-letters-1984/), [The Active Measures Working Group (1981 to 1992)](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/active-measures-working-group/)). Context differs: IRD's exposure came through UK newspapers, Parliament and archive release, after 30 years, while Soviet domestic media were party-controlled. IRD's stated aim was to answer Soviet claims with checkable facts; the score here rests on the method, not the aim. ## What would falsify this read Evidence that recipients were routinely told the source and free to cite it would move most output toward white. An audit showing the papers were complete and accurate would weaken [Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/card-stacking/). Records showing *Kenjataan2* or the African leaflets were unapproved local work would weaken the department-level black reading. Closed files could move any finding either way. ## Literacy counter Ask who wrote a briefing and whether the author can be named. Check whether a "movement" or "émigré group" has any trace outside its own leaflets. Test a claim against primary documents rather than the paper that cites it. Expect disclosure to arrive decades late through archives, and read the series (FO 1110, FCO 95) with their dates. The same structure appears in [RICU and the Integrity Initiative: UK government-funded messaging that did not show its source](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/uk-ricu-integrity-initiative/), and earlier in [Britain's Ministry of Information and Political Warfare Executive: posters at home, black radio abroad](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/british-moi-pwe/) and [The Crusade for Freedom: Truth Dollars for a CIA-funded radio, 1950-1971](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/crusade-for-freedom-radio-free-europe/). ## Sources - Giselle Gwinnett, *The demise of the Information Research Department in 1977*, PhD thesis, University of Warwick, 2021: https://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/152751/ - David Leigh, "Death of the department that never was", Guardian, 27 January 1978, p. 13 (transcription): http://www.cambridgeclarion.org/e/fo_deceit_unit_graun_27jan1978.html - Richard Fletcher, George Brock and Phil Kelly, "How the FO waged secret propaganda war in Britain", Observer, 29 January 1978 (transcription): https://www.cambridgeclarion.org/press_cuttings/fo_deceit_unit_obs_29jan1978.html - Hansard, written answers, 1 February 1978: https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/written_answers/1978/feb/01/information-research-department and https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/written_answers/1978/feb/01/overseas-information-department - Paul Lashmar and James Oliver, *Britain's Secret Propaganda War* (Sutton, 1998); Lashmar, Gilby and Oliver, Guardian, 17 October 2021: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/17/slaughter-in-indonesia-britains-secret-propaganda-war - Adam LoBue, Journal of Global History 18:1 (2023): https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-global-history/article/they-must-either-be-informed-or-they-will-be-cominformed-covert-propaganda-political-literacy-and-cold-war-knowledge-production-in-the-loyal-african-brothers-series/4CED6302B068EF497DC8845A7375018D - Martin Rosenbaum, BBC News, 13 January 2020: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-50637200 - Brian Crozier, *Free Agent* (HarperCollins, 1993): https://archive.org/details/BrianCrozier.FreeAgentTheUnseenWar194191HarperCollins1993 - Ian Cobain, Guardian, 24 July 2018: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jul/24/wilson-government-used-secret-unit-to-smear-union-leaders - Rory Cormac, English Historical Review 131:552 (2016): https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article-abstract/131/552/1074/2643316 - John McEvoy, Declassified UK, 15 April 2024: https://www.declassifieduk.org/uk-intelligence-secretly-funded-leftist-magazine-then-covered-it-up/ - The National Archives: FO 1110 https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C8409, FCO 95 https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C16234, FCO 168 https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C16555605 - Located but not opened for this file: Hugh Wilford, "The Information Research Department", Review of International Studies 24:3 (1998), pp. 353-369; Andrew Defty, *Britain, America and Anti-Communist Propaganda 1945-53* (Routledge, 2004); Susan Carruthers, Contemporary Record 9:2 (1995); Frances Stonor Saunders, *Who Paid the Piper?* (1999).