GCHQ Bude and its importance to the NSA.

 I  have read with interest these recent revelations in The Guardian, regarding the funding of GCHQ Bude by the Americans, some of which is new but most of which is historical fact. The original agreement which Harold Wilson, whom I have written about previously, signed with the American's provided for American funding of all of the equipment on the base, whilst the British would, exclusively, provide the manpower.

 The NSA have always wanted their moneys-worth out of GCHQ from Bude and I  have evidence, related below for the first time,  that in the past,  they made their intentions clear that they were prepared to take-over the base and man it should its flow of information to them be disrupted. In 1980 one of the first malevolent acts of that bitch Margaret Thatcher was to abolish the Pay Research Unit who were responsible for recommending pay rates for civil servants. Put simply the Unit had been put in place to provide a fair system of renumeration for staff by comparing their salaries with the equivalent outside analogues in the private sector. So the work of Civil Servants, from high ranking heads of ministerial departments through to scientists, and clerks and messengers at the other end of the scale were compared with their outside analogues in the private sector. Having carried out their research a report was presented  and a settlement was usually agreed, between the Civil Service Trades unions and the government of the day. This not only maintained a fair pay system in the Civil Service but also prevented industrial disputes from arising.
 As a result, dismayed at this action Civil Servants, voted to fight back and begin a rolling course of one day strikes in 1981 across key areas of government such as  GGHQ Bude (then known as CSOS Morwenstowe) where I was employed, the Court Services, DHSS offices and other key areas of government.
 Sometime after we held the two one day stoppages I was contacted by one of our Trade Union officials from Cheltenham who said that he and a colleague wanted to come down to Bude to discuss the strikes with me and the Executive Officer who worked for me as we were both, and the only, members of the Society Of Civil and Public Servants  working there. I cannot recall exactly when this was but a considerable time had elapsed since any industrial action at the site .The Officer In Charge at the station, because they were union officers, refused to allow them on site but after I discussed the matter with him and suggested that it may not be a good idea to hold discussions of this type in a local pub, we compromised and  agreed that we could meet in the car park but he was adamant that he would not allow them to enter the station buildings. Ironically the local Union officials for the radio officers and engineers who worked there on a regular basis, and had taken part in the strikes, were not affected by any such restrictions.
 Now it is important to remember, at this stage, that the industrial action that we had taken was fully supported by the Civil Service trades Unions at national and local level and that we had voted in favour of the strike action. No decision of this sort is ever taken lightly, as I have stated previously on this blog.
 They arrived on a normal windy and rainswept North Cornwall day (Thomas Hardy had once referred to the area as, "That weird and wild westward facing coast") and the four of us huddled in the porchway to the site to hold our discussions. They said that they had come to ask us not to take any further industrial action at the site, should it arise, as they had been told that the Americans would go over the head of the Director of GCHQ to the Joint Intelligence Committee with a request  that they should take over and man the station should the station's operations be seriously affected at anytime in the future. Because of the seriousness of the issues involved I asked for time to consider their request, as did my colleague. Rumours abounded at the time that St. Mawgan had been put on alert to receive a planeload of USA personnel.
 In the House of Lord's judgement Lord Fraser of Tullybelton states "Approaches were made on behalf of the Government to local union
officials, and later to national CCSU officials, to dissuade them
from action which would directly adversely affect operations at
GCHQ. Some co-operation was given by the local officials, but
none at all by national officers."  WRONG m'lad see below.
 At the next meeting of staff from the station and a some senior full time officials from some of the Civil Service Trades Unions down in a pub in Bude, to discuss future strategy, I sought out my own full time officer from the Society of Civil and Public Servants and related the information to him. He immediately said that if I had deep concerns over taking any further action then, as far as he was concerned, I should act accordingly.
 There, or so I thought, the matter ended and having completed my tour of duty, which included a few visits to the NSA, I was congratulated for the work that I had done and returned to Cheltenham. It was clear however before I left Bude, and subsequently on my return to Cheltenham that that my career in the organisation had been blighted because of my involvement in Union activities. Move forwards a few years to 1984 and Margaret Thatcher introduced her infamous ban on Trade Union membership at GCHQ. I became one of the appellants against the government's action and fought them through the British and European courts. Subsequently, I chose not to forego my rights to belong to a free Trade Union of my choice and  I opted to transfer out of the organisation.
 Shortly after moving back to Kernow I was not surprised when an old colleague from the NSA rang me to say that him and his wife would like to call on us as he was now permanently based at Bude. From that time the American finger has been firmly on the pulse at Bude. He was welcomed into my home and, I hope enjoyed his visit. That was the last contact that I was to have from anyone from the NSA.
 The rest, as they say is history but we mounted a long but successful campaign against the ban, and in 1997 almost the first act of the new Foreign Secretary Robin Cook was to restore the right to the staff at GCHQ to join a free Trade Union of their choice.

