CCL3
ENGLISH ELECTRIC COMMUNICATIONS
August 1966
It was around this time that Tim Eiloart showed me an
article in "Project", a Ministry of Technology magazine aimed at promoting in schoolchildren a
favourable view of Engineering.
The article described an interview with Lord Nelson of Stafford, i.e. George Nelson, who had taken over as Chairman and Managing Director of English Electric when his father - the first Lord Nelson of Stafford and founder of the Company - had died. Tim made derogatory remarks about the second Lord Nelson, saying among other things that the son had not succeeded on merit. Tim then asked me what I thought of him.
I had grown very cagey by now about expressing my opinion of people known to me when it seemed that I was being subjected to what I came to call 'probe questioning'. I remember being asked by an IEE officer at a dinner what I thought of Ray Burnett and shortly afterwards certain remarks at M.I. gave me an uneasy feeling that my comment that he was not a good instrument man (which was true) was fed back to Ray himself. I was also aware of the technique of stating derogatory views about another person, which might be the opposite of those actually held, in order to get the person whose opinion is being sought to 'open up' and/or to mask a close connection between the questioner and the person about whom the questions are being asked. For all I knew, bearing in mind the links between CCL and various parts of the E.E. Group before I left M.I., Tim Eiloart might have been questioning me on behalf of Lord Nelson himself, George Bosworth or Neil Sutherland or Shull Arms or Ray Burnett and his remarks may have reflected his genuinely held views or the reverse.
In response to Tim Eiloart's question I said that I did not know Lord Nelson at all, that so far as I knew he was doing a good job, that I knew one person (I didn't name him) who had expressed disappointment at Lord Nelson's succession but that another (again no name) had said that with two deputies the arrangement was satisfactory. And that, I said, was the sum total of my information.
In fact I had heard quite a few derogatory remarks about Lord Nelson the 2nd, which seem to me to have been rather pointedly made to me in particular. I state them here for no other purpose than that of explaining what was happening. It had been Ray Burnett who had expressed disappointment to me about Lord Nelson assuming the mantle of his father, adding that the old guard had carried the day. Then there was the adverse remark about his speech-making ability, dropped into my ear at the opening of the Engineering Laboratory wing; this may have been an example of another use of derogatory remarks, namely that of 'distancing' the person from the person about whom they are made. However, whatever the purposes and effects of the denigrations I had at that time formed the view that there was a fairly strong conspiracy against the Chairman of English Electric.
There was an extraordinary sequel to all this in Spring 1967
Friday 12th August 1966
I told Tim Eiloart, that my efforts to obtain another post were being undermined and various rumours had been spread about me (the term 'disinformation' was then unknown to me). I said I had decided to approach members of the English Electric Group to see what could be done about the situation. Tim Eiloart replied that I was in a very weak position. He said I should write to the Chairman of English Electric threatening to tell the shareholders about the way things were run in English Electric. This seemed to me to be the worst action I could take and indeed I did not follow it up. In fact I had written to the Chairman of M.I., Mr. F.N. Sutherland (later Sir Neil Sutherland), asking to see him but he put me off. So I contacted the former Chairman of M.I., Sir Gordon Radley, and got an appointment to see him at English Electric House on 30th August.
Saturday 13th to Saturday 20th August 1966
I and my family went away on holiday - we were determined that family life would be as normal as possible. I took the opportunity to write an outline my experiences at M.I. They were typed on yellow paper hence they became known as the yellow pages.
During my absence a CCL Management meeting discussed a Russian Trade Delegation and an Indian group.
Tuesday 30th August 1966
Overcoming stage-managed obstacles to communicating with Sir Gordon Radley
Wednesday 31st August 1966
I cannot believe what happened at CCL, Cambridge, in the two days immediately after my meeting with Sir Gordon Radley was a series of coincidences.
When on the first day I entered Tim Eiloart's office he immediately picked up the telephone and called his father about a job of running a company going in London. The chap he had in mind wouldn't do because he had a family and didn't want to move from Cambridge. He couldn't think of anyone else at the moment but ..... Clearly this was a conversation meant to be overheard - I did not bite.
