POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS : 1969
Wednesday 1st January 1969
Dunworth made a C.B. I was writing Section 5 (about CCL), with Sheila typing.
Thursday 2nd January 1969
Maxwell looks like losing News Of World fight.
BOUNDARY CROSSING AT GEC
Friday 3rd January 1969
I had a meeting with Robert Clayton, Chairman of the IEE Electronics Division, in his office at the Hirst Research Laboratories, Wembley. The meeting, which took a long time to arrange, has been fully reported elsewhere.
There was an odd encounter in the waiting room in which an exceptionally friendly man said “we” (presumably Labour supporters) would be having a lot of fun with Enoch Powell that evening.
During our meeting Robert Clayton acted as a Company rather than an IEE man. He was extremely offensive and belligerent in his manner and poured scorn on my Electronics Design activities, attacking every aspect of a memorandum I had sent in advance. I gave as good as I got.
There was no doubt whatsoever that the offensive stance taken by Clayton was deliberate and had some purpose other than serving the interests of the IEE. I suspected that he had been given the specific company objective, in attacking my IEE proposals, of creating conditions in which I would be amenable to something or other yet to be revealed.
Then at one point he introduced and laboured a point about Discounted Cash Flow techniques and then went on to say that he was Technical Director of the merged companies (i.e. GEC & AEI with E.E. & Marconi) and that he and the Research Director (Eric Eastwood) needed the help of a consultant with the Research and Development phases.
His stressing of Discounted Cash Flow was a clear reference to CCL - it had been my last assignment at that company before I severed all connection. His point about GEC needing help at the research and development phases referred to the consultancy services provided by CCL.
Saturday 4th January 1969
I received
a letter from Tim Eiloart inviting me to visit the CCL Stand at the
1st London International Inventions and New Products Exhibition at any
time except Thursday afternoon. An overseas ticket was enclosed.
It was the first communication from or on behalf of CCL for many months and I cannot think the timing of its arrival was coincidental. This was the PEP indicating the desired behaviour after the softening up by the sequential series of NIPS.
Any residual doubts I had about interpreting the behaviour of Robert Clayton the previous day vanished with the receipt of this letter, which was dated and posted on 3rd January 1969.
I did not respond - but this did not stop further CCL-directed attempts.
Monday 13th January 1969
200 staff at English Electric House on the Strand/Aldwych corner were given notice and soon the building was put up for sale.
SAFEGUARD GROUP
In November 1968 I had started my first impersonal countermeasure to the manipulative techniques to which I had been subjected. With the help of the Rector of Harpenden, Rev Peter Graham, I formed Safeguard Group, to look into the misuse of psychological techniques in industry in general and in management development in particular.
At the first meeting, The Bishop of Hertford, John Trillo, spoke of being so pressurised by Marxists in Berlin that he had thought of resigning. Christians, he added, should not resign but stay and fight Marxists from within I had no doubt that he had been primed with disinformation.
Tuesday 7th January 1969
The second meeting of the Safeguard Group was held in my home. The Bishop of Bedford, John Hare, took part and I was rather concerned that he directed admonitory remarks at me. I felt he and the Bishop of Hertford had been primed with false information about me.
Another participant was Rev George Austin (who became Archdeacon of York) who said he had recently been invited to dinner with a salesman who travelled the world on behalf of George Kent (a Luton instrument company), another person with a small company in Dunstable and yet another wondering whether to move from a large to a small company. George Austin said they felt under stress from their jobs whereas he did not. I have good reason to wonder if the invitation and the conversations at dinner were set up to communicate to me by an 'in-off' process (to use a billiards analogy) favourable to small instrument companies.
[As the Safeguard Group meetings progressed the Bishop of Bedford became supportive of my views and then through Christian Stewardship and Community Health Council activities got to know each other quite well.]
Saturday 11th January 1969
Ian D. Morton, who had been at the Safeguard Group meeting earlier in the week, called in with some photocopies needed by the Group - he brought them in a Pergamon envelope which had originally contained a Training journal.
Pergamon and Training!!! The use of that envelope must be sheer coincidence - I concluded that the chances that it was chosen to convey a message must be extremely small for I could not see what possible connection IDM could have with CCL/Maxwell/Pergamon on the one hand and E.E./Marconi on the other. Much later I learned that one of Ian Morton's children had been sponsored on an engineering degree course by M.I. This would have given that company an entree so the balance on the coincidental/contrived scale has to be shifted towards the latter.
