Senior figures in Harold Wilson’s Labour government plotted to use a secret foreign office propaganda unit to smear a number of left-wing trade union leaders, according to government papers released on Tuesday to the National Archives at Kew.

James Callaghan, then home secretary, told the then cabinet secretary, Sir Burke Trend, that he was keen that action should betaken to bring down two unionists in particular: Jack Jones of the Transport and General Workers Union and Hugh Scanlon of the Amalgamated Engineering Union.

According to a memo written in March 1969 by Daniel Gruffydd Jones, principal private secretary at the Cabinet Office, this plan had been raised in cabinet discussions.

This was at a time of strained relations between trade unions and the Labour government, which was considering plans – later abandoned – to introduce new laws to curb union powers.

“Sir Burke Trend recalled that the Home Secretary had apparently had in mind that it might be possible by one means or another for the more obviously ‘politically motivated’ trade union leaders – in particular Mr Scanlon and Mr Jack Jones – to be supplanted by others more orthodox; and it had been envisaged that further consideration might perhaps be given to this possibility,” Jones wrote.

Trend was doubtful that anything could be done to achieve the removal of the two men, but another senior civil servant disagreed and said he would discuss his plan with another cabinet minister, Barbara Castle.

“Sir Denis Barnes said, however, that detailed exposure of Jones’ behaviour from time to time, perhaps by way of inspired leakages to the Press, might be useful and productive. He would discuss this with the First Secretary of State in the course of the next few weeks.”

The memo was marked “secret” and only one copy was made. This was placed in a Cabinet Office file that detailed the activities of a foreign office unit called the Information Research Department (IRD), which placed unattributed articles in the press both in the UK and abroad, and which covertly published books and academic articles, produced radio programmes, ran news agencies and influenced the BBC and Reuters.



How the IRD targeted Jones and Scanlon remains unclear, as large sections of the file were removed before it was released to Kew. They have been retained at the Cabinet Office under the clause in the Public Records Act that covers national security concerns.



General secretary of the TGWU Jack Jones, centre, Hugh Scanlon, right, of the Amalgamated Engineering Union and Alf Roberts representing Vehicle Builders in 1970. Photograph: Central Press/Getty Images

The papers that remain in the file make clear that three weeks after Jones wrote his memo, the head of the IRD, John Peck, prepared a briefing paper for Trend that set out “exactly what IRD does and how it tries to do it”. A handwritten note on the memo records that there were also two meetings with Peck.

Other files released at Kew include a foreign office review of IRD, completed in 1963 and marked Top Secret, which sets out the work carried out by a unit known as the English Section: “The primary aim is unattributable propaganda through IRD outlets – eg in the press, the political parties, such organisations as Industrial Research and Information Services (an anti-Communist group) and a number of societies.”

The review makes clear that in addition to the English Section, the IRD had what it termed a “BBC Operations Desk” which provided material for the World Service. The four-strong English Section was renamed as the International Movements Section in 1971, partly as a security measure and partly because it had begun targeting the Irish media.

The review explains how IRD had a “secret agreement” with a publishing house called Ampersand, which “exists solely to enable IRD to publish books of their choice”. Ampersand would find an author and agree a fee. “When the manuscript is ready [Ampersand] passes it to IRD for comment and then relays their comments back to the author. When the text is agreed, IRD say how many copies they want.” The printing bills were paid by IRD through Ampersand, which received a quarterly fee of £625.

Also in the files is a letter that Charles Curran, director-general of the BBC, wrote to IRD in July 1974 asking whether the organisation could provide a briefing on “subversives” working in broadcasting.

IRD continued targeting trade unionists in the 1970s, in part through its association with a number of right-of-centre business associations.

In 2015 it emerged that the IRD had been behind a documentary called Red Under the Bed which was aired during the 1973 trial of a group of building workers accused of conspiracy to intimidate and affray during a strike the previous year, apparently in an attempt to sway the jury. All six defendants were convicted and three were jailed.

The IRD was one of the largest and best-funded sections of the foreign office until it was discreetly shut down in 1977 on the orders of David Owen, the foreign secretary. Its 29-year existence was not made public until 1978.

Jones, a Labour party member, remained general secretary of the transport workers union until 1976. Before he died in 2009, aged 96, he was forced to deny claims that he had been a paid informer for the KGB.

Scanlon was a former member of the Communist Party but had left in 1954. He remained as head of his union until 1978.