Two members of staff queried whether they would be seeing me in the future. I spoke briefly to Gordon Edge about manipulation. He thought it was part of the job of a director - but he liked straight dealing.
Friday 2nd September 1966
I spent all day at CCL. Besides myself, only Tim Eiloart and John Forster were present at the CCL management meeting. I pointed out there wasn't a quorum - I was not a member of the Company but acting as an independent adviser or consultant. T. Eiloart said very forcefully that he regarded me as very much a part of the Company. I again stated my position and said I would like it to be recorded in the minutes. It wasn’t.
I think it was on this occasion that a man named Saltmarsh appeared at CCL and Tim Eiloart introduced him with the words "You remember him from just before you joined Marconi Instruments, don't you?". I formed the distinct impression that our previous contact back in 1961 had been carefully noted.
A decision to cancel an order for an oscilloscope which CCL had ordered from Hewlett Packard was deferred - strong pressure had been put upon me to write the cancellation letter - I had a good idea this was linked in some way to my job application to HP.
Later in the morning, G. Edge offered me his job! I was much better at planning than he was, he said, and I could do his job much better. He wouldn't mind stepping down. He then revealed he had been offered four jobs out of the blue in the past three months. I told him it could be a coincidence - he was becoming better known - but it might be manipulation.
Later in the afternoon, T. Eiloart said that M. J. de Richardson, Robert Maxwell's right hand man, had been asking if I would he interested in a Joint Managing Directorship of Computer Technology. Iann Barron was first rate technically but was not a good administrator and got people's backs up when writing reports, etc. He never presented alternatives - it was always all or nothing and they were getting fed up with it. They needed someone to steer things along better lines, negotiate with companies such as Plessey, AEI, etc. I asked T. Eiloart which of the two R's - Ray or Robert - this came from but got no answer.
For the first time I told T. Eiloart about a post I had applied for, which was in the British Calibration Service (BCS) being set up by the Ministry of Technology. I had been a member of the committee which drew up the proposals for the BCS. I added that I was interested in the Ministry of Technology rather than Computer Technology and that although the BCS post was not ideal it seemed the best bet all round. T. Eiloart said the BCS post wasn't good enough for me. The computer field was much faster growing and Computer Technology Ltd. would be one of the biggest in the country in the not too distant future (there were between 2 and 7 on the staff at the time). Tim Eiloart said Mr. Ernest Marples (a Conservative ex-Minister) might be investing in C.T. instead of Robert Maxwell - had someone realised I was not of Labour disposition? Tim Eiloart also said the company would be established within 20 miles of Luton. I asked what salary was envisaged and he said "anything you need". I said I would think about it and took the file of C.T. Board minutes and other documents to look through.
It was in this context that Tim Eiloart remarked that he did not approve of “closed societies” trying to help me. There is little doubt this was a reference to Freemasonry but I had no idea to whom he was referring - it was not until years later, with the publication of Knight's book, The Brotherhood, in 1984 that I wondered who among my many contacts were Freemasons. I suppose this made me more aware of names, noticing shortly afterwards from statements in the media that M.J. de R. Richardson was Chairman of the Masonic Hospital. I discovered that others were Neil Sutherland, George Bosworth, George Gainsborough, Professor Humphrey Davies (a member of my Electronic Design Committee) and Storey.
3rd to 18th September 1966
Because, clearly, my follow-up of the Computer Technology proposition was not a CCL consultancy project for which I could charge a fee I did not note details of dates and times of communications and visits. However the following probably took place within two weeks of the proposition being put to me.
I phoned Michael Richardson (of Panmure Gordon) and he asked me to see Arnaud de Vitri who was on the Board of Computer Technology.
I met Mr. de Vitri at a Mr. A.E. Davidson’s flat in Bryanston Square. Mr. de Vitri was also on the Board of European Enterprise Developments. He described its interest in building a Channel Tunnel and its close connection with a very successful growth Company in the small computer field, the American Digital Equipment Co. We discussed the C.T. post and he said he very much hoped I would take it.
