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It was reported that LEASCO gave a substantial order to Computer Technology Ltd. for its Modular One computer before bidding for Pergamon. M.J. de R. Richardson left Panmure Gordon at about this time.
ROYAL VISIT 1
There was such an unusual linking of Harpenden & Cambridge in an item by a Foreign Correspondent in a TV programme that I noted it in my diary. Saturday 12th July 1969 I received an Executive Appointments Service publication, in which there was a photo showing Prince Michael of Kent accompanying military attaches on a Visit to AIM Electronics. The visit was organised by the MOD and the Foreign Office. Was it linked with the entry in my diary for the previous day? Saturday 26th July 1969 1045 Called on the Brodricks. Surprise! Welcome! My purpose was to give him an advertisement booklet I had received from M.I. Brodrick hadn't seen it. He asked me if I had any connection with AIM or Prosser? He regretted he hadn't spotted Maurice Stanley was interested in sales.
ATTEMPT AT INFLUENCE THROUGH FREEMASONRY Saturday 25th October 1969 I attended a Royal and Select Masters meeting in Cambridge. During the meal a relatively junior mason (Albert Hopper) went out of his way to tell me that Sir Henry Thirkill, the Provincial Grand Master, was retiring and Harry Nourse (a Cambridge G.P.) was to take his place. No appointment of Deputy PGM had yet been made. Harry Nourse did not intend to occupy the PGM chair for long; the Deputy would soon take over. He could think of someone who would be very suitable as the Deputy PGM ..... . I asked about Arthur Armitage (he was President of Queens College - I had not then heard about his appointment as Vice-Chancellor of Manchester University) and received the reply that he was not well enough known outside Cambridge - not so well known, for example, as me ..... Then, when I had expressed interest, my companion pointedly said that the Secretary to St. Ives Council was a very nice chap. This was a reference to CCL/AIM in grapevine language AIM had moved to St. Ives some months before. Clearly a package was being offered. I lost interest. Another curious remark he made was that his grapevine was so efficient that he knew before anyone else when people like Barbara Castle visited the district. The political element was presumably Labour, as was shown not just by the Barbara Castle remark but because the Secretary of CCL (John Forster) was a Labour Councillor. This event was particularly upsetting because it occurred a few months after I had spoken and written to the Grand Secretary, James Stubbs, about influence being brought to bear through Masonry by external organisations - it demonstrated that with the best will in the world, organisations cannot prevent the type of incursions I was experiencing. This was yet another attempt to get me to join CCL. The coupling of the move with rapid advancement in Masonry was totally against the principles of that institution, even without the party political links. Who had briefed him with such privileged Masonic information?
MEETING LORD NELSON Tuesday 4th November 1969 I got to see Lord Nelson of Stafford at last. The circumstances in which the meeting took place are described elsewhere. When I was shown into his office at GEC's Stanhope Gardens HQ, the first thing he did was to refer to me as “Mr. Peck”; he knew perfectly well who I was so the ‘mistake’ was a put-down and/or an identifier. Then, before I had told him anything on which he could base such a statement, he said it wasn't his company's fault if I had fallen foul of communists in his company and that I hadn't got a legal leg to stand on. I told him I sought a rapprochement, not legal action, and asked him to enquire into the matters I was raising. The meeting ended in low key with Lord Nelson reluctantly agreeing to read an account of events at CCL, which I left with him together with a copy of the published Safeguard Group letter. In the CCL paper I described the incident in which English Electric had suggested ordering from CCL a mobile measurements laboratory for £20,000. I went on to discuss the possibility that this might have been a double entendre way of hinting, capable of several interpretations. Not long after the meeting with Lord Nelson there appeared in the Atticus column of the Sunday Times an item headed "MOBILITY IS THE NAME OF THE GAME", concerning the use of euphemisms by the security services. Adjacent to it was a piece about Lord Snow and the Post Office Think Tank. Wednesday 12th November 1969 The Duke of Edinburgh made some remarks at the Design Centre about telecommunications and tycoons working at home. Tuesday 18th November 1969 Lord Nelson, my fellow professional, wrote saying he was completely satisfied there were no grounds for my making a claim, that as far as he could ascertain his managers had treated me with every courtesy, that I should build up my career in some field in which my expertise and talents can be used and that I should cease making innuendoes against the company. It was a thoroughly dishonest answer. Friday 28th November 1969 Surprise visit of Prince Michael of Kent to M.I. on behalf of Ministry of Defence
