Harold Wilson conspiracy theories
Encyclopedia
Since the mid-1970s, a variety of conspiracy theories have emerged centering on British
Labour
Prime Minister
Harold Wilson
. These range from Wilson having been a Soviet agent, to Wilson being the victim of counter-espionage
plots by members of the civil service
.
defector Anatoliy Golitsyn
is said to have told Alec MacDonald, who set up safe houses where Golitsyn could live, that Wilson was a KGB
operative and that former Labour Party
leader Hugh Gaitskell
had been assassinated by the KGB in order to have the pro-US Gaitskell replaced as party leader by Harold Wilson
. David Leigh
, however, claims that Golitsyn was guessing. Christopher Andrew, the official historian for Britain's MI5
, has described Golitsyn as an "unreliable conspiracy theorist".
Former MI5
officer Peter Wright
claimed in his memoirs Spycatcher
that he had been told that Wilson was a Soviet agent
. Wright states that after Wilson was elected Prime Minister
in 1964 the CIA's head of the Counterintelligence Division, James Angleton, had told him that he had heard from a source (whom he did not name, but who was probably Golitsyn) that Wilson was a Soviet agent. Angleton said he would give further information if MI5 would guarantee to keep the allegations from 'political circles'. The management of MI5, according to Wright, refused to accept Angleton's restrictions on the use of his information and so Angleton did not tell them anything more.
According to Wright by the end of the 1960s MI5 had received information that the Labour Party had 'almost certainly' been penetrated by the Soviets. Two Czechoslovakia
n defectors, 'Frolik' and 'August', had fled to the West
and named a list of Labour MPs and trade union
ists as Soviet agents.
MI5 repeatedly investigated Wilson over the course of several years before conclusively deciding that he had no relationship with the KGB. Wilson claimed he was a staunch anti-communist
.
recounts a meeting he arranged at the request of Cecil King
, the head of the International Publishing Corporation
, between King and Lord Mountbatten of Burma
. The meeting took place on May 8, 1968. Attending were Mountbatten, King, Cudlipp, and Sir Solly Zuckerman
, the Chief Scientific Adviser
to the British government.
According to Cudlipp:
Mountbatten asked for the opinion of Zuckerman, who stated that the plan amounted to treason and left the room. Mountbatten expressed the same opinion, and King and Cudlipp left. On 30 May 1968 King was dismissed as the head of the International Publishing Corporation.
In addition to Mountbatten's refusal to participate in King's mooted plot, there is no evidence of any other conspirators. Cudlipp himself appears to see the meeting as an example of extreme egotism on King's part.
television programme The Plot Against Harold Wilson, broadcast on March 16, 2006 on BBC2
, it was claimed there were threats of a coup d'état against the Wilson government, which was corroborated by leading figures of the time on both the left and the right. Wilson told two BBC journalists, Roger Courtiour and Barrie Penrose, that he feared he was being undermined by MI5. The first time was in the late 1960s after the Wilson Government devalued the pound sterling but the threat faded after Conservative
leader Edward Heath
won the election of 1970
. However after a coal miners strike Heath decided to hold an election to renew his mandate to govern in February 1974
but lost narrowly to Wilson. There was again talk of a military coup, with rumours of Lord Mountbatten
as head of an interregnal administration after Wilson had been deposed. In 1974 the Army
occupied Heathrow Airport
on the grounds of training for possible IRA
terrorist action there, however Baroness Falkender (a senior aide and close friend of Wilson) asserted that it was ordered as a practice-run for a military takeover or as a show of strength as the government itself was not informed of such an exercise based around a key point in the nation's infrastructure.
claimed that he was confronted by two of his MI5 colleagues and that they said to him: "Wilson's a bloody menace and it's about time the public knew the truth", and "We'll have him out, this time we'll have him out". Wright alleged that there was a plan to leak damaging information about Wilson and that this had been approved by 'up to thirty officers'. As the 1974 election
approached, the plan went, MI5 would leak selective details of the intelligence about Labour leaders, especially Wilson, to 'sympathetic' journalist
s. According to Wright MI5 would use their contacts in the press and the trade unions to spread around the idea that Wilson was considered a security risk. The matter was to be raised in Parliament for 'maximum effect'. However Wright declined to let them see the files on Wilson and the plan was never carried out but Wright does claim it was a 'carbon copy' of the Zinoviev Letter
which had helped destabilise the first Labour Government in 1924.