I attended by invitation part of a Computer Technology Board meeting, which Robert Maxwell chaired - again he was very gracious to me. One of the Board members was Tom Margerison who had been at the SIMA annual jamboree which Ray Burnett had invited me to some 2 to 3 years before. I also visited C.T.'s offices at Cardiff Road, Luton and was somewhat underwhelmingly received.
After careful consideration I declined the offer on two grounds. The first was that I doubted the viability of the product. The design of the computer, though good, was not in my view outstanding enough to make up for its late arrival on the computer scene. There was only one prototype in existence and the Company had no experience of production. A supply of funds for such a product was very doubtful. The other was that vulnerability to manipulation was too great. My experience of CCL made me very wary of being on the same Board as Tim Eiloart and the very small size of C.T. meant that it could be made to succeed or fail at will.
Monday 19th September 1966
Meeting to discuss Government business (not present). It was minuted that Harold to lunch Don Woods (another of my close Ministry contacts who I used to lunch during my time at M.I.).
Wednesday 21st September 1966
CCL Management meeting There had been another deferral of a decision about the HP Scope cancellation and instead I was asked to prepare an report on all CCL laboratory equipment. I had also been asked to design the CCL letterheading. I had not taken on these assignments. Now the cancellation of the HP Scope was confirmed.
BOUNDARY REMOVAL
September/October 1966
Around this time I was amazed to find, despite the number of times I had made my position clear, that CCL had recently issued a sheet showing the fees charged by CCL for various levels of staff. I was shown as a Principal along with Tim Eiloart, Gordon Edge etc.
When I tackled Tim Eiloart about it he murmured it was for internal use only - which left unanswered the basic question of why I was on it anyway. Could it be that an outside body was being charged these fees for the work CCL was giving me?
Thursday 6th October 1966
I had been asked by CCL Management to 'deal' with a senior employee whose work, I was told, was unsatisfactory and who, it was said, was constantly blaming others for his misfortunes. I welcomed the opportunity of showing how such a case should be handled i.e. open discussion and amicable agreement with the man concerned. I worked closely with most senior employees but I hardly knew this one.
I interviewed the man and he agreed to leave CCL. Later Tim Eiloart sent me a note of thanks.
Tuesday 18th October 1966
To Cambridge for a CCL Board. meeting. I was spokesman for AIM Electronics plans.
This may have been when Tim Eiloart and the CCL Principals first took me to lunch at the "Coach & Horses". This was a public house on Trumpington Road (A10) on the other side of Cambridge from CCL. On two occasions Tim Eiloart said to me with unusual earnestness something like "This, in your case, is an appropriately named pub".
Then there was also the occasion when we had lunch in an Indian restaurant just around the corner from Magdalene Street. Tim insisted on going through every item on the menu explaining what each one was and saying "You will need to know these things".
ROBERT MAXWELL 'PLUGGED' AT THE INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS
Wednesday 19th October 1966
As Chairman of the Editorial Board of JSI I attended a meeting of the Publications Committee of the Institute of Physics. This was the first meeting after Dr. J.V. Dunworth, Director of the NPL, had taken over the chairmanship of the Committee from Professor Brian Flowers and he had invited members of the Committee to a lunch in the basement dining room at 38 Belgrave Square. I was surprised when John Dunworth, a short, imposing and deliberate man of considerate kindness, asked me to sit next to him while he presided over his lunch. In the course of the meal he started talking - quietly, to me alone - about Robert Maxwell. He said what an excellent man he was, people who worked for him could expect to go places etc.. It was quite clear this was no chance topic of conversation.
John Dunworth obviously had some sort of association with the network which was trying to get me into the CCL/Maxwell orbit. Who prevailed upon the Director of NPL to do a “selling” job on Robert Maxwell? Was it Maxwell himself? Was it someone at M.I., Marconi or English Electric? Was it someone or some organisation completely outside the industrial orbit? I discovered years later that the 2nd Lord Nelson of Stafford had been on the General Board of NPL from 1959 to 1966 - he may have been involved in John Dunworth's appointment as Director of NPL. I discovered too that, according to Tom Bower in his 1990s writings on Maxwell, the publisher’s association with John Dunworth went way back.