Wednesday 12th February 1969
I attended an IEE meeting on Electronics Research and the Ministry of Technology. Next to me at Dinner afterwards was Dr. RBD Knight, who referred to my friends at CCL. Also present was Prof J.F. Coales, who had booked a place at short notice and had brought along a Miss Bowell of the Science Research Council. At the end of the dinner, Prof. Coales came over to my place with Miss Bowell and introduced me to her. Prof. Coales then wandered off. Miss Bowell, asked me what my label was. I said I was a consultant. She said that wasn't much of a label. She said some labels were a bit of a mouthful - such as the name General Electric - English Electric. She said it was all very well running large companies but we needed small ones as well. I said pointedly to Miss Bowell that I had become interested in group processes and would send her a copy of a letter I had published on the subject. There is little doubt that Miss Bowell had been brought along for a purpose connected with CCL.
Friday 21st February 1969
I had heard that CCL, including AIM, had become a member of SIMA (Scientific Instrument Manufacturers' Association). I wanted to find out who had put them up for membership so I went to the SIMA offices and saw Outridge, the General Secretary. He said CCL was the only firm he knows on Group basis, as distinct from individual companies. I asked him who had proposed CCL/AIM for membership of SIMA. He looked it up and found that the Proposer had been Ray Burnett of M.I., and the Seconder was Jennings of Dynamco.
COLLEGE HEAD or METHS DRINKER?
Friday 14th March 1969
A barrister says "someone is trying to destroy you" and names a tough solicitor
I called by appointment on Professor John Coales in the Engineering Laboratory, Cambridge, and was most warmly received. He took me to lunch in Clare Hall. He spoke about the foundation of the Hall, its purpose, the female company, the need for money and the Russian visitors. He said that the President was Brian Pippard, who would be in that Office for 7 years, then they would be-looking around for another . . . .
Going out of the dining hall, we passed a portrait which included Sir Henry Thirkill, Master of Clare College, who I knew as Provincial Grand Master of Cambridgeshire and who had been Secretary of the Cavendish Laboratory. John Coales pointedly asked if I knew Sir Henry had run the Part II practical class at the Cavendish Laboratory. When I said I didn't, he went on to say that Lord Blackett assisted Sir Henry in the practical class. I asked John Coales whether he knew I had run the 2nd year practical class. He said "yes, of course" - very euphoric.
Someone had been doing his homework - I hadn't known that Sir Henry and Lord Blackett had been my practical class predecessors. Back in Professor John Coales's office I described something of the circumstances of my leaving M.I., including the psychological pressures and the resignation agreement. I then outlined the pressures applied to get me to join CCL and how I had decided the cut loose from them altogether. Prof. Coales then revealed that he had become involved with Computer Technology, a Company closely associated with CCL - he said Tim Eiloart had got him interested.
There is little doubt that John Coales had delivered the massive PEP to make me more amenable to CCL. I had got in first with my views on CCL and had made it clear that I was not interested in the company. On whose behalf was John Coales acting?
Tuesday 29th April 1969
I received a journal, New Electronics, readdressed from M.I. It contained an article on CCL, electronics was denigrated and University/Industry links were stressed.
May 1969
The IEE News of May 1969 featured on the front page an AIM/CCL advertisement about a product I had strongly advocated at M.I. adjacent to a picture of Trafalgar Square which didn't include Nelson's column!
Friday 2nd May 1969
I travelled on a train with Lord Stokes of BMC - he said he could keep a man out of a job but so what? What if it is totalitarian? He added that perhaps Burnett wanted me to chair CCL because he thought you were brilliant, able to pull it through.
Friday 9th May 1969
I paid a follow-up visit to John Coales. When I arrived I found the atmosphere had completely changed. In the course of discussion John Coales said Lord Nelson was allright - he could look after himself. I must on no account approach him and I must not persist in my enquiries - if I did I would probably end up a meths drinker! He said there were no openings in the University.
Tim Eiloart was waiting in Prof. Coales's outer office as I came out! This time John Coales had delivered a massive NIP ahead of a CCL hint - he was learning the technique fast. I simply nodded to Tim Eiloart and departed. John Coales was clearly part of the network trying to get me to join CCL - again, the vexed question was "On whose behalf was he acting?".
I went on to see Nat Hiller. He told me he edits for Maxwell. I told him I had earned only £53 in a year. Apparently he had heard of Assistant Secretaries dropping hints and leaving you to work things out.
Friday 16th May 1969
I saw FE Mostyn. I explained the T-Group background and left various papers. He knows Maxwell. He was against Freemasonry. He said there was no such thing as honesty - he had just been asked to talk about "lies". He will call me or write.
Tuesday 20th May 1969
I had lunch with Gabriel Horn in King's College. He told me he was a Director (as was Tim Eiloart) of one of CCL's subsidiaries, AIM Biosciences. Gabriel Horn asked me what I had said to Prof. Coales when I had seen him on the 9th. I was tight-lipped in response to his question even though he was a great friend. Indeed, one of the main reasons why I avoided CCL was the high probability that it was because he was a friend of mine that he was approached and became involved with the CCL/AIM set-up.