On March 22, 1987 former MI5 officer James Miller
claimed that the Ulster Workers Council Strike of 1974 had been promoted by MI5 in order to help destabilise Wilson's government.
In July 1987, Labour MP, Ken Livingstone
used his maiden speech to raise the allegations of a former Army press officer, Colin Wallace
, that the Army press office in Northern Ireland had been used in the 1970s as part of a smear campaign, codenamed Clockwork Orange
against Harold Wilson and other British and Irish politicians.
The public position of MI5 was established with the publication in 2009 of Defence of the Realm, the first authorised history of MI5, by Christopher Andrew, in which it is reported that, while MI5 kept a file on Wilson from 1945, when he became an MP – because communist civil servants claimed that he had similar political sympathies – there was no bugging of his home or office, and no conspiracy against him. However in 2010 newspaper reports made detailed allegations that the bugging of 10 Downing Street
had been omitted from the history for "wider public interest reasons". In 1963 on Harold Macmillan
's orders following the Profumo Affair
MI5 bugged the cabinet room, the waiting room, and the prime minister’s study until the bugs were removed in 1977 on Jim Callaghan's orders. From the records it is unclear if Harold Wilson or Edward Heath
knew of the bugging, and no recorded conversations were retained by MI5 so possibly the bugs were never activated. Professor Andrew had previously recorded in the preface of the history that "One significant excision as a result of these requirements (in the chapter on The Wilson Plot) is, I believe, hard to justify" giving credence to these new allegations.
were based on the allegations, using fictional characters.
In episode 2.4
of the British television series Life on Mars
, characters discuss the possibility of a coup as a result of a Wilson victory in 1974.
In Charles Stross
's short piece "The Golden Age of Spying" (included in the novel The Jennifer Morgue
), Ernst Stavro Blofeld
states that his opposition to the British government was based on the fact that Wilson and Callaghan were communist agents.
The novella "Project Heracles" by Stephen Baxter
(Analog Science Fiction and Fact
, January/February 2012, pp. 120-146) is based on the premise that the coup takes place.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
Prime Minister
Prime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
Harold Wilson
Harold Wilson
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...
. These range from Wilson having been a Soviet agent, to Wilson being the victim of counter-espionage
Counter-Espionage
-Cast:* Warren William as Michael Lanyard* Eric Blore as Jamison* Hillary Brooke as Pamela Hart* Thurston Hall as Insp. Crane* Fred Kelsey as Detective Wesley Dickens* Forrest Tucker as Anton Schugg* Matthew Boulton as Inspector J...
plots by members of the civil service
Civil service
The term civil service has two distinct meanings:* A branch of governmental service in which individuals are employed on the basis of professional merit as proven by competitive examinations....
.
Background
SovietSoviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
defector Anatoliy Golitsyn
Anatoliy Golitsyn
Anatoliy Mikhaylovich Golitsyn CBE is a Soviet KGB defector and author of two books about the long-term deception strategy of the KGB leadership. He was born in Piryatin, Ukrainian SSR...
is said to have told Alec MacDonald, who set up safe houses where Golitsyn could live, that Wilson was a KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
operative and that former Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
leader Hugh Gaitskell
Hugh Gaitskell
Hugh Todd Naylor Gaitskell CBE was a British Labour politician, who held Cabinet office in Clement Attlee's governments, and was the Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 1955, until his death in 1963.-Early life:He was born in Kensington, London, the third and youngest...
had been assassinated by the KGB in order to have the pro-US Gaitskell replaced as party leader by Harold Wilson
Harold Wilson
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...
. David Leigh
David Leigh
David Leigh is a British journalist and author, currently investigations executive editor of The Guardian.-Early life:Leigh was born in 1946 and educated at Nottingham High School and King's College, Cambridge, receiving a research degree from Cambridge in 1968.-Career:Leigh has been a prominent...
, however, claims that Golitsyn was guessing. Christopher Andrew, the official historian for Britain's MI5
MI5
The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...
, has described Golitsyn as an "unreliable conspiracy theorist".
