02-04-2010, 09:00 PM
Paul Rigby Wrote:A Viscious Experiment in Wheenland
By Paul Rigby
April 1999
As prelude to conscripting Orwell (1) for Washington's war of petro-strategic position in the Balkans, Guardian columnist Francis Wheen bravely invited readers to mock an unnamed correspondent. The holder of conveniently pat Old Labour views, the angry straw man of Glasgow had written to object both to the war, and Wheen's support of it (2). Like LBJ contemplating Vietnam in the autumn of '64 (3), the certain cost - both domestic and to the inevitable victims - held no terrors for Farringdon Road's unfailingly "progressive" voice of conscience.
He was even less troubled by his correspondent's opening salvo, "Have you been got at by MI6?" The very suggestion that a Guardian journo might act as a spook mouthpiece was so self-evidently absurd that Wheen generously proceeded as if the question had never really been posed. Quite why was, if not immediately obvious, ultimately ascertainable: History - evidence - was on the side of his interlocutor. The source of this less than shocking revelation? Wheen's own paper, the daily house organ of what passes for the British liberal-left.
In Feb 1986, Hutchinson published the first book to probe seriously the true inter-war career of John Logie Baird, the radar-TV genius. In this and subsequent books and essays, Peter Waddell, together with successive collaborators, peeled back decades of official deceit to reveal a startling tale of covert innovation in the service of Britain's imperial war machine. In particular, this work exposed the role of SIS in recognizing, nurturing and exploiting Baird's pioneering work.
In December 1985, it would appear that SIS launched a pre-emptive strike on the forthcoming Secret Life of John Logie Baird. Guess who fronted it:
http://www.teletronic.co.uk/bairdintro.htm
Quote:JOHN LOGIE BAIRD: THE INVENTOR OF TELEVISION
In 1957 an attempt to convert the Baird family home in Scotland to a public museum of television was thwarted by some powerful figures in the British government who said bluntly, "Baird did not invent television." In a book on television by Francis Wheen, the author seemingly went out of his way to discredit the pioneering work of Baird by quoting negative remarks and dismissing most of his groundbreaking work as feats of "one-upmanship", whilst disregarding any of Baird's recognised achievements.
Francis Wheen. Television: A History (London: Century, Dec 1985)
Why would SIS bother? Because what Waddell & co uncovered went far beyond the narrow issues of establishment ingratitude, and genius denied. They were taking us, instead, into the dark heart of British foreign policy between the wars - how this establishment conjured Hitler to destroy both Germany and the Bolshevik beast.