Peace Movements: Exploitation (Hansard, 9 December 1981)

§ Lord Orr-Ewing
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Trefgarne)
My Lords, it is clearly in the Soviet interest to exploit peace movements in Europe, thereby seeking to weaken Western resolve to counter the threat to our security. We are satisfied that there is evidence that organisations such as, for example, the World Peace Council who are active in this field do enjoy considerable support from Eastern sources.

§ Lord Orr-Ewing
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that rather uninformative first reply. Would he not agree that the free world, and NATO in particular, needs, first, to win the argument for multinational disarmament and, secondly, to reveal the extent to which the Soviet Union are financing peace movements and other movements which are trying to undermine the unity of NATO? Would it not now be in the interest of the intelligence organisations in all NATO countries to cease holding their cards quite so close to their chest and to give us the opportunity of learning just where the money is coming from for free trains and free buses across frontiers in order to finance demonstrations against armament in Western Europe?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I am not sure whether the Western countries have kept their cards quite so close to their chest as my noble friend suggests. I wonder whether my noble friend has seen the report on the hearings of the Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of Representatives which was published last year. If he turns to page 79 of that report—I shall be happy to direct him later to the publication—he will see that considerable detail was produced by the CIA.

§ Lord Brockway
My Lords, is the Minister aware that the peace movement in Britain, part of Europe, takes the utmost care that all its finances come from British sources? Is he also aware that I should be very well prepared to provide him with all the details of 1336 the income of the World Disarmament Campaign if he wishes to receive them? May I further ask him whether he saw the statement in the Guardian on Monday by a NATO ambassador: Our public relations job would be much easier if the unilateralists were simply puppets manipulated"—

Several noble Lords
Order, order!

§ Lord Brockway
I am quoting.

Several noble Lords
Order!

§ The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Baroness Young)
My Lords, would the noble Lord be good enough, please, to ask his question and not to make long quotations in the middle of it?

§ Lord Brockway
I am asking the Minister whether he saw in the Guardian on Monday the statement by the NATO ambassador which indicated that the European peace movement is not receiving money from Moscow. And, so far as the United States is concerned, is the Minister aware that the peace movement is led by the Quaker Friends' Service Committee and Homer Jack, a Unitarian Minister, neither of whom would be likely to receive any funds from alien sources?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I would not wish to suggest that every branch of the European peace movement is funded by the Soviet Union or other Eastern bloc countries, but the World Peace Council to which I referred certainly enjoys considerable support. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, on the other hand, has, I think, strenuously denied any support from Eastern sources.

§ Lord Beloff
My Lords, would the Minister ask whether the British Embassy in Copenhagen could monitor the forthcoming trial of two Danish citizens on the charge of receiving money from a member of the Soviet Embassy in order to facilitate a peace march?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I am aware of the case to which my noble friend refers and I can assure him that we shall keep ourselves properly informed.

§ Lord Chalfont
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that in the report to which he referred earlier the calculations are that the Soviet Union is spending something like £1,500 million a year on disinformation and destabilisation of NATO and that, of that, something like £100 million a year is being spent on financing peace movements in Western Europe? Is he further aware that the question is not whether money is coming into the coffers of this or that organisation but whether or not, if the Soviet Union are spending that kind of money on that kind of operation, it is reasonable to infer that all peace movements in Western Europe are benefiting from it?

§ Lord Trefgarne
No, my Lords, I do not think that that is a proper inference. Certainly I am prepared to point to the support which the World Peace Council receives, but to go wider and to suggest that they all receive such support is going too far.

§ Lord Northfield
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that at the Western European Assembly last week the Minister of State of the French Ministry of Defence made a proposal that the Assembly should study this problem of the possible financing by communist sources of the peace movements? Would that not be a good idea? Would not Her Majesty's Government give support to this study which a French Minister has suggested? And would Her Majesty's Government make available what information they have on this issue?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I would certainly want to study more carefully what the French Minister said before giving a categorical assurance of the kind for which the noble Lord has asked, but I do not think I would want to support a proposal which amounted to a witch hunt.

§ Baroness Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe
My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that we find his answers very fair and reasoned? May I ask him whether he could perhaps convey to his noble friend whether he thinks that Soviet gold is going to the pastors of the Lutheran Church of East Germany, who are organising a peace movement, and to the Hungarian Roman Catholic priests, who are preaching for conscientious objection, and to the entire Romanian Government, which has just organised a peace rally of hundreds of thousands of people, and whether all that is part of Soviet propaganda?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I should not want to draw too close a comparison between the peace movements of Eastern Europe, which in my view are far from spontaneous, and others in Western Europe, which are more so.

Lord Paget of Northampton
My Lords, even if this could be proved, is it not a shade open to misunderstanding that we should appear to be objecting to the Soviet Union spending their money on peace instead of war?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I am not sure that that is the intention of the Soviet Union.

§ Lord Orr-Ewing
My Lords, has my noble friend seen the statement made on BBC Radio by Dr Luns, when he said that the Soviet Union paid for the peace movement? As Dr. Joseph Luns has been Director General of NATO for some 10 years, surely statements of this kind are not made lightly or without reasonable proof? And would it not be reasonable, if the House of Representatives can publish detailed figures, for somebody in this Government to come forth with similar figures, before this movement becomes too proscribed and too dedicated to the destruction of NATO's security?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, I have not seen a trans-script of what Dr. Luns said in the broadcast to which my noble friend has referred, but I suggest it is unwise to take such a remark out of context, as my noble friend has done.

§ Lord Jenkins of Putney
My Lords, is my noble friend aware that Dr. Luns's remark is equally without foundation? Is he further aware that there is as much substance in these charges as there is in one which I have unearthed myself? Is the noble Lord aware that I have in my pocket evidence of a dastardly red plot? This monstrosity, invented in Hungary, can in the hands of clever people be used to present an innocent blue facade to the public while concealing at the back a wholly red interior. I refer, of course, to the dastardly Rubik's cube, which has diverted the minds of the young people of this country away from constructive thoughts about nuclear war.

Several noble Lords
Order!

§ Baroness Young
My Lords, I think the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, has already asked four questions in one. Will he please ask his question?

§ Lord Jenkins of Putney
My Lords, will the noble Lord accept that this vicious thing is something which he ought to investigate with the same thoroughness that he would the other matters raised by his noble friends?

§ Lord Trefgarne
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins of Putney, is, of course, a well-known member of the unilateral disarmament movement in this country. I think he tends to attach too much levity to the matter raised by my noble friend. It is an important matter and, as I have said, there is certainly some evidence of Soviet support for some of the unilateral disarmament movements. I would not accept the levity which the noble Lord opposite attaches to the subject.

§ Baroness Young
My Lords, we have now spent 10 minutes on this Question and I think it is time that we moved on to the next Question.