Former MI5
MI5
The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...
officer Peter Wright
Peter Wright
Peter Maurice Wright was an English scientist and former MI5 counterintelligence officer, noted for writing the controversial book Spycatcher, which became an international bestseller with sales of over two million copies...
claimed in his memoirs Spycatcher
Spycatcher
Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer , is a book written by Peter Wright, former MI5 officer and Assistant Director, and co-author Paul Greengrass. It was published first in Australia...
that he had been told that Wilson was a Soviet agent
Espionage
Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
. Wright states that after Wilson was elected Prime Minister
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...
in 1964 the CIA's head of the Counterintelligence Division, James Angleton, had told him that he had heard from a source (whom he did not name, but who was probably Golitsyn) that Wilson was a Soviet agent. Angleton said he would give further information if MI5 would guarantee to keep the allegations from 'political circles'. The management of MI5, according to Wright, refused to accept Angleton's restrictions on the use of his information and so Angleton did not tell them anything more.
According to Wright by the end of the 1960s MI5 had received information that the Labour Party had 'almost certainly' been penetrated by the Soviets. Two Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
n defectors, 'Frolik' and 'August', had fled to the West
West
West is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography.West is one of the four cardinal directions or compass points. It is the opposite of east and is perpendicular to north and south.By convention, the left side of a map is west....
and named a list of Labour MPs and trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
ists as Soviet agents.
MI5 repeatedly investigated Wilson over the course of several years before conclusively deciding that he had no relationship with the KGB. Wilson claimed he was a staunch anti-communist
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
.
The 1968 plot
In his 1976 memoir Walking on Water, Hugh CudlippHugh Cudlipp
Hubert "Hugh" Kinsman Cudlipp, Baron Cudlipp, OBE , was a Welsh journalist and newspaper editor noted for his work on the Daily Mirror in the 1950s and 60s.- Life and career :...
recounts a meeting he arranged at the request of Cecil King
Cecil Harmsworth King
Cecil Harmsworth King was owner of Mirror Group Newspapers, and later a director at the Bank of England .He came on his father's side from a Protestant Irish family, and was brought up in Ireland...
, the head of the International Publishing Corporation
IPC Media
IPC Media , a wholly owned subsidiary of Time Inc., is a consumer magazine and digital publisher in the United Kingdom, with a large portfolio selling over 350 million copies each year.- Origins :...
, between King and Lord Mountbatten of Burma
Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma
Admiral of the Fleet Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas George Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, KG, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCIE, GCVO, DSO, PC, FRS , was a British statesman and naval officer, and an uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh...
. The meeting took place on May 8, 1968. Attending were Mountbatten, King, Cudlipp, and Sir Solly Zuckerman
Solly Zuckerman
Solly Zuckerman, Baron Zuckerman, OM, KCB, FRS was a British public servant, zoologist, and scientific advisor who is best remembered as an advisor to the Allies on bombing strategy in World War II, for his work to advance the cause of nuclear non-proliferation, and for his role in bringing...
, the Chief Scientific Adviser
Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government
The UK Government Chief Scientific Adviser is the personal adviser on science and technology-related activities and policies to the Prime Minister and the Cabinet; and head of the Government Office for Science....
to the British government.
According to Cudlipp:
"[Cecil] awaited the arrival of Sir Solly and then at once expounded his views on the gravity of the national situation, the urgency for action, and then embarked upon a shopping list of the Prime Minister's shortcomings...He explained that in the crisis he foresaw as being just around the corner, the Government would disintegrate, there would be bloodshed in the streets and the armed forces would be involved. The people would be looking to somebody like Lord Mountbatten as the titular head of a new administration, somebody renowned as a leader of men, who would be capable, backed by the best brains and administrators in the land, to restore public confidence. He ended with a question to Mountbatten- would he agree to be the titular head of a new administration in such circumstances?"
Mountbatten asked for the opinion of Zuckerman, who stated that the plan amounted to treason and left the room. Mountbatten expressed the same opinion, and King and Cudlipp left. On 30 May 1968 King was dismissed as the head of the International Publishing Corporation.
In addition to Mountbatten's refusal to participate in King's mooted plot, there is no evidence of any other conspirators. Cudlipp himself appears to see the meeting as an example of extreme egotism on King's part.
