Bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library 10:2001 No28 $1/50p Whose violence? It is not necessary for you to tell me that violencedegree as General, but, when you are in New York, in breeds violence. We of the people have known. thisyour offices, with your drinks and your women, then longer than you have, and for my part I knew it tenyou write to tell the world I am the most savage years ago when nobody came dashing down frombarbarian of them all. Isn’t that so? But I am not so Washington to tell Diaz that to let the peasants live on stupid as you think, and know just as well as if I had grass would breed violence; studied history that fighting or that shooting down those provokes more fighting and who asked for a few pence blood, blood. more a week would breed You tell me (President) violence; or that feeding the Wilson deplores violence but I lice on prisoners from one am not such a fool as to ask decade to another would you if in that case (General) surely breed violence. Pershing has gone to work in Now when you see the the fields. I understand the futil• workers with Winchesters in ity of violence better than this their hands you hasten to Wilson, for I was flogged and explain to us uneducated men saw my brothers starve and be that this will only breed more shot down when he lived in a violence, and you say and I big house with servants and know that history proves you was told he was a Christian. If I right. Only I would like to had not known this as a boy I know where we should be if might have been so great a we throw away our guns and criminal as to join the state stood out there hat in hand army and by now be one of bowing before the landlords Carranza’s generals whom and officers like we did nobody tells violence is before the revolution. MyNow when you see the workers unvirtuous. friends can answer for Enough, we know violence themselves – you know withas Winchesters in their hands breeds violence, what I would well as I do where I shouldyou hasten to explain to us like to know is how peace may be – three feet under after breed peace? For my part I dancing six feet over. uneducated men that this will think when there are no masters And you also know thatonly breed more violence, and and no slaves, when there are men who are here have onlyyou say and I know that history governments issuing orders to stop fighting and they will indeed and churches decrees, go to feed worms in the grave proves you right. Only I would but nobody obeying them, when or lice in the jails or at the like to know where we should be all who wish land and liberty best go back to slavery,and may have it, and those who this thought sometimesif we throw away our guns and want to oppress have no arms makes men more fierce thanstood out there hat in hand then and then only, peace will is their nature. But they are breed peace. not barbarians as you think.bowing before the landlords and Oh, I know, when you comeofficers like we did before the Emiliano ZAPATA here with cameras you salute revolution. From Black Flag Vol. 1, No 8, me as if I were the President June 1970 and address me out of my Inside: “Searchlight” and the State SEARCHLIGHT & THE STATE “Leave it to the experts...” anti•Mosley 43 Group (basically a CP set•up) who “I have now given the names I haveacquired to be thought the group had grown ‘too liberal’ – to counter checked out by British/French security services, the antics of Colin Jordan, John Tyndall, and the especially the French and German connections and revived neo•Nazi movement of the early ‘60’s. The62 the South American stuff is being checked Groupby (mostly supporters of the Beginite Herut Geoffrey Stewart•Smith’s institute. He hasstrong organisation, a political successor to theIrgun Zvai CIA links. (1), I may try somebody in the Israeli Leumi terrorist group) specialised in direct action, Foreign Office that I know for some checks on Kelly. infiltration, dirty•tricks, and ‘black•bag’ jobs It is now a time for waiting for a feed•back and also (burglary). Gable has retained an endearing affection further checks here.” for ‘black•bag’ jobs, as a means of gathering informa• “I have attached a number of documentsinclud• tion on target individuals, ever since. ing the transcript of Kelly’s interview with World in Action. It goeswithout saying that I would like this Searchlight kept strictly secret.” Parallel to the activities of the‘62 Group, a small (‘Strictly secret’: one of a series of reports on other anti•fascist journal was founded in London to monitor journalists which London Weekend Televisionthe activities of Jordan, Tyndall & Co. The journal researcher and Searchlight