BOGUS PLESSEY INTERVIEW Wednesday 14th January 1970 Clive Williams, who was on the Management Development side of Plessey Limited, had telephoned me and, referring to me as Mr. Peck (though he said he had my papers in front of him), asked me to meet him at the National Liberal Club, 1 Whitehall Place in connection with a job I had applied for. The meeting took place in the evening of 14th January 1970. When I entered the Club I was told that Clive Williams had been delayed and that I was to wait for him on a seat opposite Reception. Whilst waiting, three people came up and stood in front of me discussing Robert Maxwell in a derogatory manner. In addition, a message went up on the board opposite for Professor Meek, President of the IEE - Lord Nelson succeeded him later in the year. I concluded these were pre-arranged 'inputs' in preparation for the meeting with Clive Williams. When Clive Williams arrived what took place was not in any sense a job interview. He said that I was a very senior man, capable of earning very much more than he ever would and that was why he had asked me to meet him at the National Liberal Club. He also said I should join the Reform Club. After much talk in this vein I had good reason to think he was spinning the conversation out - I had another engagement anyway so I excused myself and left. I heard no more about a job with Plessey. I had no doubt Clive Williams was acting on behalf of someone in the GEC Group - the identifiers Peck, Maxwell and Meek all pointed to Lord Nelson as the source. I was reluctant to come to that conclusion but the alternative explanations that he was under surveillance or was being instructed what to say or that it was a trio of coincidences were much less tenable. Anyway, the ‘interview’ was used by someone with a great deal of influence to signal a diversion away from Industry to Politics and, within Politics, a switch of their choice of Party from Labour to Liberal. Who the hell were these people who not only decided the kind of career I should have but were sure of their ability to coerce along whichever political path they deemed appropriate? And what was the point about the Reform Club? Why that particular Club?
SIGNAL DAY Friday 23rd January 1970 Some months before, it had been arranged that on 23rd January 1970 I would chair a meeting of the IEE Committee on Electronics Design and afterwards an evening meeting arranged by the Committee to take place at the IEE. Much nearer the time, the Government of Harold Wilson announced that on that day there would be a House of Commons debate on Brian Walden's Privacy Bill and I straightaway requested and obtained a ticket for the Strangers' Gallery from my M.P., James Allason. Then, a few days before the debate I wrote to Brian Walden about the aspects of Privacy that particularly interested me and wished him well with his Bill. In the late morning of the 23rd I went to the House of Commons for the Privacy debate. After Brian Walden had finished the opening speech he left the Chamber and I was very interested to see that Robert Maxwell entered and made for the seat just vacated by Brian Walden. No sooner had Robert Maxwell seated himself than he turned and looked long and searchingly at the Strangers Gallery. My face was fairly well hidden from him and I kept it so; Robert Maxwell gave no sign that he recognised anybody. He again carefully scrutinised the Strangers Gallery and then kept walking in and out of the Chamber, gazing each time up at the Gallery. I wondered if he was signalling that he wanted someone to meet him downstairs in the Lobby. At one point he joined in the debate and complained about the Press coverage of his affairs. Later, Sir John Foster came up into the Strangers Gallery and looked around for a long time, evidently in vain for he departed without contact with anybody. Robert Maxwell was still Chairman of CCL and the Secretary of that Company was still John Forster. Very probably Sir John Foster received a bogus message which sent him on a signal journey up to the Strangers Gallery! As fully reported elsewhere, in the early afternoon I made my way to the IEE to chair the Electronics Design meetings. Only one member - whose name was Wilson! - attended the Committee meeting. The FT Editor quizzed the lecturer before and GBR Feilden spoke at the evening meeting.
USSR CONTACTS Wednesday 18th March 1970 On this day I was invited to Moscow as a Visiting Professor. Monday 6th April 1970 Fighting for freedom is costly Tuesday 21st April 1970 I called upon a Mr. McCauley of the MOD at the War Office building in Whitehall and was received most warmly. During our meeting I told him that I had been asked by CCL to advise on a Russian named Grant, who had applied for a job. My advice had been that the Home Office should be consulted. Mr. McCauley reacted with much scepticism - he very much doubted if a Russian would have the name Grant. Saturday 2nd May 1970 Encounter at Oxford with Cambridge-bound Russian physicist Tuesday 28th July 1970 I visited Companies House and looked up details of GEC-E.E., M.I., AIM Electronics and AIM Associates with special reference to directors past and present, holdings and profit. Very interesting, e.g. Sir G.H. Nelson (the 1st Lord Nelson of Stafford) had an additional directorship of AIMS of INDUSTRY Ltd. There also appeared to have been no record deposited of the AGM of AIM Electronics in 1967. |
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