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Britain's own "Big Brother"
eyed Orwell
JILL LAWLESS
AP
Tuesday Sept 4, 2007
George Orwell's left-wing views and bohemian clothes led British
police to label him a communist — but the MI5 spy agency
stepped in to correct that view, the writer's newly released security
file reveals.
The secret file that MI5 kept on the author from 1929 until his
death in 1950 is being declassified Tuesday by the National Archives.
It reveals that in contrast to the fictional "Big Brother,"
the cruel and all-seeing secret police of Orwell's classic "1984,"
MI5 took a surprisingly benign view of the writer.
Orwell savaged the totalitarianism of Stalin's Russia in "Animal
Farm" and "1984." But he was also a socialist who
railed against inequality in earlier works such as "Down
and Out in Paris and London" and "The Road to Wigan
Pier."
The documents show Orwell — whose real name was Eric Arthur
Blair — attracted the attention of police in 1936 for alleged
"communist activities in Wigan." Then 33, he had gone
to the mining town to research a book about working-class life
in northern England.
(Article continues below)
MI5 had already been watching Orwell since 1929, when he was
a struggling journalist in Paris, attempting to write for left-wing
publications.
In 1942, Orwell drew police interest again while working for
the Indian service of the British Broadcasting Corp. A report
by a sergeant named Ewing of Special Branch, the British police
intelligence wing, said Orwell had "advanced communist views,
and several of his Indian friends say they have often seen him
at communist meetings."
"He dresses in a bohemian fashion both at his office and
in his leisure hours," police noted.
The file shows that MI5 took no action against Orwell over Ewing's
report. In a note, an MI5 officer named W. Ogilvie reveals that
he phoned Special Branch to ask why Ewing had described Orwell
as having "advanced Communist views."
A police inspector replied that the sergeant felt Orwell was
an "unorthodox communist."
"I gathered that the good Sergeant was rather at a loss
as to how he could describe this rather individual line,"
Ogilvie wrote.
"It is evident from his recent writings ... that he does
not hold with the Communist Party nor they with him," he
added.
The Special Branch files on Orwell were released by the archives
in 2005. MI5's response had been secret until now. It was declassified
as part of a phased release of MI5 files under the Freedom of
Information Act, which was passed in 2005.
Other documents in the file reveal MI5 did not consider Orwell
a security risk. In 1943, it was asked whether Orwell should be
accredited as a journalist with Allied armed forces headquarters.
"The Security Service have records of this man, but raise
no objection to his appointment," was the reply.
A year earlier MI5 had approved Orwell's wife Eileen as suitable
for employment with the Ministry of Food.
Despite his lifelong socialist views, in 1949, a year before
his death at 46, Orwell gave the government a list of people he
thought were Stalinist sympathizers or "fellow travelers."
The declassified file includes photographs, Orwell's passport
application and a 1936 Special Branch summary of his career, which
began conventionally — education at the elite Eton College
and service as a colonial police officer in Burma — before
taking a radical turn.
Special Branch notes that he "eked out a precarious living"
as a freelance journalist and moved to France to research "Down
and Out in London and Paris."
The last entry in the file notes simply that "George Orwell
... died on the 21st January 1950."
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INFOWARS:
BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND
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