Publishing Chairmanwas called Searchlight. Amongst its early editors were Gerry Gable prepared… with a little help from “the Labour MP’s Reg Freeson and Joan Lestor (both experts”). subsequently Government Ministers for Housing and *** Foreign Affairs respectively). Searchlight’s “research In January 1964, three young men (2) were convicted director” was Gerry Gable. The journal ceased publi• at Highbury Magistrates Court for breaking and enter• cation in 1967, but Gable, Maurice Ludmer (a veteran ing with intent to commit a felony, after attempting to Communist and anti•fascist), and others stayed steal private papers from the self•proclaimed “mild together as Searchlight Associates, in order to go on fascist” historian David Irving. Despite the fact that providing ‘research material’ on the extreme Right to one of them was unemployed and the other two gave journalists and broadcasters. In 1974 Gable and their professions as “electrician”, they were repre•Ludmer collaborated in the production of a pamphlet sented in Court by a Queens Council and £1,000 bail detailing the background and nature of the National was put up by a businessman, company directorFront: A Well Oiled Nazi Machine.The instant Leslie Jacobs of Clapton. One of the three wassuccess of the pamphlet (it sold out in a few weeks), additionally charged with stealing a GPO identity card helped by the wave of concern awakened on the Left which he used in the burglary: his name was Gerryby the seeming advance being made by the NF (and Gable. Council for the defence told the court,“they incidentally, the re•emergence of ‘anti•fascism’ as a hoped to find material they could take Specialto bandwagon for groups like the SWP to use for their Branch”. (3) recruitment drives), promptedSearchlight Associates Twenty years later the same Gerry Gable, review• to resume publication as a regular journal. The pilot ing Stuart Christie’sInvestigative Researcher’s issue of the newSearchlight appeared in February Handbook (which had included profiles of two leading 1975, with Maurice Ludmer as its editor. Ludmer and right•wingers as examples of how to go about anGable were also amongst the first sponsors of the investigation), dismissed the book with the scathing Anti•Nazi League. admonishment to “leave it to the experts”.(4) We think Since then Searchlight has built up an impressive our readers should be made aware of just whichreputation for investigative reporting, and has done “experts” Mr. Gable has in mind, and why it is that pioneering work of genuine value in exposing the Searchlight reacts so curiously whenever anyoneactivities and international links of fascist organisa• outside their select circle dares step onto tions.their But the political expediency of a perceived jealously guarded territory of investigating identitythe of interest in the short•term, in the cause of extreme Right. ‘anti•fascism’ just as in ‘anti•communism’, is apt to Born in January 1937, Gerry Gable is a formerlead one to work with some strange allies. InSearch• member of the Young Communist League (YCL), and light’s case, opposition to the ‘extremists’ of the Right stood as Communist Party candidate in the Northfield has opened up the door to the extremists of the centre, ward of Stamford Hill, north London, in 1962. Hefor whom Right and Left are equally perceived as a was also linked to the Zionist ‘antifascist’62 Group threat to ‘democracy’. nominally led by Harry Bidney (manager of the Limbo Club in Soho) – formed by veterans of the Bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library Page 2 SEARCHLIGHT & THE STATE “Strictly secret” Admitted to be one of a series, the memo was Not only has Gable admitted, as part of his defence in headed “Agencies” presumably a reference to Gable’s the 1963/4 burglary trial, that he hoped to supplyinformation sources (named, apart from MI5, as the information to Special Branch on David Irving, but a CIA, French and German security, Stewart•Smith’s confidential memorandum written by him to FARIhis institute, and the ‘Israeli Foreign Office’). It producers in London Weekend Television (where he mixes up a few accurate facts with half•truths, and worked until recently as a researcher/presenter on the constructs upon them a series of fantasies, linking the London Programme: he is now trying to work his Young Liberals with Cubans, Palestinian and German ticket with an alleged ‘heart condition’) on 2 Mayterrorists, various contributors toTime Out, members 1977 gave clear, hard, evidence that he has alsoof the London Co•Op, and the KGB, into a deadly, engaged in a two•way traffic of information with the all•encompassing conspiracy.