PATH TO EDINBURGH
Iliffe/IPC
Saturday 03 January 1970
I received a letter with a questionnaire from a Mr.
Geoffrey Shorter of Iliffe Science and Technology Publications of IPC
Business Press Limited. The letter referred to the possible launch of
high‑quality publication dealing exclusively with Electronic Design. The
Questionnaire was entitled "Electronic Design Information Study".
This was great news. In 1964 I had started off the IEE's Electronics Design efforts, had arranged many meetings and chaired two Conferences on the subject and now it was proposed to devote a journal to Electronic Design.
I did not fill in the questionnaire (I like designing forms but detest filling them in) but instead, through the IEE Secretariat, I arranged for Mr. Shorter to discuss the proposed journal with the Committee on Electronics Design at its next meeting, on 23rd January. A Mr. Main of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) secretariat expressed interest and he was also invited to attend the Committee meeting.
I also learned from the IEE Secretariat that both The Times and Financial Times would have a representative at the evening meeting on Design Processes.
Then, while the IEE events were taking shape, the Government of Harold Wilson announced that a debate on a private member’s Bill on Privacy would take place on Friday 23rd January. I had come to regard the use by M.I. and others of people outside the company to "saturate the environment with the message to be received", along with some other behavioural practices, as an invasion of privacy. I was therefore very interested in the forthcoming debate and asked my M.P., Conservative James Allason (father of Rupert Allason, aka Nigel West), for a ticket to the House of Commons.
DIVERSION TO LIBERAL PARTY?
Wednesday 14 January 1970
Two days before Christmas 1969 I had received a letter from a Mr. C.B. (Clive) Williams of Plessey about a job. When I phoned him he referred to me as Mr. Peck, as had Lord Nelson of Stafford when I met him in his office at GEC HQ some 6 weeks previously. C.B. Williams asked me to meet him for interview at the National Liberal Club, 1 Whitehall Place.
When on 14th January 1970 I arrived at the National Liberal Club I was asked to await his arrival on a seat opposite Reception. While waiting, three people stopped in front of me and discussed Robert Maxwell in a derogatory manner and a message went up on a board for Professor Meek, who was a recent Past President of the IEE.
What then took place was not in any sense a job interview. Clive Williams said was 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. 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 little doubt that 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 though I was reluctant to jump to that conclusion. Whoever it was, 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?
The engagement which caused my departure from the 'interview' was with my wife, Sheila. Since it was our 20th Wedding Anniversary we splashed out on a moderately priced dinner at a Quality Inn in The Strand. It was quite a long time since we had indulged in a restaurant meal.
Sunday 18 January 1970
I wrote to Brian Walden M.P. at the House of Commons
about the Privacy implications arising in fields such as management
development and wishing him well with his Bill.
Wednesday 21 January 1970
I wrote to the Editor of The Times about the forthcoming
debate on Brian Walden's Right to Privacy Bill. I suggested that use
by organisations of stored personal information was the main threat to
Privacy, that the Press itself may be used by an external organisation to
invade the privacy of an individual and that "organisation" may be the best
way of defining Privacy.
LABOUR, after all?
Friday 23 January 1970
This was a day to remember! Is it conceivable that all the happenings on this day were just coincidences?
In the late morning I went to the House of Commons for the Privacy debate. After Brian Walden had finished the opening speech he left the Chamber and Robert Maxwell entered and sat in 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 hidden from him and I kept it so. He repeated the process of walking in and gazing up two or three times and at one point he joined in the debate and complained about the Press coverage of his affairs.
Later, Sir John Foster (a Conservative backbencher) came up to the Strangers Gallery and looked around for a long time without contact with anybody. He had probably been sent on a signal journey - Robert Maxwell was still Chairman of CCL and its Secretary was John Forster. The Prime Minister, Mr. Wilson, did not put in an appearance, at least while I was there.
I left the debate while it was in full flow and went on to the IEE HQ at Savoy Place to chair the Committee meeting and after that the Lecture meeting.
Only one member of the Committee beside myself turned
up, a Mr. A.J. Wilson! Unlike the previous occasion when only an M.I. man
attended, this Committee meeting did proceed, for the two especially invited
participants had arrived. Geoffrey Shorter addressed the Committee about
IPC plans for the Electronic Design journal and Mr. Main expressed IMechE support
for the Committee.
After the Committee meeting Geoffrey Shorter was at pains to show me a copy of another IPC journal called Futures, which considering my position was a particularly thought provoking title.
The Committee meeting was followed by tea and then the
Lecture. The Secretariat worked me quite hard!
Contrary to the message received from the Secretariat there were no representatives of the Press present that evening. However, the lecturer (E. Matchett) told me he had been called that afternoon at very short notice to the British Standards Institution office of G.B.R. Feilden FRS., to meet the Editors of The Times (William Rees Mogg) and the Financial Times (Sir Gordon Newton). In the event only the F.T. Editor turned up and he had asked E. Matchett a good deal about his work and about the lecture he was to give. G.B.R. Feilden came to the IEE meeting and contributed to the discussion.