Tuesday 25th October 1966
AIM Management meeting (not present). Jeremy Prosser reported an approach by Livingston Laboratories - my links with Livingston went back to Cavendish days. I was asked to contact them.
Thursday 3rd November 1966
CCL Management meeting - a Cambridge Instrument Co item was considered. I was working independently on a project with CICo.
AIM Management meeting - an item came up on the Design Centre.
Monday 21st November 1966
I circulated a note to the management group of CCL pointing out that negotiations with persons outside the Company affecting any member of the Company or person like myself associated in an independent capacity should be disclosed. I hoped by my note to both assert my independence and learn what was going on behind the scenes. I felt instinctively that I must keep on asserting my independent status or I should never obtain a normal post free from excessive manipulation. It produced no response.
Thursday 24th November 1966
AIM Management meeting - SIMA proposals.
Tuesday 29th November 1966
On this day I had a talk with T. Eiloart.
The process of insidious absorption had intensified. The best term I can devise at this time is 'absorption by boundary removal'. Examples have already been given - e.g. my name in a list of Principals. It continued with a request that I should fill in the standard timesheet as was used by all CCL staff and that I agree to be paid monthly along with the rest, instead of my sending in from time to time a detailed account of work done and the time taken and then receiving a cheque accordingly. The request seemed reasonable and I readily went along with it. The next thing however was that I received a standard pay slip as though I was on the payroll of the company. Then CCL headed stationery was sent to me with a request that I use it. Then I received a CCL telephone credit card. A desk was allocated to me and my name was displayed adjacent to it. I received all papers as though I was a Director. One of the more amusing 'boundary removal' ploys was the purchasing unknown to me of a coffee mug with "Harold Beck" glazed thereon, which stood beside matching named mugs for the actual Directors and, so I understand, was brought out and displayed to or even used by visitors to CCL.
Nor did it help that on one occasion, apropos of nothing, Tim Eiloart said I would cause a terrible scandal for the Chairman if I did not toe the line; he remained silent when I asked him to elaborate. On another occasion, in high elation, he said he did not believe in rules governing conduct in business. On yet another, Tim said he had been asked to find out my price - every man had a price so what did I really want? This time it was me who did not respond - I had already made it perfectly clear that I wanted to be free of excessive manipulation and that I wanted to know what had gone on and was going on behind the scenes.
Faced with all this I decided to take a strong line with T. Eiloart and have a talk with him in which I spoke to a brief which I had written out beforehand:-
1 I will not join CCL under any circumstances.
2 It must not be made to appear that I have joined CCL.
3 I will be applying or negotiating for posts elsewhere.
4 No pressure must be put on me to join CCL.
5 I will be informed of any formal or informal arrangements made with other parties, that will affect me.
6 I shall wish to see Robert Maxwell.
7 If the above are accepted I will make my experience available but not my name, i.e. internal, not external, for a scale of fees, until such time as I obtain another post.
8 I will not rule out external negotiations or action on behalf of CCL but this will involve separate negotiated fees for specified and agreed jobs.
I covered all the points. There were, by the way, never any slanging matches. Tim responded by saying that everything should remain as it was pending a full discussion early in the New Year.
CCL ENCOURAGEMENT - THEN 'SHOCK & AWE'
Thursday 1st December 1966
AIM Management meeting - I was present at a discussion of what AIM should do in connection with the IEE meeting on Modular Instrumentation which had been arranged long before I started to work as consultant to CCL/AIM and which I was due to chair. My fear that CCL might make more of the connection than they should proved to be well-founded.
Tuesday 6th December 1966
Far from leaving everything until the New Year Tim Eiloart sent me a letter in which first there was a pat on the back - saying how valuable my efforts had been - then a threat about cutting down the amount of work I did for CCL followed by a bunch of carrots about my joining the company, the kudos which could be conferred on me by working for CCL and so on. In support of the kudos claim Tim wrote:-
Apparently Wedgewood Benn says that "every other piece of paper" on his desk relates to Computer Technology now. As the original launching pad for C.T. we should. be able to earn considerable esteem without much difficulty.
