Declassified by the UK National Archives in early 2020, official documents show that between 1945 and 1977 Her Majesty’s Government secretly subsidised the Reuters News Agency and the BBC to disseminate Fake News against the USSR and communist sympathisers.
During the Cold War, the Foreign Office founded the Information Research Department (IRD), an apparatus in charge of identifying and discrediting supporters of the USSR. In particular, it created the “Globe News Agency”, the “Near and Far East News Ltd (NAFEN)” based in Istanbul and Delhi, the “Star News Agency” based in Karachi and the “Arab News Agency” based in Cairo and, as of 1956, in Beirut. Many well-known figures actively participated in this disinformation program, including George Orwell, Arthur Koestler, A.J.P. Taylor and Bertrand Russell.
The IRD also swayed British public opinion in favour of the United Kingdom’s accession to the European Economic Community (now European Union), via the European League for Economic Cooperation (ELEC) (British equivalent of the American Committee on United Europe).
The IRD was dissolved in 1977 by Lord David Owen in order to shut down the propaganda activities aimed against the left wing of the Labour Party.
These documents constitute irrefutable proof, and show that for around thirty years, the MI6 (and its US counterpart, the CIA) have dominated information flows throughout Western and Third World countries, as denounced in 1973 by Sean McBride before the UNESCO.
These documents substantiate the Chilcot Commission revelations on the manipulation of public opinion during the war on Iraq in 2003; they also divulge the current fake news instrument of the Foreign Office: Innovative Communications & Strategies (InCoStrat). As of 2014 and up to now, this Istanbul-based agency has fabricated a false narrative regarding the war in Syria, which it managed to impose on the international media as a whole.
The Reuters News Agency was taken over by Thomson Financial in 2008. It no longer seems to have ties with the MI6 because it has been taken over by the CIA: it has permanent access to the Pentagon’s command center and can therefore release Fakes News, in real and prime time, as much and as often as necessary.
This is for your good information!