Alleged 1974 military coup plot
On the BBCBBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
television programme The Plot Against Harold Wilson, broadcast on March 16, 2006 on BBC2
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
, it was claimed there were threats of a coup d'état against the Wilson government, which was corroborated by leading figures of the time on both the left and the right. Wilson told two BBC journalists, Roger Courtiour and Barrie Penrose, that he feared he was being undermined by MI5. The first time was in the late 1960s after the Wilson Government devalued the pound sterling but the threat faded after Conservative
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
leader Edward Heath
Edward Heath
Sir Edward Richard George "Ted" Heath, KG, MBE, PC was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and as Leader of the Conservative Party ....
won the election of 1970
United Kingdom general election, 1970
The United Kingdom general election of 1970 was held on 18 June 1970, and resulted in a surprise victory for the Conservative Party under leader Edward Heath, who defeated the Labour Party under Harold Wilson. The election also saw the Liberal Party and its new leader Jeremy Thorpe lose half their...
. However after a coal miners strike Heath decided to hold an election to renew his mandate to govern in February 1974
United Kingdom general election, February 1974
The United Kingdom's general election of February 1974 was held on the 28th of that month. It was the first of two United Kingdom general elections held that year, and the first election since the Second World War not to produce an overall majority in the House of Commons for the winning party,...
but lost narrowly to Wilson. There was again talk of a military coup, with rumours of Lord Mountbatten
Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma
Admiral of the Fleet Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas George Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, KG, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCIE, GCVO, DSO, PC, FRS , was a British statesman and naval officer, and an uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh...
as head of an interregnal administration after Wilson had been deposed. In 1974 the Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
occupied Heathrow Airport
London Heathrow Airport
London Heathrow Airport or Heathrow , in the London Borough of Hillingdon, is the busiest airport in the United Kingdom and the third busiest airport in the world in terms of total passenger traffic, handling more international passengers than any other airport around the globe...
on the grounds of training for possible IRA
Provisional Irish Republican Army
The Provisional Irish Republican Army is an Irish republican paramilitary organisation whose aim was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and bring about a socialist republic within a united Ireland by force of arms and political persuasion...
terrorist action there, however Baroness Falkender (a senior aide and close friend of Wilson) asserted that it was ordered as a practice-run for a military takeover or as a show of strength as the government itself was not informed of such an exercise based around a key point in the nation's infrastructure.
The Peter Wright allegations and Clockwork Orange
Peter WrightPeter Wright
Peter Maurice Wright was an English scientist and former MI5 counterintelligence officer, noted for writing the controversial book Spycatcher, which became an international bestseller with sales of over two million copies...
claimed that he was confronted by two of his MI5 colleagues and that they said to him: "Wilson's a bloody menace and it's about time the public knew the truth", and "We'll have him out, this time we'll have him out". Wright alleged that there was a plan to leak damaging information about Wilson and that this had been approved by 'up to thirty officers'. As the 1974 election
United Kingdom general election, February 1974
The United Kingdom's general election of February 1974 was held on the 28th of that month. It was the first of two United Kingdom general elections held that year, and the first election since the Second World War not to produce an overall majority in the House of Commons for the winning party,...
approached, the plan went, MI5 would leak selective details of the intelligence about Labour leaders, especially Wilson, to 'sympathetic' journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
s. According to Wright MI5 would use their contacts in the press and the trade unions to spread around the idea that Wilson was considered a security risk. The matter was to be raised in Parliament for 'maximum effect'. However Wright declined to let them see the files on Wilson and the plan was never carried out but Wright does claim it was a 'carbon copy' of the Zinoviev Letter
Zinoviev Letter
The "Zinoviev Letter" refers to a controversial document published by the British press in 1924, allegedly sent from the Communist International in Moscow to the Communist Party of Great Britain...
which had helped destabilise the first Labour Government in 1924.
On March 22, 1987 former MI5 officer James Miller
James Miller
James Miller may refer to:*James Miller , American academic and writer*James Miller , Scottish architect*James Miller...
claimed that the Ulster Workers Council Strike of 1974 had been promoted by MI5 in order to help destabilise Wilson's government.
In July 1987, Labour MP, Ken Livingstone
Ken Livingstone
Kenneth Robert "Ken" Livingstone is an English politician who is currently a member of the centrist to centre-left Labour Party...
used his maiden speech to raise the allegations of a former Army press officer, Colin Wallace
Colin Wallace
John Colin Wallace is a former British soldier and psychological warfare operative who was one of the members of the 'Clockwork Orange' project, which is alleged to have been an attempt to smear a number of British politicians in the early 1970s.-Early life:...
