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BRITISH spies investigated documentary TV series World in Action to root out any communist influence among its staff, a “top secret” file declassified today reveals.
The sinister operation by MI5 has remained under wraps for over half a century and was buried in a Cabinet Office cache of “ultra-sensitive stuff that was too hot to handle at the time,” according to a top historian.
The file shows that, as early as 1962, Whitehall’s official committee on communism conducted a study that found: “No evidence to suggest that Independent Television programmes were unduly slanted towards communism or that the companies were excessively open to communist penetration.”
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SETH SANDRONSKY recommends a production that looks back at the political Tinseltown in the mid-1970s when US cinema ‘didn’t pander to trends’
JOHN GREEN has doubts about the efficacy of the Freedom of Information Act, once trumpeted by Tony Blair
From anonymous surveys claiming Chinese students are spying on each other to a meltdown about the size of China’s London embassy, the evidence is everywhere that Britain is embracing full spectrum Sinophobia as the war clouds gather, writes CARLOS MARTINEZ