Sir John Gorman: The Times of My Life by Sir John Gorman

Author:Sir John Gorman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Modern / General
ISBN: 9781783377435
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2003-03-18T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

BOAC – ROYAL TOUR OF AUSTRALASIA

Now began the objective which I had been set, of curbing the influence of the Communist party in the airline. Lest it be thought that this was a McCarthy-type project (Senator McCarthy, the fanatical anti-Communist, was about his abhorrent activities in the States), it is worth considering the Communist scene in the United Kingdom in the early ’60s. The Cold War was hot. Russia had suppressed Hungary brutally, many European countries had governments, which if not precisely Communist, were by no means anti-Communist. Our horror of the Nazi regime, and its concentration camps, was transferred to the Gulag Archipelago. There was real fear that, pretending to be orthodox trade-unionists, Communists were seizing power over workers, some at least of whom still thought of Stalin as “Uncle Joe”.

I decided to tackle the problem of left-wing unions and their staff travel on two fronts. One was to discover the names of activists who had already demonstrated by their behaviour that they were more concerned with disruption than with workers’ rights. The other was to find a means of giving workers another vision than the Soviet one which they had from articulate and persuasive people purporting to be their advocates.

The first task, keeping a watch on recruitment, was not too difficult. The Metropolitan Police were very helpful, and our own efforts (and MI5 sources) made clear that we must have a security input to the vetting of candidates for employment in BOAC. After all, Britain’s flag-carrier around the world was not helped if it had employees who wanted to bring down democratic government in our country and abroad. With the co-operation of Freddie Chesterton, the head of selection, training and development, it was comparatively simple for security to have an input into the antecedents of applicants, whereby a number of individuals were kept out.

That was the easier bit. Creating an ethos in the workplace which made Communism less attractive was more difficult, but Sir Matthew Slattery, the Chairman, formerly Chairman of Harland and Wolff, came across an organization linked to the Catholic Church, which specialized in creating such a spirit in the workforce. It was in Engineering that our problems were greatest, and one of the areas in which we needed to create this healthier climate was among the apprentices. These youngsters, our future technicians, were a critical segment. Industrial disputes involving technical staff were disastrous, as an increasing number of functions were specialist, requiring special skills, equipment and tools. A strike by even a small group of such specialists could ground the airline, as had happened.

An elderly man, an Irishman as it happened, would invite these youngsters to informal evening meetings to give them information about the Communist threat to the free world, and how legitimate trade union activity was being perverted for political ends, in the service of communism. Once the youngsters realized what the dangers were, they were keen to do something about the problems.

There was a highly technical function entrusted to a specialist engineering unit.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.