Wedgewood Benn was at the time Minister of Technology - later I was to put his reported remark to Robert Maxwell in person.
Tim Eiloart also made the very interesting comment that my very valuable circle of contacts was closed to CCL. I had not told CCL of my many contacts and I had not shown anyone the Minutes of IEE, IoP and other committees from which their names could be gleaned. However, it was evident that CCL was getting their names from somewhere because time and time again I was asked to contact them on behalf of the company.
Thursday 8th December 1966
To CCL, Cambridge. I was asked what I thought of someone going behind the Iron Curtain to Hungary on behalf of CCL in connection with some work for Plessey. At an AIM Management meeting marketing plans were discussed and items came up on Tube Investments and the Cavendish Laboratory. The Advance Electronics project was said to be going swimmingly!
Thursday 15th December 1966
Many familiar names came up at an AIM Management meeting (not present) - Dynamco, Physics Exhibition, SIMA, Design Centre. Also covered were turnover predictions, luring customers to Cambridge and Livingston Laboratories.
Thursday 22nd December 1966
At a CCL Management meeting my Project Cash flow report was said to be very sensible.
Thursday 29th December 1966
At CCL the atmosphere of sweetness and light continued.
Saturday 31st December 1966
On this last day of 1966, I received a letter (dated 29th December) from Tim Eiloart of CCL which, without previous warning, conveyed the news that my consulting assignments with CCL were to be cut right down. It was in fact something like a re-run of the deplorable events which had occurred at M.I. exactly one year before - a series of encouragements preceding a sudden massive shock delivered in that case by Shull Arms. Clearly, Tim Eiloart was applying the same behavioural technique. Moreover, as before, there was a 'spotter' present - a friend of long standing who called at the house immediately after the letter was delivered. He went straight to a bookcase where he knew a had a copy of Leavitt's Managerial Psychology, thumbed through it then showed me the 'spotter' page. He then gave me a totally unexpected gift of a book. Its title was Spies Who Never Were! No doubt he reported that I took the bombshell in my stride. LIFT!
I was determined not to be blackmailed and so I drafted a reply on the lines that I wished to cast loose from CCL but did not exclude the possibility of well-defined work on an ad hoc basis. Before I had typed it Gordon Edge telephoned about an article I had loaned him - it was one on modular construction I had drafted while at M.I. He then asked if I had heard that the visit to Livingston Laboratories had been arranged for Wednesday 4th January. He assumed I would be going. I told him the gist of my letter to T. Eiloart. Gordon Edge hoped that the door would be left open - on my terms.
Dear Tim,
I was very surprised to receive your letter of the 29th. I will not answer it in detail but will just say that the “record” of our discussion of three weeks ago is highly inaccurate. Moreover, you then requested that further discussions should be postponed until the New Year and I agreed to this in full confidence that we would get down to a frank and forthright exchange of views including the clearing up of misleading statements (see for example the notice you issued following my letter of the 23rd July) and disclosure of any relevant negotiations from which we might be able to build a lasting and mutually satisfactory relationship.
I feel this is now impossible. I have decided to cast loose from CCL to concentrate on other activities (including the clearing up of misconceptions in other quarters). I do not exclude the possibility of ad hoc work for CCL if you wish it. If you do, please write to me with any specific proposal and I will quote a rate and a date. I trust you will show this letter to all who have seen yours of the 29th, so that the record is set straight. I will return AIM and CCL files within a few days.
With best wishes for a happy and prosperous (£84K!) New Year.
Yours sincerely,
Harold
Later, Tim Eiloart 'phoned. I told him he would be getting a letter on the 2nd January and that I did not wish to visit Livingston Laboratories. He went on to ask if I would provide material for negotiation with Livingston. I agreed to do this to get AIM off to as good a start as possible but said the basic position expressed in my letter to him remained. I posted the letter.
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