 I have attempted to record the events of that time as accurately as possible and hope that there is new information here for students of history to add to the plethora of information already on the public record including the Catalogue of GCHQ Trade Union Campaign papers held at Wawick University.

I have withheld names, because some of the people involved are still alive. 

 As for conjecture and comment I have the following observations to make. Brian Tovey, the Director of GCHQ at the time was the architect of the plan to implement the ban. I assume that this was primarily  because of the American response to events at Bude which I have outlined above. Bobby Inman, the then head of the NSA, visited the site shortly after the strikes and was said to be delighted when Tovey put the plan to him, according to a contemporary report published in The Sunday Times . I was once proud to work for that organisation because, perhaps misguidedly, I thought that I was helping to safeguard the democratic rights of the citizens of my country. By his actions Tovey showed that he was prepared to sacrifice those rights in order to preserve GCHQ's subordinate relationship with the NSA in order to gain access to the intelligence and money that they provided. I can understand also the wider context  for his and the British governments determination not to damage that alliance, but that is a discussion for another time. I firmly felt that it was my public duty to defend the right of any citizen in the United Kingdom to belong to a free Trade Union of their choice and presumably Tovey also thought that he was acting in the best interests of the country. Only history will judge who was right and who was wrong and no doubt those historians, depending on where they are coming from, will also probably disagree in their conclusions.

 After the ban was announced Peter Jones for The Council Of Civil Servants and the Head of the Civil Service, Robert Armstrong were said to have negotiated a deal for unions to remain at GCHQ provided they signed a no-strike agreement but this was rejected by Margaret Thatcher whose inability to compromise led to her eventual downfall. This was subsequently the basis of the agreement between the Unions and Robin Cook in 1997. I have my own views on why, following the actions at Bude in 1981, it took until 1984 for the ban to be announced but I do know that one earlier attempt was aborted, at the last minute. 

 Dwight Eisenhower warned of the corrosive effects of  Military Industrial Complex in 1961 and although the Anglo-British relationship has been of vital importance to the peace of the world at certain times, their recent interventions in Palestine, Iraq, Libya Aghanistan and elsewhere have posed an enormous threat to the peace of the world. The two countries between them, since the 1960's have been responsible for more injuries and deaths to innocent people through their bombs and their policies than any other nations on earth. For those of us who having been fighting peacefully for a better and fairer world since the 1960's there is just a faint hope that government has at last been rumbled by the people following the banking crisis, and recent revelations by Wikileaks, Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning. It is time for governments to serve the people once more, rather than manipulate the people into becoming serfs of government and undermine theeit own citizen's civil liberties.  Instead, together with the crooks at the IMF, they are determined to pursue their neo-liberal economic agenda of selling off the assets of each country to further the interests of international capitalism. As Edward R. Murrow correctly predicted in 1958 they are being aided and abetted in this by the media who are providing the populace with chewing gum for the eyes.

 The role of a true patriot is, in my opinion, to defend the hard fought for rights of the citizen, in a democracy, rather than to see those rights taken away by the state.