While we were living in Cambridge, Gabriel Horn and his charming wife Ann (daughter of Lord Soper) and my wife and I spent many delightful evenings together and on day trips with our respective children. It was galling to realise that during that lunch at Kings' College he may have been acting as an intermediary. That was the last time I met him, long before he moved to Bristol to take up the Chair of Anatomy and his return to Cambridge to become Master of Sydney Sussex College.
Wednesday 28th May 1969
I saw F.E. Mostyn again. He said Maxwell doesn't know Lord Nelson - I should have realised that. He said wait, lie low. You could walk back - why not, you can handle him.
Sunday 8th June 1969
I visited John & Joan Hammond. During our visit I asked John how he had come to get in touch with CCL/AIM. He said someone had asked him to enquire about investing in AIM. He said the person's name may have been in the documents I had shown him. When I asked "Why not tell me?" - he declined saying he had been asked in strictest confidence. He did not even offer to approach the person concerned to see if he minded disclosure to me. Besides, he said, it is not connected to my situation because he had been asked to look into two other firms at same time. It wasn't so long ago that I was as innocent as he was! LIFT!
It emerged that John Davis had been upset because I wouldn't take the E.E. consultancy. LIFT!
INVITATION TO GENEVA
July 1969
I
received a European Physical Society Newsletter in which was published a
letter I had written to the Editor back in May 1969. It was my
second contribution with some political content.
A Dr. E. Ascher of the European Physical Society (EPS) had proposed in Europhysics News a study of the relationships of Physics & Society. My Letter to the Editor on his proposal distinguished between the proficiency of physicists in science and their proficiency in general matters such as management and politics.
Letter to Europhysics News on Physics & Society
As a result I was invited to become involved in a European Committee. The Invitation was also sent to the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 19 Professors (myself wrongly listed among them) and 7 Doctors around the world but mostly on either side of the Iron Curtain in Europe. I was then invited to a meeting in Geneva.
By this time, with the job blocking and my refusal to work for CCL still going on, my financial position was dire. I tried to get funding to attend the meeting from the Ministry of Technology but to no avail. I had to decline the invitation.
ROYAL VISIT 2
Friday 11 July 1969
There was such an unusual linking of Harpenden & Cambridge in an item by a Foreign Correspondent in an evening TV programme that I noted it in my diary.
Saturday 12 July 1969
An entry in my diary refers to the arrival of 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 CCL subsidiary of which I had been offered and had declined the Chairmanship. The visit was organised by the MOD and the Foreign Office.
Prince Michael leads visit to AIM
SAFEGUARD GROUP LETTER
August 1969
As meetings of Safeguard Group progressed
its members, from the
Bishops to the laity, came to understand the issues I was raising
and readily agreed to be signatories of a letter to local newspapers, the
first of which was published by the Evening Echo in August 1969.
The headline DON’T LET THEM TWIST OUR MINDS was not of the Group's choosing.
ATTEMPTED INFLUENCE THROUGH FREEMASONRY
Saturday 25 October 1969
I attended a masonic meeting in Cambridge. During the meal a relatively junior mason 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 in grapevine language. CCL had moved to St. Ives some months before. Clearly a package was being offered. I lost interest - but who had briefed him with such privileged Masonic information?
Another curious remark the intermediary made to me 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.
MEETING WITH LORD NELSON
Friday 31 October 1969
The Masonic infiltration was the last straw; I decided I really must pull all the stops out to obtain a meeting with Lord Nelson of Stafford, who was now not only Chairman of GEC but also President-in-waiting of the IEE in its Centenary year. I found it surprisingly easy for when at 3 pm on Friday 31st I phoned GEC's Head Office and spoke to Lord Nelson’s secretary, I obtained an appointment for the following Tuesday 4th November at 10.45 am.
Monday 03 November 1969
An indication of the control of my communications can be obtained from an experience on this day. When in the late afternoon I arrived at the IEE to chair a meeting at which Joan Woodward, Professor of Industrial Sociology at Imperial College, was the speaker, her first words were "I hear you are going to see someone tomorrow". Joan Woodward added "I suppose you know his hands are tied". There must have been much activity between the Friday afternoon and the Monday afternoon. From my telephone call to GEC Head Office, someone who knew where I would be on the Monday and with whom, must himself have contacted and primed Joan Woodward or got someone else to do it. Access to her would have been easy for she was a consultant to Marconi, Basildon.
Tuesday 04 November 1969
When I was shown into Lord Nelson’s office 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 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. I left him an account of what had happened at CCL and a copy of the published Safeguard Group letter.
Tuesday 18 November 1969
Lord Nelson 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.
ROYAL VISIT 3
Wednesday 26 November 1969
The kudos of M.I. was greatly boosted by a surprise visit to the company by Prince Michael of Kent. The event was under the auspices of the Ministry of Defence.
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