The information research department of the British foreign office and the Korean war, 1950-53

Journal of Contemporary History

Volumn 34, Issue 2, 1999, Pages 263-281

  Shaw, Tony ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF HERTFORDSHIRE   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0003679893     PISSN: 00220094     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/002200949903400206     Document Type: Article

References (41)

1. For academic analysis of the IRD's work see L. Smith, 'Covert British Propaganda: the Information Research Department, 1947-77', Millennium, 9, 1 (Spring 1980), 67-83
2. W.S. Lucas and C.J. Morris, 'A very British Crusade: the Information Research Department and the Beginning of the Cold War' in R. Aldrich (ed.), British Intelligence, Strategy and the Cold War (London 1992), 85-110
3. R. Fletcher, 'British Propaganda since World War Two - A Case Study', Media, Culture and Society, 4, 2 (April 1982), 97-109
4. W. Wark, 'Coming in from the Cold: British Propaganda and the Red Army Defectors, 1945-52', The International History Review, 9, 1 (February 1987), 48-72
5. S.L. Carruthers, 'A Red under every Bed? Anti-communist Propaganda and Britain's Response to Colonial Insurgency', Contemporary Record, 9, 2 (Autumn 1995), 294-318
6. and P. Weiler, British Labour and the Cold War (Stanford, CA 1988), chap. 6
7. As part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's commitment to Open Government, some archive material on the IRD has been released in the last few years. This has largely been confined to the late 1940s. See FCO Library and Records Department, IRD: Origins and Establishment of the Foreign Office Information Research Department, 1946-48 (August 1995)
8. Even privately, many Foreign Office officials and ministers were reluctant to admit to their use of 'propaganda' during the Cold War owing to its connotations of totalitarianism and falsehood. In reality, the distinctions between 'propaganda', 'publicity' and 'information' always have been extremely blurred. This was particularly the case during the Cold War and the words are therefore used interchangeably in the article. For a discussion of this linguistic puzzle see J.A.C. Brown, Techniques of Persuasion: from Propaganda to Brainwashing (London 1963)
9. Carruthers, op. cit.; David Miller, Don't Mention the War: Northern Ireland, Propaganda and the Media (London 1994), 78, 125, 308
10. Chiefs of Staff Joint Planning Staff Paper on 'The Spread of Russian Communism', 14 July 1950, DEFE 6/14 JP(50)90 Final Annex, Public Record Office, London (hereafter all such citations refer to Public Record Office, London)
11. Jong-yil Ra, 'Political Settlement in Korea: British Views and Policies, Autumn 1950' in J. Cotton and I. Neary (eds), The Korean War in History (Manchester 1989), 53-5
12. C. MacDonald, Britain and the Korean War (Oxford 1990), 1
13. Anthony Farrar-Hockley, The British Part in the Korean War, Volume 1 (London 1990), 1
14. Farrar-Hockley, op. cit., 204
15. The British Part in the Korean War, MacDonald, op. cit., 21; The Listener, 3 August 1950, 147-8
16. Kenneth Harris, Attlee (London 1982), 454
17. Cabinet minutes, 27 June 1950, CAB 128/17 39 (50) 4; FO to Washington, 27 June 1950, FO 371/84057 FK1015/40, FK 1015/50; Robert Pearce (ed.), Patrick Gordon-Walker: Political Diaries, 1932-71 (London 1991), 189-90
18. A British Gallup poll on 3 July 1950 asked 'Do you approve or disapprove of the action that has been taken by the British and American Governments?'. 69 per cent registered approval, 14 per cent disapproval, with 17 per cent not knowing. See Brian Porter, Britain and the Rise of Communist China: A Study of British Attitudes, 1945-1954 (London 1967), 96-7
19. See Weiler, op. cit., 213ff
20. Murray to Lord President's Office, 4 July 1950, FO 371/84061 FK1015/125. For an analysis of how the Korean War did start see Gye-Dong Kim, 'Who initiated the Korean War?' in Cotton and Neary, op. cit., 33-50
21. Trevor Royle, War Report (London 1987), 189-95
22. MacDonald, op. cit., 29-38; Gallup poll, January 1951, in George Gallup, The Gallup International Public Opinion Polls, Great Britain, 1937-1975, Volume 1 (New York 1976), 237-8
23. MacDonald, op. cit., 43
24. A. Bullock, Ernest Bevin: Foreign Secretary, 1945-1951 (Oxford 1985), 823-4
25. The Listener, 21 December 1950, 769-70
26. Minute by Gascoigne to FO, 18 January 1951, FO 371/92842 FK1451/3. Few reporters dared to write the truth as they saw it in Korea; one, the American Hal Boyle, claimed that Korea was the worst reported war of modern times. See Royle, op. cit., 177, 181
27. Bouchier to MoD, January 1951, FO 371/92721 FK1001/1; Ritchie Ovendale, 'Britain and the Cold War in Asia' in Ritchie Ovendale (ed.), The Foreign Policy of the British Labour Governments, 1945-1951 (Leicester 1984), 137-9
28. Kenneth O. Morgan, Labour in Power, 1945-1951 (London 1985), 433
29. unpublished Oxford University DPhil. thesis by Peter Truscott, 'The Korean War in British Foreign and Domestic Policy, 1950-1952' (1985), 15
30. See John Campbell, Nye Bevan and the Mirage of Socialism (London 1987), 232-50
31. Mark Jenkins, Bevanism: Labour's High Tide (Nottingham 1979), 84ff
32. C. MacDonald, '"Heroes behind barbed wire" - The US, Britain and the POW issue in the Korean War' in Cotton and Neary (eds), op. cit., 135-50
33. Ra Jong-yil, op. cit., 52; Younger, Minister of State at FO, to Bevin, 11 July 1950, FO 371/84091 FK1022/215/G
34. Burrows from Washington to FO, 9 August 1950, FO 953/635 P1013/10/G; S.L. Carruthers, Winning Hearts and Minds: British Governments, the Media and Colonial Counter-Insurgency, 1944-1960 (Leicester 1995)
35. Exchange of information between USIS and IPD, 1950-51, in FO 371/1062 P10122/11; J. Moberly's report on 'Anglo-American cooperation in information work', 18 December 1950, FO 953/640 P1013/198/G
36. Mark Clark, From the Danube to the Yalu (London 1954), 196-202
37. See Carruthers, Winning Hearts and Minds, op. cit., for an analysis of this theme in relation to Malaya, Kenya and Cyprus in the 1940s and 1950s
38. Pakistan High Commission to FO, 20 December 1950, FO 371/92847 FK1661/1; UN (Political) Department minute on WIDF, 5 July 1951, FO 371/92848 FK1661/37; Malcolm MacEwen, The Greening of a Red (London 1991), 171; FO minute on Spectator article, 11 April 1952, FO 371/99622 FK11910/4
39. IRD minute on germ warfare, March 1952, FO 371/99604 FK1095/15; Russia Committee minutes, 7 August 1952, FO 371/100842 NS1052/28/G; Franks to FO, 23 November 1951, FO 371/92844 FK1551/33; IRD background paper, 'The Communist Germ Warfare Campaign', June 1952, FO 975/62; John Clews, Communist Propaganda Techniques (London 1964)
40. See, for example, MacDonald, Britain and the Korean War, op. cit., 95-6
41. FO draft memorandum on 'Propaganda, Information and the "Cold War"', 17 November 1951, for Cabinet Overseas Information Services (Official) Committee, FO 953/1051 P1011/94; Smith, op. cit., 69; J. Bloch and P. Fitzgerald, British Intelligence and Covert Action (London 1983), 90-101