, that the Army press office in Northern Ireland had been used in the 1970s as part of a smear campaign, codenamed Clockwork Orange
Clockwork Orange (plot)
Clockwork Orange is the name of the secret British security services project which was alleged to have involved a right-wing smear campaign against British politicians in the 1970s....
against Harold Wilson and other British and Irish politicians.
The public position of MI5 was established with the publication in 2009 of Defence of the Realm, the first authorised history of MI5, by Christopher Andrew, in which it is reported that, while MI5 kept a file on Wilson from 1945, when he became an MP – because communist civil servants claimed that he had similar political sympathies – there was no bugging of his home or office, and no conspiracy against him. However in 2010 newspaper reports made detailed allegations that the bugging of 10 Downing Street
10 Downing Street
10 Downing Street, colloquially known in the United Kingdom as "Number 10", is the headquarters of Her Majesty's Government and the official residence and office of the First Lord of the Treasury, who is now always the Prime Minister....
had been omitted from the history for "wider public interest reasons". In 1963 on Harold Macmillan
Harold Macmillan
Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC was Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 10 January 1957 to 18 October 1963....
's orders following the Profumo Affair
Profumo Affair
The Profumo Affair was a 1963 British political scandal named after John Profumo, Secretary of State for War. His affair with Christine Keeler, the reputed mistress of an alleged Russian spy, followed by lying in the House of Commons when he was questioned about it, forced the resignation of...
MI5 bugged the cabinet room, the waiting room, and the prime minister’s study until the bugs were removed in 1977 on Jim Callaghan's orders. From the records it is unclear if Harold Wilson or Edward Heath
Edward Heath
Sir Edward Richard George "Ted" Heath, KG, MBE, PC was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and as Leader of the Conservative Party ....
knew of the bugging, and no recorded conversations were retained by MI5 so possibly the bugs were never activated. Professor Andrew had previously recorded in the preface of the history that "One significant excision as a result of these requirements (in the chapter on The Wilson Plot) is, I believe, hard to justify" giving credence to these new allegations.
In popular culture
The novel and television series A Very British CoupA Very British Coup
A Very British Coup is a 1982 novel by British politician Chris Mullin. In 1988, the novel was adapted for television, directed by Mick Jackson, with a screenplay by Alan Plater and starring Ray McAnally...
were based on the allegations, using fictional characters.
In episode 2.4
Series 2: Episode 4 (Life on Mars)
The fourth episode of the second series of the British time travel police procedural television series, Life on Mars, was first broadcast on 13 March 2007. It was produced by Kudos Film & Television for BBC One.-Synopsis:...
of the British television series Life on Mars
Life on Mars (TV series)
Life on Mars is a British television series broadcast on BBC One between January 2006 and April 2007. The series combines elements of science fiction and police procedural....
, characters discuss the possibility of a coup as a result of a Wilson victory in 1974.
In Charles Stross
Charles Stross
Charles David George "Charlie" Stross is a British writer of science fiction, Lovecraftian horror and fantasy. He was born in Leeds.Stross specialises in hard science fiction and space opera...
's short piece "The Golden Age of Spying" (included in the novel The Jennifer Morgue
The Jennifer Morgue
The Jennifer Morgue is the second collection of stories by Charles Stross featuring Bob Howard, containing the title novel The Jennifer Morgue, the short story "Pimpf", and an essay titled "The Golden Age of Spying"...
), Ernst Stavro Blofeld
Ernst Stavro Blofeld
Ernst Stavro Blofeld is a fictional character and a supervillain from the James Bond series of novels and films, who was created by Ian Fleming and Kevin McClory. An evil genius with aspirations of world domination, he is the archenemy of the British Secret Service agent James Bond and is arguably...
states that his opposition to the British government was based on the fact that Wilson and Callaghan were communist agents.
The novella "Project Heracles" by Stephen Baxter
Stephen Baxter
Stephen Baxter is a prolific British hard science fiction author. He has degrees in mathematics and engineering.- Writing style :...
(Analog Science Fiction and Fact
Analog Science Fiction and Fact
Analog Science Fiction and Fact is an American science fiction magazine. As of 2011, it is the longest running continuously published magazine of that genre...
, January/February 2012, pp. 120-146) is based on the premise that the coup takes place.