Saturday 24 January 1970
The F.T. did not mention the meeting the following morning but it did carry, next to the report on the Privacy debate, an item in which the term Safeguard was brought out as a heading. It was just over a year since I had formed a Safeguard Group to look into the possible misuse of man-management techniques based on the behavioural sciences.
COMMONS & LORDS
Thursday 19 February 1970
1530 James Allason M.P. conducted me on a tour of the House of Commons, taking me to the members' tea room, pausing with due obeisance before a statue of Winston Churchill (?) and showing me to a seat in a special Gallery where he made a point of showing me that Mrs. Ian Macleod had signed in the previous day.
I cannot remember what business I observed. On the Order Paper for the day, No.63 p3743, Decimalisation is shown after the P.M.'s Questions.
Tuesday 24 February 1970
Robert Runcie was consecrated Bishop of St. Albans.
[About 20 years later, Archbishop Robert said the then Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, had wanted him to take the job because St. Albans was half-way between Oxford and Cambridge. This had a very familiar sound about it - my masonic lodge, which was for Oxford and Cambridge people, first met at Bletchley, the half-way point on the railway which ran between them!]
Friday 06 March 1970
Following the debate and continuing previous communications on Privacy I wrote to James Allason M.P. as follows:‑
I had hoped to complete my statement on Privacy by now but it will take a few more days. Would you please accept my belated thanks for your hospitality at the House of Commons. I greatly enjoyed my glimpse behind the scenes at the House and I am very grateful to you for making it possible.
You may be interested in the enclosed "Training System for Key Men" which is more detailed than the Total Training System document I sent to you a month or two ago. It sets out formally, and in the best light, the kind of thing that has been practiced on me more informally over a considerable period of time. Since I was not a volunteer and there was no open discussion and agreement with me on objectives, it has all the connotations of brainwashing stated in the letter I showed you from the National Training Laboratory, Washington.
I will write again in a week or so with the document on Privacy for submission to the Home Secretary.
Friday 09 March 1970
I received a phone call from a colleague of G. Shorter of Iliffe/IPC about a Symposium due to take place in Edinburgh in about a week's time.
The colleague (name not recorded) asked if I could write an article about the Edinburgh Symposium of approximately 1000 words at £15/1000. I asked that my expenses be also paid and estimated these to be £55.
The event was an International Symposium on Management
and Economics in the Electronics Industry (MEEI) which was to run from 17th to 20th
March at the University of Edinburgh. It was organised by the IEE in
collaboration with numerous other Institutes and Societies.
The theme of the event was very much in tune with the thinking I had promulgated in the IEE, particularly through the Conferences and meetings on Electronics Design. Moreover I had come into close contact with most of the participating organisations before or after leaving M.I. and likewise I knew many of the session speakers, such as for example Professor Charles Oatley of Cambridge, Arthur Wynn of the Ministry of Technology, Plessey's Director of Personnel, A.C. Robb, and Storer, the M.D. who had been asked to propose me for the SIRA.
However, when the time came to register I had been without a regular income for so long that I could not afford it. Spending money on a job interview was one thing but I could not justify the expense of attending a distant meeting on the nebulous basis that it might be to my advantage.
These circumstances go some way in explaining my huge feeling of elation when I received the call to attend, with all my expenses paid, so that I could write an article for one of the Iliffe/IPC journals, for which I would also be paid.
Tuesday 10 March 1970
In the morning, Geoffrey Shorter of Iliffe/IPC telephoned and amended the request made by his colleague.
Geoffrey Shorter asked me instead to write one article on the Telecommunication aspects of the Symposium and also a full length article covering Training from a much wider viewpoint than that expressed at the Symposium. I was surprised at the topics but agreed and, in view of the imminence of the Symposium, got his agreement for me to go ahead with registration and travel booking. Geoffrey Shorter said he would get the necessary authorisation to me by 11 am deadline on Monday 16th March, the day I would have to fly up to Edinburgh.
I put the arrangements in hand - I made a late registration as a participant and booked a seat on Flight 310 from Heathrow to Edinburgh.
Thursday 12 March 1970
I received a letter from James Allason M.P. thanking me for sending him my note on the training system for key men and saying that he awaited my statement on Privacy with interest.
Friday 13 March 1970
I had a telephone conversation with Geoff Shorter of Iliffe/IPC in which it was agreed that one article would be 2500 words at £15/1000 and the other 3000 words at £10/1000. He added that however there was a slight doubt about getting authorisation from his General Manager - he was 95% certain but there was about 5% area of doubt.
My financial position had been brought to such a low state that it might be thought that I was vulnerable to any suggestion - but I was more determined than ever that I would not respond to such techniques.
Monday 16 March 1970
By 11 am the phone call expected from Geoffrey Shorter authorising travel and attendance at the Edinburgh Symposium had not come. I had made the necessary bookings, including the flights so, with considerably heightened apprehension about the financial outlay and the possibility of a hidden agenda, I travelled to Edinburgh.
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